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

This bill was last introduced in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2019.

Sponsor

Status

This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.

Summary

This is from the published bill.

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 certainread more

Elsewhere

All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.

Votes

June 13, 2019 Passed Motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-69, 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
June 13, 2019 Failed Motion respecting Senate amendments to Bill C-69, 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 (amendment)
June 13, 2019 Passed Motion for closure
June 20, 2018 Passed 3rd reading and adoption of Bill C-69, 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
June 20, 2018 Passed 3rd reading and adoption of Bill C-69, 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
June 19, 2018 Passed 3rd reading and adoption of Bill C-69, 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 (previous question)
June 11, 2018 Passed Concurrence at report stage of Bill C-69, 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
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 11, 2018 Failed Bill C-69, 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 (report stage amendment)
June 6, 2018 Passed Time allocation for Bill C-69, 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
March 19, 2018 Passed 2nd reading of Bill C-69, 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
March 19, 2018 Passed 2nd reading of Bill C-69, 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
Feb. 27, 2018 Passed Time allocation for Bill C-69, 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

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.


See context

Conservative

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

Madam Speaker, in any case, it is rather hypocritical for the member from New Brunswick to support a bill like Bill C-69, which will kill pipelines in Canada, when his premier absolutely wants to have pipelines in his riding.

Translated

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Blake Richards Conservative Banff—Airdrie, AB

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. He talked about this so-called balanced approach toward pipeline approvals and the regulatory approvals process. I struggle to understand how the heck they can call it balanced when they have a government that had three viable private sector pipelines put before them; two of them were cancelled as a result of the actions of that government and we have now one that at best could be described as being on taxpayer-funded life-support and we have, of course, Bill C-69, which would end any possibility of future approvals for pipelines. That is not balanced. I certainly would like to see him go and try to tell Albertans how balanced that is, because I will tell members the answer Albertans would give him.

I will now read a very brief passage from an email I received from a constituent, just today. He happens to be a national sales manager for an oil field supply company. He said that they received this email from one of the major companies that they supply. I will not name the company. He said that this is the quote from the email that they received: “As the oil differential and pipeline woes are continuing to strain our industry, we will not be doing a matting purchase until such time as we see some positive news.” It then listed off a number of things, including, “differential and commodity price, pipeline approvals, regulatory constraints lifted”. It goes on to say, “We have governments, both federally and provincially, who are not working toward opportunities for investment in Canada. Our federal government is holding up the pipeline file and at the same time trying to push through Bill C-69 to make it harder for large infrastructure projects like pipelines to get approved.”

He says that the effect of an email like this, cancelling an order in their case, would be about a $20-million hit to their small service company. That number does not include any subsequent spinoffs or jobs or work generated. That is one of many like this from Alberta. I want to know what the member would have to say to those people.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 3:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to kick off coming back to our debate today, which was brought by my friend, our industry critic, the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. He is a great member of the House, who brings up competitiveness issues all the time. If Canadians are following this debate, this is why Conservatives have brought this debate to the floor today.

The last week or so in Canada shows how uncompetitive our economy is becoming under the Liberal government. Just on the weekend, we saw the Premier of Alberta limiting production of Canadian resources, in fact controlling or interfering with the private marketplace because of the crisis of depressed oil prices. We are losing billions of dollars. It was going to be $15 billion before the large drop in price. They were looking at $25 billion or $30 billion less in revenue to Canada as a result of the inability of the government to get pipelines built.

The other thing we saw in the last week, which was very personal to me and my community, was the announcement that GM intended to close the Oshawa assembly plant at the end of next year, after a century of assembling automobiles in Oshawa and after being at the epicentre of the auto industry, and indeed, the manufacturing industry, Ontario was known for. The driving force for decades of Confederation, the success of manufacturing in Ontario, is faltering now under three years of the current government.

Finally, at the beginning of the previous week, there was the inability of the government to even answer a question with respect to when the budget will be balanced.

Canadians should be very concerned that we have a Prime Minister with no experience in the private sector and no understanding of the unique needs of the economy in different parts of the country, whether it is softwood in British Columbia; resources, including potash, in our prairies; the aerospace industry in Manitoba and Quebec; the manufacturing base in Ontario; or seafood and exports in Nova Scotia and the Atlantic provinces. There is a total disconnect for the Prime Minister.

Should we be surprised? Here is what the Prime Minister said, as the new third party leader, to manufacturers at an auto parts factory in southwestern Ontario, in January 2015, as he was kicking off his election bid:

The people of southwestern Ontario are amazingly resilient and have demonstrated that moving beyond manufacturing-based employment is something they're willing to do.

That was his message to manufacturing facilities in southwestern Ontario and writ large to communities like mine in the Durham region: we need to just move past it.

What else did he say? In his first foreign trip abroad as Prime Minister of this country, he offended the resource industry at Davos. In January 2016, he said, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

In one brush, he was mocking or dismissing the impact of the resource sector and the innovation brought to that sector, such as steam-assisted gravity drainage and a reduction in the use of power and water. All these are innovations that, over time, have reduced the economic and environmental impact of resource development. He swept that aside with one statement, so much so that the mayor of Calgary, who was in Davos, criticized the Prime Minister. He is usually his wingman ideologically, but he criticized such a dismissive and divisive comment trying to pit one economy against another, one region against another, as if resource jobs are not the type of jobs we want. We want to be resourceful, as if Ontario has to move past manufacturing.

This is a Prime Minister who, in the middle of an election campaign, said this about his economic plan, on August 12, 2015, when he was the third party leader running to become prime minister:

We're proposing a strong and real plan, one that invests in the middle class so that we can grow the economy not from the top down the way Mr. Harper wants to, but from the heart outwards. That's what Canada has always done well with.

That comment is absolutely ridiculous, and it shows the absence of an understanding of the private sector, capital investment and risk-taking in the economy. It was comments like that the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, in opposition, called bozo eruptions. They were misplaced comments that showed a Prime Minister so disconnected from the real needs of Canadians that he is not worthy of the job.

What is interesting about the minister heckling is that before she ran for Parliament, she ran on closing the oil sands. Here we have a cabinet minister who made public statements about shutting down the oil sands and who had no real experience before Parliament, and she is at the cabinet table making the decisions. These things should really concern people. When people come with an activist point of view, trying to shut down jobs that hundreds of thousands of people depend on, Canadians should be concerned about the fact that the current government is on cruise control.

The resource industry is in crisis. The manufacturing sector is in crisis. We have tariffs. We have trade disruptions. We have a government that has piled taxes and tariffs on top of the manufacturing base, and it has been struggling under it.

The day the Prime Minister made that Care Bear economic speech, as it was termed at the time, was August 12, midway through a marathon campaign. At that point, the Liberals were still running on a balanced-budget plan. Interestingly enough, the current Prime Minister, as third party leader, said this: “It's a well-established fact. Liberals balance budgets.... Our platform will be fully costed, fiscally responsible and a balanced budget.”

He said that in April 2015. That was the Liberals' policy. They used to say that they were the party of Paul Martin and that they were going to have a balanced budget.

Midway through the election campaign, in fact mere days after he made the Care Bear economic speech, the Liberals changed their fundamental economic position for the country, and on August 25, they said they were going to run deficits. At that time, they said the deficit would never exceed $10 billion, and they promised to get back to budget by the end of their mandate, in 2019. However, they changed their underlying economic promise to Canadians. Within months, they had indicated that they were no longer going to stick to deficits under $10 billion, and within a couple of years, they abandoned any notion of balancing the budget. In fact, it is awkward when the Minister of Finance will not even give a date on which he intends to try to get back to balance. Those are fundamental economic promises to Canadians broken.

Why are we seeing a crisis in western Canada and in Ontario? The canaries in the coal mine in the last week alone are the price changes by the Premier of Alberta and the GM closure, with taxes, tariffs, trade disruption and excessive regulation.

Bill C-69 itself killed the energy east pipeline. An executive of TransCanada pipeline confirmed that. We have had taxes upon taxes. It is not just the carbon tax, which we highlighted last week. Payroll taxes in the first budget made it punitive for employers to hire more people. We had small-business private-company tax changes.

The Liberals have raised taxes on entrepreneurs. They have raised taxes on hiring people through the payroll. They are bringing in a carbon tax. None of those tax increases are happening in the United States. The U.S. is eliminating regulations and lowering taxes.

The auto industry competes in the Great Lakes region, so when Canada is getting uncompetitive because of the actions of the government, we are going to see capital and jobs flow. We have been calling that out for several years. When the Liberals are almost banning pipelines through Bill C-69, we are going to see companies leave the country.

Canadians need to be worried. We need a plan from the government. That is why the Conservatives have brought this debate to the House today.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 1:35 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Mr. Speaker, I guess his answer to my previous question is that he will not answer the question about his constituents, because he will not answer it in the House. However, I will ask another question.

My colleague from Edmonton Riverbend talked about the 2,000 workers who protested the Prime Minister in Calgary, trying to get across to him how dire the oil and gas sector was out west. Will he at least do something to help them? Will he stop Bill C-68 and Bill C-69 and recognize the dire consequences of that legislation? The people who invest in pipelines tell us point blank that if those bills go through, they will never invest in a pipeline in Canada again.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to hear so many cheers, or jeers perhaps. I am pleased today to speak to our opposition day motion calling for the House to recognize the looming job crisis.

Liberals will stand here in the House, and outside as well, one after the other and spout off how rosy things are: super-duper low unemployment, best-in-class GDP, dropping levels of poverty for everyone, rising wages, all the work done for women in the workforce and the $40-billion national housing study.

Actually, I have just done as much work for all these items as the Liberals have, because all they have done is announce things and not delivered anything.

I want to look at the facts. It reminds me of the meme, “Annoy a Liberal, use facts and logic.” Well, I want to give a warning right now. I am going to use facts and logic.

Let us look at the unemployment rate. It is 57% higher than the U.S. unemployment rate right now. The U.S. has probably the largest disadvantaged and marginalized demographic in the free world, and we have a 57% higher unemployment rate than it does. We have the fifth-highest unemployment rate in the G7. We are ahead only of France and Italy. They have basket-case economies with low growth and high average age, and we are barely ahead of them.

I want to go over how the unemployment rate has changed in the last couple of years, since the economic crisis. In the U.S., unemployment has dropped by 55%. The U.K., which is dealing with Brexit, was still able to drop its unemployment rate by 50%. Japan dropped it by 38%. Germany has dropped its unemployment rate by 52%.

Where does Canada sit? Ours has dropped by 19%. It is great; every job created is a win, but why are we so far behind all the other G7 countries?

The world is riding on an economic boom and we are sitting out on the sidelines. We hear again and again from the other side that Canada has the highest GDP growth in the G7. Liberals used to repeat that every day, until I rose on a point of order and offered to table a document from the Library of Parliament, showing that we were not first. All of sudden, they changed their mantra to, “Canada has among the highest growth in the G7.”

In just the last couple of weeks, they are now back to saying we are the best in the G7. Well, here is where we are. We are not the best and we are not the second-best. We have fallen behind the U.S. and Germany. We are also well below the IMF advanced countries, mostly made up of the OECD countries. Our GDP growth is well below OECD levels, and also well below world GDP growth.

The government talks a lot about reducing poverty. Just on Friday, we were discussing its poverty reduction plan. We talked about how we are going to measure it from now on. Page 8 of the document, which has the metrics, is blank.

The government said on Friday that it is reducing poverty for seniors. The reality is that poverty rates for seniors have gone up since the government took over in 2015.

Regarding wages, the finance minister stood in this House and said that Canadians are seeing the strongest wage growth in years. Guess what? The Parliamentary Budget Officer says that basically the entire growth in wages is due to the increase in the minimum wages in B.C., Alberta and Ontario. We can debate all day whether an increase in the minimum wage is good or bad, and whether it takes away employment from those at the bottom or benefits them, but the reality is that the provincial government-imposed minimum wage increases basically make up the entire wage growth in Canada.

The PBO also stated that for the first time in decades we are reaching the end of a growth cycle without wage gains. People in Canada feel they are not getting ahead; they are falling behind. They are feeling that because it is true. Therefore, the Liberals say, “What the heck, people are in trouble. What should we do? Let us hit them with a carbon tax. Why not?”

With regard to women in the workplace, we hear again and again from the government about gender-based analysis and what they are doing for women. It is wonderful, but it is not working. Workforce participation for women has dropped since the government took over. It reached a high under the Harper era, but has dropped since the current government took over.

Time after time, Liberals stand here and brag about all they are doing, but it is not working. With the national housing program, on Friday, we heard Liberals talk about $5 billion this year. Former PBO Kevin Page, from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, has stated that he is only able to identify $1.5 billion over five years, not $5 billion this year. He says that the Liberals' entire plan for housing is just a glossy document.

Last week we held an emergency debate on the crisis in Alberta, where Liberal actions have led to the price of a barrel of Alberta crude being valued about the same as two lattes at Starbucks, and those are the tall size, not the venti.

I want to review the Liberal record.

First, the Liberals discredited the National Energy Board. The PM said it had been gutted and therefore that it could not be trusted. He said decisions would go back to being based on science, facts and evidence, as if the NEB were not already making decisions based on that. He said that the NEB would have to consider the views of the public. Therefore, it is science, facts and evidence if necessary, but not necessarily science facts and evidence.

Proponents jumped all over the newly discredited NEB. They used the PM's own word against the NEB's approval of pipelines, such as northern gateway. That pipeline would have brought oil to a deep-water port for large ships to bring it over to Asia. That was killed by the Liberals through an order in council. They will stand and say that it was a business decision. Rather, it was killed by cabinet through an order in council.

The Liberal MP for Calgary Centre was in cabinet at the time. Calgary Centre is the heart, the headquarters, of our oil industry. He said that northern gateway was merely paused. However, it was killed. It just shows how completely out of touch the Liberals are with reality.

We asked the Liberal member of Parliament for Edmonton Centre to stand and tell the people of Edmonton that he would vote against the job-killing, pipeline-killing, Alberta-killing Bill C-69, the “no new pipeline anywhere” bill. This is a bill to ensure that no new resource projects will ever be built in Canada again. He said he was proud of the bill and of the government. He was proud that the government gave taxpayer funding to Tides Canada. It is the same Tides organization that is funded through the U.S. and working to destroy the Alberta economy and jobs, and the current government gave money to it. He was proud of that.

He said he was proud of the carbon tax, a tax that sees Edmonton cement companies losing out on government infrastructure contracts to China because they are priced out of the market because of the tax.

He said he is proud of the policies that have sent people to the food bank in record numbers in Edmonton.

The Liberal member for Edmonton Centre said he was proud that the Liberals killed energy east by constantly moving the goal posts.

He said he was proud of his government rewarding the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with guaranteed markets to the east coast by blocking Alberta oil.

He said he was proud to have voted for the tanker ban to landlock Alberta oil, all the while ignoring the fact that we have never had an oil spill on the B.C. coast. It is a testament to the great work of the Pacific coast pilots.

The Liberal member for Edmonton Centre said he was proud of the government and how it has driven Kinder Morgan out of the country with $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to invest in Texas to compete with us and to let the TMX sit unstarted.

He said he was proud of the Liberal policy that sent hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to China for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to build oil pipelines in the suburbs of Beijing. That was taxpayer money from Alberta to China to build pipelines outside Beijing. By the way, not one penny of any of the infrastructure bank projects have gone to Canadian businesses.

Alberta is suffering through its worst crisis since Trudeau senior almost destroyed Alberta with his national energy policy, and today's Liberals are right back at it. It is shameful that the three Liberal MPs from Alberta are proudly watching this happen. With friends like these, Alberta does not need enemies.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


See context

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is great to rise to speak to this opposition day. It is great to rise because we know the economy of Canada is strong. We know the economy is growing. We know that benefits all middle-class workers and those Canadians who are working very hard and diligently to join the middle-class. I am proud to state that.

I would like to offer my colleagues on the other side a chance to take a look at The Globe and Mail today and the article from the CEO of Linamar, Linda Hasenfratz. She talks about her company investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their plants in Guelph. She talks about the company competing and winning. She talks about Ontario being a place the world can invest in because of its innovation and highly-valued manufacturing. She talks about those jobs coming to the province of Ontario.

I, as a member of Parliament for the riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, know full well the economic contributions of our entrepreneurs who are working diligently, putting capital to work and employing thousands of Canadians and, most important, creating those good middle-class jobs that we want for Canadians and their families.

Three years ago, Canadians chose a government committed to growing the middle class and creating new opportunities for Canadians to succeed. They wanted a government that would base its decision on science and facts. They wanted a government that would be bold, that would be a trailblazer, that would lead, and we are certainly doing that. They wanted solutions that worked, with a proven record of delivering positive results for Canadians.

Canadians do not want Canada to be more competitive simply to enrich the top 1% at the expense of everyone else. Canadians want a more competitive Canada so hard-working Canadians have more opportunities to share in the benefits that come from a strong and growing economy.

We asked the wealthiest 1% of Canadians to pay a little more so we could cut taxes for the middle class Canadians, a tax cut for nine million Canadians over a five-year period, a multi-billion dollar tax cut for hard-working middle-class Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

With new measures like the Canada child benefit, we have provided real help to those who need it. These results are not built on ideology; they are built on facts and the facts are clear. Over the course of the past three years, Canadians have created over half a million full-time jobs. Many of those jobs are in the city of Vaughan in the riding I represent, Vaughan—Woodbridge.

The unemployment rate is at a historic 40-year low and the share of working-age Canadians with jobs is at an all-time high. Our economy grew at the fastest pace among our G7 peers in 2017, at 3%, and we are expected to remain among the leaders in growth this year and next year. Most important, the economic growth we are seeing in Canada is inclusive and Canadians are benefiting from it. Groups that have been under-represented in the labour force, such as young Canadians, new Canadians, women and indigenous peoples, are joining the workforce and improving their position in it.

Our successes in building a more competitive economy are far from over. We know, for example, that there is tremendous untapped potential within Canada's small business sector. By empowering entrepreneurs, we are empowering Canadians.

Seven out of ten jobs in the private sector are created by small businesses. We know that keeping taxes low and competitive allows Canadian business owners to keep more of their revenues so they can invest more in their companies and create even more well-paid jobs.

That is why we reduced the small business tax to 10% effective last January. In January 2019, the rate will be reduced even further to 9%.

However, there is still work to be done. Even though Canada's economy is strong and growing, we know that we cannot take that for granted. The Government of Canada listened to the business community. We understood that many businesses are concerned about their competitiveness, the recent tax reform in the U.S., and the impact that current international trade disputes could have on their bottom line.

We also know that Canadian businesses have what it takes to compete and succeed. In our fall economic statement, we looked for ways to encourage this investment in a responsible and targeted way so that businesses can have confidence in the future and be better able to invest in jobs for the middle class.

We continue to grow and strengthen our middle class here in Canada, the backbone of our economy.

Our fall economic statement proposed a number of tax changes designed to support business investment. These changes include allowing businesses to immediately write off the full cost of machinery and equipment used in manufacturing and processing as well as the full cost of specific clean-energy equipment.

We are also introducing the accelerated investment incentive to allow businesses of all sizes and across all sectors to write off a larger share of the cost of newly acquired assets in the year they are purchased.

These are important changes because increased deductions will attract more investment in assets that will stimulate business growth and make more jobs available for middle-class Canadians.

An accelerated capital cost allowance will grow our economy, incentivize firms to invest here in Canada and continue to invest here in Canada, and is something we can be proud of as a prudent fiscal measure in response to the measures that were brought in by the United States. We are doing it in a fiscally prudent manner. We are lowering our debt-to-GDP ratio. We are strengthening our fiscal anchor. We are growing our economy. We are strengthening our middle class, something we should all be proud of in this country.

The fall economic statement also proposes measures to do more to modernize regulations so as to make it easier for businesses to grow.

Perhaps my colleagues have heard people say that one of the biggest challenges for businesses is complying with all the necessary regulations imposed by the government. Members who have owned businesses might have first-hand experience with this. Let me be very clear: regulations play an important role.

We need to understand that regulations play an important role in attracting investment. Our regulations need to be transparent. They need to be effective. There needs to be a certainty. With bills like Bill C-69, that is what we are doing. We are putting regulations in bills for investors to know and understand the rules that they face so that they can invest here in Canada and continue to grow our economy.

Regulations serve as a book of rules governing how businesses must carry out their activities, and they play a crucial role in protecting the health and safety of Canadians and protecting our natural environment. Over time, however, regulations can become outdated, and regulatory burdens can accumulate, making Canada a less attractive place to invest and do business.

In our fall economic statement, we are taking action to overcome that challenge, for example, by planning a review of the legislative provisions so as to encourage regulators to take into account efficiency and economic considerations. To that end, we are introducing an annual modernization bill to keep regulations up to date, striking an external advisory committee to look at Canada's regulatory competitiveness, creating a centre for regulatory innovation and taking immediate action in response to a number of business recommendations.

We are also taking steps to help make Canada the most globally connected economy in the world. With the successful conclusion of the new North American Free Trade Agreement, as well as the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, CPTPP. We are continuing our ongoing negotiations with Mercosur, and let us hope we can come to a trade agreement there. We know that progressive liberalized trade lifts all boats, strengthens our middle class, creates jobs here in Canada, creates jobs abroad, and is something good that we need to do for our future, the future of my children, and those great manufacturers and entrepreneurs located in the riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.

Canada is now the only G7 country to have free trade agreements concluded with all other G7 nations. We want to give Canadian businesses more opportunities to grow and succeed. That is why we are proposing things like an export diversification strategy, to help grow Canada's overseas exports by 50% by 2025, with more help for small and medium-sized businesses, to help them explore new export opportunities.

To boost trade overseas, the government is also proposing accelerated investments in transportation corridors leading to Asia and Europe.

The actions taken by our government are not just making Canadians more competitive, we also want Canadians to benefit from being more competitive, with more jobs and brighter futures. That is what our government is about: strengthening the middle class.

Partially translated

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


See context

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for all his hard work on this very important file. As he mentioned, the mining sector of Canada is supportive of Bill C-69. It wants want to see it move forward. It knows that having a process of one project, one review is key for businesses. It is key because they invest a lot of money. Under the former government's approach, basically projects would move forward without any certainty that at the end of day they would know what the result would be. Why? Because indigenous consultation was done at the end and not at the beginning.

We are proposing a shorter time frame, ensuring all the regulations are known upfront. When businesses are starting the process, they know the rules that they have to address and that they have to ensure they follow. By doing that, they get the certainty they deserve and need to invest that money in Canada. That is why it is very important to move forward with Bill C-69.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


See context

Central Nova Nova Scotia

Liberal

Sean Fraser LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague and I work fairly closely, he in the natural resources portfolio and me on the environment. He spent a decent amount of his remarks on Bill C-69, which seeks to restore the confidence that was lost in the environmental assessment process under 10 years of Stephen Harper.

I am curious if the parliamentary secretary could offer commentary on how we were able to develop a program that would allow projects to move forward in the right way by including indigenous perspectives, protecting our environment and even gaining support of industry, like the Mining Association of Canada.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:20 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is really amazing how in three years the country can change, a country that was going great guns, everything was expanding and growing, people had jobs and enjoyed a good quality of life and were not worried about their future. Their kids were attending sports complexes, where they played hockey, soccer, football. People had a great quality of life.

Today, three years later, here we sit.

Blue collar workers in manufacturing plants are worried about their future. This summer we talked to over 99 stakeholders across Canada. They all said that they were holding on and waiting for the Canada-U.S. agreement to be done, that if the government were to get rid of the steel and aluminum tariffs, they should be all right.

The government did get a trade agreement, but it is worse than what we had before. The Prime Minister promised it would be better. There are still aluminum and steel tariffs. What the heck is going on here? We signed onto this agreement.

Then there is the forestry sector. Where is the removal of tariffs on forestry products? Forestry workers are worried about their future.

We can go to three or four different sectors and all those employees are worried about their future.

I will give the government credit. It did have some positive stuff in its fall economic update. The capital cost allowance is a good step in the right direction. However, until the government gets rid of Bill C-69, until it actually does something concrete to allow our companies in Canada to become more competitive, these jobs will leave. What will the government do to prevent that from happening?

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I thank the hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for the motion we are debating today. Unfortunately, the motion has so many false claims and false premises that it is hard to know where to begin.

Still, I would like to start with the first part of the motion on the energy sector and Bill C-69. We know that the Conservatives' approach undermined Canadians' confidence in how major resource development projects are assessed and reviewed. It was a failed approach that called for the comprehensive solution proposed in Bill C-69, which restores the balance between economic opportunities and environmental stewardship. Under this bill, good projects can move forward, which builds confidence among investors and Canadians.

That is one of the many reasons I will be voting against today's motion. This motion would bring us back to a time where some believed that it was acceptable to ignore public concerns, environmental protections and indigenous rights. Those days are over, but the impact of those failed policies is still felt today, especially with the price differential for oil, which is so harmful to western Canada.

That is critically important to remember. The motion does not mention it, but our government inherited a flawed review system that led to projects going before the courts rather than getting shovels in the ground. That is why our government has been taking steps since day one to ensure that good projects that improve market access move forward.

That is precisely why we have supported the Keystone XL project and approved the Line 3 replacement pipeline. It is also why we are helping producers build up refining capacity here in Canada, and why last month, in the fall 2018 economic statement, we announced major tax incentives for refiners and upgraders. It is also why the Minister of Natural Resources has written to the National Energy Board about ways to maximize existing pipeline capacity. Of course, it is why our government purchased and invested in the Trans Mountain expansion project, a $4.5-billion investment in Alberta's energy sector.

Today's motion is conveniently silent on all of those points. However, Canadians know that our government is a staunch supporter of Alberta's energy sector and that we have been since the day we took office. We are committed to developing Canada's resources the right way.

Now, to be fair, on the oil price differential, there are a number of factors behind the perfect storm that caused the almost unprecedented price discount. For example, there was a temporary drop in demand of over 900,000 barrels a day for Canadian oil when a number of refineries in the American Midwest were offline. That came as increased oil sands production was outpacing Canada's capacity to transport and export additional barrels.

As the Prime Minister said, all of these factors combined to create the crisis that continues to hang over the heads of Canadian oil workers. Albertans are suffering. They are worried about their future. In response, the Government of Alberta announced that it would reduce the province's oil production by 325,000 barrels a day as of January 1. We recognize that the province made this important decision in the interests of Albertans, and we share their frustration over the unacceptable price differential.

We have also made it clear that we cannot go on like this, because when Alberta suffers, all of Canada suffers. However, this price differential cannot be put down to chance or an unfortunate coincidence. One reason the withdrawal capacity is currently lacking is because of the Canadian oil sector's lost decade, a whole decade of inaction, when 99% of our oil exports were still going to the United States. Once again, there is no mention of this in the opposition's motion. Instead, the Conservatives' motion would repeal Bill C-69 in favour of their failed approach.

As we often say on this side of the House, our government came to office to do things differently, to do different things, to get the hard work done for Canadians.

Central to that was restoring confidence in impact assessments, improving transparency and enhancing public participation through project reviews, all of it reflected in our proposal for a single, integrated and consistent process, a process that would include the specialized expertise of federal regulators and a new Canadian energy regulator. That is important and, frankly, overdue. While the National Energy Board has served Canadians well, its structure, role and mandate have remained relatively unchanged since it was created in 1959.

Bill C-69 would replace the NEB with a new regulator that would have the required independence and the proper accountability to oversee a strong, safe and sustainable Canadian energy sector in the 21st century.

The new Canadian energy regulator would provide: a more effective governance model; greater certainty and timelier decisions; more public consultation; better indigenous engagement; and stronger safety and environmental protections. This new approach would also help to diversify Canada's energy markets, expand our energy infrastructure and drive economic growth. How? By ensuring that good resource projects would get built in a timely, predictable and transparent way.

Bill C-69 would actually tighten those timelines, eliminate overlap among review panels and make government more accountable.

Bill C-69 is part of our broader plan for moving Canada's resource sectors forward the right way, creating good jobs and real opportunities for all Canadians. Again, the motion ignores that larger context.

The motion ignores the fact that private industry is onboard with our plan. Across the world we are seeing companies take the lead in tackling climate change. For instance, Shell announced yesterday that it planned to link executive salaries to emission targets as part of its efforts to cut the net carbon footprint of the energy it sold.

Today's motion ignores the progress that the private sector is making. It ignores the generational investments we are making to drive innovation and support clean technologies in the resource sectors, including Canada's oil and gas industry.

The motion also ignores the new free trade agreement signed with the United States and Mexico this past weekend, which will greatly benefit Canada's energy sector. It increases Canada's competitiveness and investors' confidence. It will save Canada's oil sector more than $60 million a year in administrative and other expenses. Once again, the motion says nothing about that.

The motion also does not mention the 2018 fall economic statement, which responded directly to the recommendations of the economic strategy tables and the joint working group on the future of Canada's oil and gas sector, as well as industry comments from companies in Canada and abroad. They all called for measures to improve tax competitiveness and develop innovative, modern, flexible regulations to help companies grow.

We listened, and we took action. I am proud of our government's efforts. Bill C-69 is a key element. We are developing better rules for a better Canada. We are proving once again that our government is a strong supporter of Canadian resource workers.

Partially translated

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I voted against Bill C-69. It is a bad bill. It is poorly worded with flowery language. It is a matter that is no longer before the House. It is now in another place, in the Senate, for consideration.

The vast majority of my constituents want to see Bill C-69 fail and thus to see it defeated by the Senate. They want to see it ended. Bill C-69 is an anti-pipeline pipeline bill that would end of any type of large-scale energy infrastructure development in Canada. It would basically mean the end of hundreds of thousands of Alberta jobs well into the future.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Conservative motion calls for something that is an impossibility: repealing a bill that has not yet passed. Bill C-69 does not yet have royal assent.

However, I find Bill C-69 deeply troubling because the current government chose to maintain the architecture put in place by Stephen Harper. It chose to break election promises that the Liberals made to restore proper environmental assessment. It is baffling to me—I do not think the Conservatives have read the bill—to see how closely it tracks what Stephen Harper wanted. It does that by keeping the number of assessments we will ever see in this country down to fewer than 100 a year, and by never restoring the system that Brian Mulroney put in place, which included up to 5,000 screenings a year to ensure that federal projects really did receive an assessment for their environmental impact.

Bill C-69 would not do this, and calling prematurely for its repeal misses the mark. We should be prepared to compromise and get a good bill through the Senate. Would my hon. colleague be prepared to look at the bill and see if we might agree on some areas where it could be improved?

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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Conservative

Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Calgary Shepard.

To say that competitiveness is struggling is probably the understatement of the year, in terms of where we are and how we are competing in energy, manufacturing and a number of different areas. One of the things I want to talk about today is how we move forward to the future.

One of the things that has happened in the U.S. is there has been a whole bunch of uncertainty created by Mr. Trump's tax cuts, his tariffs and a whole bunch of things that have gone on, which causes us all the more to be committed to being more competitive and doing things that are well within our control.

We cannot control when someone like Mr. Trump decides to give us increased tariffs, or decides to increase restrictions to make it tougher to do trade. This is why more than ever we need to do the things that we are good at. We need to do the things that, quite frankly, we are known for as a country. If we do not do these things, we are going to be left behind.

I have talked about pipelines and some of the issues we have right now. The fact remains that the current government vetoed the northern gateway project. Energy east was one of the ones that the government kept changing the regulations on. As a result of that, what happened was that we have seen some $80 billion, $90 billion, $100 billion in energy infrastructure investment flee the country.

Trans Mountain is a good example. We ended up buying the pipeline for about $4.5 billion, which means that we now own a pipeline. The challenge with that is that now we are going to be expected to rebuild the pipeline. Where private sector could do the work, we should make sure that we are giving it the tools, which is making sure there is a regulatory pathway and that people understand the process fairly clearly as they move forward.

I always give the example of when we were in government. Under Stephen Harper, we were doing a number of things, things that were important in terms of the ease of doing business or being competitive or being a place where people wanted to invest.

If I look at what the Conservatives did, it was our government that lowered taxes. We had the lowest corporate taxes in the G7 and G8. That was good. In and of itself, it does not matter unless there is a whole bunch of other things that are going on at the same time. Taxes are important. That is why something like a carbon tax, something which no one else is paying, certainly in North America, puts us at a complete and total competitive disadvantage.

I would say that the government has pursued and finished some of the trade deals that the Conservatives started. The Liberals brought some of the deals across the finish line. I will give them credit for that. They actually realized that those were important.

Trade deals in and of themselves are not the be all and end all. I totally agree that they are important, but if we keep going back to the whole issue of competitiveness, if we do not have the ability to compete globally, then no amount of trade deals is really going to matter because we would be less competitive, and we would not be able to compete. Already, we cannot keep up with the Chinese, and we are struggling under the whole issue of tariffs right now with the United States. That makes it problematic.

Infrastructure was something the Conservative government supported in a big way. There was over $30 billion committed towards infrastructure. It was not just roads and bridges, but it was also critical trade infrastructure. That is something the Liberal government has dropped the ball on. It talks about it. It said it was going to set up an infrastructure bank, but for three years there has been no money going out the door. We have lost three years, where we had an opportunity to look at infrastructure as a way we could help be competitive. Once again, it is one of those other things we are talking about.

I saw a recent Financial Post article which said there were over 4,100 projects approved, valued at $13 billion, but only $430 million had been paid out. That is obviously problematic as we look at missed opportunities over the last two or three years. That is something that needs to happen.

If I look at the infrastructure bank, in terms of what it is going to mean. What is it going to mean for small communities in the riding of Niagara West which I represent, communities like Pelham, Lincoln, Grimsby, Wainfleet and West Lincoln? Is there going to be an infrastructure bank that wants to come in and lend millions of dollars to build a bridge or a road? What is the return on investment? What is the payback on that?

I am left with the challenge that we have missed three years of critical infrastructure. If I look at trade infrastructure, whether it be ports, airports, highways, rail and the like, this creates a challenge.

As I said, at the end of the day, not only do we need to spend money on infrastructure in our communities, we need that critical infrastructure for trade so that we are able to become a trading nation. We have to look not too far to the west in Canada to see that we have all kinds of oil on railcars, which makes it tough for agricultural producers to get their products to market. That is a bit of a travesty.

Regulation and red tape is one of the largest issues. In terms of trade deals and non-tariff barriers, this fits into that category. There were things the Conservative government was working on, such the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council, beyond the border and things like that, which the current government has continued. However, if I look at energy infrastructure around pipelines and Bill C-69 and some other things, there are challenges. That is what causes people to sit on their money, invest it south of the border, in the U.S., with its regulatory framework, or identify ways to get their projects approved in a big way.

I sat on the red tape reduction round table. We went across the country and had conversations about how we could reduce red tape. This is something we will always have to work on. It is not just the federal government that throws up red tape; it is also municipal and provincial governments. This is something, quite frankly, every government needs to be diligent about.

On research and development, we certainly spend our fair share proportionally in R and D dollars, but at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we are not only getting the results we want but are able to commercialize our R and D. That was something the Conservative government looked at and worked toward.

With respect to entrepreneurship and access to capital in this country, there are a number of things we still need to do. The Conservative government looked at a $400-million fund for venture capital as a way of finding seed money, but there are still lots of opportunities.

At the international trade committee, one of the challenges we see every day is that small and medium-sized enterprises are challenged in getting access to capital. That remains difficult in terms of what they are trying to do. As we move through our work on the trade committee, we are not only looking at investment and capital. We are also finding that some of the trade programs are very hard to access by small and medium-sized enterprises.

When we look at competitiveness, it is not just about tax relief. I will note that in the recent economic statement, there was a commitment to an accelerated capital cost allowance, and I want to thank my colleagues for that. It may be too little too late, but it will hopefully help manufacturers that are trying to invest in new machinery that will make them competitive. Automotive, aerospace and advance manufacturing all need to continue to invest in their equipment. If they do not, they will fall behind fairly quickly.

As we move forward, there are a ton of things on the horizon that are very challenging. I know it has been mentioned before, but I need to mention again that having a carbon tax, when the rest of North America is not paying one, creates a competitive disadvantage. Increases in CPP and employment insurance premiums are coming in January, which will make it more expensive for businesses. We also have increased personal income taxes. I am never sure why any government thinks working people should be paying over 50% in income tax. I do not understand why, at the end of the year, we pay up to 53% and then throw on the GST or HST consumption tax. We throw on property taxes and a lot of other things, which does not make a whole lot of sense.

The last thing is the continuation of large and massive deficits. We are borrowing our children's future, and while the economy has been doing fairly well, this should be the time when we are saving money for a rainy day. When we start moving forward, as we spend too much money and continue to tax people, we will realize that there are only two ways to fix this, either with massive reductions in programs or with tax increases to pay for the massive deficits.

In a day and age when we are trying to be competitive, not only globally but with our friends and neighbours south of border, these are things we need to look at.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 10:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69 is a piece of legislation that was brought in by the Liberals.

Based on my observations and my reading of the bill, what it really does is handcuff an entire industry, and that is of course the oil and gas industry, which has supported this country for years and years and could potentially support it for years to come.

The government, for whatever reason, has decided that it is going to handcuff this industry, that it is not going to allow new pipelines to be put in the ground and that it does not want our country to benefit from the development of its natural resources.

I am unsure as to why the government feels that way. I am unsure as to why the Prime Minister feels he should bankrupt our country and drive investment out of it. Perhaps the member could explain.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 10:35 a.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

She is right about one thing. The Liberal government did indeed give four industrial sectors, including the cement sector, a gift of 10% with regard to their greenhouse gas emissions. That is completely ridiculous given their rhetoric and discourse.

I would like to come back to Bill C-69 and environmental assessments. I am somewhat familiar with this file and I would like to hear my colleague's opinion.

The Liberal government gave the Minister of Environment the arbitrary power to decide which projects will be assessed. Following the environmental assessment, the government must listen to and follow the minister's recommendations.

Does my colleague not think that that approach gives the government a lot of arbitrary power to decide what it does or does not want to do?

Translated

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 10:25 a.m.


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Conservative

Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect much better than what they are receiving right now. They expect the government to implement policies that will create jobs, steward tax dollars and advocate for the most vulnerable, such as seniors, veterans and those living with a disability. They expect the government to stand up and provide good health care. They expect the government to deliver services with excellence. They expect the government to do this while cutting back on wasteful spending and bringing investment into our country.

Canadians are incredibly hard-working people with a ton of potential and that potential deserves to be realized. It is up to government to put policies in place and decrease regulation to make sure that is the case. Unfortunately, the government has failed. At a time when the government should be focused on making life more affordable by getting out of the way, it is focusing on implementing even more regulations and slamming Canadians with further taxation. It is driving investment and jobs out of our country and making life less affordable.

According to a recent Ipsos Reid poll that was released just after Christmas, almost 50% of Canadian families are within $200 a month of not being able to pay their household bills, not being able to put food on the table, not being able to pay their mortgages or rent and not being able to pay for the fuel for their vehicles that take them to work to earn their next dollar. To make matters worse, the prospect of recovering from this dreadful place in which we exist looks rather bleak under the current government and its policies. We face a looming job crisis in Canada caused by the government's failed economic policies and yet the Prime Minister insists on villainizing those who actually create the jobs that keep our economy afloat. I am talking about the women and men who dare to take a calculated risk, to invest capital and create jobs by creating local businesses.

We might remember the small business tax the government tried to sneak through in the summer of 2017. According to the Prime Minister, 1.4 million Canadians who have led by vision, have taken substantial risk and have worked hard to start and operate their businesses are nothing more than what he called tax cheats. Their businesses, according to him, are not job creators. According to him, they are simply tax havens. They are tax havens for the so-called wealthy. That is rather rich coming from the Prime Minister, who has never worked a day in his life and was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

The Prime Minister was not talking about multinational corporations when he said that. In fact, they are protected. They get the easy route. Instead, he launched an attack on locally owned businesses that sustain our communities. I am talking about the hairdresser we have relied on for years, the family doctor we go to when a child is sick, the cashier who works at the local hardware store, the farmer in Picture Butte in my riding and the college student who just got her first job as a welder. According to the Prime Minister, it is unfair for those who create these jobs to invest some of that money in their company for the further advancement of their well-being and, of course, job creation for others.

However, thanks to the resistance of Canadians and the fact that they pushed back and joined the Conservative Party of Canada in the House as the official opposition, we were successful in pushing back on those changes and making some headway. Collectively, hard-working Canadians took a stand on behalf of small business owners. It is proof that Canadians will not sit idly by as the current government damns our country to a poor future.

Once again, Conservatives are appealing. It is not just increased small business taxes and payroll taxes that are hurting local businesses; it is also the carbon tax. This summer, the federal government granted special exemption to Canada's biggest emitters, but despite providing breaks to these companies, the federal government still intends to impose a carbon tax on local businesses and families.

My question is simple: In what world does that make sense? If, in fact, the carbon tax is being put in place to reduce emissions, then would it not make sense to tax those putting the most pollution in the environment? We have no choice but to conclude that the carbon tax is not actually about reducing the carbon footprint or taking pollution out of the environment. The carbon tax is just another excuse to apply a tax to the hard-working people of this country.

Each and every day I wake up and read the news, I see that investment is fleeing. I am watching companies close their doors. When I walk through the downtown core of my local riding in the city of Lethbridge, I see signs in windows that businesses are shutting down. They are being driven away because of the Liberal government's policies.

The truth of the matter is that the government will continue to impose a huge carbon tax on families and these local businesses. However, it will not reduce the carbon footprint. We still need clothes, we still need food and we still need to drive ourselves to work. All of these things will continue to happen, because Canada needs to stay open. Canadians need to continue to live. Our country and well-being are at stake. The government is being nothing other than cruel, unkind and unfair to the Canadian people by imposing this senseless carbon tax.

Speaking of keeping Canada's economy afloat, let us talk about trade for a moment. This weekend, Canada ratified the USMCA. The fact is we have a deal, but all Canadians should be asking if we have a good deal. Ultimately, the USMCA must be judged on how Canada benefits. The deal should be evaluated based on what Canada gave up versus what it received in return. Sadly, in this case, we gave up much more than we received. There is really nothing in the USMCA that puts Canada in a better position.

The government backed down on automotive, it backed down on dairy and it backed down on pharmaceuticals. As well, for all these concessions, Canada was unable to win anything significant in return. In fact, tariffs still remain on steel, aluminum and softwood, and the U.S. has told us it has absolutely no timeline in place by which it will remove those tariffs. We signed an agreement without insisting these tariffs come off.

We have a Prime Minister who does not care enough about his country and these industries to advocate on their behalf, to ensure their well-being and to stand up for Canadian workers. That is sad.

In my riding, there is a business called Lethbridge Iron, which continues to take hit after hit with payroll taxes, small business taxes and tariffs on steel. I have met with representatives multiple times and toured the facility. They are working incredibly hard, but they are taking hit after hit and are unsure how much longer they can keep their doors open and their employees employed.

Let us talk about the pipeline for a moment. This is an example of a $400-million investment that was driven out of our country overnight. The government had an opportunity to keep that investment here. It had an opportunity to sign on the dotted line and provide Kinder Morgan with the certainty it needed to stay here and build a project. Instead, the government refused to provide that certainty and drove this investor out. Where did Kinder Morgan go? It did not stop investing. It just went south, to the U.S. We are without this pipeline.

Of course, we know this pipeline is of huge significance to Canada. Yes, it provides great-paying jobs, but more than that, it helps us get a product to market. When we can get that product to market, our country will receive an income. When we receive that income, we can build hospitals, we can build schools, and we can build roads and bridges. All Canadians benefit when we develop the oil and gas industry here in Canada.

The fact of the matter is the Prime Minister has taken tax dollars and invested them in this pipeline, and we are getting absolutely no return for this investment. It is interesting how that works. The Prime Minister takes our money and invests it, and nothing happens. However, if we were to encourage a private investor to come into our country and invest it, a ton would happen.

My point is simple. Right now, because we are refusing to develop the oil and gas industry, we are actually purchasing blood oil. We are purchasing our oil and gas from places like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, places that have atrocious human rights records and almost no environmental standards. That is the type of industry we are choosing to support, instead of developing it right here in our country and bringing investment home.

In conclusion, we are calling on the government to act in the best interests of Canadians by eliminating the carbon tax, by repealing Bill C-69, by resolving the dispute on steel and aluminum tariffs, by resolving the softwood lumber dispute, by lowering taxes, by streamlining regulations and by opening up our markets. Let us bring Canada back. Let us put Canadians first.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—The EconomyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

December 4th, 2018 / 10:10 a.m.


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Conservative

Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is certainly an honour to stand in this place on behalf of the people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I will be splitting my time with the eloquent member for Lethbridge.

Over the past few years, we have watched the ongoing demise of our energy sector. Regardless of what people may think of northern gateway, or energy east or the northern tanker ban, the end result is clear. Billions of dollars of investment and thousands of new jobs are leaving Canada. If this were just the Canadian energy sector, that would be a huge concern all on its own. However, we know it is not just the energy sector.

Last week in question period I asked about multiple factories in different sectors that had closed their doors and left Canada: General Electric in Peterborough closed, 358 jobs gone; Campbell Soup in Toronto closed, 380 jobs gone; Procter and Gamble in Brockville closed, 500 jobs gone. These are just a few examples. Keep in mind that these major companies are not leaving North America; they are just consistently saying no to manufacturing in Canada. Should we not pause to consider some of the reasons why?

We all heard the deeply troubling news that General Motors would close its Oshawa plant. To be fair, General Motors is closing plants in the United States as well. However, in Canada, we know this will have a much larger impact. Many smaller plants provide parts and supplies for this Oshawa factory.

Should we not ask why so many of these manufacturing plants are leaving Canada?

When we have raised this question in this place, we have heard mixed messages from our Prime Minister. Some days he will tell us that all is well and that there is nothing to see here. Other days he will find some way to suggest that this is all the fault of the previous Harper government. However, when in Alberta, he will acknowledge that, yes. this is a crisis. Then he turns around and offers up a budget update with no new solutions for Canadian energy. Ultimately, none of these explanations address the underlying fact.

Canada is losing critically important well-paying jobs. What are the reasons?

We know that the enhanced CPP created by the Liberal Government amounts to a payroll tax to employers. It increases the costs of doing business in Canada. Our competitors did not increase payroll taxes in this way.

We also know that a carbon tax increases the price of doing business in Canada. The Liberals seem loathe to hear that point, yet the Liberal government announced carbon tax relief for big polluters in Canada. Why? We all know why. Because our competitors do not have a carbon tax.

A Liberal parliamentary secretary, in this place, on the record, admitted that job losses and economic consequences would result from competitive concerns. Therefore, let us recap.

The Liberal government recognizes and reluctantly admits that the carbon tax is job killer that will harm the economy. They said so in this place. That brings me to the topic of coal.

Recently the Liberal government provided a 95.5% carbon tax discount on burning coal for power in New Brunswick. Why? Because the Prime Minister and his inner circle decided that this was something Canada should do. Is it because the United States and Mexico do not have a carbon tax on the burning of coal? We do not know.

Aside from coal there are other challenges.

Some of our competing jurisdictions in the United States are right to work states. I find that when a company leaves Canada and moves production to the United States, it often relocates to a right to work state.

Look at the Bombardier deal with Airbus. The C-Series jet, subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, now will be built in a plant in Alabama. Alabama happens to be a right to work state.

The General Electric plant that will build 60 new locomotives CN just ordered to help move oil by rail because we cannot do it by pipeline is located in Texas, also a right to work state.

Proctor & Gamble left Ontario and moved production to West Virginia. Virginia has right to work legislation.

I mention this because here in Canada, mandatory union dues are frequently used in playing partisan politics. We are witnessing an example of this with Unifor. However, we have other challenges. Despite a new NAFTA agreement, steel and aluminum tariffs remain, softwood lumber tariffs remain and buy American provisions remain.

In the past, we have had a favourable exchange rate when comparing the Canadian dollar to the U.S. dollar. Sadly, much of those exchange rate savings have now been eaten up by costs and regulations that we have placed on ourselves.

Think about all of the debate around how best to respond to Saudi Arabia. The Prime Minister continues to support buying Saudi Arabian oil while his Bill C-69 kills the possibility for the energy east pipeline. Why? Saudi Arabian oil flows to the Irving refinery in Atlantic Canada and Saudi Arabia is a country with no carbon tax. Somehow to the Liberal government this all makes sense.

Make no mistake that Bill C-69 will kill our Canadian resource sector. Every single day we watch anywhere from $40 million to $80 million in lost resource revenue go out the door in Alberta. That is almost as fast as our Prime Minister can tweet Canadians' money away in new promises to his American celebrity friends. Meanwhile, we turn the other way while money from outside of Canada continues to fund the very groups who oppose our Canadian oil made by Canadian citizens who pay Canadian taxes.

Seriously, we have a problem here. Make no mistake that it is a Canadian problem. Right now we are talking about General Motors shutting down a plant in Oshawa, Ontario, but what will be next and where?

On a more local note, I would like to share an example. Many members have heard of Tolko Industries. It is a Canadian success story with strong roots in the Okanagan. Tolko runs over 15 different lumber operations in three provinces in western Canada. Where did Tolko announce its next major investment and expansion earlier this year? That would be in the state of Louisiana. Members may have already guessed that Louisiana is also a right-to-work state. The last mill that Tolko closed was located in my riding in the community of Merritt.

Unlike the Prime Minister who tries to lay every one of his failures at the feet of Mr. Harper, I am not going to lay every one of these challenges at the feet of the Prime Minister. We cannot control what happens outside of our borders. We cannot control if other countries reject a carbon tax, and they have. We cannot control if they reject looking at resource projects through a gender lens, and they have. We cannot control if they lower the costs of doing business in their jurisdiction, and they are. We here in Canada cannot stop other nations, our trading partners, from implementing policies that they believe will make them more competitive.

Here is what we can do. This motion proposes that we should recognize we have the power to compete here in Canada. When and wherever Canadians compete on a level playing field, we can compete with the best in the world. We can succeed. In my view, we cannot continue to enact policy, regulation and taxation where others do not follow. We as Canadians like to think we are leading the way, but when others do not follow our lead and when we lose jobs and investment to other jurisdictions, we need to take notice.

There is an upside, in one word: opportunity. Canada is a rich and resourceful country. We have incredibly talented people who live here. We are a world-class place to live and to raise a family. However, we cannot tax away our best and brightest, nor can we regulate new opportunities.

If we are to truly succeed, we need to be competitive. We need to allow our innovators, our best and brightest to have the opportunity they need to succeed. We need new employers knocking on our door, not just because they want handouts and subsidies but because they know they can get a return here on their investments. However, they need to be able to invest and to build easily and relatively quickly. We have almost lost that here in Canada. Deep down, I think most in this place would admit that. Fortunately, we have a capable and skilled workforce. We have good infrastructure to get goods and services to markets and, thankfully, because of considerable effort from previous governments, and with some ongoing efforts from the current government, we have trade access to many of the world's most lucrative marketplaces.

In closing, we must not overlook our opportunity. Compared to many jurisdictions, we have relatively clean power here in Canada. We need to show the world that using Canadian-made goods and services is part of the solution. However, the first step is to recognize there is a problem, and ultimately, that is what this motion is meant to do.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 5:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC

Madam Speaker, it is always good to speak in the House and on an issue about which I am passionate, northern Canada.

Bill C-15, which we have heard referenced a number of times, was legislation of which I was very proud to have been a part. I was part of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. We spent a lot of quality time in the Northwest Territories talking to people about making government work better for the people of the Northwest Territories. That is what Bill C-15 did. It devolved powers from Ottawa to the territories, something for which the Northwest Territories had been fighting and asking for decades. That is what our government delivered.

This bill, Bill C-88, basically formalizes in law one of the most egregious slaps in the face I think I have ever witnessed as an elected representative.

The Prime Minister went to Washington, D.C., to see his friend Barack Obama off. He had already termed out. He was in the lame duck portion of his presidency. The Prime Minister decided that it would be a good going away present to put a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in the Beaufort Sea in the Northwest Territories and he did it without consulting.

The current government likes to talk about consulting with indigenous people. However, when the rubber hits the road, it could not care less what the indigenous people of the country think unless it goes along with its preconceived notion of what it wants to do as a government. We saw that with the moratorium. We saw it as well with the northern gateway pipeline, where the Aboriginal Equity Partners, a group of 31 indigenous communities, had a $2 billion opportunity staring them in the face. The Prime Minister and the Liberal government shut that down with the stroke of a pen. Again, they did it from Ottawa.

When it comes to the Liberals, Ottawa always knows best and when it comes to indigenous peoples and the Liberals, Ottawa always knows best. We saw that with the moratorium and the northern gateway pipeline. They feel they have no obligation to consult when it comes to the economic opportunities they rip away from indigenous communities. They ripped away opportunities from the Aboriginal Equity Partners. They again ripped away opportunities from northerners with this moratorium.

The member for Northwest Territories said that there was no oil and gas development happening there. Is that any surprise? Why would any company invest its hard-earned dollars in a jurisdiction when a government, with 20 minutes notice, can shut the whole thing down? In the case of the northern gateway pipeline, there was three-quarters of a billion dollars of private company investment and the government shut it down with the stroke of a pen, ripping away $2 billion of economic opportunity from a group of aboriginal communities in a region of the country that has very little other economic opportunity.

What was the reaction from the northerners when this was done? The Northwest Territories premier, Bob McLeod, said very clearly, “The promise of the North is fading and the dreams of northerners are dying as we see a re-emergence of colonialism.” He was talking about the approach of the Prime Minister and the government, with its colonial approach, shutting down development because it would play well with Barack Obama, the green lobby and southern Canada. They did not care at all what the reality would be in the north.

The premier also stated, “We shouldn't have to stop our own development so the rest of Canada can feel better.” He went on to say, “We need jobs. We need work. You want us to leave the North because we can't work there. You want us to live in a large park. That's essentially what's happened.”

The Premier of the Northwest Territories gets exactly what the Prime Minister is trying to do, which is to make the Northwest Territories, Canada's north in general, Nunavut and Yukon, into a great protected space, where Ottawa will just keep sending up the money and the northerners will not have the ability to control their own natural resources and destiny. That is what Bill C-15 did. It gave control of the north to those who lived there, to the northerners. It brought into line the regulatory processes and regime with what was happening in the rest of Canada.

In a way, I guess Bill C-88 would do the same thing. The Liberal government brought in Bill C-69, which will devastate and kill resource development in this country. Everyone in the industry says so. Everyone in oil and gas knows that Bill C-69 will devastate them. The entire province of Alberta, from the NDP to the United Conservative Party and all points in between are saying that Bill C-69 has to be removed. The government must repeal Bill C-69, or at least pause it.

The Liberals say, “We know best. We are the federal government.” Here in Ottawa, in their wisdom, even though the price of oil is now down to $10 a barrel, a price differential of $50 between a barrel on the world market and what Albertan oil companies can sell it for, in their wisdom the Liberals say that is not a problem and that their hearts go out to them.

With Bill C-88, they are saying that since Bill C-69 devastated the resource economy in the rest of Canada, they need to partner it with legislation specific to the north, which would be Bill C-88, and would prevent oil and gas development in that region. What these Liberals do not seem to understand is that when capital investment is driven away, it does not simply turn around on a dime and come back when the moratorium might be lifted some day in the future.

It is the same as we have seen in Alberta. When these companies pack up and leave, when they are driven out of the country by government policies, as they have been by the Liberal government, they do not simply turn around and come back with their billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs on a whim. It will take decades to repair the damage the government has done in three short years. It will take decades to build back the capacity and investor confidence that has evaporated since the Liberal government has taken office.

Why has it evaporated? The government has taken the processes in place and politicized them for its own gains. The Liberals have said, “We do not care that the National Energy Board has conducted an independent two-year long, $750-million investigation of the northern gateway pipeline, with 209 conditions placed upon it. We do not care about that because we know best. We are going to cancel that pipeline. We are going to make it impossible for the energy east pipeline to go ahead. We are going to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline, just park it and see what happens in a few years after the next election.”

Companies have abandoned this country in the billions of dollars and in the tens of thousands of workers. This legislation is just another example of that sort of philosophy where Ottawa knows best. The government certainly thinks it knows best when it comes to indigenous communities. Bob McLeod and many others in the north have said to the government, “We earn our living with oil and gas revenues. We work in these industries, and you are taking away opportunity from our people.” However, the Liberal government does not believe it needs to talk to those people who actually support resource development. It believes it only needs to talk to people who support the Liberal government's agenda.

When I hear the Prime Minister say that there is no relationship more important than that with Canada's indigenous people, his record proves it is simply untrue. With certain indigenous people, the ones who agree with him, he is very into maintaining that relationship. However, for those who disagree with the Prime Minister, or those who have an agenda and want to pursue economic development for their people, the Prime Minister does not have to consult with them, because Ottawa knows best. That is what this legislation is, an Ottawa-knows-best, made-in-southern-Canada solution for northerners.

It is unlike our previous government, which wanted to see the north thrive. We wanted to promote northern sovereignty. We wanted to promote devolution of powers to northerners because they know best how to govern themselves. They do not need a prime minister going down to Washington, D.C., to tell them how to do it.

We will proudly vote against this legislation, and when we form government in 2019, we will work to rebuild the damage the Liberal government has done in this country.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.


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Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Madam Speaker, Bill C-88 would have a negative effect on Canadians in northern communities, who are already struggling to survive. When will enough be enough? Northerners are struggling to access basic resources like affordable groceries, water, high-speed Internet, safe roads and health care. Why is the Liberal government making life even harder for northern Canadians by restricting some of the largest sectors in the north, Canadian energy and, indirectly, the mining industry?

I regret to inform the House that Bill C-88 would repeal and reverse the land and water board restructuring changes the Conservatives passed in the Northwest Territories Devolution Act. It would also further polarize and politicize the regulatory and environmental process for resource extraction in Canada's north by giving the Liberal cabinet ultimate power to stop projects as it suits its political agenda. Northerners deserve increased autonomy over their natural resources sector. The Liberal government needs to stop meddling in the affairs of the north for its own gain.

Bill C-88 is an unnecessary and paternalistic blockade of oil and gas development in the Arctic and other northern regions. I must say that Bill C-88 fails on all fronts. It fails to respect workers in the oil and gas sector, fails to protect investments in the development of remote areas, fails to protect Canadian aboriginal communities on the path to reconciliation and, most disturbingly, fails to give northern communities the autonomy they deserve.

Bill C-88 would be particularly hard on the oil and gas sector. The government's failure to get key energy projects completed and to invest in the north is threatening expansion of the oil and gas sector, putting tens of thousands of good-paying, high-quality jobs at risk. While big American oil companies are getting discounts of over $100 million a day on Canadian oil, Canadian oil still needs to reach international markets.

Bill C-88 is yet another anti-energy policy, making getting and keeping jobs in one of Canada's largest economic industries nearly impossible. Canada's Conservatives will continue to fight for Canada's resource sector and the hard-working Canadians whose livelihoods depend on energy. They can count on us to stand up against a government determined to phase out their jobs.

On another note, Bill C-88 fails to take into consideration economic development in remote indigenous and non-indigenous communities in the north. The north is a key driver of economic activity in Canada. There is no doubt that Canada's north should be treated with the respect it deserves. Conservatives know that economic prosperity in the north does not mean ruining landscapes or harming the environment. Economic investment in the north means finding jobs for Canadians in some of the most remote areas of our country, it means economic prosperity for our economy as a whole and, most importantly, economic investment in the north means food on the table for thousands of Canadian families currently struggling to get by.

The Liberal government is hiking taxes on over 90% of middle-class families in the north. Despite the government's lavish spending, Canadian northerners are no further ahead. We need to promote effective investments in important areas in the north, such as health care, housing and quality drinking water. It is also important to spend money that translates into tangible results for northern Canadians.

Bill C-88 is nothing more than a ploy to win votes in urban centres rather than actually reduce poverty in the northern regions of Canada. We need to put Canadians first, not politicians and their concealed agendas. We need a government that will take the right steps to create sustainable economic opportunities for northerners in Canada. It is time that we started investing properly in the north so we can reap the rewards of economic prosperity for decades to come.

Bill C-88 also fails to adequately support the economic needs of indigenous peoples in Canada. It would significantly impact Canada's northern indigenous populations. Representing a rural riding with a large indigenous population, I know that the rights and sovereignty of Canada's indigenous people must be respected. We must work collaboratively with the indigenous populations in the north to put forward policies that make real and measurable improvements in the lives of Canada's indigenous people.

The Liberals failed to take the necessary steps to create sustainable economic opportunities for indigenous people in remote communities. By cancelling key energy projects, delaying offshore oil and gas projects in the Arctic for five years and imposing out-of-control taxes on rural populations, the future for Canada's northern indigenous populations is not looking bright.

Conservatives support advancing the process of reconciliation but also realize there is no lasting reconciliation between the Canadian government and indigenous populations without economic reconciliation. We must empower indigenous communities through job opportunities, industry and economic growth, rather than take valuable opportunities away.

Last but not least, northerners deserve a greater say in their own regional affairs. Canadians do not want Big Brother. The government needs to establish a plan to both respect northern sovereignty and promote economic prosperity in the north. The Liberal government's plan to impose restrictions on the northern economy will have serious long-term effects on the people living in remote communities.

We need to give autonomy back to people living in the north. Political elites in Ottawa should not get the final say on what energy projects get approved and which energy projects get denied. We need to consult workers and other stakeholders in the north before deciding to scrap potentially valuable energy projects. If we take away northerners' voices on these issues, the communities that can least afford these dangerous polices will be the ones most impacted.

Looking to the future, we need a government that will respect the autonomy of the north, provide economic opportunities for Canada's indigenous populations, invest in northern economic prosperity and protect Canada's oil and gas workers.

Conservatives do not support Bill C-88 and the Liberal government's anti-energy policies. Together, we should change this legislation to better support Canadian industry in the north, and protect the livelihoods of the tens of thousands of workers in northern Canada.

The Northwest Territories has vast underdeveloped oil and gas reserves. It is estimated that the Northwest Territories potentially hold as much as 37% of Canada's marketable light crude oil resources and 35% of its marketable natural gas resources. Like Bill C-69, Bill C-88 will have Ottawa pick the winners and losers. Even if northern industries jump through all the hoops and meet all the criteria, Ottawa can simply say, “No, game over.”

We should have Canadian oil in every refinery in Canada, and jobs for Canadians, not for Saudi Arabia, and support made, produced and manufactured in Canada.

The Liberal government record is shameful. It killed northern gateway by putting a tanker ban on the west coast. Then it created a moratorium on offshore oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea, an announcement made in December 2016 without even consulting northerners.

The government killed energy east by changing the environmental assessment process almost monthly and then added upstream and downstream emissions, which is not applied to any other industry in the world. The list goes on.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT

Madam Speaker, I want to remind the member that the issue before the House today is the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, which are very important to my riding. The member chose to speak mostly about Bill C-69.

I also want to point out that oil exploration in the Beaufort Sea peaked in 2008. World markets declined, and in the previous five years leading up to that decision, only $7 million was spent on the Beaufort Sea, amounting to a little over $1 million a year to keep the licences and permits going. No work was created. After one year of consultation with existing rights holders, territorial government and indigenous governments, everyone now agrees how important it is to protect the unique offshore environment and that we need to pursue oil and gas development in a safe way.

I totally agree with the member that the north should be keeping the royalties, but should we not also be deciding what is best for ourselves in the north?

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 4:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin this debate by quoting the premier of the Northwest Territories when the Prime Minister, in 2016, as part of a Joint Arctic leaders' statement, declared that the Beaufort Sea would be a national park essentially and that there would be no more drilling. This meant that any infrastructure there would now be landlocked and any infrastructure that had been invested in would now be stopped and be held up from being developed.

The premier of the Northwest Territories said that they would end up “living in a park.” That is precisely what the Prime Minister and his principal secretary Gerald Butts would like to see, that all of Canada become a national park, with no economy happening whatsoever.

I will be sharing my time with the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake.

Bill C-88 lays out the legal framework for the drilling moratorium. It is part of an ongoing trend we see from the government. Canadians are welcome to live in Canada provided they do not do anything to touch the environment. Again, in the Northwest Territories, this is a record. However, we are seeing a trend.

The Prime Minister has pounded his fists on the table, saying that he will get the Trans Mountain pipeline built. However, when it comes to every other energy project in the country, he has done everything in his power to undermine it. It all started with Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium on the west coast. This effectively killed the northern gateway pipeline. It is part of a larger trend.

In Bill C-68, we see the reversal of the changes we made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, making it easier for municipalities to develop their regions by putting culverts in and pipelines across streams. Those kinds of things were important changes we had made to make life easier for the people who live beyond Ottawa and Toronto, yet we see the government of today definitely reversing that.

There is also Bill C-69, what we are calling the no more pipelines bill that overhauls the regulatory process for pipelines.

We had a great regulatory framework to build pipelines. Under the Conservative government, we built four pipelines, approved northern gateway and other pipelines. What is really frustrating is that the Liberals went around saying that the public had no confidence in the process, which was completely false. It had been tested significantly by the court. Now that they are in power, they feel the need to overhaul it entirely so it will have to be tested by the court again.

We see that again with Bill C-69, putting the livelihoods of many workers in the oil patch at risk. It is putting the livelihoods of many people who live north of the 55th parallel at risk. We would like to see the government change its ways regarding this.

Bill C-88 is part of a strategy to keep oil in the ground. Therefore, we would definitely like to see it pull this bill back and Bill C-69 in particular.

Over the weekend, there was much to be said about the back-to-work legislation the House imposed on the Canada Post workers. Just yesterday I saw a carton on Facebook about two oil field workers. One of the workers said, “I wish Ottawa would legislate us back to work.” This bill would legislate them out of work.

The Beaufort Sea has vast oil reserves that have been explored. There are millions of dollars in infrastructure sitting up there, which has been basically been abandoned because of the drilling moratorium.

We need to ensure that Canada can work and be prosperous again. We have to ensure that our natural resources, whether oil in the Beaufort Sea, diamond mines in the Northwest Territories, or gold mines in the Yukon, can be developed and can bring prosperity for all of Canada.

One of the major things we know about in northern Canada is the carbon tax and how that will affect northerners in particular. We hear the Liberals talking all the time about Canada being a carbon intensive economy. If we looked outside this morning, we would see that it was snowing, and we typically have snow for six to nine months out of the year, depending on where one lives in Canada. That means the temperature is below freezing for that length of time in the year, so we need to warm things up. We need to make sure our houses stay warm. I enjoy a warm shower every morning. Those things require energy. Not only does Canada require energy, but the world requires energy as well. What better place to get our energy than right here in Canada? However, when we bring in a drilling moratorium in the Beaufort Sea or introduce a carbon tax or table Bill C-69, we limit the development of our natural resources and we then import the energy we need from other jurisdictions that do not have the environmental regulatory framework we have. We do not allow our economy to flourish so it can bring prosperity to some parts of the country that could really use it.

It is important that we develop our resources, including resources in the Beaufort Sea. We know that a large amount of money has been invested in developing that part of the world, and to just bar its development, through government regulation into the future, seems shortsighted and pandering on the world stage to forces outside of Canada.

The announcement in 2016 shows to some degree that the joint Arctic leaders' statement did not take into account the Canadian perspective whatsoever. It was pandering to an international audience. The Prime Minister only had the decency to phone the premier 20 minutes before he made the announcement. That left the territories scrambling. When I was up in the Northwest Territories, one of the things they often said was to let them keep their own royalty revenues. Allowing them to keep the royalty revenues now, when they are unable to develop anything, will not help the situation whatsoever.

With that, I ask the Liberals to reconsider the bill, to reconsider the drilling moratorium in the Beaufort Sea, to reconsider Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and ensure that we can get development of our natural resources back on the table, bringing prosperity to all Canadians and all Albertans.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 3:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB

Madam Speaker, here we are again with another anti-energy policy from the current Liberal government that is driving energy investment out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and significantly increasing poverty in certain regions, especially in the north.

I am speaking to Bill C-88, because I am concerned that the changes it would make would politicize oil and gas extraction by expanding the powers of this Liberal government to block economic development. It would take local control and environmental stewardship away from the aboriginal people of the region and would inhibit local, territorial governments from doing what is best for the people of the area. I am speaking of the Mackenzie Delta.

I see that my friend across the way is smiling, because he is very proud of the region he has grown up in.

Bill C-88 is not just another Liberal anti-energy bill, like Bill C-48, Bill C-69 and Bill C-86. These bills could block all future pipelines, giving the government the authority to unilaterally shut down natural resource development. It is now systematically going after the Northwest Territories, as it has done with our western provinces.

Only a few people get to visit the Mackenzie Delta or travel the pristine waters of the Mackenzie River. Those who do find it breathtaking, due to its vast biological and ecological formations.

When Sir Alexander Mackenzie travelled the Mackenzie River in 1789, he was astonished by its sparse population and the pristine beauty of the region. As members may know, the river was named after him. That is for a few of my Liberal colleagues across the way, except for the member for the Northwest Territories.

I count myself fortunate, no, I should say I count myself blessed and lucky, to have been able to travel from the start of the Peace and Athabasca rivers, which are the headwaters of the Mackenzie River, and I have followed it as it flows, leading to the Beaufort Sea in the north. This pristine area, rich in ecological wealth, covers an area of just under two million square kilometres, and its drainage basin encompasses one-fifth of Canada. This is the second-largest river in North America, next to the Mississippi River.

Oil and gas have been part of this region since 1921. There are also mines of uranium, gold, diamond, lead and zinc in the area. During World War II, a pipeline was built from Norman Wells to Whitehorse, in Yukon. It carried crucial petroleum products needed during World War II and helped Canada and the United States build the Alaska Highway, which significantly helped Canada during the war. It is called the Canol Pipeline, and it still exists today.

At a very young age, I personally met and was inspired by one of Canada's great leaders. That was Mr. John Diefenbaker, whose statue sits at the rear of this building. He was a leader of great wisdom and vision who led our country to where it is today. I remember he once said, “I see a new Canada—a Canada of the North.” This is what he thought of and envisioned. He spoke of giving the people of northern Canada the right to develop their resources, protect their environment and maintain and develop strong economies in the region. Diefenbaker saw the need for the people of the north to do this, not the Government of Canada.

One of Canada's leading novelists of the same era, Hugh MacLennan, a Liberal visionary, noted at the time that by 2061, the Mackenzie Delta would have three million people living along the banks and shores of the river and that people's pockets would be full of money from the wealth of the region. He said there would be at least two universities built in the Mackenzie Delta area.

That Liberal's prediction was wrong, and the actions of my Liberal friends across the way from me are also wrong.

There are roughly 10,000 people living along the Mackenzie River Delta, in places like Wrigley, Tulita, Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope, Fort McPherson, Inuvik, Aklavik and Tuktoyaktuk. I have been to those communities and I know the people.

There are 68 aboriginal groups that also live in this region. I have had the pleasure and honour of gathering and socializing with them to discuss their issues. We used to gather at the Petitot River. I have been there a number of times. To me, they are the real stewards of the land, not organizations like CPAWS, the David Suzuki Foundation or others that have the ear of the environment minister. The aboriginal groups are the real Canadian environmentalists and the real stewards of the land.

Recently, Merven Gruben, the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, testified at the committee on indigenous and northern affairs. He said that the Liberal government should be helping northern communities. Instead, it shut down the offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole Arctic without even consulting communities. He also said that people in his town like to work for a living and are not used to getting social assistance. Now, all they are getting are the few tourists coming up the new highway. That makes for small change compared to when they worked in the oil and gas sector.

They are the people of the Mackenzie River Delta. Our Conservative government gave them the power to manage their resources in a true, healthy and respectful manner that only the people of the region can do. This was done through Bill C-15, which created the Northwest Territories Devolution Act of 2014.

Our former Conservative government viewed the north as a key driver of economic activity for decades to come, but this Liberal government is arbitrarily creating huge swaths of protected land with little or no consultation with aboriginal communities, while other Arctic nations are exploring possibilities within their respective areas.

Bill C-88 reveals a full rejection of calls from elected territorial leaders for the increased control of their natural resources. It consists of two parts. Part A would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act of 1998. Part B would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to issue orders. That scares me.

What about the provisions that were introduced by the former Conservative government within Bill C-15's Northwest Territories Devolution Act? Bill C-88 would reverse these changes, even though Liberal MPs voted in favour of Bill C-15 when it was debated in Parliament, including the Prime Minister.

Now the Liberals want to reverse the former government's proposal to consolidate the four land and water boards in the Mackenzie Valley into one. I believe this is so that they can take control. The creation of a single board was a key recommendation that would address “complexity and capacity issues by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources” and would allow for administrative practices to be “understandable and consistent”. When Bill C-15 was debated in the House of Commons in 2013 and 2014, the restructured board was included in the final version of the modern land claim agreements.

The Liberals would further politicize the regulatory and environmental processes for resource extraction in Canada's north by giving cabinet sweeping powers to stop projects on the basis of “national interest”. This reveals a rejection of calls from northerners for increased control of their national resources.

The Liberal government should leave the people of northern Canada with their resources and let them be their own environmentalists and stewards of the land. They know it the best.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 3:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Madam Speaker, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in this House, that somehow the government is trying to move forward to export our oil. That member and his party proposed and voted in favour of Bill C-48, which would explicitly not allow the export of Canada's energy resources through northern British Columbia. If the Liberals wanted to help get our oil to other markets, the least they could have done was not pass a law that was explicitly designed to make it impossible to get our oil to other markets.

It is very simple. The previous Conservative government was working hard facilitating moving forward the northern gateway project, which would have opened all kinds of new markets and opportunities for those resources. If the member wants to see results in this area, I would tell him to repeal Bill C-48 and stop Bill C-69 as well. However, in particular, when it comes to pipelines and export, it is Bill C-48.

Let us move forward with projects that began under the previous government that would have gotten us to the results the member claims to want but very clearly does not want, from the substance of what he is voting on and saying in the House.

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 3:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to continue a discussion I began before question period about the government's approach to the energy sector. It is a pleasure for me to participate in the debate, but it is no particular pleasure to review the great damage the government is doing to our energy sector. This bill is one of a number of bills which contain provisions that really weaken the situation for those who consider getting involved in resource development, whether it is as a worker, an employee, an investor or one of the many who benefit from spinoff jobs and opportunities associated with the development of our energy sector.

I would observe that part 2, for example, of this legislation would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act. In effect, it would allow the Governor in Council, in other words, the government, to issue orders prohibiting oil and gas activities, freezing the terms of existing licences and preventing them from expiring during a moratorium. This would essentially empower the government to take extreme steps whenever it wants to, whenever it deems it in its evaluation of the way things should go, to put an abrupt stop to natural resource development. Conservatives see this as part of a larger pattern.

Bill C-69, the government's “no more pipelines” bill, piles on all sorts of conditions and challenges that are clearly designed to achieve the result of not allowing pipelines to proceed in the future. There is Bill C-48 that would create a tanker exclusion zone, which is designed to say that we can never export Canada's energy resources from the northern coast of British Columbia. It is so interesting to observe government members talking out of both sides of their mouths when it comes to oil and gas development, especially some of my Liberal colleagues from Alberta. They talk about feeling the pain and they talk about supporting pipelines on occasion, but then we look at their legislative and voting record.

There have been multiple opposition day motions which call for the recognition of particular pipelines as being in the national interest. There has been legislation from the government, such as this bill today and others I have mentioned, that are designed to create a very difficult environment for any natural resource project to proceed. The Liberals put forward these bills that make it more and more difficult for investment projects to succeed and at the same time they vote against opposition day motions and proposals which recognize that these projects are indeed in the national interest. In terms of the Liberals' record, in terms of their votes and their actions, we see a real, practical, concrete, tangible opposition to the success of the energy sector, an energy sector which is not just for one region or one part of the country but is one which benefits the whole country.

I am a member of Parliament from Alberta and represent a resource rich area of the country. Many people in my constituency are part of the energy sector and are frustrated with the approach of the government. I would like to speak briefly about another region of the country, the north of Canada.

I had the pleasure of joining the foreign affairs committee recently on a trip to the territories. It was interesting to talk to people about the decision of the Prime Minister, while overseas, to unilaterally declare a moratorium on offshore development in a way that flew in the face of what many people in the north were hoping for in terms of opportunities that could come to them through new investment, new jobs and new development in Canada's north, development that would really open up opportunity and ensure greater access to services for people in the north.

A real opportunity did exist and yet the Prime Minister, while overseas and without consultation, did exactly the sort of thing that is envisioned in this legislation. He made a declaration that prohibits activity in the area of oil and gas development.

When we look at the proposed legislation, the government would be taking for itself more tools to be able to step forward at any point to say that it did not a want a project to proceed or did not want to allow development, even if there was an expectation, even if there was planning by indigenous leaders and by municipal, provincial and territorial leaders, or if there were investments made and workers making their plans to seek those opportunities. All of a sudden, the Prime Minister could put a stop to it.

So much is said by the government about consultation with indigenous people and how it is such a critical relationship for any government. However, while talking that talk, government members do not seem to recognize at all that many indigenous people in Canada want to see the development of our energy resources. They want to have the opportunities that flow from these developments. However, their voices are totally ignored if they are on the side of the discussion that is seeking more development, more opportunity, more employment and more of the kind of development that would allow them to significantly prosper and benefit from the wealth that would come into their communities as a result of oil and gas and other natural resources.

To put it as clearly and directly as possible, when it comes to our natural resource sectors, the government has an anti-development agenda. It is not an anti-development agenda it is perhaps willing to openly acknowledge or recognize. It covers it up in various ways, including by pumping billions of taxpayers' dollars into a pipeline it still has no plan to see move forward. However, in the concrete legislative initiatives it is putting forward, we see what its agenda is, and we see it walked out in practice.

A couple of years before the last election, the current Minister of Democratic Institutions put out a tweet talking about landlocking the “tar sands”. Now we do not hear that kind of language from the front bench. The Liberals try to modulate their tone, because they know that most Canadians do not want their anti-development agenda.

If we look at the history of the people involved in the government, if we look at the statements they have made in the past, if we look at the past statements and involvement of senior staff in the Prime Minister's Office, and as I mentioned, the comments from the Minister of Democratic Institutions, I think we can see what we are observing in the concrete detail of legislation that has come forward, which is, yes, the anti-development agenda of the government. It is disappointing. It is hurting jobs and opportunities in my province and across the country. We need Canadians to wake up to this, respond and stop legislative measures like this.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB

Mr. Speaker, if only he would understand how disappointed his own city is in him.

My province is in crisis. The Alberta energy industry is under attack by the Prime Minister. Albertans have been suffering for years under the Prime Minister's anti-energy policies. He killed northern gateway and energy east, banned tankers and has failed miserably on Trans Mountain. His no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, will be the final nail.

Will the minister stand up for Albertan jobs and kill this bill?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Mr. Speaker, a lack of new pipelines necessary for Canadian oil to reach global markets has created a serious crisis in Alberta. With oil being sold for pennies on the dollar, the no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69, will be the final nail in the coffin for the industry.

When will the Prime Minister kill his no more pipelines bill?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:15 p.m.


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Edmonton Mill Woods Alberta

Liberal

Amarjeet Sohi LiberalMinister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, it is that kind of divisive politics, pitting one community against the other, pitting indigenous communities against other communities, that has put us in this place to start with.

Bill C-69 would allow us to have a process in place that would allow good projects to move forward in a timely and efficient manner. We are focused on expanding our non-U.S. global market, and we are focused on building pipelines that allow us to do that. Bill C-69 is the process to get us there.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, at a glitzy international conference last week, the Prime Minister attacked energy workers, saying that male construction workers go to rural communities and cause negative social and gender impact. While he is trying to build his international celebrity abroad, he is killing the livelihoods of working Canadians back at home. His “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 has been condemned by the industry, the Alberta government and numerous aboriginal communities.

Will the Prime Minister finally scrap his “no more pipelines” Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:15 p.m.


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Edmonton Mill Woods Alberta

Liberal

Amarjeet Sohi LiberalMinister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, we inherited a very flawed process of environmental review from the previous government. That has led to the failure of a number of infrastructure projects, including pipelines, that could not move forward.

We are focused on fixing the previous government's flawed process by passing Bill C-69 which would allow good projects to move forward and would allow one review for every project. That is what we are focused on. That is what we will continue to deliver.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

December 3rd, 2018 / 2:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has lived a celebrity lifestyle off of his family fortune and now he is trying to build that celebrity lifestyle off of Canadians' tax dollars. He is sending out tweets to win celebrity friends. Meanwhile, the working people back home who pay the bills are under attack by his “no more pipelines” Bill C-69.

The NDP government in Alberta, the pipeline association and the TransCanada pipelines company have all called for the government to withdraw this bill. Will the Liberals withdraw the “no more pipelines” Bill C-69?

As spoken

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management ActGovernment Orders

December 3rd, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Before I get into the details of the bill, it is important to look at the context with respect to what has been happening over the past three years and what is starting to be a real pattern of the Liberal government. The decisions it makes consistently increase red tape and bureaucracy, and are mostly anti-resource development. This bill is no different.

I would like to talk about a few areas to show the context, which will then show that this follows a pattern that adds to what is becoming an increasing concern in the country, and that is the ability to move our natural resources forward.

When the Prime Minister took office, there were three private companies willing to invest more than $30 billion to build three nation-building pipelines that would have generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic opportunity. The Prime Minister and his cabinet killed two and put the Trans Mountain expansion on life support. Bill C-69 would block all future pipelines.

In addition, the government has made a number of arbitrary decisions regarding natural resource development, with absolutely no consultation with those impacted. Today, we only need to look at what is happening in Alberta with the hundreds of thousands of job losses. Who has ever heard of a premier having to decrease the production of a needed resource throughout the country and the world because we simply cannot get resources to the market? This is because of the government's failure.

The northern gateway project was approved by the former government in June 2014. It had a number of conditions on it, just like the current Trans Mountain project does.

In November 2015, just one month after being elected, the Prime Minister killed the project without hesitation. It was subject to a court challenge. When we did finally hear what came out of that court challenge, to be frank, it was nothing that could not be overcome. We could have dealt with that.

The court decision told the Prime Minister to engage in consultation in a more appropriate and balanced way. The court really gave what I would call a recipe for perhaps fixing some problems with the process.

Did he wait for the court decision? No. He went out and killed it flat. With this approved pipeline, he did not wait for a court decision or wait to see how it could move forward. He decided that he did not want that one.

I think we are all pretty aware of the Trans Mountain pipeline. It has been moving along for many years. We know that many first nations support it and hope to see it go through, as they see enormous opportunities for their communities. Of course, others are against it.

What happened in this case? When the Liberals came to government, they decided they had to have an additional consultation process. However, did they follow the directions of the court in the northern gateway decision in which the court was very clear about what the government had to do to do consultations properly? Apparently not. When the court decision came down, we learned otherwise. To be frank, it was much to my surprise, because the Liberals talked about how well they were consulting and that they were putting this additional process in place. The court said that the Liberals did not do the job. What they did was send a note-taker and not a decision-maker.

The fact that the Liberals did not consult properly on the Trans Mountain pipeline is strictly on their laps, as they had very clear guidance from the northern gateway decision and they did not do what they needed to do. They should be ashamed of themselves. Had they done a proper process, they likely would not have had to buy the pipeline, the pipeline would be in construction right now and we would be in a lot better place as a country. With respect to the Trans Mountain pipeline, the blame for where we are on that pipeline lies strictly on the laps of the Liberals.

I also want to note, in spite of what people say, that the courts have said the process was okay, so it has nothing to do with environmental legislation by the previous government or with anything the Conservatives had put in place. It was the Liberals' execution of a flawed process.

Energy east was another one. The former Liberal MP who is now the mayor of Montreal was very opposed to it. I am not sure of all the pieces that went into the Liberals' decision-making, but all of a sudden, the downstream and upstream emissions of energy east had to be measured. As people have rightfully asked, has that happened for the tankers coming down the St. Lawrence from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela? Did that happen with the bailout for Bombardier?

The Liberals created regulatory barriers. Trans Mountain hung on for a long time before it finally said no go. I think Energy east saw the writing on the wall, knowing that the government was not going to be its friend and create an environment to get the work done. It could see the new rules coming into place, so it walked. What a double standard. Canadians who extract energy in an environmentally sound and environmentally friendly way have had standards applied to their ability to move oil through a pipeline that no other country in the world imposes on companies in terms of upstream and downstream emissions.

Next on the plate is Bill C-69. A number of former Liberals are very open about their concerns about Bill C-69. Martha Hall Findlay, a very respected former Liberal MP, said in a recent Globe and Mail article that the new environmental legislation, Bill C-69, “is the antithesis of what this regulatory reform effort hopes to achieve.... [I]n its 392 pages, the word 'competitiveness' appears only twice. Neither the word 'economy' nor the phrase 'economic growth' appear at all.” We have new environmental legislation that most people call the no-more-pipeline bill.

Martha Hall Findlay went on to note that this bill would create enormous uncertainty, more red tape and increased court challenges, and not only in the energy sector but in all other infrastructure in Canada for years to come. I do not know if members are starting to see a pattern: the Liberals have killed pipelines and put in legislation preventing new pipelines from being built. I am not sure why the process with Trans Mountain was not proper; it should have been. Everyone knew what they had to do, but they did not.

Another piece of legislation that is focused on killing opportunities in this country is the tanker moratorium, Bill C-48. The government loves to talk about how it consults, consults and consults, but it only consults to get the answer it wants. There was a large group of first nations that had a huge opportunity with the Eagle Spirit pipeline that would go through its territory. It had plans, it was moving along, everything was in place, and all a sudden Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, put its dreams and hopes to rest for a while. The interesting thing is that there was no consultation at all. There was no notice about this tanker ban, so how can there be consultation when the government does not want to do something, but vice-versa when it wants to do something?

Now I will get into the details of Bill C-88. In 2016, there was an oil and gas moratorium in the Beaufort Sea, and the interesting thing about that announcement was that for most people in Canada, it came out of nowhere. The Prime Minister did not even have the respect to hold conversations with the territorial premiers and the people most impacted. He made the announcement down in Washington, D.C., along with an “Oh, by the way” phone call 20 minutes before announcing this measure that would impact those communities. That is absolutely shameful. The Prime Minister announced a moratorium on all oil and gas development in the Beaufort Sea when he was down in the United States with President Obama at the time.

I want to read a few quotes by the community leaders subsequently. The Northwest Territories premier Bob McLeod issued a “red alert...for urgent national debate on the future of the Northwest Territories”. He wrote:

The promise of the North is fading and the dreams of northerners are dying as we see a re-emergence of colonialism....

Whether it be ill conceived ways of funding social programs, or new and perplexing restrictions on our economic development, our spirit and energy are being sapped.

That is a very different from what we just heard from the parliamentary secretary when she talked about the previous government. It is her government. Did she hear those words from the premier? He said, “our spirit and our energy are being sapped”.

Mr. McLeod further wrote:

Staying in or trying to join the middle class will become a distant dream for many....

This means that northerners, through their democratically elected government, need to have the power to determine their own fates and the practice of decisions being made by bureaucrats and governments in Ottawa must come to an end. Decisions about the North should be made in the North. The unilateral decision by the federal government, made without consultation, to impose a moratorium on arctic offshore oil and gas development is but one example of our economic self-determination being thwarted by Ottawa.

Then Nunavut premier, Peter Taptuna, told the CBC on December 22, 2016:

We do want to be getting to a state where we can make our own determination of our priorities, and the way to do that is gain meaningful revenue from resource development. And at the same time, when one potential source of revenue is taken off the table, it puts us back at practically Square 1 where Ottawa will make the decisions for us.

Merven Gruben, the mayor of Tuktoyaktuk, told the indigenous and northern affairs committee on October 22, 2018:

I was talking to [the Liberal MP for the Northwest Territories]...and he said, “Yes, Merven, we should be doing something. We should be helping you guys.”

I agree the Liberals should be helping us. They shut down our offshore gasification and put a moratorium right across the whole freaking Arctic without even consulting us. They never said a word to us.

We're proud people who like to work for a living. We're not used to getting social assistance and that kind of stuff. Now we're getting tourists coming up, but that's small change compared to when you work in oil and gas and you're used to that kind of living. Our people are used to that. We [don't want to be just] selling trinkets and T-shirts.

To go to the actual bill, what we can see is that in spite of the lofty words by the parliamentary secretary, there has been a real lack of consultation on issues that are very important to northerners.

Part A would amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to reverse provisions that would have consolidated the Mackenzie Valley land and water boards into one. These provisions, of course, were introduced by the former Conservative government with Bill C-15, the Northwest Territories devolution act. Part B, of course, would amend the the Canada Petroleum Resources Act.

As I have already noted, this is another anti-energy policy from the Liberal government that is driving investment out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and increasing poverty rates in the north. Like Bill C-69 before it, Bill C-88 would politicize oil and gas extraction by expanding the powers of cabinet to block economic development, and would add to increasing red tape that proponents must face before even getting shovels in the ground. Further, Bill C-88 reveals a full rejection of the calls by elected territorial leaders for much of the self-autonomy they desire.

We used to look at the north as being an opportunity to be a key economic driver for decades to come. Other Arctic nations, including China and Russia, are exploring possibilities. This could be something that is very important for our sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are creating great swaths of protected land. I want to know why that change was originally made to the water and land boards.

In 2007, Neil McCrank was commissioned to write a report on improving the regulatory and environmental assessment regimes in Canada's north. As outlined in the McCrank report, entitled, “The Road to Improvement”, the current regulatory process in the Northwest Territories is complex, costly, unpredictable and time-consuming. The merging of the three boards into one was a key recommendation. Part of the report stated:

This approach would address the complexity and the capacity issues inherent to the current model by making more efficient use of expenditures and administrative resources. It would also allow for administrative practices to be understandable and consistent.

If these recommendations on restructuring and improvements are implemented, the regulatory systems in the North will be able to ensure orderly and responsible development of its resources.

Regarding the move to consolidate the boards, the report went on to state:

...is not meant to diminish or reduce the influence that Aboriginal people have on resource management in the North. Rather, it is meant as an attempt to allow for this influence in a practical way, while at the same time enabling responsible resource development...

I want to note that it was Bill C-15, which the Liberals and NDP voted for, that included that component. It was supported on all sides of the House. It was also included as an available option in the three modern land claim agreements. Bill C-15 looked to streamline the regulatory process and to place time limits on reviews and provide consistency. It was never meant to impact impact indigenous communities and their ability to make decisions. It was to streamline the regulatory process, place time limits on reviews and consolidate federal decision-making.

Certainly, I see this component of the bill as a move backward rather than forward. At this point, it would appear that all of the communities involved want to move in this direction. I believe that is unfortunate. The model I wish they would have worked toward would have been a much more positive one in doing the work they needed to do.

The final part is the drilling moratorium, which is perhaps the most troublesome. It would allow the federal cabinet to prohibit oil and gas activity in the Northwest Territories or offshore of Nunavut if it were in the national interest. This is a much broader power than currently exists in the act, which only allows Canada to prohibit that activity for safety or environmental reasons, or social problems of a serious nature.

I note that the licences set to expire during the five-year moratorium would not be affected, which is seen as somewhat positive by the people holding those licences. However, I suppose if we have a moratorium forever, it really does not matter if one's licence is on hold forever, because it would not be helpful in the long run.

In conclusion, what we have here is perhaps not on the scale of Bill C-69 or some of the other things the government has done, but it just adds to the government's habit, whenever it deals with the natural resource industry, of tending to make it more complicated and of driving businesses away rather than doing what Canada needs, especially right now, which is bringing business to us.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / noon


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Independent

Darshan Singh Kang Independent Calgary Skyview, AB

Mr. Speaker, with Alberta's economy hurting, Albertans are worried for their future. Bill C-69 is also a huge concern.

Office vacancies are close to 30% in the city of Calgary, and the downtown core has lost over $12 billion dollars in assessed value since 2015. With pipeline paralysis and oil being sold at $10 a barrel, unemployment has risen to 8.2% in Calgary.

My question is for the Minister of Natural Resources. Will the minister seriously consider the province's request to help buy more rail cars in order to reduce the market access backlog and to avoid cutbacks in oil production?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:50 a.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, as I said before, Bill C-69 means one project one review, to give certainty to the industry.

Let me tell my colleagues that the horizon is actually looking very well for the energy sector. I know the current times are difficult. However, over the next 10 years, there is over half a trillion dollars in proposed private sector investment in the natural resources sector alone. In Alberta alone, that includes 102 energy projects representing an investment of $178 billion.

These projects do not just mean development for energy resources. They mean jobs for Albertans.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:50 a.m.


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Conservative

Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has failed Canadian energy workers. Over 100,000 and counting are out of work. Small businesses across my riding of Bow River have been devastated, and they do not even get the carbon tax exemptions the Liberals have given to large corporations. Rather than fix the problems they have caused, the Liberals are doubling down with their anti-Canadian energy bill, Bill C-69. This bill will be the final nail in the coffin of Canadian energy.

When will the government show it cares about Canadian energy workers and cancel Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:50 a.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, let us be very clear. The piece of legislation, Bill C-69, would encourage further investments because it would give investors greater certainty through short timelines, early engagement and one project meaning one review. The Conservatives can focus on rhetoric. We will focus on getting the job done for our energy sector.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:50 a.m.


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Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, Alberta is losing over $80 million a day on heavily discounted oil. We are losing foreign investment that is leaving Alberta and Canada. We have lost over 100,000 jobs, and the bleeding is not about to stop anytime soon, because the current government has halted, cancelled or delayed every major energy project, has put in ridiculously onerous regulations and is giving us the no-pipeline bill, Bill C-69.

I am not asking if but when this Minister of Natural Resources will kill Bill C-69.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that in 2019, companies planned to have completed three brand new pipelines in Canada, but the Prime Minister deliberately sabotaged all of them. Those pipelines are gone because of the Liberals, and their “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69 will mean no new pipelines proposed or built in Canada again.

This week, Trican Well Service had to lay off 70 employees. Thousands more job losses are expected in the new year, but I guess that is what the Prime Minister wants, since apparently he thinks oil and gas and trades workers are dangerous to rural communities.

Will the Liberals commit right now to scrap their “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, yes or no?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:35 a.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69's better rules would lead to more timely and predictable reviews, and encourage further investments in Canada's natural resources sector and in our people. The Conservatives gutted this process, and we see the results. Nine-nine percent of our oil exports were to a single buyer, the United States. The Conservatives' approach failed.

We are working to restore trust and make sure that good projects can move forward and grow our economy.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals need to stop talking about their feelings and fix the crisis they have created.

Under Conservatives, four new pipelines were built and companies wanted to build three more, two to new markets, when the Liberals came to power, but the Liberals chased them all away. Provinces, industry and financial experts all agree that the Liberals “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69 will do exactly what it is designed to do: stop any new pipeline from being proposed or built in Canada again.

Will the Liberals act and commit right now to scrap their “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, yes or no?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 30th, 2018 / 11:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, I grew up in Calgary during Pierre Trudeau's national energy program and 36 years later, we have another made-in-Canada energy crisis. The Prime Minister has killed northern gateway, brought in a tanker ban, killed energy east by changing the application process and spectacularly failed on Trans Mountain. Canada is practically giving away its energy under the government.

When will the Liberals finally stop making things worse and will they kill the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Poverty Reduction ActGovernment Orders

November 30th, 2018 / 10:30 a.m.


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Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on Bill C-87, an act respecting the reduction of poverty, and Canada's first poverty reduction strategy. However, it is a six-page document, and so there is not a lot there.

This poverty reduction strategy is truly a re-announcement of 87 programs either that the government put into place or modified or that had been around for decades. Let us not kid ourselves when we talk about this poverty reduction strategy. It is a re-announcement of things that have happened since October 2015. That is all we are seeing here.

The Liberals talk about the fact that the bill would put in a metric, and the member for Spadina—Fort York talked about using this new measurement. I would like to let him and all Canadians know that this measurement has been used for decades. I applaud the Liberals for actually adopting it as the official measurement, but please do not believe that this was something they concocted and created. This measurement was used by the human resources and skills development department for years.

There are four key things that I will focus on.

I will begin with the current poverty rate. Last week, we had the financial update from our finance minister, and I read the comments from Canadians on Twitter and Facebook. They will support a government that runs a deficit if they believe that the money is being spent well and where it is needed. One the biggest challenges I see here is that we have a government that has announced an $80 billion deficit in its mandate. However, if we look at what it has spent and what the actual statistics are showing, they are two absolutely different stories.

I will start with what the parliamentary secretary said moments ago, that the poverty reduction strategy started the day the Liberals took office. The facts I am going to give members today will compare data from 2014, the last year of the Harper Conservative government, with 2016 data, which is a full year of the current government, noting that it was working on poverty from October 19, 2015. The numbers show that the level of poverty for all persons remained at 13%. Therefore, the data shows that between 2014 and 2016, it was 13% with no variation in those numbers whatsoever. However, there is an $80 billion deficit.

For persons under the age of 18, the Liberals talk about the Canada child benefit, but we have seen a half percentage decrease based on this data, and we see an $80 billion deficit. For persons between the ages of 18 and 64, there have been very minor, insignificant changes. We see a change of about 1%. However the statistic for seniors really scares me, and will scare many members of my caucus, especially since we really focused on seniors and pushed to make sure we had a seniors minister. We thought the Liberals were not focusing on seniors, and we were right. We have now seen a 2% increase between 2014 and 2016 of people over the age of 65 when it comes to poverty. We also see an $80 billion deficit. What I am trying to show here relates to the Liberals' line that they are spending the money on the people who need it.

I am the first one to want to help somebody, but these numbers are not showing any changes. Instead, we are seeing deficit spending and we are not getting the results from it. That is one of the biggest challenges I see here. How can we support something when we are seeing no difference? This comes back to the metrics in the six-page bill, and they are not there. The targets are not there.

We recognize that the government is collecting data, and I will share some information.

I have had the opportunity as the shadow minister for families, children and social development to go across Canada and speak to people on the ground. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Hamilton at the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. One of the biggest discussions there was on the point in time count. We wanted to compare the 2016 and 2018 data. When this came out in 2016, I thought it was really important to collect that data. We need to know what is leading to homelessness. We need to know how many are homeless. If we have these numbers, we can know if we have reduced it or if it has increased. I am okay with that.

However, people on the ground are coming out and saying that they were told to do one thing in 2016, and with the point in time count, they were told not to go to certain areas. I actually heard this from people who were doing point in time counts. They were told not to go to those areas because poverty was flourishing, those streets had people who were homeless and they did not want those people in the count.

This comes down to the people working for the Government of Canada, who were telling them not to go into those areas where poverty had increased.

I also have heard from the people in Kelowna. The trip to Kelowna was really interesting, and I sat and spoke to people at OneSky. They are doing absolutely fantastic work. However, they shared with me the concern that they did the point in time counts in 2016 and 2018, and they also did a name list, something that is really a wonderful measurement on this that we can talk more about in another discussion. They said that the factors they got in 2016 and 2018, through the point in time count endorsed by the government, was in a 24-hour window. Let us say that John, who has been on that street corner for 364 days asking for assistance, happens to not be on that corner that day. His name does not count because he is not there in that 24-hour period.

What we see is that the counts are being done in a very micro amount of time. When the same organizations from Kelowna are going out and doing a name count, we see that those numbers actually almost quadruple. They actually are saying that their point in time count will show less than 100, but when they did a name count of people out on the streets, they are talking about 400 people. That is a huge significant difference.

If we are going to talk about metrics, let us make sure we are getting our metrics straight and let us be sure the measurements we are using are the same from one year to another year and not putting some challenges there so that we get different results.

One thing that I also heard that was really important was, “You keep on counting us but we still don't have a home”. This is something that I want to bring to the attention of the minister, the parliamentary secretary and the government. It is lovely to collect this data; however, the people who are being asked for this data want to start seeing results. They are tired of doing these things and not seeing anything at the end of the day.

I now want to switch the page and talk about the national housing strategy. We have had some private members' bills that have come through, so we have had an opportunity to talk about housing in those areas. Let us actually talk about what the national housing strategy does.

Over one-third of this announcement is not new money. It is money that we saw in the 2016 and 2017 budgets. Therefore, when we talk about the national housing strategy, we are looking at old money and we are looking at some new money. A substantial portion requires provincial money. When the Liberal government talks about $40 billion, it is not $40 coming from the Canadian government, but funding that has to be matched. We have to make sure that those provincial governments are going to be at the table. Agreements have been signed, and kudos on that. However, we also have to make sure that these are agreements that the provinces are not being forced to make.

One of my biggest concerns is that the need for housing is now. We have heard our NDP colleagues talk about the need for housing. I recognize that we still see these challenges. We know that shelter use in Canada has actually increased under the government. It has not decreased. It has increased. More people are needing shelters.

What we look at is the strategy that goes from 2016 and then up to about 2029. We have the $40 billion for 10 years. We see that it is end-loaded. The emergency is today. The emergency is not 10 years from now. Are we saying that for a person who has lived on the streets for two years, we will add 12, and that person will get their money then? We also have to look at that. Some of my biggest concerns are around throwing money at things without really solving the problem.

Right now at the status of women committee, we are studying shelters. We have had some fantastic witnesses who have come in. If we are looking at where the housing issues are; we have to look at the actual housing continuum; we have to look at the shelters, we have to look at the subsidized housing; we have to look at affordable housing and supportive housing. Then we also have to look at what is actually attainable for Canadians.

One of the biggest challenges we are seeing, which is something that the government has not addressed, is that we see people being kept in shelters because there is no room to move out of that continuum. Here is just a little news alert: Every day somebody is looking for a shelter across Canada. There are always people looking for help, whether it is women leaving abusive relationships or people who just cannot financially support themselves and their housing. They are looking for places. However, the continuum of housing is broken and the government continues to allow it to be broken and continues to expand the problem. When somebody goes to look for affordable housing, there are problems. One example is a young woman I know of who moved into a place in June, into second stage housing. She is stuck in that second stage housing because there is no housing available. The housing markets are not there.

Therefore, when we look at the national housing strategy we can talk about affordable, but what is the plan to actually get affordable housing built? What is the plan to break it down and make sure that we are working with all our communities, from the developers and the landowners to the people who are actually out there with the hammers? We have seen huge gaps, and the government is not addressing them.

We talk about this all the time, but there are a few quotes that I want to share with the House. The reality check is here.

CBC News posted on June 13, 2018, “Between 2014 and 2017, chronic homelessness in the city climbed by 21 per cent, while the use of emergency shelters rose by 16 per cent.” Under the Liberal government the city of Ottawa has seen an increase in chronic homelessness of 21%. How is the government addressing that?

From the same source, here is a second quote about a report entitled,“Homelessness in Ottawa: A Roadmap for Change”. This report examines how the city's 10-year plan is faring and offers suggestions on how to turn the tide. “While the report contains some good news—577 people were able to move into their homes since 2015, thanks to the city's use of Housing First model—Deans acknowledges Ottawa is not trending in the right direction.”

We are talking about a document that was just put out that looked at housing from 2014 to 2017. The people from Ottawa are saying we are not going in the right direction, and this is under the Liberal government.

I also want to share a few quotes that talk about Housing First.

The Liberal government talks about housing first, and let us be honest: the reason it does not like it is that the Conservatives put it in. It is that simple. We have seen many of our pieces of legislation that were done between 2006 and 2015 repealed, only because they were Conservative policy.

I want to read a few items, and these are really important and critical points.

From the Mental Health Commission's final report:

Over the two-year period after participants entered the study, every $10 invested in HF services resulted in an average savings of $9.60 for high needs.... Significant cost savings were realized for the 10 per cent of participants who had the highest costs at study entry. For this group, the intervention cost was $19,582 per person per year on average. Over the two-year period following study entry, every $10 invested in HF services resulted in an average savings of $21.72.

From the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, Tim Richter has spoken on this. People working in housing across Canada will understand who he is. I recognize that the parliamentary secretary knows him as well. He has indicated that we won't prevent and reduce chronic homelessness in Canada without Housing First. Removing the Housing First investment target could be risky because communities may drift away from the Housing First investment, harming efforts to reduce homelessness.

Finally, the last quote is from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, which:

strongly objects to the government policy decision to remove the (65%) Housing First investment target.... Reaching Home leaves open the door for federal funding to be diverted toward homelessness interventions that are neither evidence-based nor best practice.

I just wanted to bring up that information, because we can sit here and talk about what a great deal the government is doing on the national housing strategy, and applaud, and all of these kinds of things, but we have people on the ground who face homelessness every day, who face clients every day, and these are the reports we are getting back.

Last night I appeared on a panel on CTV. We were talking about the emerging crisis that we have with immigration and the costs. The PBO indicated that over the two-year period from July 2017 to March 2019, if the government stays on track, it will spend $1.1 billion.

We really need to concentrate on the fact that the government has no true policies for the people who come into this country and does not have a plan on how we are going to assist these new immigrants.

Here is a quote from Toronto, which has seen a spike in refugee claimants and shelters this year, with average nightly numbers climbing to 3,191 this month, more than six times the level of two years ago.

Toronto Mayor John Tory has issued increasingly urgent calls for additional funding from federal and provincial governments. He says 41% of those in the city's already-strained shelter system are now refugee claimants. By November, this year is projected to hit 54%. As a result, for the first time the city is temporarily housing people in student residences at two community colleges, spaces that are filling up fast.

With yesterday's PBO report, we recognize that the cost of new immigrants into this country is basically on average what a minimum wage worker would make over the course of one year. That is what the Liberal government is spending because it does not have a plan. I wish it would start listening to what Canadians are saying.

I want to turn now to a positive note. The social finance fund was mentioned in the mini budget last week. Although it was supposed to be an economic statement, we saw a heck of a lot of spending included in it. The fall economic statement would make available $755 million on a cash basis over the next 10 years to establish a social finance fund, with an additional $50 million over two years in an investment and readiness stream. This is something our government started studying in 2011 and 2013. In 2015, it was in our federal budget. Therefore, this is something the Conservatives do believe in. However, part of the problem I have with this is where is the Liberal government going to find this money? We are already talking about an $80 billion dollar deficit, and now we are talking about what we are going to do next. That is one of my concerns.

We also have to remind ourselves that with 10-year programs we have to see where that money is being spent. If we are talking about social programs being financed through this social finance fund to help meet urgent needs, including homelessness, this money is once again back loaded and does not appear for the first two years in this mandate. That is really important. This is money that would be spent after the 2019 election. Like everything else the government proposes, it would be spent after the election so that the government can include it in its platform for its four-year mandate. These are huge concerns to me as well.

The child benefit is something the Liberals constantly talk about. They say that the Canada child benefit has lifted 300,000 children out of poverty. Anything that we can do to help our children, we will always support, but we also have to make sure that what government is doing is on the right track. Part of my concern is that if the Liberals are saying they are doing all of these things and we see less than half a per cent decrease in child poverty, we have a problem.

The current government is truly on a poor track. It has a poor track record, and its program performance is horrendous. We support measures that purport to reduce poverty and provide a fulsome approach. We oppose the carbon tax because we know it will be one more cost for these low-income people. The government is coming out with one of its policies, and it is not a climate change policy. It is an economic and social engineering policy. There is nothing there that says what will happen. I cannot take a supposed train that would not go from my house to my workplace. It does not exist. Like any other consumer, I will be in my automobile, just like the many other Canadians who do not have public transit. We will be in our automobiles and will be gassing up and paying 11 cents more a litre because of the government. I applaud the Government of Ontario for banning this ridiculous carbon tax.

We have something that has come out with 87 different programs in it. In the last few months, we have seen job losses: at GM this week, 2,800 jobs have been lost; at Bombardier, 5,000 jobs have been lost; and we cannot forget about the people in Alberta. One hundred and ten thousand jobs in Alberta have been lost because of the Prime Minister and Bill C-69 and because the ridiculous policies I have cited. The Liberals look at what they want, but they do not look at what Canadians want and need, and they need jobs.

On this entire poverty reduction strategy, how come we are not asking about how we can stay competitive in Canada, how we can retain jobs here in Canada and how we can create jobs in Canada? We do not see that discussed in Bill C-87. We know there are many ways of looking at poverty, and there are many different pillars. One of the pillars is a strong fiscal position and an economy that is creating jobs. We do not see job creation. If we saw job creation we would not have 110,000 people in Alberta losing their jobs. If the government were worried about poverty reduction it would be putting in place initiatives that keep people working in Canada and not putting them in the employment insurance program. Employment insurance is not the option Canadian workers are looking for. They are looking to go to work every day. They are looking at putting bread and butter on the table for their families. Their job is to go out there and get a job as a family member to be able to do that for their families.

Bill C-87 is gutless. It is worse than what Seinfeld would say. It is “filled with nothing.” If they are really talking about helping people out of poverty, where are the guts?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 29th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


See context

Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, we need Bill C-69 for industry to know before they start a project what the rules and regulations are, and to make sure that when they are investing, the rules are clear.

The previous government would play games and have no record to show for it. In 2006, basically, 90% of our oil went to the United States. In 2015, guess what? Ninety per cent of our oil was still going to the United States. We will take no lessons on how to do it from the previous government.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 29th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals killed northern gateway and energy east, the two pipelines to new markets, and they failed to get a single shovel in the ground for Trans Mountain. They created this crisis.

Now, the Liberals are passing the “no more pipelines” Bill C-69, which will do exactly what that name says. It will make sure that no new pipeline is ever proposed or built in Canada again. Premiers, the private sector, economists and experts all agree.

If anything the member just said were true, he would scrap Bill C-69 today. Will he do it? Will he get rid of the “no more pipelines” Bill C-69, yes or no?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 29th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, on June 17, 2014, Conservatives approved the northern gateway pipeline to export to the Asia-Pacific.

On November 29, 2016, the Liberal Prime Minister cancelled the northern gateway pipeline. He had a choice, but he killed that pipeline outright, which could have prevented the current price discount on Canadian oil.

When the Liberals were elected, three companies planned to build pipelines in Canada. The Liberals chased them all away.

Will the Liberals immediately withdraw their “no more pipelines” Bill C-69?

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 29th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, the member's question goes right to the heart of what I hear when I knock on doors and what I hear in my constituency office when I am back in Calgary Rocky Ridge. Men and women want the financial security that comes with having a well-paying, steady job.

My riding had thousands of high-paying, high-skilled, innovative jobs. Men and women in my riding have worked in the energy industry on the construction side, in engineering and geology and in the manufacturing of components. We have it all in Calgary and Alberta. All of them have been devastated by the events of the last number of years.

Bill C-69 may make it impossible for any pipeline to ever be built in this country. We see the way the government has bungled every pipeline that has come up for public debate, whether it was northern gateway, energy east or the Trans Mountain expansion, which it promised would be under construction during this past construction season but has not happened.

Men and women want to be able to provide for their families and have financial security for their families, and for that they need jobs and economic management, low taxes, a strong economy and investment in Canada.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 29th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak to the government's budget implementation bill. It is a very long bill, unprecedented in its length in terms of Canadian parliamentary history, despite promises to the contrary from the government.

There are many different aspects and themes that one could dig into. I am going to focus my remarks on what I see as five dominant debates that have emerged around this budget. I will share some thoughts on each of those five areas.

I want to speak about the government's carbon tax and associated debates about the issue of climate change and how we should respond.

I want to address deficits. The current government's massive deficit is relatively without precedent in peacetime and in times without a global economic downturn.

I want to discuss some of the debates around poverty, equity and how we can and should be responding to those very real issues.

I will speak about the energy sector and pipelines.

Finally, I want to address the government's media bailout. It has been interesting observing the debate around the media bailout and having conversations with the people I know in the press. I will contend very strongly that our position, opposing the bailout, is the fundamentally pro-media position. We recognize the importance of strong, independent media, and there is a legitimate discussion about what can be done that establishes conditions for the financial success of the media.

However, the way in which the government has approached this, whereby the media are dependent on the evaluations of a government-appointed panel, makes the media very vulnerable in terms of perceptions of lacking independence. They will be vulnerable to the kinds of challenges that naturally arise when they have been put in a position of having to come to a government-appointed body for dollars. I will speak more to that in a few minutes.

The first issue I want to address is that of the carbon tax. We have a government that does not want to have a debate around the effectiveness of the carbon tax as a tool. The Liberals will accuse anybody who does not agree with their chosen policy mechanism of somehow being not serious about responding to the challenge of climate change.

I sincerely believe that we need to respond to the challenge of climate change, and that we need to do it in a way that is effective, which means not using the climate change issue as an excuse for imposing new taxes on Canadians. Let me make a few points about that.

The first point is a historical one. Let us look at the records of the past Conservative government and the current Liberal one, as well as at the record of the previous Liberal government, by way of a contrast.

A previous Liberal government, under Chrétien and Martin, signed the Kyoto protocol, yet greenhouse gas emissions went up significantly during that period. Our Conservative government proposed binding, sector-by-sector, intensity-based regulatory targets. In other words, they did not penalize companies for increasing their output, but sought to regulate in a way that enhanced the efficiency of our production here in Canada.

In the long term, those kinds of measures would ensure and indeed increase our competitiveness. They would also ensure that we were part of effectively responding to the challenge of climate change.

The objective record of greenhouse gas emissions under the previous government shows that emissions went down. It was the first government in Canadian history under which emissions went down. In response to that, people like my friend from Spadina—Fort York will praise the record of the Kathleen Wynne Liberals, which is not as popular in Ontario as he might wish it to be.

However, across different jurisdictions we see that in every single Canadian jurisdiction, emissions under the Conservative government either went down, or they went up by less than they had under the previous Liberal government. Although the member for Spadina—Fort York might not want it to be true, he must recognize that under the previous Conservative government, progress was achieved in terms of the issue of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions in every single jurisdiction across this country.

That was done with an approach that emphasized binding sector-by-sector regulations but also ensured that individuals had the capital they needed to make investments in these kinds of improvements.

Rather than a punitive approach, like the carbon tax which punishes people, we had things like the home renovation tax credit, which ensured that people who wanted to make energy innovation investments in their own homes had the tax advantage in the process of doing so. That empowered people to engage with an issue that I think many people want to engage with, rather than the punitive approach adopted by the Liberal government.

What have we seen from the government? Upon taking office, the Liberals decided they would take the punitive approach, that they would impose new taxes on Canadians. Make no mistake that this approach is designed to raise revenue for the federal government. The GST is consistently being charged on top of the carbon tax. The GST, as everyone knows, is a federal tax. The imposition of the carbon tax in association with the GST means that this tax is designed to and will increase revenues for the federal government.

It is a punitive approach. It is a negative approach. It is a taxation-oriented revenue approach that is imposed on all Canadians. Because it is a point-of-sale tax, it is particularly regressive. We know that consumption taxes are more likely to hit those who are struggling economically. Even the natural regressivity of a sales tax was not enough for the government, which decided on top of that to provide an additional benefit for Canada's largest emitters.

It makes one wonder how sincere the government is in its rhetoric. The Liberals will extol the virtues of a carbon tax, yet they give a break to the largest emitters. The Liberals say these large emitters will really struggle to pay the carbon tax and it might hurt us economically. However, they are completely indifferent to the suffering this imposes on small and medium-sized businesses and to the suffering this imposes on individual consumers.

It especially hurts low-income people. Without the benefit of things like the home renovation tax credit, without some of the positive, constructive policies we had in place before and without things like the transit tax credit, which was an environmental measure that benefited people who were using public transit, without those kinds of measures, we are in a situation under this government where many people may not be able to make those kinds of investments that would allow them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

This underlines the failure of a punitive approach instead of a constructive approach. Our party believes that through constructive regulations and supporting innovation and not through punishing people we can work collaboratively for environmental improvements that do not hurt the economy. That is what we saw previously.

I would just note parenthetically that whenever we talk about the issue of how greenhouse gas emissions went down under the previous government, members on the other side will always say that was only because of the global recession. However, they never bring up the global recession in the context of deficits, which I will talk about next. When they want to complain about the fact that deficits were run under the previous government, they mysteriously forget that there was a global recession, but then when they are trying to explain away the real progress that was made under the previous government on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions, they are happy to talk about the fact that there was a global economic downturn.

The reality is that Canada was relatively less affected by the global economic downturn because of prudent policies that were pursued by the previous government in the lead-up to that. Canada was relatively less affected and our emissions still went down; whereas other parts of the world were more affected and yet global emissions went up. It is simply not logical to say that greenhouse gas emissions went down only because of the global economic downturn, because Canada was outperforming the rest of the world in terms of environmental improvements as well as the economic situation relative to the rest of the world. That very much contrasts with what we see under the Liberal government.

I want to speak now to the discussion about deficits. Let us be very clear that we are dealing with a significant dissonance between what the government promised in the last election and what it is saying today.

The government promised three deficits which would be a maximum of $10 billion and then in the final fiscal year, which is the one upcoming, the budget would be balanced. However, the government has articulated absolutely no plan to balance the budget ever.

It is great to see young people watching the debate today. I know they will have to pay for the spending of the government long into their future, as a result of the fact that the government has no plan to balance the budget and is spending money today that those young people will have to pay back tomorrow. At the very least, it is a broken promise.

How do members of the government respond to the reality that they broke a promise? The previous speaker, the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, talked about when they came into office, they started to take a look at the situation. Maybe the Liberals should have started to take a look at the situation before they wrote their platform. The fiscal situation is quite clear in the reports coming out from the government, in terms of all the financial data that is publicly available. It is not as if there is any surprise in the fiscal situation.

The Prime Minister made commitments that he said were set in stone, yet he broke those commitments as soon as he came to office. The Liberals have to explain why they brought one spending plan to Canadians in the election and delivered a completely different spending plan as soon as they were elected to government. Beyond the question of broken promises, it is hard for me to understand how anyone who claims to care about their children and the next generation would impose on them the burden of paying for the benefits we enjoy today, plus interest.

Sometimes we hear members across the way raise the spectre of austerity. Let us be clear that the worst cases of austerity are those that we have seen in countries which have had no choice as a result of a debt crisis. When governments spend without a plan of ever balancing the budget, it causes a situation where the most severe form of austerity is forced on them whether they like it or not. What goes up ultimately must come down.

What we advocate then is having a plan to control spending, that is, to moderate the growth of spending in such a way as to balance the budget, not to dramatically increase spending beyond government revenue. It is a little bit absurd to suggest that any call for spending control or any call for balance will somehow be austere. It is a grievous misuse of the word “austerity”, as if to imply that we only have two choices, austerity on the one hand or out-of-control spending on the other. I actually think we can pursue a middle way, which is prudent measured spending that recognizes fiscal realities, while still investing as much as possible in the future in social programs but in a way that ensures that those social programs will be sustainable.

Members across the way know that if one spends consistently more than one has, or makes promises as the Kathleen Wynne Liberals did that are completely unbudgeted with no plan to pay for them, then yes, people are going to be disappointed when those things cannot be delivered. However, it is a result of overspending. It is a result of out-of-control debt and deficits. Then subsequent generations will have to pay not only for their own needs, but they will also have to pay down the debt and interest on the consumption of previous generations.

We propose a fiscal policy that avoids the need to pay massive interest and instead is prudent and measured. It is one in which when we make spending commitments to people, we do so in the context of a balanced budget so that they can have the certainty that those programs will be there for the future.

What we see from the Liberal government are these branded plans, these national strategies that often involve most of the spending in the latter years of those programs, but they have no realistic fiscal plan of actually delivering on. It is a grievous problem. It is one that will negatively affect the next generation and the most vulnerable. Inevitably, the government is promising things that it will not be able to deliver. I think that is a good segue into making a few comments about the government's approach to the issue of poverty.

The budget implementation act proposes to legislate goals, legislate the hopes and aspirations of policy-makers. Might I humbly submit, that is not going to provide very much confidence and reassurance to those who are living in poverty. What makes much more sense are concrete policies that would benefit the most vulnerable.

I have already spoken about how the carbon tax disproportionately impacts those who are most vulnerable in terms of being forced to pay more and not getting the same holidays that the large emitters get.

The government legislates goals. It spends half a million dollars developing a logo for an anti-poverty organization, yet it does not pursue the kinds of policies that we pursued that help the most vulnerable.

With respect to homelessness, the Conservatives invested significantly in housing first. We raised the base personal exemption and lowered the lowest marginal tax rate. We also cut the GST, which is the one tax that everybody pays.

Our approach was to recognize the need to help the most vulnerable but also to understand that helping the most vulnerable should not be an excuse to increase the size of government. Big government does not benefit those who need help the most. Constantly growing government benefits well-connected insiders, as we have seen consistently from the policies of the Liberal government.

The Liberal government could consider following the positive track record of the previous government. It could provide tax relief through raising the base personal exemption, through lowering the lowest marginal rate, through cutting the GST, through providing relief on the carbon tax to those who need that support the most.

There is nothing progressive about the government's approach to policy which gives huge amounts of money in corporate welfare, in payouts to companies like Bombardier. Bombardier even said it did not need the money, and then used some of that money to give benefits to its executives.

Nothing helps the most vulnerable when the government subsidizes CEOs through policies like the supercluster. Instead we could have a competitive tax regime. We could cut taxes for the most vulnerable. We could establish the conditions by which people could keep more of their own money and use more of their own money to meet their own needs.

Instead, the government uses climate change, uses poverty, uses whatever excuse it can come up with as part of its insatiable plan to increase the size of government and to increase government spending.

I am going to try to hit my last two points in the brief time I have left.

When it comes to our energy resources, the government spent a huge amount of public money to buy a pipeline with no plan to get that pipeline built. Under the previous government, four pipelines were built, some of which did increase our ability to move resources to tidewater.

The government has no plan to proceed with pipelines. It brings in legislation like Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 that would significantly hurt our ability to move forward in terms of pipelines, while, through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, it is paying a Chinese-controlled bank, an instrument of Chinese foreign policy, to build pipelines overseas. Its justification is that Canadian firms might get some of that work.

I have visited the headquarters of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in Beijing. It told us that regardless of whether Canada is a member of that bank or not, Canadian firms would still have the same ability to bid for work through that bank.

This talking point for justifying sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars to China to build pipelines in Azerbaijan and other places instead of building pipelines here by getting out of the way of the private sector holds absolutely no water.

Finally, on the point of the independence of the media, $600 million of taxpayers' money is going to a bailout of the media. Leading voices in the media have talked about how problematic this would be, because in order for the media to be strong, independence of the media is required. It also requires the perception of independence.

Journalists recognize that the perception of government handing over significant amounts of money through a process that fundamentally can be controlled by government makes them so much more vulnerable to misperceptions and criticism. We need to have media that are independent of government and that can do their job well.

This is an attack on the independence of the media through the government's attempt to control the process of allocation of funds. It is a significant threat to the media's independence more so than we have seen in the recent history of this country and more so certainly than the odd verbal criticism here and there.

For these and many other reasons that I do not have time to go into because it is such a large bill, I will be opposing this legislation.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 29th, 2018 / 10:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the debate on this bill at third reading.

In the next 20 minutes what I hope to do is to lay out a case as to why the government has failed to look after the interests of the middle class, has failed to look after the interests of upper energy workers, upper energy families, and then draw attention to a clause found in the BIA, this omnibus piece of legislation, that I think is deserving of an amendment. Mr. Speaker, I am going to request that two minutes before my time is up, I be given notice so that I can move an amendment. Before that I would like to provide commentary as to why I am moving it.

This BIA is the second bill to implement provisions in the budget. The government has added more deficits and more accumulated debt in the last three non-recession years than I think at any time in modern history by any government. The prior government had a great recession to deal with. Governments before that in the 1990s had to deal with the debt wall they had hit and simply could not borrow more money. Difficult choices were made then. The government is basically laying the groundwork for those difficult choices to come in the future. Future governments will be constrained by difficult choices they will have to make.

We all know that the debts accumulated today are the taxes of tomorrow. If we value social programs, if we value retirement pension plans, if we value the services provided by the government, we have to ensure the proper management of government finances and that is not what we are seeing from the government side of the House. It is not what we see in this piece of omnibus legislation.

At the Standing Committee on Finance which I sit on, multiple members, even the members of the New Democratic Party, brought up the fact that the government repeatedly broke promises to not introduce more omnibus legislation. I note that twice already the Speaker has ruled and has divided up the budget bill, and taken out parts that violate the rule that measures found in the budget must be connected to measures found in the budget implementation act. The two cannot be separated.

The budget is three times the size of what was promised in 2015. Canadians made a choice in 2015. We can agree to disagree on the wisdom of that but they made a choice. They were promised multiple series of measures. The budget was supposed to be balanced by 2019, and it will not be. In fact, there are deficits and new debt as far as the eye can see. The government cannot give us in this chamber, at committee, or in public a fixed date of when the budget will be balanced.

We know that the Department of Finance has produced numbers showing that 2045 is likely the date when the budget will balance itself. Hopefully, it will not come to that and we will find some way to balance it before then.

An often-stated goal of the government is to ensure that we have the best GDP growth in the G7, the best GDP growth in the OECD. Different metrics are used to look at it. I am actually looking at OECD data right now. When looking at the data, we see that we have the weakest growth in North America. In 2019, we will be behind Mexico and the United States. In 2018, we are behind Mexico and the United States. The farther back we go, the more often we see that is the case. Actually, there is only one year in the last few years where we had stronger growth than they did. As well, when we project it into the future, that weakness in growth continues.

Our closest competitors, the places to which we are losing manufacturing jobs, the places to which we are losing energy jobs, the places to which we are losing auto jobs, are having stronger growth. That relates to the policies of the government: high carbon taxes, higher taxes in general, uncertainty in the investment climate, $78 billion lost in LNG development. That all adds to an epic failure of leadership on behalf of the government.

This second budget implementation act continues that failure. It continues a record of failure.

In my home province of Alberta we have lived it for three years now, dealing with a government that has as its sole intent the phase-out of the oil sands. Initially, when the Prime Minister said it, he said it was a gaffe, a mistake. He repeated the same thing in Paris at France's legislative assembly. He repeated it in French of course, hoping that we would not know what he had said, but we do. It is twice now he has said it.

There is a tanker ban on the west coast. It is a false tanker ban because it does not apply to the south coast of British Columbia.

Bill C-69 is regulatory legislation that would ensure that no major energy infrastructure project ever gets built again in this country. I am sure a government caucus member will stand and say I am wrong, that I have made a mistake, that a $40-billion LNG project is going ahead. What Liberals will not tell us is that LNG project was approved in 2012 and the recent decision was a business decision to proceed, but wait: The contract says it is exempt from the carbon tax. It is exempt from many of the measures introduced both by the federal government and the B.C. provincial government, so it makes business sense to proceed.

That is telling. It is telling that the decisions being made by governments over the past three years are costing jobs and investment and only when they are removed does private business proceed with construction and provide the much-needed, much-wanted middle-class energy jobs.

That is also telling of the business climate we live in. We had an emergency debate yesterday on the plight of energy workers across Canada. Energy jobs are fleeing this country. Alberta is often called Texas north. I prefer to think of Texas as Alberta south as so many families from Alberta are there. They are just trying to make ends meet. They are trying to pay their mortgages, send their kids to good schools and save for their retirement. They will go where they need to go.

They have skill sets that it took Alberta a generation to attract and develop. It was not easy to convince people to come to Alberta. Typically, when people fly from eastern Canada to western Canada, they fly over Alberta and head to the beautiful west coast. To convince people that it is worth staying in our province, they have to be provided great benefits, great pay and a great place to live to raise their families. We have done so, but it took us 25 years to get there. In the span of three years, the Liberal government is robbing an entire generation's worth of work that was done to make Alberta the most productive and best place to raise a family.

That is one of the reasons I moved to Alberta. It was for work. I know that is the same reason everybody living in my area, the suburbs of Calgary, came to Alberta. We all became Albertans because of the work ethic that we bring, the can-do attitude. That is why there is a very common slogan in Alberta now, which the Prime Minister heard last Thursday, “build that pipe”. We should probably replace the provincial slogan with “build that pipe”. Whatever it takes we should build that pipe.

The government's solution has been to expropriate Kinder Morgan and take it into its administration for $4.5 billion of taxpayer money that is now being used by Kinder Morgan to finance pipeline construction in Texas. I do not know in what world that is good policy-making, but it is not. Why are we financing our competitors? It simply does not make any sense.

The government uses numbers to crow about its GDP growth. We should be looking toward the future. The government and government caucus members, especially in the past year, have been really interested in litigating the past. It is something they like to often engage in. Liberals are in government. Government caucus members defend three years of policy decisions that have led to a point where the oil price differential on Western Canadian Select and synthetic crude oil is at a record high.

I worked for the Chamber of Commerce years ago, almost 10 years ago now, and there was an oil price differential back then as well. It was about $15 or $20. It kind of fluctuated. Back then, people talked about how big an issue it was, how we needed to fix it and make good decisions for the future to ensure that pipeline capacity matches expected production growth. That is what many companies in the private sector were trying to do. They were trying to figure out where capital could be expended in the most profitable way possible to maximize their equity return in the most responsible way possible.

Many people in my riding who are now unemployed or underemployed used to work in quality assurance ensuring that pipelines were built safely and in a way that ensured the absolute minimum amount of risk to the population around them. Most Albertans have pipelines in their backyards. They know where they are. There are utility corridors all over the province because this is what Alberta has a competitive advantage in.

I will now move to the clause I mentioned before and the substance of the amendment I will be moving at the end of my speaking time. During debate on budget implementation act, no. 2, clause 470 was brought up. The clause deals with the Canada Labour Code and provides for leave. The member for Foothills proposed an amendment at committee to provide 12 weeks of bereavement leave for parents dealing with the death of a child or the perinatal death of a child. That amendment was voted down by the government.

To head off possible arguments against the amendment I will be moving at the end of my speech, there are three main arguments I heard that I want to elaborate on and explain why they are not good arguments to vote against providing 12 weeks of bereavement leave.

First, an argument was made that there are other types of leave being amended within the BIA. A good argument could be made as to why we are doing it in this way, in the BIA, in a budgetary implementation bill when we are amending the Canada Labour Code. I believe there are over 850 pages in this bill, and we may sometimes wonder why it is being done in this way.

One of the arguments was that there is another type of leave which people could be eligible for. Mothers are allowed 17 weeks of maternity leave now. Within that 17 weeks, if their child passes away they can take the full length of the leave as bereavement leave. When I asked officials whether this applied to fathers, they said it did not. Fathers do not get this bereavement leave.

Fathers only get five days, which is consistent with the Canada Labour Code. They get five days, three of which are paid and two of which are unpaid. I thought this was patently unfair. In fact, I asked officials what happens in the case of 17 weeks plus one day. These are very difficult cases, where parents have lost a child, for example, from SIDS, a pre-existing condition or a rare condition. Many members will know that I lost my youngest daughter in August, so this issue really speaks to me. I thought this was a much rarer issue in Canadian society than it actually is. Fathers get three paid days and two unpaid days. This argument that there are other mechanisms to use is not a good one in this particular case.

As I mentioned, we moved an amendment at committee. We had the debate. There was some willingness at least to hear the argument. There is a great Yiddish proverb which speaks to the situation we find ourselves in, “From success to failure is one step; from failure to success is a long road.” My amendment will be proposing a long road to get to success.

Another argument advanced at committee was that there was a motion under consideration at a different committee which considered the situation that parents, mothers and fathers who have lost a child, find themselves in. Motion No. 110 is at the HUMA committee. It does not deal specifically with bereavement leave in the Canada Labour Code, which was perhaps an error in the argument being used at committee to provide a reason for why we should vote down an amendment to provide equality to both parents, mothers and fathers, with 12 weeks of leave.

It is a good argument that work being done by a committee of the House, with a report that will come some day, hopefully before the election, should not stop us from doing the right thing right now when presented with an opportunity to do so in the BIA. The BIA is going to deal with different pieces of legislation, from the Canada Labour Code to budgetary measures, to spending announcements, to changes to the accelerated capital cost allowance, to changes to export and import permits. Therefore, why not deal with this too? We are already making modifications to it. We are making small amendments to it.

It is not a good argument to say that another committee is taken with the issue when it is not actually this specific issue it is reviewing. It is reviewing it in a broader sense. It is looking specifically at employment insurance. Although important, that committee's work should not preclude us from making a decision in this chamber that parents are deserving of equality. That is a very important concept here.

Another argument advanced at committee was that we did not have all the facts of the impact that introducing up to 12 weeks of bereavement leave would have compared to 17 weeks in maternity benefits being offered, which specifically applies to mothers, as I mentioned. Again, I found this argument unconvincing.

I offered at the time a subamendment. We could have delayed clause-by-clause consideration of the BIA before it came back to this chamber to give ourselves an extra day so that the Department of Justice lawyers could provide us with an opinion. I think it is not a good argument until we have all the facts before us.

As opposition members, and I am sure many New Democrats will agree, we are saddled with these omnibus pieces of legislation, and they have gotten longer and more complex. I see some nodding heads. Not only are we now sitting down, and our staff is sitting down, to compare what is in the budget implementation act and what is in the budget to make the connection between the two so that we can then rise in this chamber and explain why certain parts do not belong in this particular budget implementation act and could be separated out so we could go into the details, the specifics, clause by clause, section by section, but on top of all that, the government used cloture, a guillotine motion, to send the bill to the finance committee as quickly as possible, limiting debate in the House of Commons on the generalities at second reading.

The government then produced a programming motion, a guillotine or closure motion, at committee to force us to consider it expeditiously within just a few weeks, which included a constituency week. There was very little time for the finance committee to actually give the bill a fulsome, in-depth review.

Of course, we pick and choose the portions that are most interesting to us. The most interesting to the Conservatives is the case of bereavement leave and the Canada Labour Code provisions, because there is an issue of unfairness that is embedded right now. That will continue if we do not propose an amendment, which I mentioned I will be proposing, to fix this issue so that fathers would be provided with the same equitable benefits mothers are provided. More broadly, I think it will give us an opportunity to get at all the facts and have an opportunity to have officials return to committee and explain to us in a more fulsome way how it would work.

As I mentioned, we had officials at committee, and they provided some information, but not all of it. An argument advanced by the government caucus members was that, in fact, we did not have all the facts and therefore we should not proceed but should let another committee of the House do some other work on a related issue not specific to this particular one. However, if it is found in the BIA, my argument is that we should deal with it. It should not be that whatever the government proposes in a budgetary bill simply passes and we should just accept the fact that it will be carried forward.

This has happened before in the last few years. The Senate actually had serious misgivings about a specific portion that dealt with and affected Desjardins Caisse populaire, so that measure was eventually dropped by the government. Therefore, it is not unheard of for the government to accept amendments to slow down and have reconsiderations.

I think it would be a wise decision in this situation to offer mothers and fathers, especially fathers, in this case, an opportunity to take advantage of bereavement leave of up to 12 weeks. This would be for federally regulated employees, of course. We know that in the private sector, employers offer varying types of leave.

Having presented the case, I believe the amendment I am proposing is reasonable. It will give us time to reconsider the matter. I think the House, in its infinite wisdom, can provide the committee with this type of direction. Therefore, I move, seconded by the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "That" and substituting the following: Bill C-86, A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures, be not now read a third time, but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Finance for the purpose of reconsidering Clause 470 with the view to ensuring that every employee, regardless of gender, be entitled to and shall be granted a leave of absence from employment of up to 12 weeks if the employee is the parent of a child who has died, including in cases of perinatal death.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, I will agree with the member for Malpeque on one thing. Bill C-69 does provide certainty for the energy sector; certain death. That is what every industry leader has said about creating the most politicized process, which is indeterminate in length with no particular reason as to why, outside of to kill the energy sector.

I stood and I said all the things the government needed to do to create certainty in the sector for the people in my riding who were out of work and for the investors who needed to invest in these projects to make them go forward. The government will not admit responsibility or failure. It needs to do that. It needs to repeal these bills and it needs to bring back certainty and stability in Canada's energy sector.

I will not apologize for being good at my job.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11:45 p.m.


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Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I have not been here for whole night, but I hear a lot of politics and a lot of solutions. That last speech goes to the politics. Everything the Liberals have done is bad. It did not mention what the Conservatives had done. That is what the member tried to say.

This crisis has been a long time coming. This government has worked hard to try to get pipelines in place. I do agree with one thing the member said. She said to make it more certain and more stable with respect to where we were going with the energy industry and with pipelines. In fact, Bill C-69 is designed to find the balance between the environment and the energy industry and give that certainty for the future.

I am pleased to have been in Alberta and across the country as chair of the finance committee. I have heard a lot from the energy industry in Alberta. It does need that stability and that certainty. I agree with that point. However, the only way we will get there is to find solutions in this place rather than playing this partisan political game, which comes as much from that member as anyone in the House.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, the challenge that we face today in the energy sector is very simple. It is a question of stability and a question of certainty, both for the people who are making the investment decisions to invest in production in Canada's energy sector, and the people whom I talk to every day, who have selected me to be their voice in Ottawa. It is a question of certainty, and it is a question of stability.

The colleagues opposite who are laughing at this tonight should give their heads a shake. When people are sitting around a corporate board table and trying to determine whether or not they should spend several billion dollars on a major capital investment, they look at several determinants. They look at labour availability, political stability, market conditions, and all sorts of things. They make a determination based on a set of information available at the time, but they have to be certain that the information is right and that it is going to stay stable.

If there is no certainty in an area, workers who are trying to decide whether or not to stay in a region, or whether or not to sell their house, or what sort of purchases to make, or how to make ends meet, are going to make a decision one way or another.

The problem we have seen with the government over the last three years is the question of instability. When we started to see a shift in the supply side model of energy products in North America, as the Americans started to come on stream with more energy supply—and of course we should spend a bunch of time talking about the demand side model internationally as well—what the government should have done at that point in time, when they the Liberals came into government in 2015, was to do everything in its power to make the situation more certain and stable for the workers in Canada's energy sector so that companies could stay and prosper in Canada, and for those who seek to invest in Canada's energy sector, to do the same.

What does the government need to do to rectify the decisions it has made that have led to instability, so that we can see projects built from here on in?

First of all, the government has to scrap its carbon tax. It creates investment instability in the energy sector and is a burden on energy sector workers. There is no economic modelling to show that it will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because for the most part carbon in Canada is price inelastic.

The second thing that it needs to do is to repeal its cancellation, during a major downturn in the Canadian economy, of the oil and gas exploration drilling tax credit. It needs to reverse that decision that it made.

The government needs to reverse the tanker ban that it put in place.

The government also put in place a five-year moratorium on northern oil and gas exploration, giving the territorial governments less than two hours' notice. That caused instability. It needs to reverse that decision it made.

The government also need to reverse the decisions it made around the methane regulation framework that it put in place. That is an example of the instability the government caused when it knew that the energy sector was going through a downturn.

The government needs to scrap and do everything possible to stop the passage of Bill C-69, which it has tabled. That bill creates instability. It creates a new regulator and an environmental assessment process with indeterminate timelines. If people are sitting at a corporate board table and trying to make a decision whether or not to invest, it is not about just getting to a yes, but about getting to a yes or no within a defined, clear set of timeframes. Bill C-69 completely undermines that.

Any investor who is looking at investing in Canada's energy sector looks at Bill C-69 and says, “No way.” The government put that in place in a time of economic downturn, and it needs to scrap that.

The Liberals need to scrap Bill C-48, which put in place the unilateral imposition of a ban on using B.C.'s north coast for oil and gas exports. They put that in place. They need to reverse that.

Bill C-86 gives cabinet the authority to unilaterally shut down the shipping of natural resources by water anywhere in Canada, including offshore oil and gas. That is instability that the sector looks at. They need to repeal that bill that they put in place during a major downturn in Canada's energy sector.

They need to repeal Bill C-68, because it dramatically increases the red tape on project development by adding a multi-month review under the navigable waters act for any water on a project site that is large enough to float a kayak. It adds instability. It is unnecessary red tape. They need to repeal this bill that they put in place during a major energy sector downturn.

They need to repeal Bill C-88, which politicizes oil and gas development in the Far North, by providing cabinet in Ottawa the unilateral power to shut down oil and gas development in the Far North.

As well, they need to stop the proposed fuel standards that they are proposing to unveil before Christmas that will equate to a carbon tax of $228 per tonne of fuel, which would almost certainly mean the end of the oil and gas sector.

They also need to apologize for standing here and applauding Barack Obama after doing nothing to prevent the veto or speak against the veto of the Keystone XL pipeline.

They need to apologize for the fact that they did nothing when they allowed Denis Coderre to dump millions of litres of raw sewage in Quebec and say that energy east was not in the best interest of Canada. Instead they stood up here and agreed with him. The speech by the member for Calgary Centre was such a disgrace. He said he was going to pound on the table for a pipeline. Where was he when Dennis Coderre was doing that? He got kicked out of cabinet. He was our supposed voice in cabinet for Calgary who did nothing to stop any of these bills.

They politically vetoed the northern gateway pipeline. In a political process, the government overturned a years-long regulatory review of the northern gateway pipeline that had over 200 conditions on it that was set and ready to go. That created uncertainty and instability, and politicized a system during a downturn in the energy sector.

They need to invoke section 92.10(c) of the Constitution Act to bring the Trans Mountain pipeline completely into federal jurisdiction so that B.C. cannot obstruct its building out through permitting or other mechanisms in their jurisdiction right now.

Mr. Speaker, I am sharing my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock.

They need to start building the Trans Mountain pipeline. If what the Prime Minister said is true, and it is in the best interest of this country, why are the Liberals kicking the can down through a potential spring election window? If they are serious about it they should be building it out today. There should be shovels in the ground tonight.

The last thing they need to stop doing, for the love of all that is holy, is stop abdicating the responsibility for getting these policies right. Every time, they stand up here and say that it is Stephen Harper's fault. They had three years to get these projects done. With that litany of lists that are nowhere near complete, all they have done every step of the way is add uncertainty and instability for the investors in Canada's energy sector and for the workers in my community. All the people in my riding want to do is get back to work. Everything the government has done has been to abdicate responsibility and create instability.

The last thing they need to do is the Prime Minister needs to stop going overseas and telling his true agenda to the world, which is that he wants to phase out Canada's energy sector. If I was a worker in Canada's energy sector or if I was looking to invest in this, I would be saying that is a pretty clear policy. He has backed it up with action. Every single one of these bills and actions has been anti-energy sector.

None of the Liberals can stand up in this place and say they have done anything for Canada's energy sector. However, they can tonight by undertaking to repeal all of these bills and standing up and saying that they were wrong, that this stuff was wrong, that it created instability and the death of Canada's energy sector.

We are out of time. The Liberals need to build Trans Mountain. They need to get the shovels in the ground tonight, repeal these bills, and start being serious about one of Canada's most prosperous and stable industries in this country.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11 p.m.


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Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, on Monday night we debated in an emergency debate about the 2,500 people laid off in Oshawa. I appreciated the member's speech then, and I appreciate it again tonight.

There is nothing that would shut down investment in Alberta and investment in Canada like Bill C-69, according to a whole list of gas and oil people. It would shut down investment in jobs. Money would be leaving our province and country, and one report said it would be $100 billion, but what I have is $85 billion. We are seeing jobs leave, 100,000 in Alberta and a carbon tax coming in. There is the purchase of a pipeline that leaves those who would invest in the sector asking why they would invest, because the government is just going to take over, or the government is going to make it impossible for them to take the oil to tidewater. The government also banned shipping traffic on the west coast.

Maybe the member could fill us in a little more about the policy she talked about that is hindering job creation in this country.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague seemed to lay a lot of the blame for none of these pipelines getting built on the doorstep of environmental impact processes and regulations that are too difficult for these pipelines to pass. I know that she has the unique view here in the House from both sides. Does she not realize that these difficult processes that these pipelines are going through are the rather weak processes that the Conservatives dreamed up in the previous Parliament?

We have different views on this, but Bill C-69 has not passed yet. It is still in the Senate. I do not think it would change things much, despite what we hear from the Conservatives. However, what these pipelines have gone through in terms of assessment processes are the flawed processes that—

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11 p.m.


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Conservative

Leona Alleslev Conservative Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON

Mr. Speaker, obviously what my hon. colleague is referring to is when I was actually a member of Parliament as a Liberal, and I did not fully appreciate just how devastating Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 were, not only to Alberta but to the entire country. Therefore, I am very grateful to colleagues on this side of the House who have given me the opportunity to understand the complexity and why those were bad bills. I have no problem reconciling it, because I did not know what I knew then, and I am doing my very best to know what I know now and make amends.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 11 p.m.


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Liberal

Anthony Housefather Liberal Mount Royal, QC

Mr. Speaker, like my hon. colleague, I am a Quebecker. I come from a different region, but I also care very much about the people of Alberta.

I listened very carefully to a lot of the speeches tonight, and I am a little perturbed that so much of it was focused on blaming one side or the other for things that happened instead of looking at solutions.

I have heard a couple of solutions from my Conservative colleagues. They have talked about how horrible Bill C-48 is and how horrible Bill C-69 is, yet the hon. member voted in favour of both bills at all stages. How does she reconcile the opinions she has expressed tonight with her current verbiage?

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Exactly. Mr. Speaker, they did not buy it for a minute, because actions speak louder than words. The actions of the current government have shown over and over again that it is the one that created this pipeline differential crisis by not doing the things to ensure that our product could get to market. Albertans will not stand for it. Calgarians will not stand for it.

I am going to mention some quotes from stakeholders. This first one is very dear to me. It is from Nancy Southern, the CEO of ATCO. I am very proud to be on the Trilateral Commission with Nancy Southern. The ATCO AGM is run like clockwork. These incredible corporations in Calgary have rich histories and have solid ways of doing things. They are very gracious. They will go with the flow, so to speak, until they absolutely possibly no longer can. It was at this AGM, where I was so fortunate to be present, that Nancy Southern spoke these words: “How heartbreaking it is to see our wonderful resource-laden province so constrained by regulatory policy and politics of various dispositions.”

We could have heard a pin drop in that room, because everyone knew that Ms. Southern was speaking the truth. Thank goodness she was speaking the truth. She was not alone in the truth that she was speaking.

Despite the fact of who created this price differential crisis, and it was the Liberal government, it does not have to be this way. That is my message to Calgarians and Albertans: It does not have to be this way. There is another way.

What will a Conservative government do in 2019 when we come to power? We will repeal the Liberal carbon tax. We will repeal Bill C-69, the anti-pipeline bill. We will end the ban on shipping traffic on the north coast of British Columbia. We will enact legislation that will clarify the roles of proponents and governments that are involved in consultations. We will ensure that standing is given only to those with expertise or who are directly impacted by the project in order to end foreign-funded interference in regulatory hearings. We will provide certainty to investors on approval timelines and schedules. We will use the federal declaratory power to declare a major project for the general advantage of Canada under section 92.10 of the Constitution Act, 1867, where we deem it necessary for future projects.

I am saying that it does not have to be this way.

Here is the best news of all. Young people are getting the message. Yesterday, I had the absolute pleasure, along with our deputy leader, the member of Parliament for Milton, as well as our natural resources shadow minister, the member of Parliament for Lakeland, to meet with an incredible organization, a group of young people called the Young Pipeliners Association of Canada. I hope that Molly, Sarah, John and Tran are listening to this because we were listening to them yesterday. We want them to know that we hear them. We understand that they value this industry, that they understand and value the history of this industry, that they value their jobs, and that they value this sector as the future not just for Calgary, not just for Alberta, but for all of Canada. I hope the government will join these young people, and our party, the official opposition, the Conservative Party of Canada, in supporting this industry, in destroying Bill C-69, and in taking responsibility for this price differential crisis, because the Liberals created it.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

I am very sad to be here this evening. I am sorry that we have to have this debate once again.

It is certainly no secret that the last few years have been very hard in Alberta, not just for Calgarians but for all Albertans, and I would even say the nation, because the oil and gas sector is one that has a rich history of supplying jobs not only in Calgary where I was born and raised, not only in Alberta, but also right across this country. To use a term from Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate events brought us here today. It is a number of events that, I must admit, include those of the province, without question. The truth of the matter is that when we ask who created this price differential crisis, it was the Liberal government. It certainly had a lot to do with it.

I will mention some statistics that have been mentioned already this evening. As we know, the oil and gas sector has lost over $100 billion in investment and over 100,000 jobs. That is eight times the GDP and more jobs than the entire aerospace sector or five times the GDP and almost as many jobs as the entire auto sector. As I said, it is not just an Alberta crisis, it is a national crisis. The Canadian Energy Research Institute says that every job in Canadian upstream oil and gas creates two indirect and three induced jobs in other sectors across the country in other provinces. Every one job in the oil sands creates seven manufacturing jobs.

Another very disturbing fact is that a recent World Economic Forum report, which ranks countries based on a global competitiveness index, also reflects Canada's competitive disadvantage relative to the U.S. Canada ranks 12th out of 140 countries while the U.S. ranks first. I have a story directly related to this.

I was in the diplomatic corps prior to my job as a parliamentarian and, as such, I was very fortunate to be invited to an event in Calgary called U.S. Select, which the American ambassador to Canada attended. When I went to this event, it was terrifying because the American government, with much success, was luring away investment and jobs to the United States of America. That is not very hard to do at this time, unfortunately.

The Conservative government has an incredible track record of four pipelines, two of which increase coastal access. There is the TransCanada Keystone pipeline, Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, Kinder Morgan's Anchor Loop, increasing capacity to the west coast, as well as Enbridge's Line 9B reversal. Everyone knows the Liberals have killed two major pipelines: Enbridge's northern gateway pipeline, as well as TransCanada's energy east.

Who can forget the absolute horror of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which for us on this side of the House was like the plot to a bad horror film. Just when we thought it could not get any worse, it did. Every day we would think about the looming deadline and having to come up with something. Lo and behold, Canadians bought a pipeline. In this case, the butler did not do it. It was an ending we could not possibly have foreseen. As I said, it was like a plot to a bad horror movie.

Worse than that, Bill C-69, without question, in the minds of many Albertans and certainly in my mind, would kill the potential future of any energy projects going forward.

To add salt to the wound, the Prime Minister, the very individual who said he laments the existence of the tar sands, I believe is the term he used, had the actual nerve to show up in Calgary this week to try to play friendly and show that he is on the side of Albertans and Calgarians. I am afraid Calgarians know better.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, that member spoke about Syncrude and its great track record in the 1970s and 1980s. My grandfather was working for Syncrude at the time and he sure remembers the national energy program better than that member does.

What is really sad about this is that the member is sacrificing the interests of his own constituents and his province on the altar of his cabinet ambitions.

He voted against energy east. He voted against the Trans Mountain pipeline. He voted in favour of Bill C-69, the no pipelines bill. He voted in favour of Bill C-48, the tanker exclusion zone legislation. He talked about the court ruling with respect to that, but that does not justify his vote in favour of a permanent tanker exclusion zone that would prevent any pipeline, no matter how much consultation happened, from going through northern B.C. He refused to support the repeal of the Trans Mountain ruling.

Every time the member has a chance to stand up and vote in the House for his constituents, why does he consistently choose to vote with the Prime Minister instead of with the people who sent him here?

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Randy Boissonnault Liberal Edmonton Centre, AB

Mr. Speaker, despite all the respect the hon. member is due, he is wrong. When I have more time in the House, I will come back and take head-on the boots and suits arguments that Conservative-funded lobbyists are lobbing at our side to try to scare the industry sector and Canadians that somehow protecting the environment, getting projects built in a timely manner and ensuring companies save money is a bad way to do business. Bill C-69 would modernize the NEB and would ensure that projects in the country would get built in a timely manner.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up where my colleague from Edmonton West left off, because there was no clear answer from the member for Edmonton Centre with respect to Bill C-69, which will do what Gerry Butts has long fantasized about, and that is to keep Alberta energy in the ground.

Could the hon. member explain how the standing process for the energy regulator will enhance certainty, when it opens it up to foreign interests and anti-oil sands activists by removing the requirement that in order to make a submission to the national energy regulator, one must be directly impacted or have knowledge with respect the project? How does that add certainty?

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10:25 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Madam Speaker, it is no wonder Alberta is in a crisis right now. We have a former Liberal cabinet minister, the MP representing the heart of our oil industry in Calgary, commenting earlier that northern gateway was merely on pause, when in fact the Liberal government killed it. We have the member for Edmonton Strathcona going on and on about the virtues of refining in Alberta, when the results are it is the lowest value add. The extraction and the pipelines is the highest value add of anything going on, not refining.

Now we have the member for Edmonton Centre, the same one who stood in the House and voted with the government to kill northern gateway; the same one who voted for a job-killing carbon tax; the same one who voted to end tankers off the B.C. coast, effectively stopping a future northern gateway; and the same one who is with a government that has appointed radical anti-Alberta activists to senior advisory roles in the ministry of natural resources.

My question is about Bill C-69, which the member for Edmonton Centre previously supported. It has been called “the bill to end all pipelines”. If the goal is to curtail oil and gas production and have no more pipelines built, this legislation has hit its mark.

I would like to ask the member to stand in the House, face the camera and tell the people of Edmonton and Alberta that he will not support Bill C-69, that he will support Albertans instead.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 10 p.m.


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Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Madam Speaker, I appreciate that very gentle rebuke.

We sat here listening to rhetoric tonight for the last 10 minutes and we did not hear once about the workers. Tonight's emergency debate is about the 100,000 workers who have been laid off from this sector and we did not hear anything about the workers. We heard a rant against a former government, a rant against the current government, nothing about any workers.

I took a cab tonight to a meeting on the far side of Ottawa. I met a young man driving that cab and asked him how long he had been in Ottawa. He told me it was just a few weeks. I asked where he had come from and he told me Toronto. I asked if he had been in Toronto long. He said no, he had come from Calgary. He said that he came from Africa as an engineer to work in an oil company as an engineer. He was laid off shortly after that. He said, given what the government is doing now, he sees zero hope that there is going to be another pipeline built. Bill C-69 is going to put the screws to men like him.

My constituency depends on the energy sector. China, India, the world wants the energy we have and the government is putting roadblocks in front of them. The member who spoke has not mentioned the workers once, the people of her province. Shame on her.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 9:50 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, indeed, Alberta, our country and the planet are facing an emergency. It is called climate change. I have not noticed the members who prompted this debate mention that at all, though it is part of the struggle that Alberta has in producing a profitable product. As much as they like to malign the current premier of Alberta, she has taken great measures to address that emergency at the same time as trying to develop a resource economy in Alberta. That is something the previous Conservative government did not, so there is a lot of catching up to do.

One of the arguments given for holding the emergency debate on crisis being faced in Alberta is the widening price differential. The Conservatives would like us to believe that the failure to build pipelines to tidewater is the only reason for the decline in the financial return for Alberta bitumen. They fail to mention that the additional barriers producers face include the lengthy and costly process involved in extracting and processing bitumen. In fact, the bitumen must first be upgraded and then refined before it can be used as gasoline or jet fuel, and that accounts for a good part of the discount.

Other suppliers, such as those of fracked oil in the United States, do not face these hurdles. The obvious question then is, as my colleague asked, why are we not upgrading and refining more of the bitumen in Canada? As the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has reminded us, companies that have invested in upgrading and refining bitumen continue to make profits.

We also have to remember that one of the greatest barriers to getting public and indigenous support for these pipelines is that in order to send the bitumen by pipeline, we have to add dilbit, a carcinogenic product that many are concerned will pose great risk to the waters along these pipelines' routes.

To her credit, Premier Notley has helped to finance the building of a new refinery in Alberta. What could the federal government do? It could help finance refineries as a start. We have not heard anything in any of the budgets since the Liberals came to power about the possibility of helping the refining and upgrading of the product in Canada, which would help the government and Albertans gain more money for their coffers.

Another way is via the federal government's approval of exports. I often raised this question, which seems obvious to me. What would happen if the National Energy Board—one day soon, maybe, to become the Canadian energy regulator—imposed a requirement that a certain percentage of the raw product must be upgraded or refined as a condition of export approval? It has those powers. It can impose conditions. It imposes conditions on projects all the time. It is a puzzle. If the companies are not willing to step forward and make that investment, perhaps that is something the federal government could start doing through its new Canadian energy regulator. That would create jobs in Canada, as many have said tonight, and higher returns for Albertan owners of the upgraded product.

Second, the United States has been producing massive amounts from fracking. There is just not the same demand for Canadian product, and there is oversupply from many producers as well.

Then there is the question of the business case to build a pipeline and to pay to ship the product. Pipeline builders prefer to get contracts for at least 50% of the capacity for 15 to 20 years, but some potential buyers, like China, prefer shorter-term commitments. As one venture capital analyst has said: “Energy is a commodity business where cost is king”. Now that Canadians own a pipeline, it appears reasonable that some are asking to see those contracts. Certainly the people of Alberta and Canada deserve transparency, and what about the workers?

Why have recent export pipelines not been supported or approved? As my very informed colleague has said, Stephen Harper's government eviscerated the pipeline review process. I find it remarkable that every day in the House the Conservative members castigate the Liberals for not having approved the Trans Mountain pipeline when in fact they, the Conservatives, completely eviscerated it. The Conservatives got so frustrated that they could not get these projects built, there are some rumours about some potential buyers of the product asking why it takes so long to approve a pipeline.

Almost overnight, or over several years as a result of budget bills with very limited opportunity for consultation and discussion, the Conservatives completely eviscerated the federal review process and environmental legislation. It is really rather incredible that the Conservatives would sit here and say that they had nothing to do with that, that they could have fast-tracked all of the pipelines.

What happened when the Conservatives did that? As my colleague said, that is where the demonstrations against all pipelines came from. It was because they excluded the right of concerned communities and concerned indigenous governments to genuinely participate in the revenue.

When the gateway pipeline was turned down, former prime minister Stephen Harper turned to a consultant, Mr. Douglas Eyford. He asked what had to be done to get these projects built. Mr. Eyford met with all of the first nations and carefully examined the issues and asked how to get the western energy projects built.

He recommended four things: sustained engagement with aboriginal communities to build effective relationships; recognition that aboriginal communities view natural resource development as linked to a broader reconciliation agenda; recognition that support would only come for natural resource development if that development were undertaken in environmentally sustainable ways; and ensuring that those projects would help to improve the socio-economic conditions of aboriginal communities. In his words, “progress requires leadership, commitment, and action by governments, Aboriginal communities, and industry”.

What did the Harper government do? As I mentioned, instead of trying to settle the land claims and having genuine consultation and accommodation, it eviscerated via two budget bills all of the environmental laws, excluding the right not only of the indigenous communities but also anyone concerned to participate effectively in the reviews.

Then, the Conservatives promised that they would impose greenhouse gas conditions on all sectors. Guess what sector they never got around to regulating? Oil and gas. This, as I mentioned, resulted in widespread opposition to every federally regulated pipeline, energy east, the northern gateway, and Trans Mountain. No pipelines were approved.

Then along came the Liberals. During the election they promised exactly what my party promised, that they would immediately undo what the Stephen Harper government did to environmental law in Canada and to the environmental review process. They promised to restore all of those environmental laws expeditiously.

As has been mentioned, three years into their term, all of those laws still exist. Equally horrifying, we learned at committee when reviewing Bill C-69 that not only will those projects go through the old, eviscerated NEB process, but any other project that is already before the review body.

Even if the Liberals finally pass their Bill C-69, all of these projects will still be reviewed by Stephen Harper's eviscerated process. Bill C-69, by the way, does not give any specific rights to participate, to table evidence and to cross examine. It is a vacuous bill, although some parts of it may be an improvement.

If the Liberals had listened to us or had done what they promised, they could have had a pipeline or two approved by now, because they would have actually shown the necessary respect for first nations, met the proper constitutional requirements for consultation and accommodation, and looked at the impacts under the Species at Risk Act, but now they have to start at zero again.

Is rail the answer? Please, no. I know that the premier of Alberta is desperate and is looking for every possible solution. I tabled a bill in the House that would amend the federal assessment law to ensure that we review the rail shipping of bitumen, just as a pipeline has to be reviewed.

It is an absolutely reprehensible to propose the use of rail. Everyone in this place knows that it is more dangerous and risky.

And where is the federal money for a just transition?

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 9:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Paul Lefebvre Liberal Sudbury, ON

Madam Speaker, getting regulatory processes right is something the Canadian population expects and deserves. We are focused on to getting that right. Bill C-69 would provide one project, one review and ensure that if it were contested in court, it would withstand the court challenge.

What was going on was that any major project going forward was being reviewed in court and was failing. We need to ensure that does not happen. I think all members of the House would agree that we need to ensure that as private businesses put their feet forward, wanting to invest in Canada, and go through the regulatory process, that it is clear, defined and they know the rules from day one. The old process did not do that. Bill C-69 would achieve that.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 9:25 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, I cannot believe what I am hearing from the Liberal side. Everybody in Canada remembers the major aspect of the Liberals' platform, that they would immediately restore the project environmental review process and the environmental laws that were eviscerated by the Harper government.

What year are we in of the Liberal government? The third year. The Liberals' one bill, Bill C-69, is still in the Senate. All those projects that have gone before them, which they have been approving, have been approved under Harper's eviscerated environmental laws and review process.

Perhaps the member can guess why so many Canadians have been opposed to major energy projects. Is it because they have lost confidence in the federal review process?

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 9:10 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, I would begin by saying that all members share the sense of urgency about the current situation facing Albertans. When Alberta is hurting, Canada is hurting. As the Prime Minister has said, this is a crisis and not just for Albertans, not just for western Canada, but for all Canadians.

Being the member for Sudbury, I understand the natural resources sector and the highs and lows and the ebbs and tides that we see. We feel it. We have lived it many times in Sudbury. We have had the hardship of losing jobs. The economy bounces back and now we have highs and lows, but at the same time we have invested in our people, as Alberta is investing in Albertans. We see light at the end of the dark tunnel that they are in right now. That is something I share with the people from Alberta, the highs and lows of the natural resources sector.

We know that the energy sector is one of the key engines driving our economy. Our focus is on ensuring that every barrel of Alberta oil gets its full value. That is why our government has made this national issue an urgent priority. We know that when the Conservatives took office in 2006, 99% of our oil exports went to the United States. Flash forward to 2015, and 99% of our oil exports still went to the United States. The Conservatives had 10 years to expand our global markets. They failed for 10 years. We will ensure that we move forward on expanding our global markets and building pipeline capacity in the right way.

This debate gives me a chance to set the record straight on some of the things we have heard tonight and to talk about how our government has been supporting the energy sector as part of our efforts to build a better Canada, a Canada that works for everyone.

Those efforts began three years ago this month, when our government was sworn in with a clear mandate to do things differently and to do different things. In short, we have been working to build a Canada where the opportunities for each of us are as big and real, and seemingly as endless, as the land itself.

We set out to strengthen the middle class, to build the infrastructure for a modern economy and to invest in a more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable Canada. As a result, the national economy is strong and growing. With 3% growth, Canada had the best economic performance of any G7 country last year, and it is expected to remain among the fastest growing economies this year and next.

Over the last three years, Canada has created more than 550,000 new full-time jobs, pushing the national unemployment rate to a 40-year low. We all know there is still more work to be done. We see that right now in Alberta and in our energy sector. Our government has made this issue and the issue of market access in general an urgent priority. The Line 3 pipeline approved by our government is set to come online in 2019, adding 370,000 barrels per day. That is a major boost in our pipeline capacity. We also remain committed to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Our fall economic statement last week featured tax changes, incentives, and investments to promote business confidence and enhanced competitiveness. They include new measures that will allow businesses to immediately write off the full cost of machinery and equipment used in manufacturing and processing, as well as certain clean energy equipment. We are also introducing the accelerated investment incentive to allow businesses to write off a larger share of the cost of newly acquired assets in the year they are purchased.

As well, we are investing an additional $800 million over five years to support greater innovation throughout the economy, including $100 million to support the forestry sector and another $50 million in new venture capital to support clean technology firms. We are looking to accelerate investments in trade transportation corridors leading to Asia and Europe.

At the same time, we are modernizing our regulators to make it easier for companies to comply. Let us be clear: Regulations do serve an important purpose. They act as the rule book that governs how businesses must operate, and they play an essential role in protecting the health and safety of Canadians, and in safeguarding our natural environment.

We recognize that over time, regulations can grow outdated and that the burden can add up, all of which can affect Canada's standing as an attractive place to invest and do business. That is why we will encourage regulators to take into account efficiency and economic considerations, and why we are establishing an external advisory committee to look at Canada's regulatory competitiveness.

We believe Canadians can take on the world and win. Look at the LNG Canada's decision to proceed with its $40 billion project on the west coast of British Columbia. This project, the single largest private sector investment in Canadian history, will create 10,000 jobs at the height of construction. It will also generate billions of dollars in new revenue for governments to spend on the things that matter most to Canadians. It will open new global markets for Canada's natural gas, displacing other fuels that emit higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions, all while creating the cleanest large scale facility of its kind in the world, proving yet again that the economy and the environment can go hand in hand.

All of this reflects what we call Canada's natural advantage. It is not just that we have an abundance of the resources the world will need for the clean growth economy, it is the expertise and the experience we have in developing them sustainably and competitively. That is a real edge. Our government is seeking to expand that advantage by concluding a series of new trade agreements with our North American partners, the European Union and the 11 other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The new NAFTA is a case in point. It will enhance our competitiveness and inspire greater investor confidence in our energy sector. For example, it removes the proportionality clause which means we have restored our sovereignty with Canada's energy resources. Administrative changes in a new NAFTA will save the oil patch more than $60 million a year in fees and costs. There is also a side agreement on energy between Canada and the U.S. It includes a recognition of the importance of integrated energy markets, independent energy regulators, access to energy infrastructure and open trade and investment. All of this will add to our natural advantage. All of this will support a strong and dynamic energy sector.

Unfortunately, as we have heard tonight, our advantage in the energy sector is not without its challenges and its setbacks. A Federal Court of Appeal decision on the Trans Mountain expansion project has given us a moment to take stock to ensure that we are moving forward the right way on energy projects and we have developed a comprehensive response to the court's ruling: first, by instructing the National Energy Board to reconsider the effects of marine shipping related to the coast; second, by relaunching phase three consultations with indigenous groups affected by the project; and third, by appointing former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci to oversee consultations with indigenous peoples so they are meaningful and comply with the direction given by the Federal Court of Appeal.

We are also facing the worst of all perfect storms with the historic price differential for Canadian oil, a discount caused by the temporary drop in demand from refineries in the U.S. Midwest, as they undergo seasonal maintenance, combined with increasing production from the oil sands, which is welcome, and insufficient pipeline capacity for export.

This impacts companies differently, which is why we see oil patch executives divided on the right course of action. That is why we are in active discussions with stakeholders and provinces to look at all short-term options to ensure we get this right. What is certain, however, is that better market access is the long-term solution.

We are seized with that, ensuring it moves forward the right way. The Conservatives agree that there is a real need to build a pipeline to new, non-U.S. markets, but they are actively opposing legislation that would allow good projects to be reviewed in a clearer, shorter time frame.

Bill C-69 would ensure that project assessments would be done right the first time. It would remove the power of government to stop the clock on a project without reason. It would eliminate wasteful duplication that requires proponents to go through the same reviews at the federal and provincial level. It would ensure important information is shared with all Canadians, because they have the right to know the facts about important projects. All of these changes are good for businesses, good for jobs and good for the energy industry.

While the previous government failed to get the job done, we are taking decisive action and seeing results. We secured the largest private sector investment in Canadian history through the $40 billion LNG Canada project. We are helping producers build up refining capacity right here in Canada. We know that means more value for every barrel. We announced major tax incentives in the fall economic statement for refiners and upgraders. We are moving forward in the right way, through meaningful consultations, on the Trans Mountain expansion project. We have a good trade deal for our energy sector and workers in our oil patch with the new NAFTA.

Over the next 10 years, there are half a trillion dollars in proposed private sector investments in the natural resources sector. In Alberta alone, that includes 102 energy projects, representing $178 billion in new investments. These projects do not just mean development of our energy resources; they mean tens of thousands of jobs for Albertans.

Despite these reasons for optimism, we know this is a hard time and that cannot be understated. That is why, on this side of the House, we are working with Canadians to ensure we all get through this deeply difficult time. For a very long time, Alberta and Albertans have driven the Canadian economy.

Last week, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources convened leaders in industry in Calgary to listen to their concerns and chart a way forward. In the short term, to deal with the immediate oil price differential issue, we launched a non-partisan working group of government experts from Canada, Alberta and Saskatchewan, including finance, rail and energy experts. This group has been analyzing options, including the oil-by-rail proposal that we have recently received from the Alberta government to relieve the pain being felt by so many.

I want to make it very clear that we stand with Alberta's energy sector. We have its back. This is our top priority, and we will deliver.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 8:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to participate in the emergency debate on the jobs and economic crisis in my home province of Alberta, where so many people right across the province, and in my riding of St. Albert—Edmonton, are out of work or have seen their hours reduced. Many have given up hope altogether.

The Prime Minister says that he feels Albertans' frustration and anxiety. He is right that Albertans are frustrated and anxious. After all, since the Prime Minister came to office, more than 100,000 Albertans have lost their jobs. They are out of work. Tens of thousands more Albertans have seen their hours reduced and their wages reduced. Unemployment has skyrocketed in Alberta since this government came to office. The office vacancy rate in the city of Calgary, which as recently as four years ago was booming, is a staggering 28%.

As my colleague for Lakeland noted, $100 billion of investment in the energy sector has dried up. It is gone. To put that number in perspective, $100 billion is nearly five times the GDP of the auto sector and eight times more than the GDP of Canada's aerospace sector. While $100 billion is extremely concerning, the fact is that it is only going to get worse.

In 2016-17, seven international energy companies sold off virtually all their western Canadian assets, a sale that equalled more than $37 billion. That is $37 billion taken out of western Canada. However, now not only are international companies fleeing but we are seeing Canadian companies move their assets, repositioning and refocusing, primarily to the United States, including Encana, which has 1,000 people working at its downtown Calgary head office, Baytex, and Crescent Point, just to name a few.

Yes, Albertans are frustrated. Yes, they are anxious. The Prime Minister is right to feel their frustration and their anxiety. However, if the Prime Minister wants to know the source of their frustration and anxiety, I would suggest that he look in the mirror, because he is the source of the frustration and anxiety of Albertans. It is because of his failed policies, his failure to champion Canada's energy sector and his failed leadership.

The Prime Minister talks a good game, he talks about how sympathetic he is, how much he cares and how he governs from the heart out, but the people I represent in St. Albert—Edmonton have had it up to here with the Prime Minister's words. They do not need the Prime Minister's best wishes. What they need is action. They need a plan. They need a plan to get Alberta back to work.

Actions speak louder than words. My colleague from Lakeland went into some detail about the actions of the Prime Minister and the fact that they, instead of helping get Albertans back to work, have contributed to Albertans being laid off.

Let us look at the failed Prime Minister's actions. The failed Prime Minister thought it was a good idea to impose a tanker ban off the northwest coast of British Columbia without any meaningful environmental or scientific assessment. The consequence of that policy choice of the Prime Minister was the cancellation of the northern gateway pipeline, a pipeline that would have got our energy to tidewater and to the Asia-Pacific market so that we would no longer be dependent on essentially a single customer, the United States, and the enormous discount that we pay as a consequence. That project would have gotten thousands of people to work and resulted in billions of dollars of investment in Canada. It is gone, it has been cancelled, all because of the failed policies of the failed Prime Minister.

Then the Prime Minister, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he was going to change the rules midway through with respect to upstream and downstream emissions. Do members know what the consequence was of that policy choice of the Prime Minister? It was the cancellation of the energy east pipeline, another pipeline to tidewater, one that would have helped Canada become less dependent on the United States, created thousands of jobs, and have resulted in billions of dollars of investment here in Canada. However, that pipeline has been cancelled and is gone, all because of the failed policies of this failed Prime Minister.

Then the failed Prime Minister decided he was going to change the rules, create a lot of regulatory uncertainty and then bring in Bill C-69, just to be sure that another pipeline would never be built. Kinder Morgan said that it had had enough and was pulling out. The Prime Minister told it not to worry, that the government would pay it $4.5 billion so it could invest in the United States and that the government would take over the construction of the pipeline. Do members know how that has worked out? It has resulted in not one inch of pipeline being constructed. Again, more failed policies from a failed Prime Minister who, time and again, has failed to deliver.

Albertans have had enough. Canadians have had enough. My constituents and the people in Alberta who are out of work, who are in despair this evening as we speak, deserve better than the failed policies and failed leadership of the failed Prime Minister.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 8:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, we should always start this conversation about environmental stewardship in Canadian energy development based on this premise, which is the fact that for decades, Canada has been second to none in terms of environmental reviews, scientific and independent evidence-based decision-making, consultation with indigenous communities, including the incorporation of traditional knowledge, best practices and having the skill set and the world-class expertise to make independent, evidence-based decisions that also take into account the economic and environmental impacts of energy development.

Canada has a long track record of maintaining the highest standards in the world, to the point that Canada has been a model for energy-producing countries around the world. That is not just us saying that. That is experts around the world, including in two major benchmarking analyses of major oil and gas producing countries around the world. WorleyParsons came to that conclusion prior to both the last provincial and federal elections.

I agree with my colleague that Canadians expect and demand the highest standards and regulations. As Conservatives, that was the track record of energy review and approval. However, the travesty of the Liberals' “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, is a total lack of clarity around timelines, conditions and what measures proponents would need to meet. The bill is rife with political intervention and political decision-making.

While my colleague and I probably put forward different amendments on that particular legislation—

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorEmergency Debate

November 28th, 2018 / 8:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

Canada's energy sector is in crisis. It is a national emergency that impacts all of Canada and disproportionately hurts Alberta and Albertans. The oil and gas sector has already lost more than 100,000 jobs and over $100 billion since 2015 under the Liberals. That is eight times the GDP of, and more jobs than, the entire aerospace sector and five times the GDP of, and almost as many jobs as, the entire auto sector. That would rightfully be an emergency with full attention and action from any other federal government, but the response to the devastation in Alberta, in oil and gas, and on oil and gas workers and families has been a combination of empty platitudes with hostile attacks and legislation and policy that have only made things so much worse.

The ongoing and widening price differential for Canadian oil threatens to add tens of thousands more new job losses throughout 2019. Major producers with decades of history in Alberta are cancelling expansions and curtailing production, and are at risk of going bankrupt.

As recently as 2014, nine out of 10 new full-time jobs created in Canada were created in Alberta and more than 120,000 Albertans alone are out of work today. The most that the Prime Minister and the Liberals have offered is a five-and-a-half-week extension of EI benefits two years ago, which did not initially include Edmonton Bruderheim and the industrial heartland, and a “hang in there” ever since.

However, Albertans do not want EI. They just want to work and continue to be able to make their outsized contributions in the best interests of all of Canada. ATB Financial predicts that this crisis could cause a recession in Canada. The Bank of Canada already predicts no new energy investment in Canada after 2019, which will mean less money for pensions, health care, schools, social services and all governments across the country.

Over the past decade, Western Canadian Select has sold for an average of $17 U.S. less per barrel than West Texas Intermediate. This month, the differential hit a record of around $50 U.S., close to where it remains today. That is wreaking havoc on the industry and, by extension, on the entire Canadian economy. Every day, $50 million to $100 million is lost in Canada because of this differential.

Under the Liberals, more energy investment in Canada has declined than at any other time period in more than 70 years. Capital investment in Canada is collapsing while it soars in the U.S. Energy demand and development is increasing all around the world.

At least eight major companies have sold most of their Canadian business to invest in the United States. Canadian homegrown service, supply, technology and drilling companies are going with them. Business bankruptcies in Alberta are up 27.8% between August 2017 and August 2018. Real estate vacancies and property values are dropping. It is damaging all sectors.

Even the Prime Minister in Calgary last Thursday had the gall to say, “This is very much a crisis”. However, it has been three years of a crisis for Alberta. The Prime Minister's messages to Canadians and the world and policies caused it and only make it worse. What is unconscionable is it is a direct result of federal government policies and it is within the Prime Minister and the federal government's power to fix.

The Liberals cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, which would have exported Canadian oil to Asia-Pacific. The Liberal intervention, delays and double standards imposed on the energy east pipeline proposal were designed to make its proponent abandon it, which they warned a month before that they did; yet it would have secured Canadian energy independence and exports to Europe. They have disadvantaged Canada precisely because of the decision-making of the Prime Minister, especially with regard to the U.S., which continues to not only be Canada's number one energy customer, but also Canada's number one energy competitor right now, poised to supply 80% of the world's growing oil demand in the next three years.

The Trans Mountain expansion remains stalled indefinitely because of the Liberals' failure, with no start date yet in sight for construction. The Liberals chose the longest and most complicated option, delaying it still indefinitely, even while they gave Canadian tax dollars to Kinder Morgan, which is selling out of Canada and building pipelines in the U.S., even while they give Canadian tax dollars to the Asian infrastructure bank to build pipelines in China, and even while they fund anti-energy activists and Canadian pipeline protestors with Canadian tax dollars.

That lack of pipeline capacity and the landlocking of Canadian oil is a direct result of federal government policies that have stopped those new export oil pipelines and have directly caused the price discount.

The Liberals are layering on red tape and added costs at the very worst time, destroying confidence in Canada for investment. The Liberals' job-killing carbon tax is already costing Canadian jobs and driving Canadian companies into the United States. Imagine this. Canada is the only one of the world's top 10 oil-producing countries to impose a carbon tax on itself, but Canada is the most responsible energy producer in the world, and has been for decades. It makes no sense for the Prime Minister to make it even more difficult for Canadian oil and gas workers to do their work, which they do better than any other energy industry on the planet.

The Liberals cancelled the oil and gas exploration drilling tax credit during a historic collapse in Canadian drilling and energy job losses. The PM directed a B.C. north coast crude oil tanker ban, which is actually a ban on pipelines and on the oil sands, within 27 days of forming government, with no consultation or science or evidence to support it. The Liberals imposed a moratorium on northern oil and gas exploration, giving the territories less than two hours' notice before the announcement.

Their new methane regulations could destroy heavy oil development and end refining in Canada by adding tens of billions of dollars to an industry already in crisis, not because industry does not want to meet the standards but because of technology and timeline challenges to do it within the framework the Liberals are demanding.

The Liberals' “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 would create a new regulatory and assessment process with actually no concrete timelines and with vague conditions for review. It would open more foreign intervention in Canadian resource reviews and give new powers to federal cabinet ministers to politically interfere in the project development process. Certainty for proponents under their new legislation will only be determined through regulations out until 2021, continuing the uncertainty they created at the start of 2016.

Bill C-86 would provide cabinet with the authority to unilaterally shut down the shipping of natural resources by water anywhere in Canada, including offshore oil and gas in Atlantic Canada and the north.

Bill C-69 would dramatically increase red tap on project development by adding a multi-month review under the Navigation Protection Act for any water on a project site that could float any kind of watercraft, including a ditch. That would hinder mining, oil and gas and agriculture.

Bill C-88 would provide cabinet with the unilateral power to shut down oil and gas development in the far north. It would take back delegated authority powers from the Northwest Territories.

The Liberals proposed fuel standards will be the first of their kind in the world, equating to a carbon tax of $228 per tonne of fuel, to apply to industrial facilities.

This should be a concern for every Canadian, because energy is the number one private sector investor in Canada, and it is Canada's second biggest export. Canada is home to the third-largest reserves in the world, and it is the fourth-biggest exporter of energy on the planet, with a track record of responsible energy development literally second to none.

This emergency in the Canadian energy sector and the catastrophic job losses in Alberta are rippling through all sectors across all provinces. It is a national emergency.

Let me tell the House what Nancy Southern, the CEO of ATCO, says as she considers moving assets from ATCO, one of the oldest and largest privately started businesses in Alberta. She says, “How heartbreaking it is to see our wonderful resource-laden province so constrained by regulatory policy and politics of various dispositions.”

Gwyn Morgan, the founder of Encana, the largest Canadian-based energy company, which started in Alberta, said it plainly. He said what the more than 2,000 Albertans in Calgary said to the Prime Minister when he was there last week:

The past few years have been a nightmare for the Canadian industry, where every light at the end of the tunnel has turned out to be a train driven by the Prime Minister barrelling at us from the opposite direction.

No wonder Albertans do not believe a single word the Prime Minister or the Liberals say. This is a national emergency, and the Liberals should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for putting our country in this position. I probably share this view with my colleagues.

I look forward to Albertans delivering their verdict in 2019 on exactly what they think of the Liberals' record.

As spoken

Canada's Oil and Gas SectorRequest for Emergency DebateRoutine Proceedings

November 28th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, today I request an emergency debate on the Canadian energy crisis, which is a national emergency. It impacts all of Canada and disproportionately hurts Alberta.

The oil and gas sector has already lost more than 100,000 jobs and over $100 billion since 2015. That is eight times the GDP and more jobs than the entire aerospace sector, or almost as many jobs as the entire auto sector, which would rightfully be a national emergency for any other federal government and all MPs.

The ongoing and widening price differential for Canadian oil is threatening to add an estimated 20,000 new job losses starting in January 2019. Major producers with decades of history in Alberta are cancelling expansions and curtailing production and are at risk of going bankrupt. ATB Financial predicts that this crisis could cause a recession in Canada, and the Bank of Canada already estimates no new energy investment in Canada after 2019.

As you said in your recent decision to grant an emergency debate on the closure of the GM plant in Oshawa, economic events that cost thousands of jobs deserve an emergency debate. This crisis in the energy sector is such an emergency. It has already put more than 120,000 Albertans out of work, and it is causing job losses across Canada, with no end in sight.

Why is this an emergency today? Over the past decade, Western Canadian Select has sold for an average of $17 U.S. less per barrel than West Texas Intermediate. This month, the differential hit a record of around $50 U.S., close to where it remains today, wreaking havoc on the industry, and by extension, on the entire Canadian economy. Every day, $50 million to $100 million is lost in Canada because of this differential. Even the Prime Minister said last Thursday, “This is very much a crisis.” However, it is a direct result of federal government policies, and it is within the federal government's power to fix it.

The Liberals' cancellation of the northern gateway pipeline, which would have exported to the Asia-Pacific, and the Liberals' killing of the energy east pipeline proposal, which would have secured Canadian energy independence and exports to Europe, have disadvantaged Canada, especially with regard to the U.S., which continues to be not only Canada's number one energy customer but also, right now, Canada's number one energy competitor. Of course, the Trans Mountain expansion remains stalled indefinitely because of the Liberals' failure, with no start of construction estimated for even next year and not a single shovel in the ground at the start of this year, as the Liberals promised.

This lack of pipeline capacity and the landlocking of Canadian oil because of federal government policies that have stopped new export pipelines are direct causes of the price discount.

The private sector and the provinces warn that the Liberals' “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, will stop all new pipeline proposals in the future in Canada. That should be a concern for every single member of this House of Commons, given that the energy sector is the number one private sector investor in Canada, that energy is Canada's second-biggest export and that Canada is home to the third-largest reserves in the world and the fourth-biggest exporter of Canadian energy, with a track record of responsible energy development literally second to none on this planet.

This emergency in the Canadian energy sector and the catastrophic job losses not only in Alberta but rippling through all sectors across all provinces is a national emergency. The Prime Minister has said it is so. Therefore, I would submit to you that an emergency debate is needed to get the answers Canadians deserve and demand.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 28th, 2018 / 2:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, over 2,000 Albertans were in Calgary last week to tell the Prime Minister not to come back until he had a solution to fix the problem he had created.

He vetoed the northern gateway pipeline and he killed the energy east pipeline. He said that spending billions of dollars on the Trans Mountain pipeline would get it built, and he cannot get construction started. He gave Canadian money to go to the U.S. to compete with Canada. He landlocked Canadian oil, costing provinces billions of dollars.

He defends using tax dollars to stop Canadian pipelines. His job killing carbon tax and Bill C-69 will make that discount permanent. When will he withdraw his “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 27th, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


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Independent

Maxime Bernier Independent Beauce, QC

Mr. Speaker, since 2014, the energy industry in western Canada has suffered proportionately a far greater crisis than the automobile industry, and yet not only is the government not helping, it would make energy projects even more difficult with Bill C-69. Can the minister give us assurance that she will finally listen to the concerns of the industry, and pull out this bill?

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 26th, 2018 / 5:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Madam Speaker, I am happy to join in on the debate so soon after the bringing in of closure again.

I am pleased to speak on budget implementation act, no. 2, an omnibus bill that is a sequel to Budget Implementation Act, No. 1, which is also an omnibus bill. This is a sequel omnibus bill to an omnibus bill.

Who cares, some might ask, that this is another omnibus bill? Apparently not our government Liberals. I wonder if they forgot their pledge from the last election regarding the practice of omnibus bills. If they forgot, I will remind them. This is from their website: “We will...bring an end to this undemocratic practice.”

Maybe the Liberals say it does not count because they had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they made that pledge. Maybe they say it does not count because at the time they did not put their hands over their hearts when they made that pledge, so it is okay to break that promise. That is fine. We just ask them not to be hypocrites and to just own it. They should come out and say they are going to do omnibus bills. Unfortunately, what we have right here is another omnibus bill.

The Liberals said they were going to end this practice of bringing forward omnibus bills, and it is actually on the Liberal mandate tracker. In the mandate tracker, it says, under the words “Completed—fully met”, that “[m]easures are in place to end the improper use of omnibus bills”. The Liberals have said in a mandate tracker that they have ended the practice, yet here we have another omnibus bill. Maybe they are hinging this on the word “improper”. It is improper for perhaps Conservatives to use omnibus bills, but it is okay if they do it, because they are Liberals.

What else does it say on this wonderful Liberal mandate tracker? There are 23 items labelled “progress made, facing challenges”, including balancing the budget in 2019-20. With respect to running a $20-billion deficit next year, instead of balancing the budget as Liberals promised, progress is being made and there are challenges.

The world has not seen this level of denial since perhaps the Black Knight in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Like the Black Knight refusing to see the truth with his limbs cut off, I can see the finance minister, in response to the $20-billion deficit, bouncing about the finance ministry saying, “'Tis but a scratch. It is under way with challenges.”

What other lies can we find on the Liberal mandate tracker with respect to progress made? “Make sure the Infrastructure Bank supports the construction of new, affordable rental housing.” Keep in mind, Liberals say this is “progress made”, yet their fabled infrastructure bank has not put a single penny into housing. In fact, the only thing Liberals have done so far, which was politically motivated, is invest in a Quebec transit project that is actually going to deliver below-market returns for taxpayers.

One of their other promises is to “Ensure that the [CRA] is a client-focused agency.” Liberals have said they made progress in ensuring that CRA is delivering services to Canada, the same CRA that the Auditor General called out for doctoring its performance standards. CRA was basically hanging up on Canadians or stopping its calls from coming through to show a higher response rate than actually reported. The same Auditor General just recently talked about how the CRA would give special extensions for large companies and offshore tax cheats, but not give those same extensions to small individual businesses or Canadians. However, to the Liberals, this is progress made.

One of my favourite items labelled “progress made” in the Liberal mandate tracker is “Ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces have the equipment they need.” We have the fighter jet issue. The Liberals promised they were not going to buy the F-35, and then, as the Auditor General stated, they manufactured a capability gap. It used to be NORAD first and then NATO. Then Liberals said they needed a reason not to buy the F-35s and get Super Hornets, and said that NORAD and NATO were on the same level so they would need more jets. Then they decided to buy sole-source Boeing Super Hornets, but Boeing got into a fight with Bombardier, and since the Liberals did not want Bombardier to be picked on, Boeing was punted out. They decided they were not going to buy jets from Boeing, so what did they do? They decided to buy used Boeing Hornets from Australia.

They launched what they say was an open and fair competitive process to replace the fighter jets over about a five- or six-year period, even though the mandate letter actually said to have it done by 2019.

Our allies, Israel, Germany, Denmark and South Korea, have all managed to do an open and honest competition in two years or less. South Korea actually started its open competition, suspended it while it reviewed whether it wanted to go to a new plane or stick with the F-16, restarted its open competition and managed to finish it within a two-year period, but we are going to take five years or six years.

Regarding ships, we know the President of the Treasury Board is embroiled in the scandal with Admiral Mark Norman for his political interference with buying the Asterix. Of course, he says that it his job to interfere with contracts as Treasury Board president. We asked him why he did not interfere with the Phoenix pay system, the same system he paid to have the Gartner report done on. The Gartner report very clearly said not to go ahead and that there were too many problems with Phoenix. However, he looked at the report and threw it out because it was not his job to look at it, but it was his job to interfere with the ship contract at Davie.

With sleeping bags, the government is asking our soldiers to return their sleeping bags. We need to use them for other troops because there are not enough sleeping bags, but progress is being made on the mandate letter of course. Our soldiers have to buy their own boots and seek reimbursement from the government, but again, under the mandate letter, progress is being made.

What is the point of all this about the mandate letter? It is to point out the truth and expose the Liberal talking points for what they are, which is simply empty rhetoric. Do people want more empty rhetoric? Just go to any speech made by the Liberals on how they are helping my home province of Alberta. Listen to anything from the mouth of the natural resources minister, who is allegedly representing Edmonton Mill Woods in Alberta.

Here is what the natural resources minister says on Bill C-69, the famous “no pipeline ever“ bill. He says, “It gives a pathway to proponents...You engage early, you get good results.” For seven years, Kinder Morgan engaged and consulted, and was side-swiped by the government. Northern gateway was years in consulting and engaging, and it was killed by the government. It is the same story with energy east. Even the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail would look at Bill C-69 and say that this is a disaster which is going to kill the energy industry in Alberta.

What else do we get? A five-year extension of unfair equalization of Alberta shifting money to other provinces. There was no consultation, just a tiny line hidden in a 700-page omnibus bill. In Alberta, we have been in a financial crisis for three years now and a human crisis. Donations to charities are low, access to food banks is at a high, unemployment is at a high, families are falling apart, suicide is rising and the government does nothing. This is how bad it gets, because I am actually going to quote the NDP. Joe Ceci, the Alberta finance minister, said that if it was Bombardier, all hands would be on deck.

The Prime Minister was recently in Calgary and said, “...things...are beyond our control here...we are constrained and have been for a long time...” Out of their control. I have to ask, how is killing northern gateway out of his control? How is hitting energy east with rules and regulations he would not dare put on Saudi Arabia oil out of his control? How is banning oil tankers from the B.C. north coast beyond his control? How is Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines ever" bill out of his control? Basically, I think telling the truth to Albertans is out of his control. The only truth we have heard from the PM was when he said that he wanted to phase out the oil sands business.

With this bill, we have $19 billion of debt this year, another $20 billion next year. Bombardier is laying off people, and obviously GM is laying off people in Oshawa today. What tools are we going to have when the recession hits? Almost nothing. The government is spending now in good times when it should be putting money aside for when the recession hits. Budget implementation act, no. 2 is as bad as Budget Implementation Act, No. 1. It pushes us further into debt and leaves nothing for Canada and Canadians when we do need it.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 26th, 2018 / 4:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

Mr. Speaker, my colleague put it very eloquently when he spoke about the fact that, because of this Prime Minister and the current government's failure, thousands of Canadians have lost their jobs. As well, Canadian taxpayers are now on the hook for a $4.5-billion pipeline that may never be built. Add to that the legislation that has been introduced. In my comments, I mentioned Bill C-48, and my colleague has mentioned Bill C-69. This legislation is already having a devastating effect on investment here in Canada. Those companies have not just stopped investing, but have taken their investment to other countries. They are going ahead and building pipelines in other places around the world. It is just not happening here in Canada.

I know that the leader of our party, the leader of our caucus, has stood and suggested what a Conservative government would do if it were elected. The first thing Conservatives would do is repeal Bill C-48, a moratorium on tanker traffic off the northwest coast of British Columbia. In itself, that would begin to build some confidence. We would repeal Bill C-69. Again, we have placed a regulatory burden on certain sectors in this country that needs to be reversed if we are ever to see a thriving oil and gas industry in this country again.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 26th, 2018 / 4:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is so interesting hearing the speeches from different shadow ministers on our side, digging deep into aspects of the budget implementation act that deal with their areas, and to really see how much of an omnibus bill this is, how many changes we are seeing in so many different areas. We are basically getting one good speech on each of those different aspects, providing so much comment with so little debate in response. It is really quite striking.

Today we are going to have an emergency debate on the terrible impact we are seeing in the auto sector. In my province of Alberta, which the member spoke about, we are dealing with major challenges in the oil and gas sector as a result of legislation brought forward by the government, such as Bill C-69, the no-pipelines bill, as well as other steps it has taken.

It really boggles the mind. On the one hand, the government has taken every possible step to kill the transportation of vital energy resources. On the other hand, it has put massive amounts of public dollars into buying a pipeline, supposedly in the name of getting that pipeline built, and it is still not succeeding with that. It has bought the pipeline without building it. We would prefer that we build pipelines without buying them.

Could the member share with us a little more about what positive alternatives there are? The Liberals have said that it would take magic to get these things done, in some cases, and yet we have had success in the past building pipelines. What are the steps we can and should be taking to move these forward?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesStatements By Members

November 26th, 2018 / 2:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB

Mr. Speaker, when the finance minister was asked this weekend what it would take for the Liberals to finally do something to help the Alberta energy sector, he responded and said the Liberals would only help once there was a consensus from Alberta.

There is a consensus. There is a consensus that opposes the Prime Minister's plan to phase out the oil sands. There is a consensus that opposes the Liberals' unilateral decision to impose a northern tanker ban. There is a consensus that export pipelines to new markets must be built and that the Liberals are wrong to kill the northern gateway, the west to east and the Trans Mountain pipelines. There is a consensus from leaders of all political stripes who are opposed to the Liberals' “no new pipeline” law, Bill C-69, which will ensure that no new pipeline will be built in Canada.

There is a consensus. The minister is just not listening.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesStatements By Members

November 26th, 2018 / 1:55 p.m.


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Independent

Darshan Singh Kang Independent Calgary Skyview, AB

Mr. Speaker, there is great concern about the economy not only in my riding of Calgary Skyview but right across the country. Just look at the bad news from Oshawa this morning. I wonder who is next.

My constituents, from business owners to electricians to cab drivers, voice the same fears for the future of Alberta. With no access to world markets for our oil and dropping oil prices, Alberta's economy is in dire straits. We are losing a shocking $80 million a day in revenue. This money could be used to build hospitals and schools. It could be used to improve infrastructure and social programs.

Bill C-69 in its current form is a huge concern in Alberta.

We understand that the economy and the environment have to go hand-in-hand, but not at the risk of hindering the future development of our natural resources.

I would urge the government to address all of the concerns raised by the industry regarding Bill C-69, and make the necessary amendments to the bill to ensure that it is both environmentally and economically friendly.

As spoken

Motions in amendmentBudget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 26th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, right now in Alberta, over 180,000 people are out of work, and a majority of those people have seen their jobs lost in the last couple of years.

This morning, when I woke up and heard the news that the auto plant was being closed by General Motors, I tweeted the following, “From the tens of thousands of people who have seen their jobs disappear in Alberta, our hearts go out to the people of Oshawa today.” That is a legitimate sentiment. If we are going to be a federation, people in different provinces have to stand up for each other.

From the people of Alberta, I want to send a message to those in Oshawa who are affected: We get it. We are going through this right now. It should not happen. Canada should be a place where we have jobs and prosperity.

The interesting thing is that I had several responses to this comment of sympathy. One of them really stuck out for me, and it was this: “Both [job losses] are tied to outdated fuel sources/transportation modes. Economic hardship is always sad, but it was inevitable we would have to pivot.”

I want to spend the bulk of my time today refuting the government's budgetary plan, because it is based on this principle of economic management. I have watched the government travel internationally to attend wonderful meetings in Davos, and have heard the speeches the Prime Minister has given in Paris in which he talks about exactly what this Twitter response said. It is a leftist, elitist, academic understanding of the Canadian economy. It is a “let them eat cake” understanding from somebody who has never really had to work a day in his life, told to a bunch of people who only want to work.

They are being told their jobs are dirty and outdated. Do we have outdated modes of transportation? The last time I checked, it was cold in Canada, we did not have magical public transit from every place to every different place, and we drove cars. The last time I checked, the auto sector was one of the most important industries to the Canadian economy. The last time I checked, the energy sector in Alberta created so much revenue for all different levels of government in this country such that at the end of last week, we actually had major financial analysts asking the finance minister how he was going to deal with the significant price differential we are receiving for our energy products, compared to if we had market access for these things, in his budgetary forecast.

That is why the government's approach to budgeting is so fundamentally flawed. Liberals do not understand the fact that Canadians want to work and want to be competitive in some of the world's most important industries, such as energy production or manufacturing. They do not understand what their high-level, bourgeois thinking of what “appropriate” industries or “clean” jobs means to somebody who is just trying to make ends meet. They have not taken any sort of understanding of these concepts into a framework that would make us more competitive, not less competitive, with the United States. They do not understand how fundamentally damaging this is to the fabric of the Canadian federation.

If members were to go door-knocking from house to house in my province right now, as I frequently do in my riding, they would automatically hear a tale of somebody being out of work for a very long period of time. They would hear about how people have had to shutter businesses and how we are losing labour to the United States and to other parts of the world. They would hear about the fact that city council is increasing small business taxes by 25%, because the downtown core is now looking at about a 50% plus vacancy rate, even though we had, I think, a zero vacancy rate in downtown Calgary just a few short years ago.

We will hear one other sentiment and that is, why are we sending money to other parts of the country in equalization payments when the rest of the country will not stand up for us? The reality is that the context has changed since 2015. I used to think the Prime Minister's father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the worst possible Trudeau to Alberta, while he looks absolutely great compared to his son. Bill C-69 finishes the job. It shoots the energy sector in the head. Oil is over under Bill C-69 and maybe that is what the Prime Minister wants. Maybe he is celebrating that, but my community sure is not. The tanker ban, the carbon tax, the political veto of the northern gateway pipeline, not saying anything to President Obama when he vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline. The Prime Minister and the government have done every single thing possible to kill the energy sector.

In the last budget implementation bill, the Liberals said they were not going to look at the equalization formula. If the Prime Minister will not stand up for the jobs in every part of the country, including Alberta, then we have to look at that formula because it is not fair. I would not be doing my job as a member of Parliament from that province if I did not stand and say he has a responsibility to make policy that is in the best interests of the entire country, not penalize regions because of his or his father's ideological opposition to having power and economic growth in Alberta. That is where we are at.

We cannot look at 180,000 people out of work and at the response that other industries get and the lip service. I look at his response in Calgary on Thursday. I am so proud of my city for getting out and protesting him. I saw that and thought it was great, give him a message. I am so proud of my city for doing that, but at the end of the day, the people of Calgary and of Alberta have always been happy to contribute to the entirety of Canada. They do not want to be out protesting, they just want to work. However, the Prime Minister comes with nothing for my city. He is still pushing through Bill C-69 full steam ahead, full steam to kill the energy sector. He is not even acknowledging the depth of crisis that his ideological opposition to the development of the energy sector has done to the Canadian economy.

The Liberals will stand with their talking points and will say the economy and the environment go hand in hand. There is only one reason that we will see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, if we do, in Canada, and that is because he has killed the energy sector. His carbon tax will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That is because carbon, for the most part in Canada, is inelastic and we cannot set whatever the United Nations report called for, a $5,500 per megatonne price on carbon, and expect the economy to continue to grow. I cannot stand here on behalf of my constituents and support anything that the government is doing in terms of taxation, in terms of budgeting because it is a lot of spending on nothing. In this entire budget implementation act, there is no spending on any sort of infrastructure that is going to make my city more productive. There is nothing in it for the workers.

Frankly, to add insult to injury, he is not talking about the fact that the Liberals have underwritten and underpinned a continuous welfare system for this country based on the backs of the people in my province. Enough is enough. Either the Prime Minister writes some policy that is in the best interests of the entire country or he starts dealing with the voices of the people in my city and in my province. They are tired of it and they will not go gently into that good night.

Shame on the member for Calgary Centre. Shame on the member for Calgary Skyview. Shame on the members from Edmonton who have had the opportunity to speak up in their caucus for the rights of the people in this country and still see Bill C-69 going forward, still see the budget implementation act going forward, spending and taxing, with nothing happening for them. Enough is enough. There will be more protests like we see in Calgary. We will not go gently into that good night and the bill needs to die.

As spoken

Public SafetyAdjournment Proceedings

November 21st, 2018 / 6:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, about two weeks ago, every member in this House stood up and agreed on one thing, that the decision of Canada to have a “none is too many” policy and turn away Jewish refugees who were fleeing genocide was something worth an apology.

The Prime Minister invoked the phrase “never again”. To me, if we are going to truly mean never again, we should not be undertaking actions for which Parliament is going to have to apologize in terms of failing to prevent genocide in years to come.

ISIS is a genocidal death cult. There is no other way to describe it. Its members have raped, tortured and systemically eradicated ethnic and religious minorities. This place has declared that ISIS has committed genocide against the Yazidi people. Therefore, I just do not understand why the government has essentially acted as an apologist for Canadians, or people with affiliations to Canada, who have travelled abroad to take up arms to fight with ISIS. The Prime Minister cannot stand in this place, with flowery words and a Kleenex in hand, and say “never again” and then allow ISIS fighters, terrorists, to roam free in Canada as if nothing has happened. I refuse to use the term “fighters”. They are people who are complicit in genocide.

This is so wrong. The government refuses to issue peace bonds to people they suspect have gone and taken up arms and are complicit in genocide. The Prime Minister has stood up and essentially defended giving poetry lessons to these people as opposed to bringing them to justice. The government has introduced Bill C-69, which actually increases the intelligence-to-evidentiary gap in terms of being able to prosecute these people within our own courts of justice. The Prime Minister refuses to go to the United Nations and make changes to the International Criminal Court process.

The reality is that there is no such thing as a big bad guy or just one leader in terms of ISIS being complicit in genocide. As Nadia Murad said in her book, every person who spread propaganda or turned a blind eye to the sex slave trade that she was forced into are complicit in genocide and should be treated as such.

There is a Canadian, someone who is in Canada, who has confessed to having killed on behalf of ISIS. His name is Abu Huzaifa. He told this to a New York Times journalist, yet the government has been silent on what it is doing.

My question to the government is very simple. Where is Abu Huzaifa, and why has he not been brought to justice?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 20th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB

Mr. Speaker, Stephen Harper never cancelled one pipeline. The minister has cancelled three.

Today Canada Action has initiated a campaign to inform Canadians of what the Liberals' failures are costing the Canadian economy. Tens of billions of dollars are lost as discounted Canadian oil flows to the United States, and the Prime Minister is making it worse with Bill C-69.

The question is simple. Will he kill his no-new-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, or is he going to continue to allow the energy sector to fail and everyone who works in it to fail as well?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 20th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Chris Warkentin Conservative Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB

Mr. Speaker, Canada's oil is being liquidated at $17 a barrel while our international competitors are getting $54. This discount is costing the Canadian economy $80 million each and every day and is a direct result of the Liberals' cancellation of the northern gateway, the Trans Mountain and the west-to-east pipeline projects. Now the Liberals have proposed something new. It is called a no-new-pipelines bill, Bill C-69. This is going to make this discount permanent.

Will the government kill Bill C-69 and allow pipelines to be built, or is it prepared to allow this discount to continue?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 19th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, four new pipelines were built under the Conservatives.

Darren Peers from Capital Group, a big investor in Canadian oil, points out the reality that “no major pipeline project is yet assured” under these Liberals, and that energy investors are “questioning the merits of investing” because of them.

What is certain is the Liberals are driving billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs out of Canada. Cenovus warns that Canada “ignores these red flags at its peril”. Provinces are against Bill C-69, too.

Will the minister cancel his job-killing, “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 before it is too late?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 19th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, business leaders say that the Liberals' anti-energy policies are “borderline treasonous”. Brett Wilson said that Bill C-69 is “lunacy”. NuVista's CEO said it “needs to be completely killed or radically changed”. Susan Johns, a British fund manager, said that Canadian oil and gas is “being strangled by regulation, carbon taxes and the inability of producers to get their product to world markets”.

Clearly the Liberals' anti-energy agenda is the problem, not the solution. When will the Liberals stop killing Canadian jobs and withdraw their “no more pipelines” Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesStatements By Members

November 19th, 2018 / 2:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Alberta energy industry has been suffering under the Liberal government. It has cancelled pipelines and implemented policies that make it hard for the future development of our energy industry.

Despite producing some of the most clean and ethical energy in the world, our oil continues to sell at a discounted rate. Cenovus Energy says it produces up to 300,000 barrels every day above what can be exported out of the province. That overproduction leads to a great price differential when compared with American oil, which can be exported to foreign markets. Our oil price discount has cost the country $50 million a day, or $13 billion a year.

At an event last week, the Minister for Natural Resources said that we need more pipelines. Well, l am glad he has finally figured it out. Perhaps now the Prime Minister will cancel the tanker ban, cancel Bill C-69, and of course, cancel his push for a carbon tax. lt is time for a government that will fight for Albertans and fight for our energy sector.

As spoken

Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with DisabilitiesPrivate Members' Business

November 19th, 2018 / 11:10 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON

Madam Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak before the House today on Motion No. 190, tabled by my colleague, the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville, on this very important topic. Before I begin, I would like to thank my colleague for his work and for bringing this topic to the attention of the House. I certainly enjoy serving with him on the international trade committee.

This motion asks that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be instructed to undertake a study on labour shortages of the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, in particular, in the construction industry, and to analyze models used in Atlantic Canada.

I am very pleased to have this topic brought to the attention of the House as it will be of the utmost importance for the years to come.

Adam Morrison, vice-president of the non-profit Ontario Tourism Education Corporation, characterized the labour shortage problem as “a slow-motion train wreck you've always been told is coming.” I believe as parliamentarians we have an obligation to make the best recommendations so we can ensure that we can contain as much of the damage as possible. Therefore, I believe this is a very worthwhile study.

As was mentioned previously, in the next decade Canada will see more than one-fifth of its construction labour force retire. The construction industry is one of the backbones of Canada's economy, certainly in my community of Oshawa. It employed 712,000 people in 1996. Today, that number has grown to 1.4 million Canadians. However, by 2027, about 21% of the labour force will be older than 65 years old. To add to that, young people are not joining the workforce in these trades fast enough to fill this gap, which makes finding skilled labour difficult for companies.

Because of the demand in increase for construction in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, the GTHA, the labour shortage is more acutely felt. The association representing the masonry, block and stone industry has warned that the labour shortage that currently exists, and which will get larger with time, will create extreme difficulties for delivering on the many infrastructure projects the government has planned.

While I am excited to see the booming construction sector all around the GTHA, I believe it is our responsibility to develop the tools to help companies address this labour shortage. If we do not, companies will have a much harder time completing projects on time or will have to stop taking on more projects because they do not have the resources to provide the level of service they know they can provide, which affects families, communities and entire regions. Canadians are very hard-working and they want to work more. Therefore, we have to help them with that.

In the absence of federal leadership, organizations have already started to work to solve this problem. For example, in my region of Oshawa, the Durham District School Board hosts information sessions on the Ontario youth apprenticeship program, a school-to-work program that opens the doors for students to explore and work in apprenticeship occupations. This can show parents how viable a career in the skilled trades is for their kids. Parents always want the best for their children and just need to be reminded what a wonderful career they can have in these fields. The board also holds a number of tours so students can actually see what working in the shops is like and get some hands-on activities.

Unfortunately, the problem is not contained to the construction industry. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce members cite the inability to find new employees as one of their biggest obstacles, according to a survey released in February. Of the 60% of businesses looking to hire in the last six months of 2016, 82% of them said they had experienced difficulty finding employees.

The issue spans across sectors, affecting for example the retail and service industry sectors as well. There is no shortage of stories of restaurant owners having to close down on certain days because they do not have enough staff or hotels having to close down entire floors because they cannot staff the rooms.

Over 90% of Canadian businesses are small and medium-sized businesses. This year, BDC, the Business Development Bank of Canada, conducted a survey of 1,208 entrepreneurs from SMEs and found that 40% of them are having difficulties finding new employees. Because of a retiring workforce, Canada's labour growth is forecast to fall near zero. This affects the growth capacity of companies and affects all Canadians, because when businesses are thriving, Canada thrives.

I would like to echo what my colleague from Foothills mentioned earlier in his remarks. This problem is not confined to the GTHA. The problem in the construction sector is also acutely felt in British Columbia and Atlantic Canada. In British Columbia, for example, nearly one in 25 jobs are going unfilled. According to the Canadian Federation for Independent Business, 3.9% of jobs were unfilled in the fourth quarter of 2018.

In fact, one does not even have to leave the province to find out that there is a labour shortage problem. Many rural areas in Ontario are struggling to attract and retain talent and workers. The jobs are there, but there are barriers, such as transportation, that must be discussed so that we can find solutions that work for all Canadians. Canadians living in rural areas face challenges starkly different from the ones those living in the GTHA face. However, that does not mean that we should not take the time to carefully examine the issues they face.

One often cited barrier is that young Canadians and their parents do not see a career in the trades as a viable option for them or their children. The current government has, unfortunately, failed in changing that perspective. Through its actions and comments, it has made Canada an unattractive country for energy investments and has shut down projects that would have created many jobs in the trades and in these sectors. If we look at Bill C-69, as an example, it would basically guarantee that no major resource project would ever be built again in Canada. What kind of message does that send kids who would like to get into the trades?

To add to that, instead of doing what was best for Canadians and Canadian workers, the government decided to snub its nose at our ally again and again. Now we find ourselves with a bad trade deal for Canada, the USMCA, and with section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum still in place. Again, what kind of message does that send to young people looking for jobs in those industries?

Throughout our study on the Standing Committee on International Trade on the impact of these tariffs on the steel and aluminum sector, we have heard over and over again that the situation is dire. Companies are shutting down, moving to other jurisdictions or reducing shifts. In this environment, it makes it very difficult to encourage young Canadians to pursue careers in the trades.

Like my colleagues, I will be supporting this study, because I believe that it would address a very important issue. I believe that with good recommendations, we can help the businesses and hard-working people in my riding of Oshawa. However, I think we should expand the scope of the study to include all of Canada, because this is an issue that does not discriminate based on geography. It affects people in every province, in urban and rural communities. It would also provide an opportunity for Canadians to show how innovative we can be. It would allow us the opportunity to come up with solutions to these complex problems. I look forward to receiving the results of this study when presented in the House.

A very important thing is happening here in the House this week. The Minister of Finance is tabling an economic update, or, in other words, where the priorities of the current government are.

As I said in my speech, I believe that this is an incredible motion to bring forward at this time. However, I do not see the same commitment from the government in what it says and what it does. We are hearing over and over again how uncompetitive a place Canada is to do business in, whether that is the uncertainty of new regulations, and I mentioned Bill C-69, or, as I mentioned, the uncertainty moving forward, as the government wants to bring forward a carbon tax, which each and every one of us in the House is going to be affected by. It will affect each and every Canadian, each and every family, not only on direct costs for things they buy in the energy resource sector but also downstream, whether it is groceries, heating buildings or more taxes for municipalities. It is going to affect every aspect of Canadians' lives.

I will be supporting this motion, but I do not have high expectations, because this motion alone is not going to fix the problems Canada is facing. We hope the government takes these issues seriously, especially in regard to competitiveness, because human resources are only a piece of it. We look forward to the minister's economic update later this week.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

November 7th, 2018 / 7:45 p.m.


See context

Oakville Ontario

Liberal

John Oliver LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I want to reassure all members of the House and every Canadian watching at home that our government is committed to developing our country's abundant resources the right way by protecting investor confidence and promoting public trust, by advancing indigenous reconciliation and enhancing environmental performance, with the goal of getting good resource projects built in a timely, responsible and transparent way.

That has been our focus since we came to office in November 2015, and that is why we took a leadership role in forging the Paris Agreement on climate change. That is why we sat down with provinces and territories and consulted with indigenous leaders to draft the pan-Canadian framework to support clean growth and address the changing climate. That is why we tabled Bill C-69. That is why we are consulting on a framework for recognizing and implementing indigenous rights, and that is why we have put in place the Pipeline Safety Act, which came into force in June 2016.

We understand that Canadians depend upon our government to ensure that Canada's oil and gas pipelines are built securely and operated safely. The Pipeline Safety Act helps us do that by creating a culture of safety.

Bill C-69 would build on that by creating a new Canadian energy regulator with enhanced powers to oversee stronger safety and environmental protections. That includes new powers for federal inspection officers so they can act quickly and, if necessary, place a stop work order on any project that is operating unsafely or falling short of prescribed conditions. Such measures are critical to delivering on our vision of a Canada that works for everyone, a Canada that creates good jobs and expands our middle class, a Canada that develops its resources sustainably and competitively, and a Canada that leads the global transition to a low carbon economy.

The Trans Mountain expansion project has the potential to be part of that vision, but we know we have more work to do to move forward the right way. That is why we have instructed the National Energy Board to reconsider its recommendations concerning the effects of project-related marine shipping, and to do so with the help of a special marine technical adviser. That is also why we relaunched our government's phase 3 consultations with indigenous groups affected by the project. The former Supreme Court Justice, the hon. Frank Iacobucci, serves as a special federal representative on legal and constitutional matters.

We are committed to growing the economy and protecting the environment at the same time.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 6th, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are drowning Canadian job creators in red tape and tax hikes. Whether it is the carbon tax, small business tax hikes or the many cancelled tax credits and deductions, the Liberals are driving businesses out of Canada and killing Canadian jobs, hurting workers and middle-class families across the country.

Every other day major oil and gas companies cancel future projects, stop expansions or completely sell their Canadian businesses and take their money to other countries. It is a crisis, and it is not a result of external factors beyond the government's control. In fact, it is a direct consequence of the Liberals' message to Canadians and the world that Canada is closed for business because of the Liberals' added red tape and imposed cost increases.

Context is important. The energy sector is the biggest private sector investor and accounts for over 11% of the value of Canada's economy. To put this in perspective, it contributes twice as much as agriculture and fisheries combined, sectors in which farmers and fishermen also often have jobs in oil and gas. It contributes more than the banking and finance sector and more than the auto sector. The benefits are shared across Canada. Every one job in the oil sands creates seven manufacturing jobs in Ontario. Every one upstream oil and gas job in Alberta creates five jobs in other sectors, in other provinces.

However, spending in Canada's oil and gas sector declined 56% over three years, from $81 billion in 2014 to $45 billion in 2017. More money has left Canada's oil and gas sector since the 2015 election than at any other comparable time period in more than 70 years. The equivalent value would be losing 75% of auto manufacturing in Canada, or almost the entirety of the aerospace sector in Canada, something no one rightfully would accept.

The biggest beneficiary is the U.S. where spending in oil and gas increased 38% to $120 billion in 2017. Today, U.S. investment in Canada is down by more than half. Canadian investment in the U.S. is up by two-thirds. The consequences of these losses are hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of work and less revenue for core social programs and services at every level of government in every single province.

Over 115,000 Albertans are out of work and not receiving any employment insurance assistance right now and tens of thousands more have lost their jobs. The Liberals' anti-energy agenda is clearly both hindering the private sector from being able to provide well-paying jobs, but it is also risking the life savings of many Canadians.

Oil and gas companies are a big part of most people's pension plans, and whether through employer provided defined contribution plans or personal investments in mutual funds, chances are that most Canadians are invested in oil and gas. When oil and gas companies leave Canada, the value of those investments in Canada drops, reducing the value of everyone's retirement savings. Now CPP and the Ontario teachers' pension plan are also investing in the United States.

I want to highlight an aspect of this legislation that will compound uncertainty and challenges for Canadian oil and gas proponents. On page 589, in the very last chapter of this 840-page omnibus bill, clause 692 implements sweeping new powers for the federal cabinet to impose regulations on marine transport. Included in these powers is the ability to pass regulations:

(j) respecting compulsory routes and recommended routes;

(k) regulating or prohibiting the operation, navigation, anchoring, mooring or berthing of vessels or classes of vessels; and

(l) regulating or prohibiting the loading or unloading of a vessel or a class of vessels.

This means the Liberal cabinet can block any class of tanker from any route leaving Canada or from docking at any port the Liberals choose. In Bill C-48, oil tankers of a certain size will be prevented from travelling and from the loading and off-loading of crude at ports only off the northern coast of B.C.

This legislation, Bill C-86, would be a dramatic expansion, giving the Liberal cabinet the power to block oil exports from any port anywhere in Canada or to block oil tankers in general from entering Canadian waters. Places like the Arctic could lose access to the fuel tankers that keep power on during the winter. Offshore oil and gas development in Atlantic Canada could be blocked overnight. That is alarming in itself, and it gets worse.

This legislation authorizes a single minister to be able to make legally binding changes to these regulations for a year at a time and even up to three years, regarding “compulsory routes” and “prohibiting the operation, navigation, anchoring, mooring or berthing of vessels or classes of vessels”. One minister with one stroke of a pen can shut down an entire industry with wide-ranging impacts.

This is a pattern. The Liberals repeatedly demonstrate their hostility to the oil and gas sector in Canada. The Prime Minister of course said that he wants to phase out the oil sands, and Canadians should believe him. He defended the use of tax dollars for summer jobs to stop the Trans Mountain expansion. The Liberals removed the tax credit for new exploration oil drilling at the very worst time.

Also, many Liberal MPs ran in the last election opposing the export of Canada's oil to the world. Since they formed government, the Liberals have used every tool at their disposal to kill energy sector jobs.

Canada is the only top 10 oil-producing country in the world, let alone in North America, to impose a carbon tax on itself. While there are significant exemptions for major industrial emitters, it will hike costs for operations across the value chain, and certainly for the 80% of Canadian service and supply companies that are small businesses. Moreover, individual contractors will still have to pay it.

The proposed clean fuel standards—which would be unprecedented globally because they would be applied to buildings and facilities, not just to transportation fuel—will cost integrated oil and gas companies as well as refining and petrochemical development in Canada hundreds of millions of dollars. Canada is literally the most environmentally and socially responsible producer of oil and gas in the world, oil and gas that the world will continue to demand for decades. We are falling dramatically behind the United States and other countries for regulatory efficiency and clarity.

The Liberals imposed the tanker ban, with no substantial economic, safety, or environmental assessments and no real consultation, and a ban on offshore drilling in the north against the wishes of the premier of the Northwest Territories.

The Prime Minister vetoed outright the northern gateway pipeline and then intervened to kill energy east with delays, rule changes and a last-minute double standard. Now, the Liberals' failures have driven Kinder Morgan out of Canada. Construction of the Trans Mountain expansion has never started in the two years since the Liberals approved it, and they have repeatedly kicked the can down the road for months. The consequence is that crude oil is now being shipped by rail and truck at record levels, negatively impacting other sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and retail.

The Liberals would add uncertainty and great expense for any resource project that has even a ditch on its property, by subjecting all water to the navigable waters regulatory regime in Bill C-68. Moreover, their “no more pipelines” Bill C-69 would block any future pipelines and therefore stop major oil and gas projects from being built in Canada.

Kinder Morgan is now going to take all of that $4.5 billion in Canadian tax dollars the Liberals spent on the existing pipeline and will use it to build pipelines in the United States, Canada's biggest energy competitor and customer. The consequences are that large companies are pulling out of Canada and investing in the U.S. or elsewhere.

Encana, a made in Canada success story, is selling Canadian assets to buy into projects in the United States. Gwyn Morgan, its founder, did not mince words. He said:

I’m deeply saddened that, as a result of the disastrous policies of the [Liberal] government, what was once the largest Canadian-headquartered energy producer now sees both its CEO and the core of its asset base located in the U.S.

It is estimated that the Liberal failure to get pipelines built is forcing Canadian oil to sell for $100 million dollars less a day than what it should be worth. That is $100 million dollars a day that is not providing for middle-class families, that is not fuelling small businesses, and not generating taxes to pay off the out-of-control Liberal deficit.

RBC recently reported that in 2008, taxes generated by oil and gas were worth $35 billion a year for provincial and federal governments. That is now down to almost $10 billion a year in 2016. That is more than $20 billion a year that could have gone to health care and education or to cover old age security costs, or be invested in building bridges and roads. Of course, the Liberals promised a deficit of only $10 billion a year and that the budget would be balanced by 2019, but none of that is anywhere in sight. They choose to spend recklessly: millions of dollars on perks like renovations for ministers' offices, a $5 million hockey rink on Parliament Hill that operated for a couple of months, or $26 million for vehicles. Never mind the billions of dollars spent outside Canada, building oil and gas pipelines in Asia with Canadian tax dollars or funding groups linked to anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Never has a government spent so much and achieved so little. The end result is Canada is trapped in a debt spiral. The ones who are going to pay for these deficits are millennials and their children, and it makes life less affordable today while federal government debt increases interest rates across the board. That poses significant risks to Canada and leaves us utterly unprepared for a global economic recession or worldwide factors that the government cannot control, unlike the Liberals' damaging policies. Future generations will find that their governments cannot afford services or programs they are counting on, and their governments will be in a trap of borrowing and hiking taxes. That is why Conservatives advocate balanced budgets, because it is the only responsible thing to do for Canada's children and grandchildren.

The out-sized contributions of the energy sector to the whole country's economy and to government revenue is also why the future of energy development in Canada is one of the most important domestic economic questions facing all of us. That is what makes the Liberal layering of red tape and costs on Canadian energy so unconscionable, and the consequences so devastating for all of Canada.

As spoken

AlbertaStatements By Members

November 2nd, 2018 / 11 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Madam Speaker, driving to work in Calgary this morning, these are the stories we hear on the radio. We hear about the impact of the Trans Mountain pipeline delay on the local economy. We hear about how Bill C-69 is killing investment in the energy sector. We hear about how the price differential for oil is killing the energy sector. We hear about stagnant wage growth in the city, and we hear about high unemployment numbers that are continuing.

My constituents and my province need the government to immediately kill Bill C-69. This is a key determinant of investment fleeing the province, and it needs to stop today. It needs to invoke paragraph 92.10(c) of the Constitution to ensure that the Trans Mountain pipeline is completely within federal jurisdiction, and it needs to scrap the carbon tax. Most importantly, the government needs to stop treating Alberta like a colony, whose only purpose is to be milked for equalization payments.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 1st, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to follow the dean of our caucus, the longest-serving member for Calgary Forest Lawn, who has been outraged on a few occasions by Liberal mismanagement of the economy. That is what I am going to spend a few minutes on in my remarks today on Bill C-86, the budget implementation act. There are a few aspects I am going to go through that should concern all Canadians, the biggest of which is the uncompetitiveness of our economy and how we are not ready for a global downturn. Many of the decisions of the government are putting us on a very precarious footing ahead of what could be uncertain times.

I have concerns related to the record debt levels under the current government and record deficits in a time of positive economic growth. I have called the Liberal track record on debt and deficits the Liberal double-double. Most Canadians are seeing the cost of their double-double going up, when they think of Tim Hortons. The Liberal double-double is deficits and debt. What is crazy about it is that it is being fuelled even with a roaring economy and despite the fact that Liberals are raising taxes countless times, making us uncompetitive. They are taking more money from Canadians and yet still cannot balance the budget.

Because this is a budget implementation bill and because my friend from Winnipeg North, the deputy House leader of the Liberal Party, is here, I want to remind him of the fact that when he says things in the House, they will come back to haunt him. I have mentioned many occasions in the previous government when, as a Liberal opposition member, he would almost howl at the moon. It is the day after Halloween. He would howl about the use of time allocation or omnibus legislation. He called them assaults on democracy several times. He has given me so much material.

I want to keep the member for Winnipeg North on his toes, so I am choosing a quote from this Parliament with respect to his comments. As a government member, he said this, on June 5, 2017, “Member after member has talked about this particular bill being an omnibus bill. Again, when I was standing up and the member made reference to some of my quotes, they were not 300-page documents, they were more like 600-page or 900-page documents, which affected laws that had nothing to do with the budget.” I thank him. This budget implementation bill is 850 pages, so it fits right in the sweet spot that he said was outrageous with the previous government. In fact, it is at the upper range of the outrageous levels he even talked about earlier in this Parliament. It is amazing. This bill is chock full of things that have nothing to do with the budget.

The Liberal member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook quoted the veteran ID card that I announced as minister, the extension of the NDI 75 card and making sure that all veterans got it, not just those serving after 10 years. I was proud to make that announcement in Fredericton alongside my good friend from the Canadian Armed Forces and Royal Military College, Brian MacDonald. He was an MLA in New Brunswick and I thank him for his service in uniform and in the assembly in New Brunswick. We announced that. I was there. I can send the minister the picture of the cards we were holding up. That is in the budget implementation bill.

When the member for Winnipeg North rises to ask me a question or make a comment, which he is likely to do, statistics show he likely will, I would like him to apologize to the chamber for feigned outrage in this place over the very type of omnibus legislation he is now being tasked by Mr. Butts in the Prime Minister's Office to defend. Even at 850-plus pages, it is at the outer range of what he said was clearly unacceptable.

Beyond that, let me go back to the double-double of the Liberal Party: the debt and deficits. There is $60 billion of debt accumulated by the government in good economic times in three years. In a positive economy, where there is economic growth, that is a Canadian record. Liberals should not be proud of that record, because that debt and the deficits they are running on an annual basis are future taxes for my children.

They are spending recklessly at a time when they should be putting some away for the clouds looming on the horizon. They are not, and virtually none of it was the infrastructure money they promised.

Members will recall, in the last election, when the member for Papineau changed his fundamental economic views halfway through an election to outfox the NDP. He started the election saying that they are the party of Paul Martin and balanced budgets. Midway through, he said they were going to run deficits, but Canadians were not to worry because it would be no more than $10 billion and they would be in balance by 2019. All of that was out the window within three months. The Liberals have run deficits in the $20 billion or $20 billion-plus range every single year.

What is more egregious is they received $20 billion last year in extra revenues because the economy is strong because the Conservative Party put the economy on a footing such that when the American economy recovered, which it has, we would be booming again. Therefore, when the Liberals quote how Canada's growth was tepid during the global recession, they should go and see how our G7 allies were doing. We were the only one with a balanced budget, the only one that balanced our budget without raising taxes. We lowered taxes. Even the tax reduction of the small business rate that we had planned to 9%, the Liberals cancelled at first. Now they praise it, as they are returning it to a level we had pledged it to go to back in 2014.

It is almost comical to hear members of the Liberal Party talk about the budget, competitiveness and deficits. Their policy and the underlying philosophy change by the moment, all based on opportunity for a photograph and the hope that they can grow the economy from the heart outward. Do members remember that one? The Liberals said that the budget will balance itself and that they will grow the economy from the heart outward. They can tell that to the Alberta oil patch workers or the engineers or geologists who are out of work, or property companies that now see high vacancy rates in Alberta because the Liberals have botched the resource economy.

In fact, the Canadians they failed the most in the resource economy are our indigenous peoples. The northern gateway pipeline was a one-third owned pipeline. Our country has a commitment to make sure first nations and Inuit play a role in our economy and benefit directly, and they would have benefited with northern gateway. The Liberals cancelled that on a whim and brought in Bill C-69, which led to the cancellation of energy east, and then they were forced to buy Trans Mountain when the company was leaving Canada because we are not competitive.

In fact, Jack Mintz, the leading tax authority in Canada, warned of a “competitive tsunami” because in three years, while racking up $60 billion in debt for our children and grandchildren, the Liberals have raised taxes on everyone. They have raised personal income taxes, corporate income taxes and payroll taxes and they have introduced a carbon tax, all in the middle of good economic times. In the last year, the United States has been going in the opposite direction. This is why there is a competitive risk. It is all due to the Liberals' mismanagement of the economy.

People are not to just believe me or Jack Mintz. Douglas Porter, the chief economist of BMO, the Bank of Montreal, said, “I think Canada has a very weak competitive position. I think we're going to get crushed in the next recession”. Crushed, because they have squandered the opportunity of good times. The Liberals have put us on an uncompetitive footing so that our small businesses are going to be paying a carbon tax that the Liberals are omitting large emitters from. They are making suburban commuters in Whitby, Ajax, Pickering, Uxbridge and Peterborough pay for their schemes that the parliamentary secretary acknowledged will make businesses uncompetitive, and will not lower emissions.

The very fact that our future competitiveness is hanging in the balance should concern Canadians. It should also concern them that this budget bill does not address the underpinnings of that competitive disadvantage and of our problems getting projects like pipelines done. I would like the Liberals to stand in this House and put forward a plan to get our resources to market.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 1st, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary Forest Lawn, AB

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises a good point. We were there only a week ago. The oil industry and even the NDP Government of Alberta have said that Bill C-69 is a disaster for the country. We are talking about the NDP government, so does that not tell the current government that its Bill C-69 is an absolute disaster for this country? Those regulations would stifle the energy sector in this country.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2Government Orders

November 1st, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, to my friend from Winnipeg North, I had the honour of working in the oil sands prior to my time in Parliament, and it was just a hive of economic activity. I have heard now that the camps in the region I was working in are all closed and employment is way down.

I was on the environment committee when Bill C-69 was debated, and I thank my hon. colleague for bringing up the regulatory process. In fact, that bill is shutting down the Canadian economy right now. The resource industry is 20% of the Canadian economy and a big part of most pension funds. That is what the people across the way forget. Senior citizens, pensioners, investment funds all rely on the oil sands and the energy industry.

In the testimony in Bill C-69, Chris Bloomer from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said that Canada has a “toxic regulatory environment”, and that is why investment in this country is declining.

Can my friend from Calgary Forest Lawn talk about the effects of the regulatory environment on the Alberta energy industry and the ripple effect across the country?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 1st, 2018 / 3 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of inaction under the Harper Conservatives, 99% of our oil exports were still sold to the United States. They do not even want to negotiate with our first nations. They have no respect for the environment. We will take no lessons from them on how to move our major projects forward.

Bill C-69 provides a path forward and the certainty that business owners need. The mining sector is on board. The forestry sector is on board. We must move forward responsibly.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

November 1st, 2018 / 3 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, under the Conservatives, four major new pipelines with access to new markets were approved and built with no tax dollars. These Liberals have already killed two export pipelines. Their failures have not added a single new centimetre, and their Bill C-69 will ensure there will be none in the future.

Thirty-five indigenous communities now join provinces and industry to oppose the Liberals' “no more pipelines” Bill C-69. They say “it will have an enormous and devastating impact on the ability of First Nations to cultivate or develop economic development opportunities in their traditional territories”.

Will the Liberals scrap Bill C-69?

As spoken

Alleged Premature Disclosure of Immigration Levels PlanPrivilegePrivate Members' Business

October 31st, 2018 / 5:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Madam Speaker, in relation to the question of privilege I raised earlier today. I have some important additional information that I would like to put on the record.

I want to put on the record an email exchange I had with a reporter today. This exchange began at approximately 3:20 p.m. It is in regard to the immigration levels plan that was tabled by the minister at approximately 4 p.m. today.

The exchange began with, “Hi there, I'm hoping to connect with [the member for Calgary Nose Hill] this afternoon to get her reaction to the government's new levels plan numbers and also to the fact the CBSA has been asked to step up its removals. Could she give me a call.” I responded with “Were the levels tabled today? I must have missed it.”

The exchange said, “Sorry no, but they will be. It would have happened by now but for this point of order. Just looking to set up a quick interview for after they are tabled.” I responded with, “Do you have a copy? I am happy to comment, but it would help to see them first.”

In addition to this email exchange, there was a follow-up phone conversation between my staff and the reporter, which occurred at 3:45 p.m., and again the minister tabled the levels plan at 4:00 p.m. This is a first draft transcription.

The reporter said, “I did just did get a little bit of a heads-up on what they were so that I could have something ready to move on the wire when it is tabled just in case.” My assistant said, “Oh okay I see.” “So that's where I was expecting that it would have been tabled by now but there's a point of order that obviously is taking up more time than usual.” My assistant said, “Okay I guess I will have to flip on the House in a second here but I'm so—okay, do you have some of the information and we're just kind of waiting now to see when they'll table it I guess.” Then the reporter said, “It's just kind of a continuation of what they did last year, like a three-year plan and it will go up to 350,000 in 2021.” I will note that a story was published that included details on the levels plan at 4:30 p.m. today.

I am also happy to provide the Speaker with copies of this information, if he so requests.

As you know, Madam Speaker, there is no provision for information to be given to journalists ahead of a member of Parliament and there are numerous precedents, particularly in regard to legislation. I will give one example. On April 19, 2016, the Speaker found a prima facie case of privilege after the leader of the opposition pointed out that specific and detailed information contained in Bill C-14 was given to the media ahead of the House and members of Parliament.

During that discussion, Speaker Milliken's ruling was referenced of March 19, 2001, when he said, “To deny to members information concerning business that is about to come before the House, while at the same time providing such information to media that will likely be questioning members about that business, is a situation that the Chair cannot condone.” In that 2001 case, my former colleague, Vic Toews, was called by a reporter for comment on a bill not yet tabled. He was embarrassed by the exchange. The facts in that scenario are identical to this situation. Again I would point out that this was business that was put in front of the House this afternoon with regard to the levels plan.

My colleague, the member for Milton, was also recently questioned by a reporter over information the journalist was given, but she was denied. The Speaker is still deliberating on that matter. Today, I have been put in that same position.

We have had two other rulings by the Speaker recently that I believe are relevant. On March 20, following a complaint from the hon. member for Abbotsford that the media and stakeholders received a briefing five hours before members on Bill C-69, an omnibus bill of 377 pages, this was the Speaker's comment on the matter, “there is a rightful expectation that those responsible for the information should do their utmost to ensure members’ access to it. Not respecting this expectation does a disservice to all. It is particularly disconcerting when the government gives priority to the media over the members of Parliament.”

Only one month later, on April 17, the hon. member for Niagara Falls brought to the Speaker's attention evidence that the CBC received information on Bill C-75 ahead of members, allowing it to post an article online only eight minutes after the bill was introduced. What the government did to the member for Niagara Falls with Bill C-75 I believe I have evidence that it has done the same thing to me, but concrete evidence that this was done ahead of it being tabled in the House of Commons with respect to the information contained in the levels plan tabled by the minister today. In the Speaker's ruling on this matter on May 7, 2018, the Speaker indicated how troubled he was that some of the members had an experience of feeling disadvantaged in their ability to fulfill their duties and that members should never have to even so much as wonder if they were not the first to receive the information from the government.

I have one final point. Given this pattern of the government on this matter and given that leaking information to the media has become part of its routine communication strategy, there comes a time, particularly when a government persists in behaviour that has caught the attention of the Speaker much too often, as I have just laid out, that another warning will not be good enough. Sometimes members deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt when they feel that their privileges have been breached. In this situation, I am again happy to provide concrete proof of the information that I have put on the record today.

There are precedents for this that I would like to offer the Speaker. In Maingot, second edition, Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, page 227, he states:

In the final analysis, in areas of doubt, the Speaker asks simply:

Does the act complained of appear at first sight to be a breach of privilege...or to put it shortly, has the Member an arguable point? If the Speaker feels any doubt on the question, he should...leave it to the House.

In a ruling of October 24, 1966, at page 9005 of Debates, the Speaker said:

In considering this matter I ask myself, what is the duty of the Speaker in cases of doubt? If we take into consideration that at the moment the Speaker is not asked to render a decision as to whether or not the article complained of constitutes a breach of privilege...considering also the Speaker is the guardian of the rules, right and privileges of the house and of its members and that he cannot deprive them of such privileges when there is uncertainty in his mind...I think at this preliminary stage of the proceedings the doubt which I have in my mind should be interpreted to the benefit of the member.

I am not being critical of the journalists in this regard, because I believe they were just doing their job. The problem I have is the minister tabled this afternoon a 43-page document. I am the shadow minister for citizenship and immigration. Immigration is a topic of great concern and consternation in the public at this point of time. The minister tabled a 43-page document. The media was given an advance copy of the information contained in the document and then I was asked for comment.

I understand that some members of the media might feel like this is routine proceedings, that somehow they should be given information so they can put a story out and be newsy. I would argue that it is the opposite. It is the job of the media to respond to deliberations of Parliament and that my right as a parliamentarian with respect to being able to digest and critically evaluate information that is put in front of the House supersedes the government wanting to have a positive communications strategy or any journalist wanting to sell a paper.

This is also something journalists should be asking themselves in terms of standards. Is it right to be publishing stories on a 43-page document and asking for comments when clearly they have had the information and a member of Parliament whose task is critically evaluating it and providing comment on it does not? I would argue no.

However, going back to my point of privilege. There is no manner by which any of our rules give journalists the right to have information prior to a member of Parliament. Therefore, I ask you, Madam Speaker, to find a prima facie case of privilege. I would ask, in your ruling, to understand how one can provide comment on a 43-page document on detailed immigration policy that affects the number of people that Canada will allow into this country and under what assumption when the journalists already have this. Why should they be given the right to review that information when I am not? That is wrong.

Therefore, I ask you to find a prima facie case of privilege, Madam Speaker. I believe it is there. Should you find such, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 31st, 2018 / 3 p.m.


See context

Papineau Québec

Liberal

Justin Trudeau LiberalPrime Minister

Mr. Speaker, for 10 years, the Conservatives tried in vain to get our resources to new markets other than the United States. They were unsuccessful, because they refused to understand that getting new projects built required partnership with indigenous peoples, defence and protection of environmental science and thoughtfully working with businesses to give them the certainty they needed to move forward.

That is exactly what we are doing in Bill C-69. We are demonstrating that we understand, the way we were able to with LNG Canada, to get things—

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 31st, 2018 / 3 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised “a true partnership between the federal government and the provinces.”

Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario oppose Bill C-69. The Premier of Ontario says that Bill C-69 holds back natural resource development for the whole country and that Bill C-69 is the worst possible news, at the worst time, for Canada's energy industry. He is right.

Will the Prime Minister listen to Premier Ford, Premier Moe and his good friend, Premier Notley, and kill his no more pipelines bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

October 29th, 2018 / 8:25 p.m.


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Fredericton New Brunswick

Liberal

Matt DeCourcey LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond. I want to assure him, all members of the House and all Canadians watching on television that our government is determined to develop the abundant resources of our country in the right way, namely by investing significant amounts in clean technology and a greener future; by advancing reconciliation with indigenous peoples and strengthening environmental performance; and by moving forward with good resource projects, in a timely, responsible and transparent manner and with the confidence of Canadians and investors. That is what we have been working on since we took office in November 2015.

That is why we took a leadership role in forging the Paris Agreement on climate change.

That is why we quickly implemented an interim strategy for reviewing new resource projects already in the queue.

That is why we met with the provinces and territories and consulted indigenous leaders to draft the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.

That is why we introduced Bill C-69.

That is why we are holding consultations on a framework to recognize and implement indigenous rights.

We want to build a Canada that works for everyone; a Canada that creates good jobs, grows our economy and expands our middle class; a Canada that develops its resources sustainably and competitively; a Canada that leads the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

The Trans Mountain expansion project has been part of that very vision. Part of our plan for using this time of transition to Canada's advantage is by building infrastructure we need to move our resources to new markets at fair prices, and using the revenues they generate to invest in our clean energy future. It is a matter of doing the hard work necessary to move forward in the right way.

That is why we are also following the direction provided by the Federal Court of Appeal on August 30 in its decision on the TMX project. We are doing so by instructing the National Energy Board to reconsider its recommendation and to take into account the environmental impacts of marine shipping related to this project. We are doing so by relaunching our government's phase three consultations with indigenous groups affected by this project.

Regarding the member's question about the future of the energy east project, I think he may be a bit confused. We cannot speak for TransCanada, the company which owns the project, nor can we make any guarantees on its behalf one way or the other.

What I can say, however, is that this government will always support good resource projects by creating good sustainable jobs in Quebec and across the country. That is how we will create an inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future for all Canadians.

Partially translated

Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation ActGovernment Orders

October 29th, 2018 / 5:35 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Dean Allison Conservative Niagara West, ON

Madam Speaker, I also want to extend my condolences, sympathies and utter outrage at what happened to the Jewish community in Pittsburgh. My heart goes out to those in Pittsburgh and to the greater Jewish community. It is absolutely reprehensible that anyone would come into a place of worship, a place so sacred, and do what happened. This was a very heinous crime. I just want them to know that they have our support here on this side of the House, as has been mentioned by all members in the House today.

I want to start by saying that the Conservatives will support Bill C-85, the modernized Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement. This agreement was overwhelmingly negotiated by our former Conservative government. In October 2011, we began the consultation with Canadians. In January 2014, Prime Minister Harper and Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the launch of the CIFTA negotiations. In July 2015, Canada and Israel announced the successful conclusion of the revised agreement.

Amendments to the original deal included four updated chapters: dispute settlement, good market access, governance and rules of origin. The agreement also added seven new chapters: e-commerce, environment, intellectual property, labour, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, and trade facilitation.

The modernized CIFTA breaks down many old barriers. It creates new export opportunities for Canadian agriculture and agri-food. It creates new opportunities for our fish and seafood companies in the Israeli market. As members can see, we are very proud to have been the main drivers of this agreement.

Israel is our closest partner in the region and also the only democracy in the region. Israel's economy is a very modern and advanced one. Our two countries enjoy an excellent commercial relationship. Since the original agreement came into force over 20 years ago, trade between our two countries has tripled, totalling $1.7 billion in 2017.

Israel's market has a lot of potential and offers many opportunities for our Canadian businesses. Israel is also placed in a very economically strategic region in the Middle East. With one of the best educated populations in the world, a solid industrial and scientific base, and abundant natural resources, specifically in the agricultural and agri-tech sectors, Israel makes for a great partner in trade.

It is also important to mention that this agreement will further strengthen Canada's support for Israel, which should be very important to all of us. As we bring Canada and Israel closer through this trade deal, we begin to see a very positive pattern for Conservatives when it comes to negotiating free trade deals, a pattern of Conservative-negotiated agreements.

Conservatives negotiated the original NAFTA, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement, CETA with the Europeans, and now the modernization of CIFTA. The biggest free trade agreements were done under Conservative governments. We are very proud of that.

We are also very proud of the member for Abbotsford, who worked tirelessly to complete the negotiations on CIFTA, the TPP, and CETA. I have tremendous respect for him on a personal level, and of course, as the former international trade minister.

I have to say that although this agreement will likely pass without much delay, there is a greater concern Canadians have with the Liberal government when it comes to the economy. That concern is about competitiveness.

Canadians are worried that the Prime Minister and the Liberals are making our economy uncompetitive. While our neighbours to the south are cutting corporate taxes and getting rid of massive amounts of burdensome red tape, the Prime Minister keeps raising taxes and adding more red tape to everything he touches. He is raising taxes everywhere he can. He is putting in ridiculous regulations and massive roadblocks that serve to kill pipeline construction and many of its offshoot jobs.

This is no secret. In fact, he admits it every day in question period and every time he speaks around the country. He just sugar-coats it, smiles for the cameras, and relies on his pals in the media to sell it.

Let us take the carbon tax as an example. Last week, the Prime Minister announced that he will be forcing Canadians living in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick to pay his carbon tax. While he claims that he will return 90% of all the money he collects, Conservatives know that the Prime Minister and his Liberals are simply looking for more ways to sustain this massive debt and out-of-control deficits.

Unless large and developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, global emissions will not decrease. Let me repeat that one more time: Unless large and developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, global emissions will not decrease. The Prime Minister's carbon tax will not save the environment. It will only hurt Canada's economy, Canada's small businesses, and Canadian families.

Canadians are not fooled by the carbon tax. They know the Prime Minister's carbon tax is a tax plan dressed up like an emissions plan. Canadians see it for what it is, another tax or an election gimmick. Only the Liberals could argue that a new tax will mean money in our pockets while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

To make matters worse, the Prime Minister is personally withholding documents that show the true cost of the carbon tax, both for families and businesses. The reality is that the Prime Minister's carbon tax will make everything more expensive, from driving to work to feeding our families to filling our gas tanks. Canadians will see through this election gimmick, and we will hold the government and the Prime Minister to account for it.

I know the Liberals will keep on repeating the same old tired message they have been repeating, a message that asks for our plan. I would like to be very clear. The Liberals do not have an environment plan. They have a tax plan, an election gimmick. It is another tax. It is nothing more. However, they have no plan to lower emissions. We believe that it is more important to arrive at a plan that will actually reduce global emissions, and that takes time to carefully consider. I would also like to be very clear that we will be unveiling a detailed and comprehensive environmental plan before the next election.

On top of taxing Canadians more through the carbon tax, the Prime Minister and the Liberals are working against Canadian jobs in the oil and gas sector, making our economy even more uncompetitive.

The Liberals have no plan to get the Trans Mountain expansion built. Thousands of workers have already lost their jobs because of the Prime Minister's failure to get any pipelines built. Canadians have lost their jobs because of the Liberals' damaging anti-energy policies. This cannot continue. The Liberals' anti-energy policies have driven more than $100 billion of investment out of Canada in the last two years. Talk about being uncompetitive; this is totally unacceptable.

The Federal Court of Appeal gave the Liberals clear direction to address their failure to properly consult with indigenous communities on the Trans Mountain expansion. However, instead of following those directions, the Liberals announced that they will launch another process, with no timeline, that will only further delay construction.

Canadian families cannot wait until next year for a plan. For the workers and communities affected by the Prime Minister's failure, every day counts. Getting the Trans Mountain expansion built should be the Prime Minister's top priority. What exactly is going on? He spent nearly $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money on the existing pipeline and still cannot tell workers when construction will start, how much it will cost or when it will be completed. The pipeline is crucial for workers across Canada, including the 43 first nation communities that have benefit agreements worth over $400 million, which now hang in the balance.

It seems like the Prime Minister is doing everything he can to phase out our energy sector. We just have to look at Bill C-69. This Liberal bill would again fail Canadian workers and the Canadian resource sector, making us even more uncompetitive. It would kill future resource development, drive jobs and investment out of the country and do nothing to enhance environmental protection.

Before the current Prime Minister became the Prime Minister , there were three private companies willing to invest more than $30 billion to build three nation-building pipelines that would have created tens of thousands of jobs and generated billions in economic activity. The Prime Minister killed two of them and put the Trans Mountain expansion on life support. Bill C-69 would block all future pipelines.

When the Prime Minister says he wants to phase out the oil sands, Canadians should believe him. In the last two years, over $100 billion of investment in the energy sector has been cancelled by the Liberal government. Over 100,000 good-paying, high-quality jobs in the resource sector have been lost. Under the current Prime Minister, energy investment in Canada has seen its biggest decline in over 70 years. Now the Bank of Canada predicts no new energy investment in Canada until after 2019.

The current Liberal government seems incapable of doing anything but raising taxes, creating red tape, and getting in the way of the energy sector. Our country's competitiveness is at stake, and the Liberals do not seem to care.

Yes, walking completed Conservative free trade agreements across the finish line is a good thing. They seem to be doing that, and we appreciate it. Whether it is the TPP, CETA or the modernized CIFTA, the government seems to understand the value of the free trade agreements that we, the Conservatives, helped arrange and worked on. However, it is important to understand that unless the Liberals stop raising taxes and creating out-of-control regulatory burdens, we will not be able to produce anything to trade with anyone. There needs to be a shift in thinking on the part of this anti-energy government. We hope this shift will start soon.

Let us hope that the modernized CIFTA is the beginning of some pragmatic thinking for the Liberals. CIFTA was a great achievement when concluded by our former Conservative government, and it is still very much worthy of supporting now.

As great friends of Israel, my Conservative colleagues and I will be supporting this agreement when it comes to a vote later.

As spoken

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

October 29th, 2018 / 4:15 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to speak to Bill C-84. I would first like to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Markham—Unionville.

Bill C-84 seems to be another example of the government striking a valiant attempt to make a change, yet it is an incomplete attempt, much like most of the legislation we have seen coming forward from the government. Some of these previous shortcomings include Bill C-45, the cannabis bill, which just came into effect a few days ago. Even though that legislation was debated in the House and passed roughly a year ago, there still remain multiple enforcement agencies, municipalities, regional districts and first nations that agree it simply was not complete or ready. It did not give the provinces or municipalities time to prepare.

After that was Bill C-46, the bill that dealt with impaired driving, which was tied to Bill C-45. We have now heard that because of the way Bill C-46 was drafted, there is no proof that the systems in place and the science and technology around identifying impairment, which was fairly standardized when it came to alcohol, are going to be effective when it comes to drugs. Not only do we have another piece of flawed legislation out there, but we have communities and enforcement agencies trying to scramble to figure out how to deal with that.

The next piece of legislation I am familiar with is Bill C-71, the government's firearms legislation, which, in listening to its rhetoric, is aimed at reducing gun violence, gangs and so on. However, the bill does not mention gangs or gun violence at any point in time. All it talks about is registering firearms and making things worse for law-abiding firearms owners.

The most current is probably Bill C-75, an act to amend the Criminal Code. That is a bill the government introduced to bring modernization to the Criminal Code. That bill has been bantered back and forth many times, but it is now at committee stage. My colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton is currently on the committee studying that bill, and members are looking at stacks and stacks of amendments to another government bill. I experienced the same thing when I sat in on the discussion on Bill C-69, when I happened to be substituting on that committee. I believe there were 600 amendments to that government bill. The bill was 300 pages long, and I believe 300 or 350 of those amendments came from the government side.

I continuously see the government putting forward draft legislation for debate in this House that it has not thought through or consulted on properly, and it just ends up being hashed about at committee. We have seen the Senate return a number of bills to this House with amendments. Worst of all, we see communities, enforcement agencies and the public trying to figure out how they are going to manage or work around this poorly drafted legislation from the government.

Turning back to Bill C-84, an act to amend the Criminal Code with respect to bestiality and animal fighting, I praise the government for bringing forward legislation to deal with this. I agree we need to do what we can, as legislators, to bring in legislation to protect people, protect the innocent and protect animals from the abuses we have seen. Also, to protect them from the ways criminals have been able to skirt the laws through definitions, different interpretations in the courts and so on. On that point, I will give the government credit for at least attempting to do something right.

When I look at this bill, I also see where it comes up short in some cases. I compare it to an insurance policy. I think everyone here has had an insurance policy and has taken a close look at it. Some have possibly made a claim through that insurance policy only to find out that the claim is denied because in the fine print something was excluded.

We may get a chance to amend this bill in committee. Even though it is a short bill and one would not think it needs much amendment, I do not believe it is perfect and I will be talking to committee members about possible amendments going forward.

When I see that the bill includes a phrase that basically bans the fighting or baiting of animals or birds, I question whether that is going to impact our provincial hunting regulations. I have not yet been able to have full discussion with anyone to determine this. In some provinces, it is completely legal and within ethical standards to plant crops to attract wildlife, such as deer and elk, to certain areas for hunting purposes. Those are perfectly accepted standards that continue to this day. In fact, many of those standards actually improve the chances of correct and humane harvest of those animals because they are at a baiting station.

That is why I question the wording in this bill. I will be following through further on this to make sure that this bill, like many other bills the government has put forward, is not flawed after it gets through committee. I want to make sure we are protected in those ways.

Another thing that troubles me with this bill is why it took the government almost a year to introduce its own bill that is identical in most ways to a bill introduced by a member from our side of the House, the member for Calgary Nose Hill. Her bill was introduced in December 2017, and yet the government sat on it and did not move it forward for debate. The government could have had this process done by now and given credit where credit was due, to the person who brought the issue forward.

It seems to be a continuous mantra of the government to not do anything until it is caught not doing anything. We see it when we have witnesses appear at committee to give testimony. We see it in the Auditor General reports. It just seems to be a continuing theme.

In fact, I had the same experience myself. I introduced a private member's bill a couple of years ago to recognize volunteers in search and rescue situations. Just a few weeks later the government announced that it was going to create service medals for search and rescue volunteers. Again, it was not doing anything until it got caught not doing anything.

That is the case here. It is disappointing that the government has to be shown the way forward by members on our side. We see this quite often with the opposition day motions we bring forward. In fact, we had another one just last week. We put forward an opposition day motion that the Liberals could have easily acted on much sooner, but we had to force their hand by forcing the argument and putting it to them to make them step up to the plate. It is just another case of, as I said, not doing anything until they are caught not doing anything. Then they get caught in a bind and have to put out something that is not complete, not well-thought-out and not well-processed.

With that, I am finished my comments. I know I will be receiving questions on this.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 29th, 2018 / 2:55 p.m.


See context

LaSalle—Émard—Verdun Québec

Liberal

David Lametti LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69's better rules will lead to more timely and predictable reviews and encourage further investment in Canada and Canada's natural resource sectors. This invests in our people. This is about making sure that good projects move forward to help grow our economy, but doing so in an environmentally responsible fashion. We will not follow the lead of the Harper Conservatives, who made Canadians lose trust in that very process.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 29th, 2018 / 2:55 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I was in Calgary with the Conservative leader last week. Oil and gas workers said that the Liberal carbon tax and their no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, damage all of Canada. The Liberals' layers of new red tape and costs actually help Donald Trump and Canada's biggest competitor by driving Canadian businesses and jobs into the U.S. The investment leaving Canada because of these Liberals is a crisis, and every dollar not spent in Canada goes to countries with much lower environmental protections.

Why are the Liberals helping Donald Trump and harming Canada and Canadian resource jobs?

As spoken

Elections Modernization ActGovernment Orders

October 26th, 2018 / 12:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Madam Speaker, it is always a good day when we can stand in the House and talk about electoral reform. This piece of legislation is so important. The government says this is a critical piece of legislation that is significant and important to the government. It is so important that the Liberals have once again forced closure on debate.

Let me refresh the memories of those who are paying attention and those in the gallery. It is a packed gallery today on a Friday, which I am glad to see. I know there are many Canadians listening in to this riveting debate and this speech is going to be another one of those riveting speeches.

In 2015, the member for Papineau was campaigning on the Liberal plan for real change. He said that under their government, they would be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. We have seen how that is. He also said that they would let the debate reign and then he targeted the former administration and how closure was used and how unacceptable that was and that Prime Minister Harper was silencing Canadians and those they elected to be their voice. Here we sit, and over 50 times closure has been enacted on legislation. Why? Because if the Liberals do not like what they are hearing, then they just pick up their toys and run off to another sandbox, which is sad.

I have said this before, but on a piece of legislation that is so important, I would remind my colleagues across the way and the Prime Minister that the House does not belong to him. It does not belong to those of us who are here. It belongs to the electors, those who elected the 338 members of Parliament to be their voices. When the Prime Minister and his team enact closure, he is essentially saying to Canadians and those who elected the opposition that their voices do not matter. That is shameful.

The government would like us to believe that the electoral changes that were implemented by Prime Minister Harper and his team in the last administration somehow targeted some of our most marginalized Canadians, that they were unfair, and that they were just another way for the Conservatives to attack Canadian democracy. The 2015 election had the highest voter turnout. The changes that our previous administration enacted increased the number of acceptable forms of identification, making it easier for those who might not have a driver's licence or a passport. The changes made it easier for people to vote and say that they are Canadian. We hope all Canadians and members in the House believe that we need to make sure that who is voting is who should be voting. Only Canadians have a say as to who we are electing to govern this beautiful country of ours.

It is important that those who are sitting in the House are here representing Canadians. They are not backed by, let us say, foreign funds. It is really interesting that we listen to talking points time and time again. The gentleman from Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook stands and is very animated. I love listening to his speeches and love that he ties it back to his community. I have to take a moment to remind everyone that it was his family that received a lucrative surf clam quota from the former fisheries minister.

Open and transparent? What is transparent is that if people have Liberal connections, they get the quota. If people have Liberal connections, they get the appointment. For those who are connected to the Liberal Party in any way, and it might be a foreign entity, Liberal legislation is geared to helping them out, whether it be Bill C-68, Bill C-69, Bill C-55, or what we are now seeing, Bill C-76.

In 2015, a total of 114 third parties poured $6 million into influencing the election outcome, and many of those third parties were funded by U.S.-based Tides Foundation. That should strike fear in every Canadian.

If I seem a little more animated than I normally am, it is because there was an organization called Leadnow. In 2015, Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million U.S. to Canadian third parties, such as Leadnow. Leadnow actually, right after the election in 2016, won an international award. Canadians can go to their website, www.leadnow.ca. I cannot guarantee that the report will be on there after this debate, but it is on there now and the pictures are on there. It proudly boasts how it organized and funded, dollars going into Canada, the third-party groups. I know some of my colleagues across the way are quickly going to their iPads and iPhones to check this out right now.

There is a picture of Leadnow receiving an international award for defeating Stephen Harper. It proudly boasts that this is how it did it. It had hundreds and hundreds of paid volunteers. “Paid volunteers” is an oxymoron. It sounds like they are in the military, except if they were in the military under this Liberal government, they would be asked to do more but would not necessarily be paid for what they did. Their sleeping bags would be taken away, as well as their rucksacks. They would be given used aircraft.

These paid volunteers went all over the place to 29 target ridings, ones where they thought Conservatives would be the most vulnerable. They hammered the ridings with all of their media, all of the fliers. They went to universities and all of these groups, and they said that we have to get out the dirty Cons, and this is the way to do it. There was Fair Vote, www.fairvote.ca and www.votetogether.ca/. They always use the .ca to make it look like they are Canadian companies. It was all funded by U.S.-based companies.

My riding was one of those ridings they targeted. They succeeded in 25 of those 29 ridings, but they did not take my riding. I challenge them to come back.

For those who are listening, this is very real. It is not that we are trying to be divisive or to sow the seeds of fear. This is real. Canadians should pay attention to where that money is coming from, whether it is Greenpeace, WWF, or the Tides Foundation, all of whom are based on making the planet a better place.

Many of the people who are those organizations' senior offices take up senior positions in the government. What did Gerald Butts do previously? He was president and CEO of WWF, the World Wildlife Foundation. Where do they get the core funding? It is the Tides Foundation, which is calling the shots for the guys across the way, and probably setting all the policy objectives in some of our most senior cabinet ministers' offices, all tied to foreign-funded groups with an agenda.

What we see with this bill right here is payback. What we see with Bill C-68 is payback. What we see with Bill C-69 is payback. What we see with Bill C-55 is payback.

I have heard fishermen and fishing industry organizations say they cannot get a meeting with the minister unless they go through an NGO. That is shameful.

Going back to this bill for my last 10 seconds, the only people who matter, the people who matter the most, are those who elect us here. They should be Canadians. We stand here for Canadians. Canadians should have a say on who votes and who represents them. They should also have a say in the debate.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 26th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Madam Speaker, what the Liberals fail to mention is that the $40-billion project is exempt from their job-killing carbon tax.

Now the Liberals' “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, is a threat to the livelihood of Canadians who depend on the energy sector for employment. New carbon taxes, downstream emissions, regulations and now Bill C-69 will end energy investment in Canada as we know it.

The record is clear. The Liberals have failed to get a pipeline built, and it is time for them to scrap this legislation. Will the Minister of Natural Resources from Alberta do the right thing and kill this bill?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 26th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Madam Speaker, thanks to the Liberals, energy investment in Canada has seen its biggest decline in more than 70 years.

Canadian businesses are dying, people are losing their jobs and tens of billions of dollars are going to the U.S. economy instead of ours.

The Prime Minister's “no more pipelines” bill will only make it worse. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canadian workers, businesses and our economy, and scrap Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 26th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


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Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Madam Speaker, the Liberals' “no more pipelines” bill was passed by this House with the shameful support of three Alberta Liberals. However, it is not too late to stop it.

Last week, the Alberta Chamber of Commerce told the finance committee that any pipeline company under Bill C-69 would be foolish to even apply for any type of pipeline, while the Alberta crude differential hit $50 last week.

Will the minister from Alberta do the right thing and kill this bill before it becomes the “no more pipelines” law?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 26th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

Madam Speaker, we are very pleased with Bill C-69. Why? Because we listened to indigenous peoples. We listened to business people. We listened to people in the resource sector. We listened to environmentalists, because what did we commit to? We committed to getting our resources to market, but we also committed to rebuilding a trust in how we do environmental assessments.

We have come up with a system that engages indigenous peoples early, that has shorter and tighter timelines as businesses were requesting. It also ensures that we make decisions based on science. We know to get our resources to market in a responsible way we need a proper process. That is exactly what we—

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 26th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


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Conservative

Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON

Madam Speaker, Bill C-69 is putting a chill on investment in Canada's natural resources sector. The president of the Indian Resource Council said, “Bill C-69 will harm Indigenous economic development, create barriers to decision-making, and make Canada unattractive for resource investment.”

This legislation must be stopped. To make matters worse, under the current Prime Minister, Canadian energy investment has seen its biggest decline in more than 70 years.

When will the natural resources minister kill this bill?

As spoken

Carbon PricingStatements By Members

October 26th, 2018 / 11:10 a.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Madam Speaker, Albertans are struggling, Edmontonians are struggling, and what do we get from the Ottawa Liberals in our time of need? A carbon tax. What is their response to the concerns voiced about the impact of this carbon on everything? It is to take the kids to morning hockey on a bus, renovate our houses, or maybe buy an electric car. That is easy enough to say if someone is a trust-fund millionaire.

People in my riding are already feeling the hit from the Liberal failure on pipelines and the attack on our energy industry with Bill C-69 and the oil tanker ban. Now on top of all that, they are being forced to pay for a carbon tax on everything.

The Liberals preach about the middle-class tax cut, but that tiny amount means nothing when the cost of everything else, including interest rates and debt, is skyrocketing thanks to the government. It is time for the government to start thinking about the individual impacts its policies are having on everyday Canadians rather than pandering to special interest groups.

It is time for the government listen to Albertans and axe this carbon tax.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesStatements By Members

October 26th, 2018 / 11 a.m.


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Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Madam Speaker, in the government's last budget, it was noted with some concern that the discount on Alberta crude had averaged $20 a barrel over the previous year. The budget then went on to predict that, with new pipelines on the way, the differential this year would begin to close, allowing Canadians to get closer to world prices.

The differential has not shrunk. Last week, it hit a staggering $50 per barrel. This means that under the current government's failed pipeline policies, Canada is subsidizing the American economy by sending discounted oil, along with jobs, investment and lost tax revenue to the United States, while supporting Saudi Arabia by importing its oil.

Therefore, on behalf of thousands of my constituents who depend directly on the energy industry, I call upon the government to stop Bill C-69, stop Bill C-48, quit dithering, table a plan to get the Trans Mountain pipeline built, scrap the carbon tax, and get serious about energy policy.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 25th, 2018 / 3 p.m.


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Conservative

Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB

Mr. Speaker, four pipelines. That is what the former Conservative government did, unlike those guys on that side of the House.

Bill C-69, the carbon tax, the tanker traffic bans are all unmistakable signs of a government that is hostile to the future growth of the energy sector. There is no doubt that the no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, is a direct attack on Albertans.

The provincial NDP and the Prime Minister have punished hard-working Albertans enough.

When will the Minister of Natural Resources, who is from Edmonton, finally intervene and kill the bill?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 25th, 2018 / 3 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Mr. Speaker, in Calgary, Alberta, there is no trust in the current government.

Bill C-69 is the greatest threat to Canada's energy industry since the NEP. The energy industry is responsible for more than 500,000 jobs across Canada. However, thanks to the Prime Minister's no-more-pipelines bill, there will be no more major energy infrastructure projects built in Canada. Companies say that if the bill passes, they will stop investing in Canada.

When will the Prime Minister stop driving energy investment away and killing Canadian jobs?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 25th, 2018 / 3 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has told Canadians more than once that he plans to phase out the energy sector, and Bill C-69 is exactly how he will do it. The no-more-pipelines bill means more regulations and longer application times. It means reduced transparency and less investment. It means increased uncertainty and further job losses. Hundreds of thousands of Canadian families and the workers in the energy sector depend on the resource sector. They are calling it the final nail in the coffin.

When will the government kill the no-more-pipelines bill and save the Canadian resource sector?

As spoken

Indigenous AffairsAdjournment Proceedings

October 24th, 2018 / 7:15 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver East for the question. Unfortunately, I disagree with the premise of her question for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I disagree with the member's claim that our government has picked a side on the Trans Mountain expansion project, unless she is suggesting that she is against creating good jobs, opening new markets for Canadian resources, and ensuring that Canada receives a fair price for them, because that is the opportunity we support.

Nor do I agree with any suggestion that respecting indigenous rights is just a formality. Our government has been very clear: no relationship is more important to Canada, and this government, than the one with indigenous people. The Prime Minister has said it countless times. It was a central tenet in our throne speech. It has informed and inspired everything we have done since, including our consultations on a framework for respecting and implementing indigenous rights that would fundamentally redefine that relationship, replacing confrontation with collaboration.

That is why we also implemented an interim approach for reviewing resource projects that includes supporting meaningful indigenous engagement and taking indigenous knowledge into proper account.

We introduced Bill C-69 so that good projects go ahead in Canada. It is legislation that would create new partnerships by recognizing indigenous rights up front and confirming the government's duty to consult. It is legislation that would not only require the consideration of indigenous knowledge but respect the need to properly protect it. It is legislation that would consider the impact of resource development on indigenous rights and culture in the decision-making process. It is legislation that would build capacity and enhance funding for indigenous participation, and it is legislation that would aim to secure free, prior and informed consent. That is our record.

Now we are building on it by respecting the Federal Court of Appeal's decision on the TMX project and following its direction for enhancing indigenous consultations. That way forward includes relaunching phase 3 consultations with all 117 indigenous groups affected by the project. It also includes working with first nation and Métis communities and seeking their views on how to get phase 3 right; doubling the capacity of our consultation teams; ensuring that our government representatives on the ground have a clear mandate to conduct meaningful consultations and empowering them to discuss reasonable accommodations with indigenous groups on issues important to them; and, of course, appointing the former Supreme Court Justice, the Hon. Frank Iacobucci, as the federal representative to oversee the consultation process.

The evidence is overwhelming. We are committed to moving forward in the right way.

Partially translated

Corrections and Conditional Release ActGovernment Orders

October 23rd, 2018 / 3:15 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is ironic to take the floor after that ruling, but I am pleased that we can pursue that other matter through other channels.

I am here now to address Bill C-83. I appreciate that the Liberal Party gave me a time slot, in recognition of the fact that there has been an allocation of time on debate and I otherwise might not have been able to speak to this at all. I wish to go on record, and I am not feeling any sense of cognitive dissonance in doing this, to thank the government party for allowing me to speak for 10 minutes, and I also wish that the government party had not decided to use time allocation on Bill C-83.

In any case, this bill comes to us in a context I want to address first, which is a political context and a political climate that has been created by recent debates in this place, in which, I regret to say, I felt demeaned. I felt displaced, demeaned and diminished by a tactic of the official opposition to turn the House of Commons into sort of a secondary chamber for the review of punishments meted out through the proper system, the courts of law. We have taken days and had people's names and the horrors of gruesome, cruel murders repeated on the floor of this place.

There is clearly some thought in some quarters here that it is a good campaign tactic to talk about punishment a lot and to regret when our correctional system responds in ways that might appear to some as lenient. However, we are a country built on the rule of law. We recognize that our prison system is not merely for punishment. We have to have this discussion, I think, fairly constantly. What is the point of our correctional system? What is the point of our prison system?

As many MPs have said on the floor of this place today in response to Bill C-83, many of the people in our prison system are going to re-enter society. We would like them to re-enter society with the life skills they will need to be contributing members of society, having paid, in that terminology, their debt to society.

It is in that context, where on one end of the political extreme we are told that we have become too lenient towards prisoners, that we turn our attention to an appalling situation, where rights have been infringed and lives have been lost through the failure of the prison system to handle certain kinds of prisoners, those who find themselves in likely incarceration in solitary confinement.

Of course, this bill comes to us in the context of one of the most egregious of those examples, again, as has been mentioned in this place today, the case of Ashley Smith. I think we forget sometimes how horrific her death was, how hard her life was, how hard her mother tried to help her and how the prison system made her survival impossible.

The coroner's inquest into Ashley Smith's death found that although she died from self-inflicted choking, while the guards watched, the context and the circumstances of her death amounted to a homicide. That coroner provided 104 recommendations.

We also know of the cases of Adam Capay, a young indigenous man who spent 1,600 days in solitary confinement; or Richard Wolfe, who did not actually die in solitary but collapsed in a prison exercise yard, at 40 years old, having spent 640 days in solitary confinement; or another indigenous man whose case comes to mind, Eddie Snowshoe, who spent 162 days in solitary confinement before hanging himself.

We can note from those cases that it is quite often those with mental health issues, those who are marginalized, those who are racialized and particularly those who are indigenous who end up in solitary confinement. Therefore, it is certainly welcome that the Minister of Public Safety has brought to this place a bill that promises to end this ongoing stain on the reputation of Canada as a civilized country. Solitary confinement for those lengths of times has been found internationally to constitute torture, and we are a people who are convinced that we do not practise torture.

Therefore, I am sad to share my disappointment with this bill and my concern that we do not have it right yet.

Coralee Cusack-Smith, mother of Ashley Smith, speaking for her family on Bill C-83, said “it's a sham and a travesty that it's done in Ashley's name. It's just a different name for segregation. It's not ending segregation. Not ending segregation for anyone with mental health issues. It's just a new name.”

It seems that the fact it is merely a rebranding is reflected in a statement by the hon. Senator Kim Pate who, having spent time before entering the other place to dedicating her life to the fair treatment of women prisoners, in particular through the Elizabeth Fry Society, described Bill C-83 as disappointing and even as weakening the limitations on how often a segregated prisoner can experience solitary confinement. We have this idea that structured intervention units will be entirely different from solitary confinement. I hope they will be. I have to say that it is one place where I would like to emphasize the positive in this place.

I was a member of Parliament, at the same desk, in the same chair, for an opposition party through the 41st Parliament. I could add up on the fingers of one hand the number of times I saw a single amendment made to a government bill. In a four-year term of a majority government under Stephen Harper, bills were rammed through from start to finish without a single amendment. Therefore, I will credit the current government and the administration of the current Prime Minister with being more open to amendments. However, it is a mixed bag. Some bills I would have been so happy to support if they only had been amended enough to make them acceptable. Bill C-69, the environmental assessment omnibus bill, is in that category. It is a tragedy that the Liberals did not get that one right. It will be a tragedy if we collectively in the House do not get it right on this one.

We have an obligation as a civilized society to re-examine what we mean by “incarceration” and “corrections” in the criminal justice system and what the purpose of incarceration is. In the 41st Parliament, the former government got rid of prison chaplains in that system. It got rid of prison farms where some prisoners could have the first experience in their lives of a day outdoors doing an honest day's labour. I suppose it is ironic that an honest day's labour took place in a prison farm context. However, those programs were killed by the previous government.

The prison system in our country cannot just be seen as a place where some parts of the political spectrum can score political points by talking about life being too easy there for people who have committed heinous crimes, as the language always describes them. I am not sympathizing with criminals. I support the rights of victims. However, it is not an effective prison system if it kills people who have committed minor crimes, who become stuck in a Möbius loop where they cannot get help. We have to break that cycle now. We have to find ways to focus our prison system on fairness, respect, reconciliation and rehabilitation. This is not the stuff of bleeding hearts; this is what makes a society whole. This is what allows people who have been in prison to come back out and function in a civilized society and not pass on the patterns of behaviour they have experienced to their family and children.

I have hope for Bill C-83. I will do everything I can at committee, and everything I can by working with members of the groups who have given their lives to this, whether it be the Elizabeth Fry Society, the John Howard Society, the BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and those very brave people who have been incarcerated and are willing to come forward to say, “This is what would have helped me. This is how it did not help me.”

Yes, a prison system is to ensure that people pay their debt to society and are punished for things that are morally indefensible and a huge assault on our society. However, there are also a lot of people in prison who have committed relatively minor crimes who, if they were wealthier and had better lawyers, might not be there. There, but for the grace of God, go members and I. Therefore, let us fix Bill C-83.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 19th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


See context

Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, I will stand up today and explain why we need Bill C-69, and why we need to rebuild trust and environmental assessments. Guess what? If we do not have trust in how we approve major projects, no projects go ahead.

We have an obligation to Canadians to figure out how we are going to protect the environment and grow the economy. I have spent, with my colleagues in meetings, over two years listening to the business community. We have shorter timelines under Bill C-69. We are providing more certainty of the process. We are working with indigenous peoples. We are also working with provinces.

We need to get this right. That way we will have investment dollars flowing.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 19th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Ron Liepert Conservative Calgary Signal Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, I know that the government is not listening to the indigenous community and so we will see if it will listen to the business community.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Port of Vancouver. At the Port of Vancouver there are hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of construction in new facilities happening today. The officials at the Port of Vancouver said to me that if Bill C-69 had been in place two years ago, not one dollar of what is being spent today would be invested in the Port of Vancouver.

Will the minister stand up today and say to the business community who are investing in the Port of Vancouver that she will kill this bill?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 19th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the fact is these Liberals are failing indigenous communities. The Liberals no-more-pipelines bill, also known as Bill C-69, is a threat to the prosperity of all Canadians.

A Texas company was recently awarded because it was able to get a pipeline permitted and built in only eight months. However, under these Liberals, we are not even sure if we are ever going to get a pipeline built ever.

When will the government get serious about pipeline jobs and scrap this terrible legislation?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 19th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the minister should actually listen to what first nations are saying instead of countering with the exact opposite. The majority of first nations do support responsible resource development for the benefit of all Canadians, and it is key to poverty reduction and Canada's high standard of living.

The reality is that investment is fleeing Canada under these Liberals. Here is what Stephen Buffalo also said:

Indigenous communities are on the verge of a major economic breakthrough, one that finally allows Indigenous people to share in Canada's economic prosperity...Bill C-69 will stop this progress in its tracks.

When will the Liberals kill their no-more-pipelines Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 19th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Indian Resource Council represents hundreds of first nations and advocates for first nations oil and gas producers. Its president and CEO, Stephen Buffalo, says, “Bill C-69 will harm Indigenous economic development, create barriers to decision-making, and make Canada unattractive for resource investment. This legislation must be stopped”. Premiers, economists and the private sector all say the same.

When will the Prime Minister kill his no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project ActPrivate Members' Business

October 18th, 2018 / 6:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all of my Conservative colleagues for proving that we are the only champions of responsible energy development on Canada's long-standing track record as a world-leading environmentally and socially responsible producer of oil and gas.

I would like to thank them on behalf of thousands of Canadians in every single corner of the country whose livelihoods depend on Canada's responsible energy development and the amazing incredible role that Canada could play in the world to provide responsible energy for the world's growing oil and gas demand long into the future. That is our vision for Canada as an energy producer and for the benefit of all Canadians.

The Liberals did not have to spend $4.5 billion of Canadian taxpayer dollars to give to Kinder Morgan to go and build pipelines in the United States and consider selling and divesting completely from Canada.

All Kinder Morgan needed, and never asked for, was certainty that once it completed one of the longest and most rigorous environmental reviews with the highest standards in the world on all counts, received approval and met the 157 conditions applied, that it would simply be able to proceed with construction of the Trans Mountain expansion.

For nearly two years the Liberals have failed and their actions just do not match their empty words. They failed to give certainty to Kinder Morgan that the legal provincial and municipal challenges, delays and ongoing roadblocks, which were deliberate tools to try to get Kinder Morgan to abandon the pipeline, would be removed.

For two years Kinder Morgan did everything it could to try to proceed with building the expansion that the Liberals themselves had approved and that we supported.

The Liberals denied three requests for unanimous consent to pass the bill in the House of Commons expeditiously before the spring, before Kinder Morgan's deadline that the Liberals had known about for months. They failed to take action then to provide Kinder Morgan that certainty before it was forced to abandon it.

Earlier my Liberal colleagues suggested it is too late but as my colleagues have expressed here, even if the pipeline can get built there are still future and ongoing threats, like restricting the volume of the expansion that other levels of government and activists can bring to the pipeline.

That is exactly why Bill S-245 is needed now just as much as it ever was to ensure that if the pipeline does actually get built, there will be no further impediments to its construction, operations and ongoing maintenance.

The Liberals failed to deliver a law to assert federal jurisdiction that the Prime Minister himself promised this past spring, around the same time that the Liberals defended spending Canadians' tax dollars on a protest position that was explicitly to stop the Trans Mountain expansion. That is why nobody believes what they say.

The court ruled that the Liberals failed to follow their own plan to consult indigenous people on the Trans Mountain expansion. For more than a month they failed to take any action to fix that failure and their ultimate announcement was just a consultation on how to consult.

The Liberals failed to listen to premiers and legal experts and appeal the court ruling to request a stay of appeal so construction could proceed while the Supreme Court deliberated.

The Liberals failed to introduce emergency legislation to affirm Transport Canada's holistic review of tanker traffic and marine vessels in the area in the case of the Trans Mountain expansion, instead kicking the can down the road for six months with no certainty what would happen after that process. That is why my colleague said their tactic is to rag the puck.

The Liberals continue to fail by still no longer being able to provide concrete timelines for a start date for construction and completion of the Trans Mountain expansion. That lack of a timeline has caused massive uncertainty and stress for the thousands of workers who have been left in limbo after losing those jobs that they were counting on.

It is a pattern. The Liberals killed the northern gateway pipeline instead of allowing more consultation. They killed energy east by political interference, changing the rules, adding red tape and forcing TransCanada to abandon the pipeline. Today the reality is that the Trans Mountain expansion remains stalled and the consequences of their failures have been staggering: more than $100 billion in energy projects cancelled; hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of jobs; more investment losses than any time in more than seven decades; future money for all levels of government lost; lost opportunities for indigenous Canadians and communities in every corner of the country; and deep divisions between Canadians being pitted against each other because of these Liberal failures.

They are about to make it even worse by ramming Bill C-69 through the Senate and failing to listen to experts who have said that legislation will guarantee no new pipeline will ever be proposed or built in Canada again.

What tremendous damage that will cause to our country's international reputation as a safe, fair, predictable place to do business and create jobs. The Liberals should be ashamed of themselves. They should support this proposed legislation to give certainty so that the pipeline could go ahead. I hope it is clear why nobody should believe any of their empty words about supporting the energy sector. Their agenda to shut it down is clear.

As spoken

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project ActPrivate Members' Business

October 18th, 2018 / 6:05 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, a lot of members who have spoken so far on this Senate bill have provided numbers or explained why they are either for or against. I heard the parliamentary secretary explain to us that this was not needed, that this particular bill coming from the other place is defective, because it does not deal with the current situation.

After three years of dithering, confusing and obstructing, we find ourselves in the situation now where the Government of Canada has expropriated Kinder Morgan, allowed a private company in the most profitable sector of the energy industry in Canada, in transportation, midstream, to take $4.5 billion from the taxpayer, and there is no pipeline being built.

We are at this point today due to desperation. There is a great Yiddish proverb that applies: Out of desperation, one finds.

What a surprise that it is an Alberta senator, duly elected by the people of Alberta to represent them in the other place, who has put before this House a bill that would fix a major problem, which is the rule of law in Canada. We have a Constitution that is supposed to apply equally to all provinces, but I would submit that the vast majority of Albertans feel that there is a two-tier system, one system for everyone else and one for Albertans, and that is simply not good enough.

This bill is about respect, respect for Albertans and energy workers in all provinces, because this is not just an Alberta issue. This is an issue that affects energy workers in every single province in Canada if we cannot build major industrial energy projects any more, and with bills like Bill C-69 on the books, we will not be able to build them anymore.

The Senate has already passed this bill. It is up to us to take up the task and pass it here to clear any further obstructions and delays that may come the way of this project from other levels of government, provincial and municipal, and actually get this project built.

The ideal situation, which I would have preferred, like the vast majority of Albertans, would have been to see a private company build it. As I said before, this happens to be the most profitable sector of the energy industry. There is a great cartoon Malcolm Mayes put together in the Edmonton Journal. It shows the Prime Minister riding a massive anchor hooked up to a piece of equipment, and it says, “I'm behind you all the way!” That is what most Albertans fear when they hear that from the federal government, that the Liberals have their hands in Albertans pockets, taxing them.

For the longest time, Albertans accepted it. They said it was okay. They were willing to pay their freight, to contribute to equalization, to contribute to Confederation, because they knew they were building a better country, improving Canada and putting food on the tables of families all across Canada. That is not true right now. That is not true anymore. The highest unemployment rate happens to be in Calgary. I represent a suburban area of Calgary, where countless energy workers are unemployed and underemployed because of decisions being made by the Liberal government of today. It is not getting better; it is getting worse. Families are still losing their homes. Severance pay has run out.

Many people have left the province. An entire generation of young people was told to go into STEM, into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, because they would get amazing jobs in the energy sector and contribute to the province. We spent a generation trying to convince more women to join the STEM fields, trying to convince young people that it was worth their time, and convincing people from outside the province to come to Alberta to establish themselves and bring their families, because they could make a living there. That has been taken away, much of that because of decisions made by the Liberal government, which have compounded problems on the commodity market.

Now we have a differential that has only grown. I remember working for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce many years ago when the differential was $25, and businesses were complaining then. Now it is $40. The reason for the increasing gap between what Canadian heavy crude can get on the market and what we can get in the United States is the decisions of the Liberal government only.

Bill S-245 would clear the way. Liberals have already expropriated Kinder Morgan. They already own the project. This would clear the way from any further delays that could possibly happen. It is the right thing to do. I hear a member again heckling from the other side.

This is about respecting Albertans and respecting energy workers in every province in Canada. This particular section of the Constitution has been used before, many times. The Canadian Grain Commission used it. Facilities, such as storage and sorting facilities linked to the grain commission, were federalized. The Teleglobe Canada Reorganization and Divestiture Act used this particular section of the Constitution so the Government of Canada could divest itself of a corporation. The Cape Breton Development Corporation Act used this section of the Constitution to come into being. The Ottawa canal used that particular section as well. It is not special in any way. It has just not been used as of late, but it has been used hundreds of times by the federal government to ensure that large-scale industrial projects get built for the benefit and general advantage of Canada.

If this is a country of 10 islands, 10 separate provinces that can each do whatever they want whenever they want, then Albertans have a serious question to ask, which is: why are we still footing the bill through massive equalization payments? It is a legitimate question to be asking.

The member for Lakeland has fought for three years to point out the damage that has been done by Liberal government policy. It is something Albertans know all too well. They have experienced this before with a previous Liberal government and its national energy program. It is a myth now in Alberta. It is an easy thing to mention, even for those of us who did not have the opportunity to be born there, who moved to Alberta and became Albertans because they wanted to. The civic nationalism of our province knows about the stories, about the farms that were lost and the homes that were lost. That is what we do not want to have happen again.

The price differential we are experiencing right now is leading to job losses. Just last week, companies were telling us that for the first time ever they had to pay others a few pennies on the barrel to take our oil. That is ridiculous. It makes no sense.

Bill S-245 clears the way. Members opposite say it is not needed anymore, but I have not heard a single description of what harm it could do. The proposed bill does not even mention Kinder Morgan. It just mentions the projects and the licences issued. It applies just as well today as it will in the future. The government has explicitly said it wants to find a buyer. It has not explicitly said whether the project will be fully built and complete by then and actually producing and shipping or not. This would clear the way for any future owner of the pipeline as well, ensuring they can maintain it, ensuring the safety of the workers on site and ensuring the safety of the environment.

Bill S-245 is the right bill at the right time. It took an Alberta senator, an elected senator, not a member of the Conservative Party, but an independent senator, to put it forward. I am happy to support it. It is a great piece of legislation. It is brought from that desperation I just talked about. He found an opportunity to use the Constitution for the general advantage of Canada. This is how we build a community, a community of 10 provinces agreeing that—and I think we all agree—this has gone on for too long. There are too many delays, too much obstruction. Let us get the project built. The energy industry in Alberta is part of the lifeblood of Alberta. The public treasury there depends on it to ensure we have hospitals and schools, and pay for the salaries of its public sector workers. Without it, it will not happen. There will be further harm done to Alberta and to Albertans.

I am calling on all members to support the bill. Like other members have done in the past, when this section of the Constitution was used for things like Teleglobe, the grain commission, the wheat board, all of those things, it is time to act. The time to act is now.

As spoken

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

October 16th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am not quite sure because my colleague mentioned Bill C-69 and the hypocrisy. Bill C-69 is the new legislation that would require the energy companies, any resource companies, to be more intense, spend more time and more resources in getting the proper assessments through.

I will speak to the hypocrisy to which my colleague alluded. On the one hand, the Prime Minister is saying that he wants to have this pipeline built, yet on the other hand what he is really doing at the same time is putting in legislation that would kill any pipeline, not just the one he says has been okay.

Likewise, we are concerned about Bill C-65. He is putting forth that he is trying to eliminate sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. Would Bill C-65, like the concerns of my colleague, truly accomplish what we set out to do?

As spoken

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

October 16th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague across the way from Winnipeg North was concerned about the personal attacks, but this goes to a large part of the essence of the bill. There seems to be a lot of “Do as I say, not as I do” from the government. What are the implications of the message we are sending with Bill C-69?

The intent of this bill is very important. We do want to address sexual assault and harassment in the workplace. However, as parliamentarians, it is also very important that we send the message that this applies to everyone, no matter what his or her position is, no matter if the individuals are regular parliamentarians, regular Canadians, a cabinet minister or the prime minister.

Could the member talk about why it is important that we discuss the hypocrisy of what the Liberal actions have been when it comes to these types of issues and what Bill C-65 is intended to accomplish?

As spoken

Canada Labour CodeGovernment Orders

October 16th, 2018 / 3:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I am honoured to have the opportunity to talk about Bill C-65, which deals with workplace harassment and violence.

Violence against women is not new. While I would like to believe that in a predominantly rural riding like mine in eastern Ontario violence against women is an urban problem, we know that is not the case. Violence against women continues to be a fact of life in Canada and in rural Renfrew County.

Carol Culleton, Nathalie Warmerdam, and Anastasia Kuzyk were killed on September 22, 2015. Their killer was known to all of the women and to police for a long history of violence. He had been released from prison just shortly before the murders. The system failed these women.

On average in Canada, one woman is killed by her intimate partner every five days. The man arrested and accused of their murders had a long criminal history, including charges involving two of the three women. I am not prepared to let Carol, Nathalie, Anastasia and all the other women who have been murdered by their intimate partners die in vain. My memory of their senseless murders pushes me to speak out in this debate.

When I was first elected in 2000, I immediately recognized the transient and precarious nature of politics in general, and Parliament Hill in particular. For a female in a new political party with an evolving political culture, my position was even more precarious. Uncertainty after each election, and with the change in assignments in the ebb and flow of duties, was compounded by the hierarchical nature of Canadian politics and the fact that we serve at pleasure.

To quote one of my colleagues:

At any moment, everyone here weighs the opportunity cost of making a complaint or committing an non-acquiescent action with the threat of quiet dismissal, being overlooked for a promotion, being shuffled out of a spot, having a nomination candidate quietly run against us, or not having our nomination papers signed at all.

She went on to say:

To say that there is a power imbalance here is an understatement. Further, for all the talk of feminism and pursual of women's rights, there is not gender equality in the broader context of Parliament Hill. Women are still used as photo-op props, included for quotas or optics without having the authority of real decision-making automatically attached to their perceived utility. For that, women have to fight, and fight hard, and put up with being accused of not being a team player, or being an “insert choice of gender expletive here” when they do. That is only for those of us who are lucky enough to have built a platform and a profile that allows us to do that without those in the top tiers of power having to take a bit of damage in order to suppress our voices.

When this legislation was debated in the House of Commons previously, I did not have an opportunity to be part of this discussion. I was successfully defending my right to represent my party in the next federal election.

Bill C-65 is being supported by the Conservative Party. Today we are discussing amendments made by the other place, which allows for a re-examination of the legislation and the context in which it has been brought forward. At the time the legislation was previously in this chamber, it was presented by the government as partisan politics being set aside for a common purpose. All parliamentarians were prepared, or so I thought, to stand together and send a strong message to all Canadians that workplace harassment and sexual violence are unacceptable and that they will not be tolerated any longer, period.

It was that implied spirit of co-operation that encouraged my party to support Bill C-65. As a long-standing female member of Parliament, I am very cognizant of my position as a role model. I am reminded of my responsibility as a positive role model by the Daughters of the Vote program.

Young women are smart enough to spot a hypocrite when they see one. All parliamentarians have a responsibility to be a positive role model, starting with the Prime Minister.

I was hopeful that Bill C-65 would not be just another example of virtue signalling by the Liberal Party, where the Prime Minister directs his attack dog Gerald Butts to throw social media mud from the political ditch he occupies while claiming to take the high road. Subsequent events have proven me wrong.

Sexual violence and harassment in the workplace are nothing new.

I was particularly encouraged by the comments made by newly elected members of Parliament on the government side, such as the member for Oakville North—Burlington, who talked about taking a stand together. She shared her personal experience of harassment and bullying on Parliament Hill when she worked as a staffer prior to seeking elected office. She made reference to the #MeToo movement, #AfterMeToo and Time's Up and to having the courage and the strength to speak out and be a positive role model. In that context, her brave words in the House of Commons and her subsequent total capitulation to the Gerald Butts, “Kokanee grope” talking points were all the greater disappointment.

The greatest disappointment in this entire discussion has been the deafening silence from the female caucus on the government benches, who have quietly condoned the Prime Minister's behaviour with their silence. Not one female Liberal MP rose to defend the female reporter who was subjected to an unwanted sexual advance by the Prime Minister in her workplace. Not one government MP rose to demand a coherent explanation of what the Prime Minister admitted to doing when he belatedly provided an apology to the young female reporter who was the subject of his unwanted advance.

Enabling bad behaviour almost guarantees that it will continue. After all, is that not the subject of Bill C-65, which is what we are discussing here today? Silence is tacit approval.

Certainly in my career as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, spanning six elections over 18 years, I have experienced sexual harassment and bullying. It would be impossible to find a woman in politics who is not expected to put up with misogynist fools like Dan Leger or the tiresome Dick Mercer, let alone similar dinosaur attitudes in their own parties.

From the time Bill C-65 passed third reading and returned from the other place with amendments, something has changed. Canadians learned something about the leader of the Liberal Party. Canadians learned that the Prime Minister admitted to groping a young woman reporter at a music festival before he sought elected office. This is a very important discovery.

Unlike the recent events in the United States during the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about alleged events before he started his professional career, the Prime Minister has avoided a rigorous examination of his inappropriate behaviour.

South of the border, the Prime Minister has been referred to as the Bill Clinton of the great white north.

The Prime Minister had an opportunity. Rather than making up one answer, the Prime Minister chose to come up with a series of tortured explanations for the groping allegation against him. Constantly changing his story, he had an opportunity to come clean with Canadians.

In the process, the Prime Minister dodged questions about the need to call an investigation on his own conduct, the way he did with Liberal MPs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti in his caucus, who faced similar allegations in the past and were removed from the Liberal Party.

The Prime Minister has single-handedly “terribly set back”, to quote Kathleen Finlay, founder of the Zero Now campaign to fight sexual misconduct in the workplace, progress on women's issues.

Ms. Finlay said:

He went from saying he had a good day and sort of smiling about it, and dismissing it that way...and then he went on to explain it, in a tortured explanation about different perceptions, how men and women can perceive things differently. And from where I was sitting, that just re-opened the whole “he said, she said” kind of explanation...which is something women who have suffered incidents of sexual misconduct do not want to hear.

The incident was first published in an editorial in the Creston Valley Advance, a community newspaper in British Columbia. The Prime Minister, who was in Creston to attend the Kokanee Summit festival, put on by the Columbia Brewery, admitted later to inappropriately groping the reporter while she was on assignment.

In addition to being on assignment for the Creston Valley Advance, the female reporter was also on assignment for the National Post and the Vancouver Sun. While her connection to the big city newspapers may have prompted remorse after the fact, that is a topic for a proper investigation.

The incident resurfaced online, including in a scandal magazine earlier this year. The allegation came into wider circulation the first week of June, when photos of the Creston Valley Advance editorial were widely shared on social media, and it received further comments when prominent online media outlets reported on it that same week.

The now former female reporter for the Creston Valley Advance community newspaper, the Vancouver Sun and the National Post confirmed that the Prime Minister groped her, or in his words, “inappropriately handling”, while she was on assignment at the festival.

After the incident, she wrote an unsigned editorial blasting the Prime Minister for his misconduct. The editorial did say that the Prime Minister told the female reporter that had he known the reporter was working for a national paper, he never would have been so forward.

The reporter wrote this about the Prime Minister:

...shouldn't the son of a former prime minister be aware of the rights and wrongs that go along with public socializing? Didn't he learn, through his vast experiences in public life, that groping a strange young woman isn't in the handbook of proper etiquette, regardless of who she is, what her business is or where they are?

After the incident, the female reporter, who is not in journalism anymore, held meetings with Valerie Bourne, the then publisher, and Brian Bell, the then editor of the newspaper, and communicated her displeasure about the Prime Minister's conduct. In a statement, the female reporter said she reluctantly went public to identify herself and to confirm the incident because of numerous media requests. She would not offer any comment or take part in any discussion on the subject, she said, adding that the incident happened as reported.

This is what the Prime Minister stated on CBC Radio, on January 30, 2018, before details of the groping incident were reported in the national and international media. He stated:

I've been very, very careful all my life to be thoughtful, to be respectful of people's space and people's headspace as well. This is something that I'm not new to. I've been working on issues around sexual assault for over 25 years.

My first activism and engagement was at the sexual assault centre at McGill students' society where I was one of the first male facilitators in their outreach program leading conversations—sometimes very difficult ones—on the issues of consent, communications, accountability, power dynamics.

To connect the dots, it was after the Prime Minister left university in Quebec when the groping incident occurred.

The following is from the newspaper editorial following the groping incident. It states:

It’s not a rare incident to have a young reporter, especially a female who is working for a small community newspaper, be considered an underling to their ‘more predominant’ associates and blatantly disrespected because of it. But shouldn’t the son of a former prime minister be aware of the rights and wrongs that go along with public socializing? Didn’t he learn through his vast experiences in public life, that groping a strange young woman isn’t in the handbook of proper etiquette, regardless of who she is, what her business is, or where they are?

And what makes the fact that she was working for the Post of any relevance? Big stories break first in community newspapers after all.

It may not have been an earth-shattering find, but one thing could have been learned from the experience. Like father, like son?

That was from the Creston Valley Advance, Monday, August 14, 2000.

What are Canadians expected to take away from this incident of groping that took place between the Prime Minister and a young female reporter? First and foremost, this incident is about hypocrisy, saying one thing and applying a different set of rules to one's own behaviour. It is about believing women, until it happens, then it is deny and hope that the clock runs out on the media cycle.

It has been noted by the CBC that there is no dispute that this incident happened. In 2018, the excuse “I did not think I was doing anything wrong” does not pass the smell test. Worst of all, the Prime Minister has shown no ability to grow with the job and learn from his mistake. Women in Canada deserve better from a Prime Minister who claims to be a feminist.

What this incident has also taught Canadians is that they cannot trust the Prime Minister, when he tells the public he is doing one thing but legislatively does another. It was finally figured out by the temporary socialist government of Alberta that the current government has no intention of seeing any pipelines built, let alone the Trans Mountain pipeline. In response, the NDP in Alberta pulled its support for the scam carbon tax, which is all about getting the provinces to take the blame for raising taxes while using the environment as an excuse to raise taxes.

If dragging the government's feet on this issue somehow does not work, Bill C-69 will be sure to suffocate any resource project from going forward.

There are ethics rules for parliamentarians, versus the Prime Minister's trip to a tropical island. When the Ethics Commissioner rules that opposition members are in violation of the rules, charges are laid by the RCMP. Where are the charges against the Prime Minister for his breaches of the code of ethics for parliamentarians?

In public, the Prime Minister claims that his government is going to crack down on guns and gangs but it cranks out Bill C-71 instead, which cracks down on law-abiding citizens who are already obeying the law. Then there is Bill C-75, which would soften the penalties for gang violence, among other atrocities.

The biggest lie of all is the Prime Minister's betrayal of veterans. It was announced by the government that no Canadian Armed Forces personnel would be medically released until their benefits were in place, yet last week, not only was it confirmed that soldiers are being released without their pension amounts and benefits confirmed but that soldiers should be told to wait longer.

In the last election, the Prime Minister claimed that the problem was that there were not enough offices open to service veterans. The government went ahead and spent funds intended for veterans to open offices in government ridings, and it now tells veterans that it has just doubled the official wait time, if they even qualify.

How much is the political decision to direct shipbuilding contracts going to cost Canadians?

I had high hopes for Bill C-65. It now appears that Canadians will be disappointed, as they have been disappointed with everything else this Prime Minister has touched.

As spoken

The EnvironmentEmergency Debate

October 15th, 2018 / 8:55 p.m.


See context

Parkdale—High Park Ontario

Liberal

Arif Virani LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brossard—Saint-Lambert.

I am pleased to rise in the House this evening to speak during this emergency debate on climate change. I will begin with last week's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC is dedicated to providing the world with an objective, scientific view of climate change and its political and economic impacts, so we know that the conclusions that come from this report have merit. The report confirmed that we are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change and the last generation that has the possibility of stopping it.

This is not actually new information. We have known the urgency of our environmental situation for some time now, which is why we are taking steps to protect the environment and to combat climate change.

How are we doing this? In budget 2018, we reaffirmed our commitment to preserving and protecting our natural environment and to addressing climate change. That budget included a $1.3-billion investment for nature conservation, the most significant investment of its kind in Canadian history. Additionally, $500 million will come from the federal government to create a $1-billion nature fund with provinces, territories, not-for-profits, and corporate and other partners. The nature fund will allow us to secure private lands, support provincial and territorial environmental species protection efforts and help build indigenous capacity to conserve land and species.

We have also implemented a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, the most rigorous of its kind on the entire planet. It includes a marine safety system, restoring marine ecosystems and investing in innovative cleanup methods. Budget 2018 also included a $1.4-billion investment in the low carbon economy leadership fund to support clean growth and reduce greenhouse gases.

On February 8, our government also introduced Bill C-69 to address the inadequacies of the current environmental assessment system. With this bill, our government would bring forward better rules for the review of major projects that would protect our environment, fish and waterways; rebuild trust and respect indigenous rights; and strengthen our economy and encourage investment. To help with the implementation of this bill, we also included $1 billion in funding in budget 2018 for the proposed new impact assessments under Bill C-69 and for the Canadian energy regulator.

It is also one of our top priorities to ensure that indigenous people have their voices heard in this political discourse on the environment. We are taking firm steps to conduct proper consultations with first nations, commensurate with direction from the court, on the matter of the environment and protecting heritage. To that end, our government has co-developed an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee that gives indigenous persons access to monitoring ongoing environmental projects. Further, we launched an economic pathways partnership that will make it easier for indigenous people and communities to access existing federal programs that will help benefit them economically.

Following consultations, we were able to meet with, discuss and come to an agreement with 43 communities that signed mutual benefit agreements with the proponents on the proposed expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, and 33 of those communities are in British Columbia. A grand total of 43 first nation communities will get the benefit from the proposed use of their territory for the construction of an expanded Trans Mountain pipeline.

We have undertaken all these projects with proper and comprehensive indigenous consultation and input. Where that consultation has been lacking, we have heard from the court, and we are committed to revisiting the consultations and reaching out in a serious manner to understand the needs of indigenous persons and to accommodate their needs.

We are also fulfilling the promise of UNDRIP. I think this bears some discussion. UNDRIP calls for a number of things, among which is having the resource wealth contained on indigenous territories reaped by those very indigenous communities, communities that for 400 years have been excluded from the benefit of the resource wealth on their land. That is what we are changing through our policies. That is what UNDRIP speaks to.

We are also helping to incentivize businesses to make positive, environmentally sound upgrades. We are extending tax support for clean energy investments. This is critical. I speak now as not only the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice but as the member of Parliament for Parkdale—High Park in the city of Toronto in the province of Ontario. The current provincial government of Ontario is stepping out of supporting green renovations. We, on the other hand, have allocated $123 million in budget 2018 to extend the tax benefit program beyond 2020 to 2023. This benefit promotes and supports the adoption of energy efficient equipment, which is exactly what Ontarians, and indeed all businesses, want to see around this country.

The most important step we have taken so far is to commit to putting a price on pollution. We have set a national price on carbon pollution that will be implemented in every province that has not implemented its own pricing system by January 1 of next year. This is essential, because polluters must pay. That bears repeating, and members will hear that over and over again from this side of the House: polluters must pay.

Many governments around the world understand this, but some provincial leaders are, unfortunately, deciding to no longer take action. Saskatoon has said no, Manitoba has withdrawn from pricing pollution and now, to the dismay of the residents in my riding, the Premier of Ontario has also withdrawn from the fight against climate change. This is nothing less than an abnegation of responsibility, and it jeopardizes the future of Ontario, and indeed, the future of this country. By cancelling the cap and trade system, the Ontario government cancelled at the same time 700 renewable energy contracts. However, our response on this side of the House and at the federal level is simple. We will stand firm in our commitment that polluters must pay.

For jurisdictions implementing an explicit price-based system, the carbon price must start at a minimum of $10 per tonne in 2018 and rise $10 per year to $50 per tonne by 2022.

Overall, our plan has over 50 commitments, and we remain committed to meeting those targets. It is also important to say that on this side of the House, we are actually focused on doing the work necessary to meet our targets, not simply talk about the targets, which is in marked contrast to some other members in the chamber, who continue to publicly opine on our plan but have yet to propose a plan of their own to address climate change.

The argument that pricing pollution harms economic growth is wholly inaccurate. The money collected from pricing pollution is returned to the residents and governments of the respective provinces. In this way, the price on pollution is entirely revenue neutral. Just look at the Province of British Columbia, for example. B.C. unveiled a carbon tax of its own with an identical commitment: that carbon pricing would be entirely revenue neutral in 2008 and that every dollar raised would be returned to the people of B.C. in the form of lower taxes. The statistics bear that out exactly. The first year of carbon pricing in B.C. saw $307 million collected and $315 million given back in the form of revenue returned to residents. The following year, the net give-back was over $180 million in excess.

Research by environmental economist Dave Sawyer, of EnviroEconomics, suggests that in this scenario, most households, regardless of income level, would receive more money, not less, from the federal government than they would pay in terms of any increased prices in the economy. The study of three provinces suggests that those households, particularly at the lower end of the income spectrum, would end up better off under this plan. The amount they receive would rise over time, in line with the direct price on pollution, which will start at $20 per tonne next January and rise to $50 per tonne in 2022.

In my remaining time, I want to reiterate that the concept of the environment and the economy going together is not a partisan issue. Indeed, it is only the leadership of NDP premiers, like Rachel Notley in Alberta, who aggressively put a price on carbon pollution and a cap on oil sands extraction, that allowed the notion of the pipeline approval to proceed in the first instance, in the case of TMX. Indeed, Premier Horgan, in British Columbia, is equally supportive of building up natural resource infrastructure to support economic growth, as he is actively pursuing a liquefied natural gas refinement facility in Kitimat, B.C., to ensure that this resource can be exported from B.C. to markets elsewhere. That historic agreement with the NDP Premier of B.C. and indigenous communities in the west for an LNG refinery, which will be the cleanest of its kind on earth, will support jobs for indigenous persons and help assist our Asian allies, including China and India, in transitioning from polluting coal toward a low carbon economy.

As we know and as the UN outlined in its study last week, the issue of climate change is not just pressing at a national level, it is pressing at a global level. It is a global problem that requires a global response. We need to think globally but also act locally.

I will finish on a note about my constituents in Parkdale—High Park who care so passionately about the environment. These are the residents of my riding who have expressed their dismay with the actions of Premier Ford and are asking for a reinvigorated federal response. That is what we are committed to: finding a way to address the environmental concerns of Ontario residents and businesses and making a firm commitment to combat climate change. That is what we are here to do, and that is what this debate is about tonight.

As spoken

The EnvironmentEmergency Debate

October 15th, 2018 / 6:35 p.m.


See context

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact I am feeling very under the weather, which seems to be an appropriate saying for tonight, I had to be here to participate in this. I want to thank my colleagues, colleagues across the way and the member for the Green Party for calling this debate.

This matter of urgency did not happen simply because the IPCC told us to wake up, that we were already at the 1.5°C mark. The urgency was identified a long time ago. I happen to hold a very thick report issued by the Department of National Resources 23 years ago, calling for expedited action on climate change. That report was edited by an agricultural expert. There is a major chapter in that report about the impacts that were already being felt in Canadian agriculture then because of climate change.

This is a crisis that touches every corner of the country. Our colleagues in the Conservative Party represent a lot of farmers, and they should wake up and realize the impacts their farmers are facing.

In my province, we have faced unprecedented terrible weather this fall. We have not had a fall. We had a bumper crop, and so many of those crops have been downgraded in value because of early terrible weather, namely early snow and terrible rains. Those who rely on the construction industry, landscaping and nurseries have been devastated. This represents two months of incomes and this is just the beginning.

Those are what we might call “minor” impacts to small businesspeople, but the impacts are being felt across the globe. We simply need to look at our neighbours to the south in this continent to understand the devastation that has been wreaked upon us. We do not need the IPCC scientists, but we certainly need to heed them.

Many times over, Canada committed to Kyoto and the 2020 targets, which have passed by. The Harper government pulled out of the Kyoto targets and the Liberals have simply brushed away the 2020 targets, which the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has decried. Are we simply going to brush away the 2030 targets? If we do not get serious, we are in serious trouble not only with respect to meeting our commitments in Paris, but even in meeting the reprehensibly low Harper government targets, which, amazingly, remain the targets of the Liberal government. It is time to get serious.

A question was asked about what other country we can give as an example. One of our trading partners, the United Kingdom, achieved 23% greenhouse gas reductions from 1999 levels by 2012, and it is on track for a 35% reduction of 1999 levels by 2020. We are not even basing our reductions on 1999 anymore. We have moved forward to the Harper target of the 2000s.

While the Liberals have supported this call for an emergency debate, sadly their commitments fall far short of responding to the urgent need for action.

It is really important for us to keep in mind, and particularly so given the comments from our colleagues in the Conservative Party, that the federal government does have powers to act on climate change. Yes, it is a good idea to also work in co-operation with the provinces and territories and with first nations, but the federal government has a duty to move when the provinces and territories are not moving. Recent elections in Canada have put a greater onus on the federal government, but it is the federal government that committed to the Paris targets, and it should therefore be the government held accountable.

What are the two key powers? The really important one is the spending power. The federal government collects dollars from Canadian taxpayers, and it decides how it is going to spend those dollars. Regrettably, despite commitments by the Harper regime and the Liberals of the day, the government has still not removed the perverse subsidies for fossil fuels. That would be a start. The investments in renewables and in energy efficiency in no way match those supporting the fossil fuel industry. If we are talking about making a shift toward a cleaner economy, that would be a simple first step.

Could the government please shift from pilot projects to significant federal investments for the deployment of renewable energy? We have had enough pilot projects. We have so many proven technologies, developed in this country and elsewhere, that can be deployed. Our communities need federal support to deploy those energy sources.

We need help in costing the smart grids and the interprovincial grids. There is a lot of talk about Manitoba Hydro being fed into Saskatchewan so that the latter can get off coal sooner, of Quebec hydro going into Ontario and lots of talk of BC Hydro going into Alberta. It would be nice if B.C. would give us a good price. However, the federal government could certainly help.

If we look at Bill C-69, a lot of the discussion during the expert panel was that it was unlikely that the National Energy Board, soon to become the new Canadian energy regulator, would actually deal with a lot of fossil fuel projects except for interprovincial grids. Therefore, the government needs to gearing up and talking about that and having a big dialogue about how it can help to expedite these improved grids.

The government needs to disburse the pan-Canadian funds now. We raised this three years ago. It has set aside this $1.5 billion dollars and some, and then sat on it, supposedly waiting for the provinces and territories to decide what they needed to do. My premier, Premier Notley, said to send it now. Thank heavens the province finally put in place an energy efficiency program and it was grateful for the infusion of dollars. If there were any way to get more people on side to understand that we need to put a price on carbon, we also need to help those who need a leg up to retrofit or build in cleaner ways. How about a little balancing?

Recently, dollars were given to the Northwest Territories. I have talked to my friends and colleagues there, and they are saying that it is merely symbolic. Imagine what it costs to build energy-efficient housing and buildings in the Northwest Territories, let alone Yukon and Nunavut. There are a lot of people interested, such as small energy companies, in deploying clean technology and building energy efficiency. Let us move forward our national building code. For heaven's sake, we learned at committee that it is not going to be in place until 2030. We need to have our housing and buildings built to a higher standard right now.

The transportation sector is on par with the fossil fuel industry in emitting GHGs, so we do not just need a major infusion of dollars, but to make sure that the federal government uses its regulatory powers and sticks with those stricter standards for large vehicles and, frankly, for trucks and SUVs.

The Harper government promised that it would use its regulatory power. In 10 years, it never issued a regulation on fossil fuels. I am sorry, but we cannot listen to what it did. It is more a case of what it did not do.

As I mentioned, the fixation seems to be on whether we should have a carbon tax and how much it should cost. Why are we not talking about the whole bundle of measures that need to happen in tandem with the carbon tax? There is no way that Canadians are going to look at a $50 a tonne carbon tax, let alone a $150 a tonne tax, which is projected to be necessary to stay at 1.5°C, unless there are measures in place to help them get there. In particular, I refer to those who cannot afford to do it, such as small business a lot of homeowners and apartment dwellers. A lot of people who have small businesses are renting from other people who own those buildings. They need support to lower their power bills.

We absolutely need the federal government to issue stronger regulations for controlling methane. Forty per cent is just not good enough. I encourage everyone in this place to take in one of those technical briefings that show that we can reduce far more methane if we require, as the technology exists. However, we need to require the monitoring of methane in tandem with the initial regulations. We can reduce our climate impacts in a large way if we get those industries to reduce their methane faster.

Also, I am concerned about the standards to be set for gas power. People need to be aware that the conversions from coal to gas are going to be much weaker than for new gas plants. Gas plants also emit a lot of greenhouse gases. Where is our timeline? What is the timeline for simply moving to cleaner sources of energy?

We need to be scaling up the investments in northern diesel. It is costing the northern governments hundreds of millions of dollars to transport that diesel to the communities and it is polluting those communities.

In terms of coal shutdown, where is the federal budget for a just transition for those working in the coal fire power sector? To its credit, a year ago Alberta committed $40 million to help retrain and support workers in that sector. All the government has done is to consult. It does not expect to even have a report until the end of this year. We need a major infusion of federal dollars to support both oil and gas, not just coal workers, and to shift to renewables.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 15th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, four major new pipelines, including access to new markets, is the Conservative legacy.

The reality is that the Liberals' anti-pipeline bill, Bill C-69, will block all new pipelines and make the massive discount permanent. That will be the Liberal legacy. The consequences of the Liberals' failure are tens of thousands of Canadians out of work, Canada's money going to the U.S. and billions of dollars in deficits.

When will the Liberals kill their anti-pipeline bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

October 15th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, the consequences of the Liberals' pipeline failures are tens of thousands of Canadian jobs lost, oil moved by trains at record levels, hurting agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing, and now a Canadian barrel of oil selling for $52 less than a U.S. one. That is billions of lost dollars that could pay for health care, pensions and bridges in Canada. Premiers, workers, and economists have warned that the anti-pipeline bill, Bill C-69, will kill all future pipelines in Canada.

Will the minister listen to Canadians and cancel the Liberal anti-pipeline bill, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions ActGovernment Orders

October 15th, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be back this Monday to talk about what I think is a tax treaty for tax treaties. I can think of no drier subject to debate in the House other than maybe ways and means motions.

Bill C-82 looks at base erosion and profit shifting. It is a problem that tax regimes and tax administrators across different countries are increasingly starting to grasp as a result of the digital age now upon us and the ability of companies to create sub-companies and larger holding companies to shift around money quite easily, as well as IT, or intellectual property. They are able to shift the work of employees in a digital sense, not in a physical sense, to other countries to take advantage of lower taxes and tax loopholes and tax avoidance schemes that currently are legal in some ways, but in other ways go against the spirit of tax treaties that legislatures have introduced across different countries.

The Tax Justice Network has done some estimates and provided an aggregate of different statistics from the OECD, World Bank and IMF of how much money we are talking about in base erosion and profit shifting. It could be an excess of $200 billion that developing countries are losing out on from that money being shifted around. This is revenue that could be taxed and possibly provide social services that we all live off of. We need police forces and EMS. Also, this place does not run for free. We have to pay the clerks. We have to pay all of those who provide administration for this building. Some of the lowest estimates are as low as $100 billion while some of the higher one go up to about $300 billion. Large multinational corporations are typically best able to take advantage of different tax treaties and tax treatments for the type of work they do. This is happening mostly because the digital age is upon us and the ease with which companies can hire experts in this field.

Let us be honest. I am not a tax lawyer. Neither are the vast majority of the members in the House. I am humble enough to say this. Whenever I see a tax bill before the House, it takes me an extra long time to go through it. When I have to file my taxes every single year, it takes me the better part of an afternoon to do it. Dealing with tax treaties and their tax implications for multinational corporations and how these could be used is not my area of specialty. Those companies know that. Multinational companies are able to hire high-paid accountants, high-paid lawyers and high-paid lobbyists to ensure that they get the best possible tax treatment for their businesses. In some cases it may be justified to avoid a situation of being double taxed.

In Bill C-82, a lot of the provisions in this tax treaty for tax treaties will get rid of the double taxation of some companies. However, many simply abuse the rules. There are 78 jurisdictions that will be covered by this and 1,200-plus matching treaties that will be looked at. Countries are joining this process every day.

This was not started by the current Liberal government, let us be clear. It began under the previous Conservative government as a result of multinational bodies starting to look at this matter. I have heard several members on the government benches say this is part of the their initiative to improve tax collection somehow. They are taking credit for something that others started. The government repeatedly takes credit for things that others have done, either things that civic society has done or charities are doing on their own, or that a previous government has done or a provincial government is doing. The government takes these as its own, claiming victory that somehow these meet the campaign promises that the Liberals were elected upon.

I have an example that I found in a package that the OECD made available on its website. I want to read it into the record because it is an example of base erosion and profit shifting.

In the example set out in the video, company A, which resides in the Cayman Islands, wants to provide a licence for the use of intellectual property to company C in South Africa. South Africa, however, has not concluded a tax treaty with the Cayman Islands and would thus be entitled to apply its domestic withholding tax rate on outbound royalties. I hope that everyone is still with me on this. However, a European country has concluded a tax treaty with South Africa that reduced its withholding tax rates on royalties. Also, this country does not itself levy a source tax on royalties. Therefore, company A establishes a letterbox company in this European country and diverts the royalty payments through the letterbox company to reduce the tax withheld by South Africa. In this example, the principal purpose of establishing this arrangement, including the letterbox company, was to obtain the lower withholding tax rate available under the tax treaty between South Africa and the European country.

If everyone is still with me, that is what we call “base erosion profit shifting” in its simplest sense. Large international companies like Starbucks do this. Every time we go to Starbucks to get a triple spiced pumpkin latte, or whatever, that company engages in this type of behaviour. I am sure I am going to get a phone call from one of its lobbyists. Specifically, it is a popular thing to do with intellectual property and trademarks, particularly in the arts and cultural industries. At a certain size we are talking about large sums of money. In these cases, the trademarks and intellectual property have a very high value. A company's reputation and branding are how it differentiates itself from its competitors.

This matter is international. We also have it happening in a certain way domestically. We have a government that has been pursuing single moms, small business owners, and many residents in my riding who have been trying to make ends meet. The government wants to force them to provide documentation proving they are not engaging in tax avoidance or welfare fraud of some sort.

Other members have said that the Alberta registered corporation that the Minister of Finance uses is really a form of tax avoidance. It is not illegal in any way in Canada to go outside a jurisdiction where the work is being done in order to register in a lower tax jurisdiction, Alberta in this case, to avoid paying more taxes.

It is done domestically, which is why the Standing Committee on Finance has been doing a statutory review of the proceeds of crime and terrorist financing act. The reason I bring it up is that in the process of this study, the members of the committee would have had an amazing opportunity to learn from FINTRAC and other agencies of the government that are dedicated to tracking down illicit funds and suspicious transactions and activities.

What we do domestically has implications internationally. We know that business owners are engaging in aggressive tax planning, making use of tax firms and tax consultants, such as KPMG, PWC and all of the large firms out there. KPMG is notably the one that has made the news most often with its relationship with the Canada Revenue Agency. These companies are aggressively planning businesses' taxes to help them avoid paying their “fair share”. It is not a term I like to use, but it is one that has been used quite often in the House.

I wish we spent more time talking about how to get companies and Canadians to create more wealth. We spend an awful lot of time in the House trying to figure out ways to tax people and corporations in order to try to squeeze and get more water out of that stone in some way, but we do not really spend a whole lot of time talking about how to make sure that in the free market economy, where free people are working in their own best interests and figuring out how to make ends meet for their families, we can simplify and improve their lives. We are not doing that. We have been doing the opposite for the past three years. From this so-called middle-income tax cut, a Canadian who is earning $48,000 is saving $81.44 off their taxes. If we include carbon taxes, increased payroll taxes, depending on the provincial jurisdiction, where they are probably paying higher provincial taxes as well, costs are rising, including the costs of everyday essentials.

There are think tanks that say that the number one item on the average family's pay slip is taxes. They are paying more for taxes than for the essentials of life: rent, food, electricity or natural gas. For the first time ever, the average family is having to pay more in taxes than for anything else. We do not spend enough time talking about how to create more wealth and to broaden the base that has been a way of ensuring that more Canadians and corporations are at least paying a little bit into the system. When we pay into the system, it makes us part of it. There is a certain ownership in what the Government of Canada and what the Parliament of Canada do on our behalf. When we have to put a little money into it, we really do care what is being done with it.

The Liberals said in their campaign platform that a so-called tax hike on the top 1% would bring in $3 billion more. The Department of Finance then produced an estimate, saying it would bring in an extra $2 billion. The government actually lost money in its first year; $4.5 billion to $4.6 billion less money being brought in. Those are not my numbers. Those are Statistics Canada and CRA numbers, which say the government is bringing in less money than it did before.

The top 1% of income earners pay 20% of all taxes. The top 8% of income earners, including every member in the House, every cabinet minister, are paying half of all taxes right now. That is an incredible amount, just in the share of national revenue, that we are asking an increasingly smaller group of people to pay. It also speaks to the administration and the idea of taxing the rich, fleecing the rich, on a personal income side, which has been a total failure of the government.

Now we have Bill C-82, in which the Liberals want to go after multinational corporations and big business, and I am all for it. It is a fantastic idea. We have a tax treaty of tax treaties. It should be done right. I am glad we are at this point where we can talk about it.

However, where are we talking about the wealth creation to get small businesses and entrepreneurs to start creating more jobs, to want to invest? We had the aborted attempt by the Minister of Finance's department, and by him as well, to tax small businesses more because they were not paying their fair share. I heard loud and clear from general practitioners and small business owners in my riding who were just trying to make ends meet. They wondered how they could keep growing their small family businesses and eke out an existence to pay for the schooling for their kids and to continue living.

Calgary continues to have the highest unemployment rate in Canada. The reason for that is that the Government of Canada is in no way interested in ensuring that the energy industry of Alberta continues humming along. Most high-income earners come from Alberta. The Government of Canada has made changes to the tanker ban on the coast of British Columbia and the introduction of Bill C-69, which has passed through the House and is in another place. Every regulatory and legislative measure that the Government of Canada has been able to use to constrict and put the energy industry of Alberta into a pretzel, it has done it. The Liberals have succeeded in reducing our incomes. They have succeeded in undermining the ability of Albertans and Alberta families to make a living. They are not helping to create the wealth that they want to tax. We should be starting the conversation with how we can ensure people can create wealth for themselves and the Government of Canada can tax a reasonable amount from them to pay for common, public services that we all get to enjoy.

For multinational corporations, what we are talking about in this tax treaty is base erosion. They are using a digital economy to shift around so-called profits, and this is primarily used by big businesses. The ability of small businesses to do this is very limited because they need access to high-paid tax lawyers, lobbyists and accountants who know the details of these tax treaties, who can read the different tax treaties between different countries and take advantage of specific provisions in them.

After the paradise papers and the Panama papers, I think there is a general understanding among parliamentarians in both houses that something has to be done. It is not just in North America and in Canada that base erosion and profit-shifting for large multinationals is getting out of control. It is happening in European and developing countries as well. With the digital economy and the ability to cite their so-called work locations almost anywhere they wish, it has become profitable for companies to engage in this type of tax avoidance.

We also have to remember that they are trying to avoid taxes, sometimes punishing taxes, that limit their ability to continue working, to continue generating a profit for shareholders. If they are co-operatives, it limits their ability to provide a return to the members of the co-operatives. It goes back to the notion of whether we are creating an opportunity to create wealth. Instead, we usually talked about how we can tax more.

Another example is that during the whole cannabis decriminalization and legalization, the discussion primarily in the public was about how much taxes the Government of Canada would generate through the legalization provisions it had introduced. Oftentimes we did not talk about the potential for wealth creation through these businesses, through legalizing this one sector of the illegal economy, the black market that already exists.

The United States will not be a party to these international tax treaties that Canada and many other countries have, to this multinational effort on the base erosion of profit shifting, although it would be in its best interest to do so because it stands to gain quite a bit from it as well.

Canada's competitiveness is further eroding. We do not participate in measures such as this. The provisions in our federal corporate income taxes and the tax rates in comparison to those in the United States make us not competitive. In Canada, one of its champions for natural gas just cannot continue doing business in Canada at this pace. It costs it $100,000 in carbon taxes for every well drilled in British Columbia. That is a rig hand, an extra person on every rig who could be hired who did not need to be.

The Government of Canada crows about how great it is doing on the energy file, such as the LNG project that was approved. However, it does not talk about the $70 billion to $75 billion in projects that did not go ahead. It does not talk about the fact that this project, the LNG project, was approved in 2014. Businesses took until 2018 to decide to go ahead with it. They only went ahead when they got exempted from the carbon tax.

Large multinational corporations have been exempted from the domestic carbon tax that everyday Canadians will have to pay, every small business owner who owns a convenience store and every gentleman I meet who drives my Uber. Usually in Calgary it is a form of an oil and gas war. The drivers of my Ubers will pay higher carbon taxes, will pay a higher price on their gasoline, will pay a higher price on their natural gas to heat their homes. They will have to pay for that, but multinational corporations will not have to pay. That was the inducement, on top of other inducements, necessary to get them to invest in Canada.

I am all for Bill C-82, what I call the tax treaty of tax treaties, the driest subject we could possibly talk about. However, let us go back and talk about how we can get people to create more wealth. I do not mean the government-directed creation of wealth. I see this all the time in news releases, that the government created 100,000 jobs. It created no such thing. This place is not capable of creating jobs. People out there create jobs. They start businesses. They may start a family business. They go out and find a product or a service that somebody out there wants to buy. They fill a gap, a niche in the free market. That is popular capitalism. It is capitalism for the people. We do not talk about it enough in this place.

In this place what we often talk about is select industries that deserve a tax break or special treatment of some sort. I am glad we are going ahead and ensuring that base erosion and profit shifting stop happening as easily as they have been.

Let us go back to talking about how we can get junior oil and gas companies in Alberta to start drilling again, to start hiring again. Probably 10% to 15% of the people who live in my riding are either unemployed or underemployed. They are maybe working a day or two a week. This is years after the commodity prices, the so-called grand WTI went down. We do not even get that in Alberta. Last week, we were told that WCS, a standard Canadian mix of bitumen and dilbit, was selling at zero. Companies were paying others to take it for 8¢ to 18¢. They had to pay someone to take it because there was so much supply.

We rarely talk about all of these problems. We posture, which is pretty standard from that side of the benches. I do not hear us talk about wealth creation. How can we get people to create their own wealth? Then, at that time, the Government of Canada can come by and ask for a reasonable share of that amount.

However, for multinational corporations, I hope this treaty will be the starting point for reducing their ability to rob from the public purse, which should be justly paid to the Government of Canada for the provision of services that we all enjoy.

As spoken

Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with DisabilitiesPrivate Members' Business

October 3rd, 2018 / 6:50 p.m.


See context

Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak to Motion No. 190, the private member's motion brought forward by my colleague from Mississauga East—Cooksville. I agree with some of his comments but have to disagree with others.

One of the aspects of his speech which I agree with is the fact that we are undervaluing a lot of these careers, whether they are in construction, agriculture, tourism or hospitality. We have to do a much better job of speaking with students when they are in high school, or even elementary school, and talk about the incredible opportunities available to them in these types of careers. Absolutely, one may be starting on the front lines as a dishwasher or a labourer, but there are opportunities to work up the ladder, be successful in that career and earn a very strong income. In concert with industry, as parliamentarians and parents, we need to do a much better job of ensuring that industry gets the word out to the schools and guidance counsellors. It needs to be part of the curriculum in order to ensure these careers are understood as the incredible opportunities that they are.

I grew up in a rural area, and the misperception when I was younger was that anyone who wanted to go into skilled trades was making a bad decision and it meant they could not make it in university or college. If they only knew the wages available in some of those skilled trades, the guidance counsellors may have given us different advice.

I want to talk about the scope of this study. It concerns me that it is so focused on Toronto and Hamilton. It highlights an issue with the Liberal government. It has become so urban-centric, so GTA-centric. I have spent the last several years travelling across the country focused mainly on agriculture, but I have spoken with many other industries and they are concerned with the inaccessibility of labour. It is a crisis out there. Some businesses have closed. I met with a greenhouse operator in B.C. just last week, who closed her vegetable greenhouse because she could not get the labour. Many of the other businesses we have spoken with are at risk of closing because they cannot access the labour.

The Liberal government has set a very high target. It wants $75 billion in additional agriculture exports by 2025. It is an aspirational goal but it can be done. Agriculture is ready. However, every tool that it has in order to reach that goal is being taken away. One of those critical pillars is access to labour. I would like to see this motion expanded to include other industries, sectors and certainly other parts of the country.

I appreciate my colleague's comments about why he focused this on the GTA, but to compare what is going on in the GTA to what is going on in rural Saskatchewan, Canada's north or the labour shortage in Quebec City is really difficult. There are so many different factors involved. I would like to see the scope of this motion expanded.

My colleague also spoke about some of the great accomplishments the Liberal government has had. I find it ironic that he is concerned about the labour shortage. He talks about the $180-billion infrastructure promise that the Liberal government made in 2015, yet only 6% of those funds have actually been committed to real projects. We cannot get any of these major infrastructure projects built because the money is not rolling out the door. The Trans Mountain pipeline is an infrastructure project which is on very shaky legs. It makes it hard to get Canadians back to work and get them encouraged about going into the skilled trades when they see none of these projects are going to happen. It is disconcerting.

We have to ensure there is a bright future. If we want to ensure young people understand the value of these jobs, they also have to see there is a career opportunity in these jobs, and that some of these opportunities will be there. Right now, I can sense their frustration. Why should they go into some of these skilled trades, such as pipefitting, welding or steel work, if we cannot get any of these infrastructure projects built? That is a critical piece of this. The government needs to start showing that it can get these projects done, get the money out the door and make this a priority. That is highlighted for rural communities, and is certainly what I have heard in my trips across rural Canada. Canadians are extremely frustrated that they see everything with the Liberal government is urban focused.

The map that came out last week in the Huffington Post or iPolitics showed where the vast majority of infrastructure dollars have been committed. The vast majority are in urban centres. I understand that this are where the mass part of the population is, but they cannot do that and neglect some of our rural areas at the same time. That is why I think it is important that we expand the scope of this motion and this study at the HUMA committee, of which I am a very proud member.

We have to look at some of the other issues that are part of this: higher taxes, punitive regulations, surrendering our sovereignty as part of the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, not being able to remove steel and aluminum tariffs and not being able to get a softwood lumber agreement. All of these have an impact on attracting Canadians to these types of careers. They need to understand that are there is opportunity and a future there. Right now, with the pace this is going, Canadians see the writing on the wall. There is not a future in some of these careers, because the jobs simply will not be there long term. That is extremely disconcerting.

Let us take a look at Bill C-68 and Bill C-69. Regardless of what happens with Trans Mountain, it is very clear that if these pieces of legislation go through, we will never have another major infrastructure project built in this country, whether it is a pipeline, a mining operation or another resource extraction initiative. It is going to be very difficult to get these projects built.

When I speak to some of our stakeholders in agriculture, construction and hospitality and tourism, there is no question that their inability to access labour is much beyond a motion at a committee. It is a crisis. They need action on this quickly.

I am going to support this study, because I think we can get some really good recommendations out of it. It is still worthwhile going through that process. I hope we get some tangible recommendations from the study.

Again, we have had businesses close, and others are at risk of closing. We heard it at the agriculture committee yesterday. Some of the farmers and ranchers were talking about the mental stress they are under. One of the reasons they cited for that mental stress was the inability to access labour for their businesses. They are taking on much too much. They are working hard, long hours. It is difficult navigating the temporary foreign worker and seasonal agricultural worker programs. They said, almost unanimously, that over the last three years, under the Liberal government, being able to navigate these programs has become almost unattainable.

My hon. colleague talked a little bit about the temporary foreign worker program. We have to find a permanent solution to what is a permanent problem. Just tweaking the temporary foreign worker program or making some adjustments to that program is not good enough. We have to have bold changes when it comes to accessing labour.

Exhausting what resources we have right now to deal with illegal border crossers is not the way to do it. We need to put our focus on processing the applications of legitimate immigrants who are going to be coming to Canada and having a significant, positive impact on our economic development. These are people who are going to be filling job vacancies in skilled labour areas where we desperately need those jobs filled. That has to be another part of this discussion. Where do we put our focus in immigration? How do they access that system? How do our stakeholders access that system? How do they get through that process?

We have to build a pathway to Canada. I hope this is going to be part of that. Again, we need bold changes. I really look forward to working with our stakeholders across Canada as part of this study to come up with a permanent solution to a permanent problem to address the labour crisis that is happening right now across Canada.

As spoken

Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions ActGovernment Orders

September 28th, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this legislation. It is my pleasure to follow my colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola and his excellent discussion on a topic that he is interested in and knows a great deal about.

Bill C-82 is a welcome step forward. It is the natural conclusion to work that was first undertaken by the previous government in 2013. This is a good, positive step forward by two governments now to help address the serious problem of base erosion and profit shifting.

This legislation seeks to address a global problem that Canada is a part of, namely tax evasion, whereby corporations, through a corporate domicile or clever accounting, can shift profits between different jurisdictions or shop for the most desirable tax treatment from any of a variety of different jurisdictions.

For years we have heard in the news criticism of many global giants, including Starbucks, Apple and a number of other familiar global brands, that will seek to minimize their taxes by shopping for the most favourable jurisdiction. This is a problem that confronts western governments.

If the bill passes, Canada would be able to participate in a protocol that the OECD has in place.

We heard a bit about the scale and scope of this problem at the finance committee, and we welcome the bill.

The bill is an effective and efficient means by which we could deal with a wide variety of different tax jurisdictions through the same instrument. We would not have to separately renegotiate dozens of different existing tax treaties. As a result, we could co-operate much more efficiently with our global trading partners and combat what has been described by some as a “race to the bottom”.

Perhaps close to $25 billion in taxes is not being collected from economic activity that takes place in Canada. During its first two years in office, the Liberal government claimed it was going to recoup this $25 billion. The Prime Minister in late 2017 said in the House that the government looked forward to collecting this money.

While I do support the bill and acknowledge that it is an important step forward, it is certainly not a panacea or a solution to deal with all of the problems. I do hope colleagues from all parties will support it.

With respect to this $25 billion, the government has yet to really tackle the issue at all and it is now three years into its mandate. That number has been debunked. It would seem that most of the money the government planned to collect, money from tax evasion and tax avoidance, through the steps it would take, would be on the domestic side, the majority of which is believed, even by the department, to be uncollectible.

The CRA, almost three years into the government's mandate, has failed to make significant progress on foreign tax evasion, but during that time period it has floated a number of, in some cases, strange ideas on how it would plug its gaps in revenue. These ideas do not involve foreign tax evasion and do not involve corporate profit shifting.

They involve ideas that arose when the CRA first floated the idea of taxing employer benefits, like health and dental benefits; taxing retail discounts to service industry employees; and the war that was being waged this time last year on disabled Canadians, including the rejection of the disability tax credit for type 1 diabetics and a number of people who suffer from other health ailments.

In my riding, I have spoken to people who suffer from different types of chronic fatigue, who had been receiving the disability tax credit for years and suddenly were denied it. In one case, someone had been receiving it for 10 years and was suddenly denied it while her medical evidence had not changed. We have also heard the parents of autistic children losing their disability tax credit at the hands of the CRA under the Liberal government.

None of these seemingly small and petty attempts to raise additional revenues address the issue at hand and fulfill the promise of the government to crack down on foreign tax evasion and tax avoidance. These are nickel-and-dime measures targeting low-hanging fruit. The CBC reported again last night how the Liberal government makes it very difficult for single parents, with its onerous requirements on their proving they are indeed separated. We have seen quite a number of cases of this, and it has been raised in the House.

The other side of this and what this bill does not address is a different type of base erosion. Base erosion from profit shifting is an important global phenomenon that must be addressed. However, perhaps a bigger threat to the Canadian economy and a bigger drain on the tax revenue of the government than base erosion from profit shifting is base erosion from capital flight taking place right now.

Since the Liberal government took office, we have seen the imposition of a carbon tax. My colleague from Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola spoke about carbon leakage, how chasing economic activity with emissions into a different jurisdiction does not change global emissions, but does change the tax revenue base of the Canada Revenue Agency and costs jobs. We have seen the carbon tax and have seen Bill C-69, which should be titled, “an act to ensure no pipeline is ever built in Canada again”. We have also seen tax increases, which the government had indeed promised to impose on the wealthiest Canadians, actually result in a reduction in tax revenues from the wealthiest Canadians. That is a different type of base erosion that would not be addressed by this bill.

We have seen the debacle over the Trans Mountain expansion. That will also result in an erosion of the tax base, as that economic activity is curtailed. We also all know what is happening with the NAFTA negotiations, and we know how many hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Canadians who fear for their jobs as this unfolds.

To conclude, this bill is an excellent step forward to address a serious global problem that Canada must play a part in solving for our own tax base and in participation with our economic partners. I look forward to its coming to committee, where it may be improved and where I could address some of the issues that have been raised by my colleagues.

I will be supporting this bill, and I commend the government for moving ahead with this initiative.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 26th, 2018 / 2:55 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, not a single shovel has been put in the ground to start the Trans Mountain expansion. The court ruled that Kinder Morgan consulted properly. Forty-three indigenous communities want the Trans Mountain expansion. Kinder Morgan only wanted certainty and clarity, not tax dollars, but the Prime Minister failed to deliver all of that. He gave 4.5 billion Canadian tax dollars to build pipelines in the U.S.

What is worse is he is bringing in the job-killing anti-pipeline act, Bill C-69. It would stop all future private sector pipelines and kill Canadian resource development.

Will the Prime Minister stop attacking the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Canadians and kill the anti-pipeline act, Bill C-69?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 8:10 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak this evening and to add my voice in support of Canada's oil and gas sector.

The report that we are discussing covered economic drivers, such as oil and gas prices, production costs, export capacity, future demand, investment and competition. The arguments that various witnesses presented dealt with the ways in which we could foster investment and trade opportunities, promote a new era of indigenous engagement and public trust, deal with a price on carbon, invest in technological innovation and establish the right policy framework. The concern that I have about this report, as was agreed upon by the majority on committee, was that on so many fronts, the conclusions did not address the true realities that exist in the industry today.

The unanimous motion to undertake the study on the future of Canada's oil and gas sector, with a focus on innovation, sustainable solutions and economic opportunities, presented an excellent forum to showcase to the world our first-class oil and gas sector. As I read through the report, what became obvious was that it seemed to be an apology piece for a natural resource sector rather than a chance to explain why Canada's resource development should be encouraged and promoted throughout the world.

At the time of the project, energy east, as well as Kinder Morgan, were being recognized as the final pipeline opportunities to have oil exports added to the four major pipelines that the Conservative government had previously overseen. These pipelines have become even more significant after the arbitrary cancellation of the previously approved northern gateway project.

The report also looked at pricing and production costs, which, of course, are indeed considerations that any company must keep in mind when determining where their investment dollars would go. It is too simplistic to say that investors are shying away from Alberta because of those economic factors, unless, of course, one factors in the uncertainty caused by the ever-burdensome red tape for the industry; the assault on all Canadian small businesses, particularly those that supply the oil and gas sector; a bizarre approach to international trade, which makes investors nervous; and the made-in-Canada disaster program that forces a non-competitive carbon tax on all Canadians that has no equal with our global competitors. The Liberal mistruths about Conservative pipeline management were at least exposed during the study, but once that was on the table, the report reverted back to an anti-oil spin to justify the foot-dragging that has been the hallmark of the Liberal government.

There was an acknowledgement that we needed to get moving on LNG pipeline projects, but the reality is that the same global investors that are agitating against our oil pipelines will use their network to stop LNG projects as well. After all, if Canadian resources produced under the strongest environmental standards in the world could ever get to market, who would need or want products from other countries?

In the report, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce warned that certain environmental policies, namely, carbon pricing, could undermine Canada's competitiveness unless it is aligned with trading partners. Its conclusion was that a price on carbon would cause a lack of competitiveness. There was an expression of concern regarding the greenhouse gas emissions levels of oil sands operations and how that might hinder Canada's ability to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions as addressed in the report. The irony associated with that discussion has always been the degree to which those calculations and the actual contribution to overall global emissions are portrayed.

In a November 27, 2014, Financial Post report, an energy adviser to some of the world's most developed economies, Fatih Birol, presented his concerns not only about the security of world energy sources but also the impact of fossil fuels on the climate.

What he said was that of all the issues that exist, he would never spend any time worrying about the level of carbon emissions from Canada's oil sands. He was frank about saying that oil sands CO2 emission from the oil sands is extremely low.

When speaking of the expected global requirement, Mr. Birol, chief economist of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said that the IEA forecasts that in the next 25 years oil sands production in Canada will increase by more than three million barrels per day, “but the emissions of this additional production is equal to only 23 hours of emissions of China—not even one day.” Now, Mr. Birol also did not think a carbon tax was a particularly useful way of managing emissions. However, the sad part is that this carbon pricing scheme remains a major talking point in the report and is punishing one of our most important drivers of Canada's economy.

One cannot help but comment on the frustration industry has had with respect to the pipeline fiasco. The Prime Minister falsely claimed that the energy east project had been cancelled because of market and volume considerations. The major nail in the coffin was the government's intrusion into the pipeline approval process. It would seem as though the Liberals have used the cover of this report as a rationale to launch its disastrous Bill C-69.

In a recent Bloomberg report, former TransCanada CEO Hal Kvisle stated that in assessing the environmental impact in Canada's energy regulations this was “an absolutely devastating piece of legislation.” Mr. Kvisle also said that he did not think any competent pipeline company would submit an application if Bill C-69 came into force.

The key point is that any government needs to review projects early on and quickly send a signal to both the community and the pipeline proponent as to whether or not the Government of Canada supports the project. If pipeline companies are worried about Canadian projects going forward, then one should not be surprised that other investors around the world are no longer looking to Canada as a reliable investment. The sad part of this is that it does not mean oil and gas will not be sold around the world. It will be supplied from countries that truly have much less concern about the environment than we do. This carbon “slippage”, as it is called, will not help the global environment but it will continue to hamstring our economy.

The dissenting opinion presented by Conservative committee members addressed many of the points I have spoken about this evening, so let me put into the record the recommendations we presented.

We strongly encourage the Government of Canada to establish and make publically available strict, clear criteria and a fixed timeline for their assessment and consultation processes for major projects. The timely approval of new energy infrastructure projects would not only reduce Canada's reliance on foreign oil, but would also allow responsible, world-renowned and respected Canadian oil and gas to reach broader international markets.

We strongly encourage the Government of Canada to show confidence in our national regulators by allowing them to make evidence-based decisions independent of government politicization and unnecessary, duplicative interim principles.

We strongly encourage the Government of Canada to publicly and unequivocally support strategic energy infrastructure approved by the national regulators after extensive and thorough evidence-based processes to ensure Canada's competitiveness in the global energy market.

We strongly encourage the Government of Canada to recognize and to promote Canada's world-leading regulatory framework and environmental standards and stewardship by instilling rather than eroding public confidence in our national regulators and Canada's energy developers.

We strongly encourage the government not to impose any additional tax or regulation on the oil and gas sector or the Canadian consumer that our continental trading partners and competitors do not have. This includes measuring the upstream greenhouse emissions from pipelines, as laid out in the five interim principles, given pipelines do not contribute to these emissions in any material way and upstream emissions fall under provincial jurisdiction. Any national carbon pricing initiatives should undergo a thorough economic assessment to ensure balance between economic growth and environmental stewardship and responsibility.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 7:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague.

Bill C-69 will make environmental and energy rules more transparent. This will allow us to make projections. We will accomplish all of this, and this bill will allow us to go further.

I will repeat, because I want my colleagues opposite to understand. The environment and the economy go hand in hand. We must create jobs for the middle class. By working with first nations in Alberta, we will be able to keep the economy going.

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Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 7:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to give a brief background as to how Bill C-69 would make environmental assessment more transparent? That is where everyone's questions are coming from and everyone worries about these things. Could she give a little highlight on that?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 7:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this evening. I will be speaking in English so please forgive me if I make a few mistakes.

The great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It's like déjà vu all over again.” He could have been talking about this debate, because it seems we are just going around in circles here, with many of us saying the same thing in different ways.

Our government has already endorsed the House committee's report on the future of Canada's oil and gas sector. Why? It is because the committee was right when it concluded that the future of the industry is tied to innovation, sustainable solutions and new economic opportunities. Who would disagree with that?

However, the critics in the House say, “Yes, but what about the upstream greenhouse gas emissions? Why are we including them in the review of oil and gas projects? What about the uncertainty facing the industry with respect to environmental assessments? What about recognizing that Canada has a world-leading regulatory regime and an internationally renowned track record? What about the United States' transformation from being our main customer to our biggest competitor?”

On each count we say, that is what we have been addressing over the course of our mandate. We have been addressing existing problems and tackling the challenges that continue to emerge. One key way we have been doing that is by bringing forward legislation, Bill C-69, to make environmental assessments and regulatory reviews timelier, more transparent and more predictable. We get it. Investment certainty is critical to the energy sector's future, and Bill C-69 would provide that, with better rules for a better Canada.

However, again, the critics argue, “Yes, but why are you singling out the oil and gas industry by including upstream greenhouse gas emissions for pipeline projects?” We are not. It is just the opposite. Everything we have been doing, from Bill C-69 to the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, is aimed at strengthening Canada's economy and creating jobs for the low-carbon future. That includes our oil and gas industry and all the other resource sectors that are the backbone of the Canadian economy.

Here is a fact that is not widely known. Natural resources account for 47% of Canada's merchandise exports. That is almost half our total merchandise exports. There is no getting around it. Our natural resource industries are not just the historic foundation of our economy, they are helping to drive our future prosperity, and in a world increasingly looking for sustainably produced products, Canada is unmatched. We have a huge natural advantage, and our government is determined to build on that competitive edge by making sure that Canada can take on the world in this clean-growth century and win.

However, again, the critics argue, “That is all well and good, but you have to realize that our oil and gas industry is now competing with the United States. You have to do something about that.” Again, we say that they are right, and we are doing something about it. It is right there in the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Minister of Natural Resources. The Prime Minister asked the minister to identify opportunities to support workers and businesses in the natural resource sectors that are seeking to export their goods to global markets.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is part of that, part of our plan to diversify markets, improve environmental safety and create thousands of good middle-class jobs, including jobs in indigenous communities. That is why the Minister of Natural Resources just announced the first step in our efforts to make sure that any expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline proceeds in the right way. When 99% of Canada's oil exports are destined for the United States, it just makes sense for us to seek other buyers for our resources. The problem is that there was not a single pipeline built to tidewater in the decade before we formed government. We have to address that, and we are.

Before anyone watching thinks we are doing all of this alone, let me make this clear. Canada's oil and gas industry is working hard investing in innovation, improving its environmental performance, building new partnerships and creating new opportunities. The oil sands are a great example. They are one huge innovation project. Nobody figured out how to get oil out of sand until Canadians created the technology, and that ingenuity continues today through Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. It is a partnership of Canada's thirteen largest producers, all of them working together to ensure the industry's sensible growth and to accelerate its environmental performance. To date, those 13 companies have invested more than $1.3 billion to develop more than a thousand distinct new technologies and innovations, such as using the latest in artificial intelligence to pinpoint where to inject steam, and how much, to maximize the return of oil, or developing technology that could reduce CO2 emissions from the steam generation process to almost zero within five years.

Our government is working with them, supporting their efforts through our CanmetEnergy lab in Devon, Alberta, through our oil and gas clean-tech program and through our clean energy innovation program. We do that because our job is to make sure that Canada is developing its resources in the most environmentally responsible ways possible and using them in the most sustainable ways possible. That is exactly what we are doing. We are investing, for example, in the latest carbon capture technologies and are supporting centres of excellence in Alberta and B.C. and coming up with innovative ways to turn carbon dioxide into commercial products, everything from concrete and plastic to fish food and even toothpaste. Members may have recently read about the promising pilot project just north of Vancouver, where they are actually grabbing carbon dioxide out of the air and turning it into a replacement for gasoline.

The bottom line is that the low-carbon economy is not just the challenge of our generation, it is the opportunity of a lifetime. We are seizing this opportunity and making Canada a global leader.

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Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 7:15 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise this evening to speak to the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, a report on the future of and innovation in Canada's oil and gas sector. I will not comment on the arcane procedures and strategies in this place that see us debating a committee report a full two years after it was tabled in the House, but I am pleased to be able to take it off the shelf, dust it off and see what is in there, especially in light of more recent events.

The New Democrats submitted a supplementary opinion on the report when it was tabled, so I will be referencing that when I discuss some of our concerns. Our first concern was with the scope of the study and the subsequent report. We had hoped that there would have been a good discussion on the opportunities in other parts of the energy sector, a discussion about innovation, job opportunities, investments and particularly the emerging renewable energy industry. Renewable energy offers significant opportunities for the creation of good jobs in every community across Canada and much of what is happening there is the very definition of “innovation”, but, unfortunately, that topic was not included in the study.

During the study, committee members heard a lot about innovation in the oil and gas industry and some of it was truly encouraging. We heard from Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, COSIA. In the model that COSIA put forward, a group of private companies put aside the usual proprietary nature of research and information to create a true alliance in which all members have access to successful innovations that could result in oil extraction methods that are both more economical and better for the environment. That is really exciting to witness. Unfortunately, we heard that many of these innovations would only be implemented in new projects, projects that are waiting for higher oil prices before they will proceed. I truly hope that the COSIA model will be extended to other industry sectors because of the way it amplifies innovation through quick adoption throughout the sector.

I would also like to echo the sentiments of Gil McGowan, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, in that we have to be more than hewers of wood and drawers of water, that we need to develop value-added industries within the oil and gas and other resource sectors. He testified, “we should prioritize value-added development, because these kinds of investments not only create jobs directly in upgrading, refining, and petrochemicals but also create other jobs.” I would add that these investments create jobs that are not as subject to the volatility of global oil prices and create products that will be needed during our transition to a low-carbon economy.

We not only need to be innovative in how we extract and use resources, we need to be innovative in how we regulate the extraction of those resources. I think everyone here would agree that we now have a complete lack of public confidence in our energy regulation process. Nanos Research has published data showing that only 2% of Canadians think we are doing a good job in that regard.

Professor Monica Gattinger of the University of Ottawa testified before committee about her positive energy program, a research group dedicated to studying ways to depolarize the public debate around the oil and gas sector, particularly with regard to pipelines. The supplementary report states:

We believe it is essential that the lack of public confidence in the current environmental assessment process be addressed by permanent, meaningful changes to the National Energy Board process as soon as possible. New Democrats believe that the proposed interim measures introduced by the government are inadequate to address the results of a decade of Conservative dismantling of our environmental protection regime. We share the concern expressed by witness Professor Monica Gattinger that if the process goes ahead without the existing gaps being meaningfully addressed, the end result will further erode public confidence in the entire assessment regime.

The supplementary report goes on to say:

We are disappointed that the majority report fails to recommend a speedy review of the NEB process as this had been a clear electoral commitment of the new government. We are disappointed that the newly announced review panel process contains no timeline for actual legislative changes leaving the Conservatives inadequate process in place and creating uncertainty for all stakeholders. We recommend that the government move faster to make the necessary permanent changes to the NEB assessment process to restore public confidence and ensure that it is fair, neutral, science based and designed to meaningfully engage communities.

Where are we now? Shortly after this report was tabled in the House, the government granted permission for the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline to proceed, and a few weeks ago, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed those approvals. The court cited two significant failures: the government failed to consider the environmental impact of the project on coastal marine environment, and the consultations with first nations were completely inadequate. The government officials who met with first nations groups were mere note-takers who mistakenly believed that neither they nor cabinet had the authority to change the findings of the National Energy Board in the consultation process.

What did they think consultation was about? If they thought it was about noting the concerns of first nations and telling the first nations they had no power to change anything with regard to the pipeline, that is not consultation. Consultation is listening and then acting on concerns, trying to make accommodations.

Here is what our first supplementary report had to say about first nations consultation:

The Government must also act quickly to honour its obligations to a Nation to Nation relationship with Indigenous peoples including proper consultation and accommodation on all energy projects and the protection of Indigenous rights. During testimony, industry representatives were clear about the importance of fixing the consultation process sooner rather than later. The Government of Canada, as representative of the Crown, is responsible for these duties and while proponents of projects should be a part of this process, we believe these responsibilities should not be devolved to proponents to fulfill, as was too often the case under the former Conservative government. The Government must take a much larger, hands-on role in creating the environment in which meaningful consultation can take place.

The supplementary report goes on to support Bill C-262, which would ensure that federal legislation is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This bill was brought forward by our colleague in the NDP caucus, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. While we are happy to report that Bill C-262 has passed through the House of Commons, we were disappointed to see that its spirit was not included in Bill C-69, legislation that would implement changes to environmental assessment and energy regulation in Canada.

Here we are two years after this report was tabled. The NDP was criticized back then for its call to redo the Trans Mountain expansion process under a proper system. Critics said it would take too long, maybe another year or two. Here we are two years later back at square one. The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal is a reminder that we have to put in the effort at the start. There are no shortcuts.

I mentioned Nanos Research earlier that noted the pitifully poor state of Canadians' confidence in our energy regulation system, but it did point out there was a way forward. The polling data demonstrated that if the Canadian government could show it was consulting properly with indigenous communities by asking local communities about these decisions and developing a meaningful consultation process, Canadians would have more confidence in the procedure. There is a way forward.

I just want to read out some of the testimony from a witness representing the Indigenous Health Alliance who criticized the National Energy Board in particular for not engaging indigenous peoples early enough in its regulatory approval processes. He recommended the following measures to improve indigenous community engagement, which come right out of the main body of the report we are discussing tonight:

Early engagement of indigenous communities in the NEB process—by involving indigenous communities in “the problems, solutions and implementation strategies of any resource development project at the earliest reasonable opportunity”;

Acknowledging the multidimensional nature of resource development issues—by recognizing that resource development projects involve broader considerations related to education, health, economic development, the environment, etc. He stated that a consultation process that does not acknowledge and address these issues clearly will ultimately fail to address the real problems;

Including community leadership, namely elders, in the decisionmaking process—by recognizing elders as a stakeholder group that should be directly involved in setting the project agenda;

Acknowledging that indigenous peoples are reasonable and pragmatic about resource development—they are likely to support approval processes that respect their community-based needs;

Involving communication and consultation experts—ones that could accurately interpret and convey community concerns to governments and project developers; and

Recognizing indigenous peoples as a “third level of government” in Canada—which is how they are functionally recognized by the court system.

We have significant natural resources in Canada and they have always been central to our country's wealth. However, we must ensure that these shared resources are managed in the best interests of all Canadians, with a focus on protecting the environment, ensuring meaningful consultation with affected communities and indigenous peoples and maximizing economic benefits.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 7:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the discussions that were just presented, just reading through the footnotes we recognize that it was in early 2016 that these discussions took place. Recognizing that this report is two years old, there is a lot that has changed in the last two years. We thought we would be working with the U.S. and that carbon taxes would be in place. Keystone had not been approved. These are the kinds of things that are taking place. It is as though the member believes that this is a snapshot of today. What we are talking about is what set the stage for all of the discussions and the concerns, and especially the disastrous Bill C-69 that is being presented. I wonder if the member can bring us back to the mindset there was two years ago, and why some of these thoughts need to be updated.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

September 24th, 2018 / 6:55 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking in today's debate in my new role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.

I am honoured by the trust that the Prime Minister has put in me. I am well aware that I have been entrusted with a critical portfolio. The member for Northumberland—Peterborough South set the bar very high.

I have learned some valuable lessons in my years representing the people of Sudbury. Thanks to them, I have a better understanding of the importance of natural resource development, the importance of doing things right, and the importance of making sure that everyone wins, including proponents, local communities and indigenous peoples, in the spirit of creating jobs while protecting the environment. The House committee came to the same conclusion two years ago in its report entitled “The Future of Canada's Oil and Gas Sector: Innovation, Sustainable Solutions and Economic Opportunities”.

I have always suspected that some people were a bit slow to grasp the importance of harmonizing environmental protection and economic prosperity. All the same, it is astonishing that we are only now debating a report that was released by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources a full two years ago.

I want to take a moment to refresh the memories of those who may have forgotten what that report said and remind them of what our government has achieved.

The committee explored the future of Canada's oil and gas sectors by focusing on innovation, sustainable solutions and economic opportunities. After holding seven days of meetings and hearing from 33 witnesses, the committee produced its report, which contained a number of recommendations. Among other things, the report recommended that our government continue to support the viability and competitiveness of Canada's oil and gas sectors, foster investment and trade opportunities, promote a new era of indigenous engagement and public trust, establish a carbon pricing system, invest in technological innovation and establish the right policy framework.

Our government approved that report and we are responding to each of its recommendations.

Through Natural Resources Canada, we are investing in research and the demonstration of innovative technologies, including those aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Two specific initiatives are worth noting: first, the $50-million oil and gas clean tech program, which is helping to reduce the sector's greenhouse gas emissions; and second, the $25-million clean energy innovation program, which seeks to reduce emissions in a number of areas, including methane and volatile organic compounds in the oil and gas industry. Future work will focus on enhancing the environmental and economic performance by significantly reducing methane emissions.

Through mission innovation, our government has committed to doubling our investment in energy technology research and development. More broadly, NRCan is working with Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance and other partners to maximize the innovative potential for the oil and gas sector.

As I mentioned, the committee report also calls on the government to rebuild public trust in resource development. Our government has done just that, including by restoring many lost environmental protections and introducing modern safeguards to the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Protection Act.

We announced a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, the largest investment in Canada's coasts and oceans in our history.

We have introduced Bill C-69, the most comprehensive overhaul of the environmental review process in a generation.

The Prime Minister has said many times that no relationship is more important to our government than the one with indigenous peoples. In particular, we recognize that consultation with indigenous communities affected by resource projects is critical to renewing a nation-to-nation relationship. That is why, with respect to the Trans Mountain expansion project, we extended the timeline to allow for deeper, more meaningful engagement.

When concerns were expressed, we responded by committing nearly $65 million to establish an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee that would oversee environmental aspects through the entire life of that project. This was unprecedented. As Chief Ernie Crey of the Cheam First Nation said, “Indigenous people won't be on the outside looking in. We'll be at the table and on site to protect our lands and water.”

That said, we know that when it comes to indigenous engagement, a higher bar must still be met. Our government will be announcing how we intend to meet that bar in the coming days.

Finally, the committee recommended that we establish the right policy framework to ensure a competitive oil and gas industry. We agree, which is why we are continuing to work towards a Canadian energy strategy together with our indigenous, provincial and territorial colleagues. It is why, through the Vancouver declaration, Canada's first ministers committed to working on carbon sinks and other measures under the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.

That is why we have done what 42 other countries and 25 subnational jurisdictions have done: put a price on pollution. It is something the United Nations has called a necessary and effective measure to tackle the climate change challenge.

Taken together, our actions constitute an unprecedented level of support for the oil and gas industry, all while demonstrating that economic development and environmental prosperity can indeed go hand in hand.

The opposition issued a dissenting report and I will address it directly.

The report calls, among other things, for clear timelines for assessments. I suggest that members opposite read Bill C-69, which provides predictable timelines and clear expectations. This would allow proponents to better plan and engage earlier, leading to stronger proposals and greater certainty. The opposition's report also recommends that we encourage our national regulators to “make evidence-based decisions independent of government politicization”.

This concern for evidence-based decision-making is a welcome change of pace in Canada.

I can guarantee my opposition colleagues that we truly value science, facts and evidence. I am also pleased to mention that the dissenting report calls on the government “to publicly and unequivocally support strategic energy infrastructure approved by the national regulators”. Of course, that is exactly what we did by approving the Line 3 replacement project.

Finally, the report calls on the government to promote Canada's regulatory framework by instilling “public confidence in our national regulators”. We agree, which is why we built on the work of the National Energy Board to create a modern, world-class regulatory body for the 21st century, an organization that has the independence and accountability needed to oversee a solid, safe and viable energy sector, an organization that includes new public engagement and indigenous reconciliation processes, all while ensuring that good projects get the green light.

I will conclude by saying that I am always happy to talk about everything our government is doing for the oil and gas industry. We know that it is a vital contributor to our economy and an important part of our future. The fact is that the recommendations in this report are already being implemented. Our government will continue to look forward, towards a very bright future for our oil and gas industry and towards the prosperity it will help ensure for all Canadians.

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Trans Mountain Pipeline Project ActPrivate Members' Business

September 21st, 2018 / 2:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to add my comments to this very important debate on S-245. I would like to note the comments of my colleague for Lakeland as she kicked off the debate. She very articulately laid out this project, the time frames and some of the history. I will not redo what she said but I hope to add some new comments to the debate which should be reflected upon.

Even though the landscape has changed since this initial private member's motion in the Senate was introduced, passed and moved to us, it still remains a very important bill for us to pass in the House. Again, the landscape has changed considerably, but we must and should pass it.

I know that in an ideal world we would not have any dependence on fossil fuels. However, we continue to have that dependence. It is not just the gasoline for our car or the jet fuel for the planes that fly us to Ottawa and back home. Over 6,000 products require the use of oil.

In the short and medium term, the world, not just Canada, will continue to rely on oil and its products. I do have a belief that there will be technological advances that will create some solutions.

Dave McKay, the president of RBC, said, “Canadians are polarized about oil and gas when we should be focused on how cleanly we can produce it, how safely we can transport it and how wisely we can consume it.” Those are very important words.

Alberta is working very hard on how to cleanly produce. The discussion we are having today is how we can safely transport and then it is up to every individual to look at how wisely to consume it.

The government has decided to put all its eggs into one basket. The tanker moratorium simply means that people from Lac du Ronge and Eagle Spirit have been cut off, with no consultation on the opportunities they thought might be there for their communities. Of course, that would be a northern route. This bill is currently in the Senate. Again, it cuts off opportunity to get oil to the sea water.

Bill C-69 has been called the “never build another pipeline again” bill. I tend to agree. Changes proposed in Bill C-69 mean that another pipeline will never be built in Canada again. That is a huge problem. We can look at what is happening in the States and across the world. We basically have landlocked resources. In the short and medium term, we will be uncompetitive.

Having a “no pipeline” bill is important. However, what people do not realize is this. Look at the rail traffic. I live on a rail line. I was at a ceremony this week for a change of command for the Rocky Mountain Rangers. Fifteen metres from us was a rail line, which goes straight through Kamloops. Tanker car after tanker car travel right through town and along the Fraser River. It had already come down the Thompson River while salmon were spawning.

When we talk about transportation safety, it is relatively safe. However, it is more safe to transport oil through a pipeline than by tanker cars, which travel right through the middle of town and along the spawning channels. We have had wildfires. We have seen the instability of slopes when rains come. We are having washouts. There is big concern about the enormous increase in the tanker cars that go through our communities.

This does not even address the issue that we hear all the time from our grain farmers and mining folks about the bottleneck on the rail lines. As the rail capacity increases for tanker cars to transport oil, we bottleneck our supply system, our supply chain. This is a huge problem.

Northern gateway and the TMX is really a tale of two pipelines, because it has been largely decision-making by the current government.

Northern gateway went through its process and it was approved by the former government. A court decision came out and it was very clear. The Liberal government received that court decision. It said that some things needed to be done to improve consultation with first nations.

The decision was received by the current Liberal government. Every time those members suggest that they inherited a flawed process, it is quite clear that it was not the process but it was the execution of the process with northern gateway. It became much clearer that they did not learn any lessons after reading that report, in spite of the fact that they said they had. The Liberals completely botched their execution with respect to the duty to consult on the Trans Mountain pipeline.

The first decision said they could not simply be a note-taker. The Liberals had that information. What did they do? They sent someone to take notes. How is that looking at a decision and implementing it?

The minister stood up time after time and said that there was no relationship more important than the government's relationship with first nations. He said they were engaged, that they have had the best process ever, and yet his government did the exact same thing. Someone was sent to take notes and the government did nothing in terms of dealing with the issues at hand.

The Liberals failed. They failed as plaintiffs. Six communities took them to court with respect to the duty to consult. More important, they also failed 43 communities that had benefit agreements and were looking forward to the opportunities that would come with the construction of this pipeline going through their territory.

About one-third of the pipeline goes through the riding that I represent, which includes many communities as well as many first nations communities, the majority of which had signed benefit agreements.

After the decision came down I met with a number of first nations and other communities. One group had to completely redo its budget. It had counted on the benefits from this agreement. This group had to wonder what it could slice and dice out of its budget because it was faced with brand-new circumstances.

I met with another group called Simpcw Resource Group. As construction happened, and in the past, this company had been responsible for returning the disrupted land from the construction of a pipeline back to its natural vegetative state.

Companies are planting trees as we speak, planning on the economic opportunities. Construction camps are being planned. Cooks were looking forward to opportunities. These are real people. These are real jobs.

The fact that the Liberal government could not look at a court decision that came to them in 2016 and do the job properly is absolutely shameful. It failed to execute. When the government says it had a flawed process given to it, it is absolute nonsense. The government was told what it needed to do in order to do it properly. Please, do not ever let them say they were provided with a flawed process. The court decision was absolutely clear that the process was appropriate, it was the execution that was flawed.

This are real consequences to real people. This matters. I hope that when people look at this they will look at it as a benefit for Canada, not for the benefit of a small area only. This would benefit all of Canada.

I encourage all members of the House not to just look at their concerns and interests but to look at the big picture, look at it for the benefit of Canada.

As spoken

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project ActPrivate Members' Business

September 21st, 2018 / 1:50 p.m.


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Liberal

Randy Boissonnault Liberal Edmonton Centre, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill S-245 at second reading and to do so as a proud Alberta MP. I am very proud of my home province and my city of Edmonton. It is a place that values hard work and entrepreneurship. In fact, if people come to my riding of Edmonton Centre, they will see on one of the buildings there a huge mural that says, “Take a risk”. There is nothing more Edmontonian that anyone could possibly do. It is a place that celebrates inclusion, a place that believes everyone should have the opportunity to succeed. The Edmonton Metropolitan Region has brought innovation and resource development to new levels, once thought impossible.

Members may know that I grew up in Morinviille. Close members of my family and dear friends work and have worked in the oil sands, and I know first-hand the importance of resource development to people's lives and livelihoods. I agree categorically with what I hear at doors every week, the keen and deep interest in getting our resources to market and ending the $15-billion-a-year haircut that our resource products get because we have only one customer, the United States.

These are the same reasons that our government approved the Trans Mountain expansion project in the first place. We know that this project holds the potential to create thousands of good middle-class jobs, to strengthen the Canadian economy and generate billions of dollars in new revenues for all orders of government, and to ensure that we get a fair price for one of our country's most valuable resources. It would also open up new opportunities in indigenous communities across B.C. and Alberta, which support the project. There are also 43 indigenous communities that have signed mutual benefit agreements.

It is for all of these reasons and many more that we believe that the TMX project is in Canada's national interest and why we purchased its assets as a sound investment in Canada's future. The existing line will generate $300 million in earnings every year regardless of the expansion. Therefore, when legislation comes before us suggesting that, “the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project and related works [are declared] to be for the general advantage of Canada”, it is hard to disagree. We have said as much repeatedly in every part of the country, and yet it is not enough that the pipeline project expansion proceed. It must proceed in the right way, and that includes fulfilling our government's commitments to protecting the environment and renewing Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is in the situation it is in today because of the failures of the previous Conservative government. We promised legislation that would move Canada forward and brings more, not less, environmental protection and respect for indigenous rights. Have the Conservatives learned that lesson? No. Despite court ruling after court ruling, they still fail to understand the importance of having strong and meaningful frameworks for pipeline approval in place. Ten years of Conservative failure to get our energy to other markets does not serve the Canadian people and does not serve the energy industry.

With Bill C-69, our government will move Canada's projects forward based on doing things the right way, and without cutting corners the way Conservatives did for a decade. When will the Conservatives learn that Canada cannot legislate its way out of its constitutional obligation to consult indigenous peoples and to protect the environment? Only they know the answer to that. On this side, we know that cutting corners has not worked in the past and will not work now or in the future.

The Federal Court of Appeal found that the government's assessment of the project left room for improvement. Potential environmental effects of marine shipping were not properly considered by the NEB, which was a result of a flawed process created by the Conservatives. It also found that while we had an acceptable framework for indigenous consultation, one that we brought forward in our interim approach to environmental assessments, the Crown did not properly execute that phase of the process.

That is why today the Minister of Natural Resources announced an important step in our path forward. He said that the government has instructed the National Energy Board to reconsider its recommendation, taking into account the effects of marine shipping related to the project. We will be directing the NEB to report within 22 weeks. During this time, the NEB will hear from Canadians and provide participant funding for indigenous and non-indigenous groups. We will present to the NEB recent government actions to protect the southern resident killer whales and to implement the oceans protection plan. We are committed to ensuring that the National Energy Board has the expertise and capacity to deliver the best advice to the government. To that end, we intend to appoint a special marine technical advisor to the National Energy Board.

Our government has been clear about its vision for resource development, a vision built on three key tenets: creating good, middle-class jobs; protecting the environment; and indigenous partnerships.

We see the Trans Mountain expansion project as part of this vision, but the vision is much bigger than that. We are committed to building a long-term energy vision for Canadians, one that transitions Canada to a clean growth economy. Canada is now a global leader in clean tech and we are poised to be a clean energy leader as well.

We have worked across sectors and across the country to build Bill C-69, with industry and environmental groups. The bill moves past the Conservative way of ignoring indigenous peoples and the environment, and proposes a modern, new way to review major resource projects and a new framework to recognize and implement indigenous rights in a spirit of respect, co-operation and collaboration.

Our vision is of more than a single pipeline. It is about creating jobs for Canadians and charting a path for Canada's long-term future, a new course that recognizes that the economy and the environment must go hand in hand.

The Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that we had made a solid start with the interim principles we introduced back in January 2016, but it said there was more work to be done. We understand that. That has been our focus since we formed government in November 2015.

That is why we not only signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, but also helped shape it as an ambitious and balanced plan for ensuring that the environment and economy are equal components of a single engine that will drive enduring prosperity.

That is why we also sat down with the provinces, territories, and indigenous peoples to draft the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, a blueprint for reducing emissions, spurring innovation, adapting to climate change and creating good middle-class jobs across the country.

That is why we are making long-term investments in clean technology and green infrastructure. That is why we are providing unprecedented levels of support for science and basic research. That is also why we are making a historic investment to protect Canada's oceans, marine life and coastal communities.

The $1.5-billion oceans protection plan will strengthen the eyes and ears of the Canadian Coast Guard, enhance our response capabilities in the unlikely event of a spill and support innovative marine research. It will also reinforce new important partnerships with indigenous peoples. That includes the joint creation of an indigenous advisory and oversight committee to assess the safety of the TMX project throughout its life cycle.

This is in addition to our efforts to improve indigenous peoples's access to financing for economic development, professional training and business opportunities arising from the pipeline expansion. We recognize the importance of Canada's energy sector and its impact on both Canada's economy and the environment.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is a key element, part of a common-sense approach that includes the diversification of our energy markets, the improvement of environmental safety and the creation of thousands of good jobs for the middle class, including good jobs for indigenous communities.

However, we have to do this properly, by keeping our commitments to reconciliation with indigenous peoples and to environmental protection, and as part of our plan to build a better future and a better Canada for everyone. That is what I am proud to support today.

The Conservative Party can continue to attempt to mystify Canadians with bafflegab, blather and blarney. Our government will do the right thing and be respectful, rigorous and get this done in the right way.

Partially translated

National Defence ActGovernment Orders

September 21st, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Mr. Speaker, some people are saying he did not. They should talk to their Prime Minister, because he is wrong and the minister is wrong. If they feel that ministers cannot ensure their own policies are being followed then they are abdicating their leadership for our country and they should resign. This is an affront to Canadians.

Constable Campbell wore two uniforms of service. She was a police officer in Nova Scotia and she volunteered as a firefighter. Christopher Garnier did not wear a uniform. He was is an adult and committed a horrendous crime: murder and desecration of the remains.

Having been minister and having spent my entire adult life either in uniform or supporting our troops through a variety of charities, some of which I was helpful in starting, there is no program in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for which this person would qualify. Someone pressured the system. Someone made a mistake, and the minister is allowing that to continue. At the same time, we are receiving reports from the department that waiting times are back up. We have a situation.

I would like the member who is heckling me to reflect on this. Their government is having wait times go up for veterans to access PTSD treatment while they are funding, inappropriately and immorally, the treatment of someone who killed someone in uniform.

I hope some of the media are watching this. There are none in the gallery. Had that happened under the last government there would have been 24-hour coverage. The PSAC public sector union would have been outraged and would have been having press conferences. This level of disrespect and incompetence appears to be accepted.

This is from a minister, whom I have tried to work with. I have said good things about him in the House. However, time after time we are disappointed. They are shelving a report on how well service dogs would help our veterans. Then when the minister takes meetings with advocates or talks to the media about it he admits he has not even read the report. He is mailing it in. That is not what our veterans deserve. That is not what we expect when a member of the House is given the honour to join the government as either a parliamentary secretary or a minister. They read the reports. They understand the file. They are not just a TV host trying to make people feel good. They have to understand what they are doing, and I have seen nothing but failure from the minister.

We are talking about the military. These people are recruited out of high school generally, or out of training or college. They serve our country for a number of years, or for a career, and then retire as a veteran. Our country has an obligation from the first time we speak to them about serving until the end of their lives. What I hear from veterans and Veterans Affairs employees in Prince Edward Island, who find this Garnier decision horrendous, is the government will not even acknowledge the profound absurdity of making veterans who are hurt wait behind someone who has PTSD because he killed someone. He has never been in uniform. He is an adult.

I know all the programs at Veterans Affairs and outside. This was a mistake, and it is morally reprehensible. We are going to be here every day talking about this until they do the right thing. The heckling shows just how disconnected the Liberal MPs are from Canadians, from veterans and from Canadians who many not have served but want to make sure they are helping our vets.

There were times when I was minister I said we fell short. We must own it when we have to do better. We must tell them we are listening.

We cannot suggest that privacy concerns means we cannot talk about why we are funding treatment for a murderer. That is an absence of leadership. It is an admission that they do not understand the programs and benefits available. We are speaking about military justice. If someone had been in uniform and committed that crime, that person would not get this treatment.

There are about 10 different ways to show how absurd this is, yet there is an inability to act. The same talking points get pulled out. The Liberals mention Harper a couple of times and think they can move on.

I have never seen such an incompetent government. After three years the only true accomplishment of the Liberal government under the present Prime Minister is marijuana. He made promises about electoral reform and about finances in terms of the budget, deficits and taxation. The only one, and I know it is a personal favourite for him, is marijuana.

The minister in charge of marijuana, when he was police chief in Toronto, spoke to the Scarborough Mirror and suggested even decriminalization was wrong. Now an hon. member, someone I like a great deal, is being forced to come out when doctors, physicians and everyone is upset, and cover that we are going to stumble through the legalization of something that we know causes harm.

Rather than heckling, those members should speak up. We know one who tried to speak up, the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. She became tired of being ignored, of being one of the 32 sheep from Atlantic Canada. She made a principled decision to come over to a side where we can talk about these things, where we can talk about ways to move the country forward, where we can talk about issues we think are important. We do not have to wait for Mr. Butts to issue us talking points from the Prime Minister's Office.

Many of those members should go home this weekend and go into a coffee shop in their ridings and ask someone sitting there about the Garnier case, ask them if it is right to make veterans wait while inappropriately and immorally serving someone who killed a woman from Nova Scotia who wore the uniform.

Many of those members need to get out of their bubbles and talk to some real people. If next week they put the talking points away and do the right thing, once the minister reads the briefings on what programs are available in this context, they will realize there is no program for a non-dependent adult who has committed a horrendous crime, who has never served a day in uniform.

A mistake was made or inappropriate pressure was applied. If they root that out, correct it, I will stand in the House and thank them for finally doing the right thing.

Perhaps it is appropriate that the heckles from the Liberals took me into this subject. It is justice-related and it is military-related. More important than that, it is government confidence-related. Canadians see that waning.

Canadians see a government approaching the final year of its mandate, a government that is lurching from crisis to crisis, whether it is NAFTA on the rocks largely due to the government's own doing, or whether it is Trans Mountain, where, because of Bill C-69 we lost energy east because the Prime Minister cancelled northern gateway. He breached the duty to consult aboriginal owners of that line, one-third equity ownership with several first nations bands. I have spoken before in the House about several chiefs who were not consulted.

The Prime Minister violated his duty to consult first nations just like he did when he violated his duty to consult the Inuit when in Washington he made changes with respect to land and water in those areas without speaking to first nations leaders and by giving a courtesy call to the premier half an hour before the announcement.

It was crisis to crisis on veterans. The crisis really began in Belleville, Ontario, when the parliamentary secretary on U.S. relations, the Minister of National Defence and the member for Kelowna—Lake Country were standing behind the Prime Minister, wearing their medals, flown in from all over the country. I was veterans minister at the time. I was trying to fix things. I was being honest that we had work to do, but we were making progress.

He flew them in and made two key promises to our veterans, the people who serve and are governed by the National Defence Act and then retire, some with injury, some without. He told them two things at that event. First, that there was going to be a return to lifetime pensions. That was a return to the Pension Act. Why do I know that? Because when I was on the edge of settling the Equitas lawsuit with veterans, the settlement had to be turned into an abeyance agreement. Why? Because they were told the Liberals were going to return to the pension.

I had developed friendships with those veterans by that time, Mark Campbell, Aaron Bedard and many others. They remain friends and always will be. They felt bad when they called me and said that they would not be able to settle, but they wanted to work with me and put the lawsuit on hold.

In that promise made to Equitas veterans was the promise to return to the Pension Act. The pension for life announcement was made a couple of days before Christmas last year. That should have been a sign that Liberals were hiding bad news, announcing it literally on Christmas eve. It was essentially a slightly tweaked version of what I had already announced. There was no return to the Pension Act. The new veterans charter is still in place.

The other promise was to never see veterans in court fighting their government. What upsets me about that is the promise the Liberals made to the Equitas veterans, that they were going to return to the Pension Act, led to an abeyance agreement. However, that abeyance agreement expired when the Liberals were in power. What did they do? They did not renew that abeyance agreement; they let it lapse. Therefore, the court case was back on and they made military veterans go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Again, the Liberals broke their central promises.

I like the minister. I know he has served honourably. I know people from his regiment. I know people who went to staff college with him. He is likeable. He has to start stepping up. I am calling that group of veterans behind him in those photos “the broken promises battalion”. They were called out from across the country for a media event when the Prime Minister had no intention of following through or he did not know the costing and ramifications of his promise, either one of those options, saying something one has no intention of following through on or not understanding the file enough to know the cost or ramifications of implementing a return to the Pension Act. Members should remember that the Pension Act was changed by a Liberal government. Honourable Canadians running for office, none of whom were actually members of Parliament at the time but they were all veterans, and I respect their service, all flanked the Prime Minister, medals on, while the Prime Minister said those two things: a return to lifetime pensions and veterans will never have to face their government in court.

Within two years, both of those promises were broken. Now the minister is not reading reports before meeting with veterans, who are juggling a lot of issues, sometimes injuries, and serious ones. Now we see the waning confidence in the minister fade even more when, as wait times increase. Miraculously to the front of the line for PTSD treatment comes someone who is in a correctional institution for murdering someone who wore not just one but two uniforms for her community and her province.

I want all of those Liberal members to go back to their ridings, speak to veterans, go to the legions, ask them what they think, come back next week and do the right thing.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 21st, 2018 / noon


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Bloc

Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to a question, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources said that the energy east pipeline could rise from the ashes if TransCanada wanted it to.

Worse yet, he said that the government would use exactly the same decision-making process that the Conservatives did. Never mind BAPE, Quebec's environmental protection agency, or Quebec's approval, and there will be no environmental assessment as provided for under Bill C-69.

I will give the government another chance. Can the parliamentary secretary confirm that he will use the same process the Conservatives used and that he has no intention of respecting Quebec's environmental laws?

Translated

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

September 19th, 2018 / 7:40 p.m.


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Sudbury Ontario

Liberal

Paul Lefebvre LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her important and timely question.

It is timely because we know that the Federal Court of Appeal recently ruled that the National Energy Board should have included marine transportation in its assessment of the Trans Mountain expansion proposal.

It is important because the issues she raised reflect what we on this side of the House have been saying from the outset: the economy and the environment must go hand in hand, and no relationship is more important to Canada than its relationship with indigenous peoples.

Those core values go to the heart of our government's vision for this clean-growth century. The good news is that our government is committed to ensuring that those values are respected in everything we do, including expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. That is why we introduced Bill C-69 to improve the way we review major resource projects.

That is why we are making the single-largest investment ever to protect Canada's oceans, marine life and coastal communities. The $1.5 billion oceans protection plan has been a cornerstone of our agenda and our efforts. The oceans protection plan strengthens the eyes and ears of the Canadian Coast Guard to ensure better communication to vessels, adds new radar sites in strategic locations, puts more enforcement officers on the coast and establishes the national aerial surveillance program to keep a watchful eye on ships and waters under our jurisdiction.

At the same time, the oceans protection plan strengthens our capacity to respond in the unlikely event of a spill, by adding more primary environmental response teams to bolster Coast Guard capacity, investing in new technologies and conducting scientific research to make cleanups more effective, including $80 million for groundbreaking research on the behaviour of diluted bitumen in marine settings. We are using every tool at our government's disposal to remain vigilant in protecting our coasts and marine life. That includes a $170 million action plan to protect the south resident killer whales.

The oceans protection plan is also building meaningful new partnerships with indigenous people in other coastal communities. This includes a Canadian first with the creation of an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee to oversee the safety of the TMX project through its entire life cycle. In addition, we have enhanced indigenous access to federal funding for economic development, job training and other business opportunities that will flow from the pipeline's possible expansion.

Our position is clear: We are committed to creating the prosperity we all want while protecting the planet we all cherish.

Partially translated

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 19th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

But not for middle-class oil and gas workers, Mr. Speaker. Some 1.2 million barrels a day are flowing through new pipelines approved and built under Conservatives, which will rise to 2 million when Keystone XL is done, with no tax dollars needed. As of today, the Liberals have added zero after three years in government, and they blew $4.5 billion in tax dollars that will go into the U.S.

Every time the Prime Minister points to the past and blames others, he admits that he failed, and the Liberals still have no plan for the future. Their summer of failure is becoming their legacy of failure and it is hurting the whole country. When will he pull his ban-on-pipelines Bill C-69 and give a plan for Trans Mountain?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 19th, 2018 / 2:20 p.m.


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Regina—Qu'Appelle Saskatchewan

Conservative

Andrew Scheer ConservativeLeader of the Opposition

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals bought it without building it. We will build it without having to buy it. That is the difference between us.

If the Liberals really wanted to develop Canada's energy sector and get our resources to market, they would invite energy east back to the table. They would scrap the carbon tax. They would scrap their plans for Bill C-69, the ban on pipelines bill.

Will the Prime Minister do any of those things to get our men and women in the country back to work?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 18th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, whenever he fails, he just blames others. However, former Toronto Liberal MP and two-time Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall-Findlay agrees the Liberals are failing. She said that Bill C-69 was “deeply flawed” and “Now is not the time to pass legislation that could make our investment climate even worse.”

The Liberals killed three private sector pipelines. Their failure stole Trans Mountain. One hundred thousand energy workers lost their jobs and hundreds of thousands more are at risk. Billions in investment is leaving Canada.

Will the Prime Minister scrap his no new pipeline Bill C-69 before he completely obliterates the Canadian energy sector?

As spoken

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation ActGovernment Orders

September 17th, 2018 / 4:40 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in the Chamber today after a lovely summer being back with the good people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, all the way out on the west coast, and beautiful Vancouver Island. It was a fantastic summer spent in all of my various communities, really getting some great feedback on what they see as their priorities.

It is interesting that the first item on the government's agenda today is the debate on Bill C-79, the bill that is going to implement the CPTPP, which stands for the comprehensive and progressive agreement for the trans-Pacific partnership.

Right off the bat, I really want to acknowledge the incredible work that has been done by my colleague, the member for Essex, who stands as our international trade critic, and is one of the vice-chairs on the Standing Committee on International Trade. She and I are both from the class of 2015, and for her to take on such a complex and difficult file and deliver on it with such amazing grace and knowledge, she has served our caucus and, indeed, so many Canadians, very well on this file. I want to acknowledge the work that she is doing.

When we look at this, it is just a revision of the old trans-Pacific partnership, but the Liberals have decided to add two words, or have managed to get a lot of people to add the two words. In the course of the debate in support of this agreement, Liberals are relying heavily on the power of adjectives for this agreement to look good for Canadians.

Let us look at the first word “comprehensive”, which we can define as including nearly all elements of the aspects of something. If we really dig down, I do not think the agreement is quite as comprehensive as the Liberals would like to make it out to be. There are significant shortfalls in labour agreements and in environmental protection. There is no mention whatsoever of indigenous rights. There are significant gaps, despite the Liberals' attempts to paint this as a comprehensive agreement.

The second word is “progressive”. As I will lay out in the course of my speech, this agreement is really going to make a mockery of that word and the Liberals' attempts to really hoodwink us with that particular word.

New Democrats have long been concerned about the secrecy that surrounds both the TPP and the CPTPP negotiations. Despite the promises by the Liberal government to be transparent on trade deals, we have continued to get vague updates and mixed messages. In fact, it was during the 2015 federal election that the Prime Minister stated:

The government has an obligation to be open and honest about the negotiation process, and immediately share all the details of any agreement. Canadians deserve to know what impacts this agreement will have on different industries across our country. The federal government must keep its word and defend Canadian interests during the TPP’s ratification process – which includes defending supply management, our auto sector, and Canadian manufacturers across the country.

As I am going to lay out, it is precisely those sectors that are going to be negatively impacted by this agreement. We see this time and again in this place. As the Liberals come out with their words, their actions always, and sometimes very consistently, fail to meet up with those words.

Just for the benefit of my constituents back home, the CPTPP is a new agreement. It is slightly newer than the older version. It is an agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The negotiations for this agreement began in 2005 and concluded in October 2015. Countries did come in at various stages. Canada, unfortunately, was pretty late to the game, which the member for Essex has correctly identified as something that sort of eroded our ability to be a key player and to get some key provisions into the agreement.

I hear a lot of talk in this chamber about how important free trade is. It is important to note that we already have free trade agreements in place with South Korea, Chile, and Peru, and course with Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some of the major players within this agreement are already covered by bilateral free trade agreements with Canada. Those are moot points right there.

The agreement was officially signed by the minister on February 4, 2016. The plans for it were disrupted with the election of United States President Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from the agreement in January 2017. In January of this year, the 11 remaining countries agreed upon a revised TPP and renamed it with the two adjectives I mentioned.

The government has always made much about consultations. The consultations really were kind of downloaded on the Standing Committee on International Trade. That committee held dozens of sessions. It heard from more than 400 witnesses and received written comments from more than 60,000 Canadians, and I should note that 95% of those were against the agreement. The Liberals had promised that they would consult with the public, but again, those consultations were downloaded on the Standing Committee on International Trade, a body, like all committees, that has very limited resources to hold the kinds of meaningful consultations that we expect in an agreement of this size.

When the committee travelled to a few different locations, translation services were not really up to par and the testimony was not transcribed for the record, which is problematic when a committee needs to look at witness testimony, because it has to rely on written notes. However, it is important to note that in cities like Montreal, 19 out of 19 public presenters were opposed and in Quebec City, there were three out of three. Receiving 8,000 written submissions and struggling to translate them does not add up to meaningful consultation. It would have been better if the executive branch of the government had launched the consultations and used the resources available to its various ministries for meaningful consultations with all of the affected sectors.

The most interesting statistic to me is that with the submissions that were received by Global Affairs Canada, 18,000 Canadians wrote in and only 0.01%, two people out of those 18,000 submissions, were in support of the TPP. That is a pretty abysmal rate of success if we go by these things.

The member for Essex has gone over this, but it is really important to reiterate what New Democrats' major concerns are with this agreement, because it is not simply about trade. These agreements cover so many different areas and chief among them are our concerns with labour standards and human rights. I will start with labour.

If we hold up the provisions that protect labour and help investors, they are really not equal at all. If someone has a complaint with labour practices, the CPTPP obliges the complainant to basically prove that a member country has not enforced its own labour laws, but then it also has to show that the violation has had an impact on trade. Therefore, the burden of proof is so ridiculously unattainable that there has actually not even been one successful labour complaint. This is very troubling, because if we look at some of the member countries that are involved in this, we see that there are labour standards in Vietnam, which we have some serious concerns with and Mexico has been implicated in a number of human rights violations. There are countries with very differing standards compared to what we in Canada or in Australia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand are used to, and yet we are bringing these countries into an agreement. We are essentially rewarding them with trade with Canada, but not asking them to bring their standards up.

The language on the labour standards is essentially unchanged from the old TPP, which, as I pointed out in my introduction, does make a mockery of the word “progressive”. One case I want to cite is the decision that was made with respect to a dispute between the United States and Guatemala. A panel of arbitrators found that no documented labour violations in Guatemala, including the murder of a union organizer, had occurred in a manner affecting trade. If a union organizer in some of these countries is murdered or tries to implement a strike to get better working conditions for their families, the arbitration most likely will find that it did not have an impact on trade and, therefore, is not covered under this kind of agreement.

As I mentioned there are some serious and systematic violations of labour and human rights that have occurred in Mexico and Vietnam and in some other countries. I just want to point out that in Vietnam in 2011, Human Rights Watch released a pretty shocking report on how drug addicts in that country were basically forced to do labour as a part of their sentences. In some cases, we have had multinational companies who have been soliciting their products from this forced labour. If that kind of a condition were to exist in Canada, we would absolutely be up in arms. It is a practice that rightfully belongs in history, and I believe that most Canadians, if they were to hear of it, would be rightly incensed.

We know of documented testimonies by people in these forced labour camps. When they refused to do the work, they were subject to beatings and all kinds of abuse. These are the kinds of things that Canadians are concerned about. We want to know how other countries practice human and labour rights when we sign free trade deals. They are important to us. They are important to our values and we want to see them reflected in our foreign policy.

The other country I really want to highlight is Brunei, because prior to 2014, homosexuality was illegal and punishable there by up to 10 years of imprisonment. However, the law was changed in that year and homosexuality can now be punishable to death by stoning. Brunei is one of the signatory countries of this agreement and yet we like to stand up here and talk about how progressive the agreement is. However, one of the member countries that we are granting access to our economy, Brunei, still has such a terrible way of dealing with a right that we cherish in this country and that we, as parliamentarians, have stood in this place time and time again to defend.

Canadians want to know if these are the types of countries we want to reward with trade with Canada. I think if another country is going to trade with one like ours and to get access to our economy and the amazing workforce and products that we have, if they want to sell their products here, they have to demonstrate a certain commitment to basic fundamental human values. I think that should be a starting point.

Yes, we in the NDP do have problems with this agreement because it is not just about trade. It is about the behaviours that exist in the countries that we are seeking to build partnerships with.

Let me move on to the other rights, to the indigenous and environmental rights. Climate change is arguably the biggest issue of the 21st century and we do not see a single mention of it in this. It is going to have ramifications for everyone on this earth. We all share the same planet. How are we going to lead our lives? The way we meet the challenge is going to chart the course of the 21st century. For countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, which have pretty huge impacts on climate change by virtue of their emissions, this would have been a perfect opportunity to hammer that out.

As well, for a government that likes to proclaim time and time again that no relationship is more important to it than first nations, why is there no mention of indigenous rights in this? Each of the member countries has significant indigenous populations. If we are serious about implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this should be a starting point for our international relations. This is something we should be promoting, something we should take seriously, because I can tell my colleagues that first nations, Métis and Inuit across this country are watching the government. Yes, the words are welcome, the commitments are welcome, but these have to be followed up with meaningful action. We are seeing time and time again that they are failing.

Let us look no further than when we were here in the spring. It was fantastic to see the Liberal government join our NDP members to ensure the passage of Bill C-262. However, when it came to the moment when the rubber met the road and we were, via the member for Edmonton Strathcona, to insert language in Bill C-69 that would live up to the aspirations of that bill, the Liberals rejected every single one of those amendments. Again, words are fine, commitments are fine, but at some point Canadians are going to ask, where are the actions that have met up with your commitments?

The Liberals will say a lot about the side letters that covered some of those things, but as the member for Essex rightly pointed out, the side letters are not enforceable unless they are specifically referenced in the text. Furthermore, if the content of the side letters were so important and meaningful, why did we not make the effort to get them included in the main agreement?

I also want to talk about the investor-state dispute settlement process, because it is one of the most egregious things that has remained in this agreement and something we have major problems with. Giving rights to corporations to basically come after rightfully and democratically elected local governments, as well as provincial governments and even the federal government, basically makes this an instrument to rein-in democracy. We believe that our ability to make public health laws and laws on how we want to protect our local environment should not be superceded or challenged by international corporate interests, full stop. I think most Canadians would agree with that statement. It is basically a tool for big businesses to make governments pay when they regulate.

If we look at all of the federal statutes that exist on the books, at all of the areas where the minister is given powers to regulate, regulations that are changed from time to time and put in the Canada Gazette for consultation periods, what is going on behind those closed-door meetings between industry stakeholders, international industry stakeholders and ministers? Are threats being made that if we go ahead with a certain regulation, they are going to sue us? I think there is a lot of evidence on that. We know that with the investor-state dispute mechanisms, we have seen claims against states explode. In the mid-1990s there were a few dozen. Nowadays, we are up to almost 600 known cases. It is one of those graphs that is going to continue to go up, and the more we put this kind of provision into our trade agreements, the more multinational companies will use it and challenge the democratic and sovereign rights of local governments to make laws for their citizens.

I will conclude by talking about agriculture, and specifically supply management. I want to acknowledge that the Grain Growers of Canada, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the Canola Council of Canada are going to benefit from this agreement. I am very happy they are. If we survey the votes in this place, we know that the Liberals and Conservatives are going to pass this agreement. However, the problem I have is with the repeated times Liberal ministers stand in this place to talk about defending supply management. I have in my hands quotes from the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Chicken Farmers of Canada, and the Egg Farmers of Canada that unanimously condemn the government for the concessions it is making in the supply-managed sectors.

These sectors have good-paying, family farms that are often the cornerstone of small communities like mine in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. The supply-managed system has enabled them to weather the shocks of international pricing or domestic pricing. One of the key components of that system is our import controls. However, when we start carving away these little niches, especially when Canadians have expressed the desire to have local dairy products, eggs, and chicken, we are undermining the basic unit of what goes on in many parts of rural Canada. I take issue with the Liberal government standing up time and time again saying it supports supply management but not following through with actions.

Canadians expect better when their governments are signing these kinds of trade deals. They expect that our values will inform how the government negotiates these agreements, and when the government actually talks about labour standards, human rights, environmental standards, and indigenous rights that it is actually going to follow through, and that it has some kind of an enforcement mechanism. These are all very sadly lacking in this agreement. It makes a mockery of the word “progressive”, and that is why I will stand united with my NDP caucus to voice our concerns and vote against this agreement.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

September 17th, 2018 / 2:20 p.m.


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Regina—Qu'Appelle Saskatchewan

Conservative

Andrew Scheer ConservativeLeader of the Opposition

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has chased away billions of dollars of investment in our energy sector. He used a variety of ways to do it.

He cancelled energy east, which would have seen western Canadian oil brought to eastern markets, displacing foreign oil. He has brought in a ban on pipelines in Bill C-69. His carbon tax is chasing away investment from all around the world.

When it comes to Trans Mountain, the court was very clear. The judge ruled that the government's “efforts fell well short of the mark” and that he did not adequately discharge his duties.

How could the Prime Minister fail so badly on this?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 20th, 2018 / 3:35 p.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

I declare these elements carried.

The House passed Bill C-69, 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, in its entirety, at third reading.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 20th, 2018 / 3:25 p.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at third reading of Bill C-69.

The question is on part 1 regarding the impact assessment act, part 2 regarding the Canadian energy regulator act, the title, the preamble, the schedule, and all clauses in part 4, except clauses 85, 186, 187, and 195.

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Aeronautics ActGovernment Orders

June 19th, 2018 / 6:15 p.m.


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Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I always welcome the opportunity to comment on private members' bills. As members opposite will know, I am somewhat opinionated on issues that I believe are of national importance. It is not often that I agree with so many comments of my friend from across the way in the Conservative Party. Maybe we can find some commonality among parties inside the chamber, with the possible exception of some Quebec members of Parliament associated with the Bloc. That is why when I posed the question earlier, I made reference to my own heritage.

I am very much a proud Canadian. I think that we live in the best country in the world. I really believe in Canada's diversity and the rich heritage that can be witnessed in all provinces across our country. I am very proud, for example, of the St. Boniface area, with its very large francophone community that is quite possibly the largest in western Canada, as well as St-Pierre-Jolys where my grandparents came from, prior to coming from la belle province of Quebec. I understand the importance of the many different regions and the beauty from within that diversity.

Having said all that, I am very much a nationalist. I believe that we need strong national leadership on a wide number of fronts. It is in all the regions' best interests to have a government that is prepared to demonstrate leadership issues on those important files. That is ultimately, I would suggest, in the nation's best interest. We have witnessed that very recently.

If this bill were to become law, think of the impact it would have on what has been an incredible issue that has been debated and discussed in this chamber for a number of years. It has been fairly well debated even in the last number of days and weeks. That is in regard to the extension of the pipeline, the Trans Mountain expansion, which was deemed to be in Canada's national interest. As a result, we have the national government playing a fairly proactive role in ensuring that the extension takes place. It is sound policy.

My friend across the way talked about the importance of communities and working with communities, provinces, and municipalities. This government takes that very seriously. A good example of that is the Trans Mountain expansion. We have worked closely with not only provinces and municipalities, but as well with indigenous peoples to resolve a very important debate.

When I talked about the Trans Mountain expansion as one of the areas that is in the national interest, I made reference to my home province of Manitoba. I said that Manitoba has been a have-not province in terms of equalization. It is a beautiful province and I am very proud of it. However, in terms of equalization, we have received literally hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars on an annual basis.

That is important to note when we take a look at Alberta and the wealth that it has generated, with its contributions to equalization, and the positive impact that it has had on provinces like Quebec, Manitoba, and many others that have received significant amounts of funds through the development of the beautiful resources that we have. In particular, this one here happens to be oil. It has provided for things such as better quality health care, better quality education, and even investments in many environmentally friendly energy or high-tech companies.

I would argue that this legislation, if it were to pass, would prevent the national government from being able to take the actions necessary once it was deemed that this was in the nation's best interests.

In good part, for that reason I cannot support this legislation. I differ from members opposite. There are many federal areas of responsibility. We could talk about airports, parks, and other lands owned and run by the national government and I believe the national government needs to play that leading role. Quite often, leading means working with the different stakeholders.

This is not to take anything away from provincial jurisdiction or municipal responsibilities they carry out. I am very much aware of that. However, I believe Canadians in every region of our country will recognize there is a responsibility of strong leadership coming from Ottawa to protect those ideas and developments in the national interest. An example is transportation corridors, and we can factor into those transportation corridors our airline industries. Check with the municipalities or the City of Montreal on just how economically important, not to mention socially important, the Montreal airport is to the city and the province. This is also the case with other airports throughout our country, even our more rural airports, in terms of the lands and their operations and what sort of impact this legislation could have on them. The federal government has a responsibility to the population as a whole for such issues.

When I look at the national government and the types of things we have seen developed over the years, I see that it does have a role to play in the environment. We have seen very progressive policies, legislation, and commitments through national budgets in the last couple of years. For example, members made reference to Bill C-69.

We have a government that recognizes it has a role to play. Shortly after the Prime Minister was elected, he went to Paris and invited other stakeholders. I do not know if it is the case, but the Premier of Quebec might have been there. However, I believe other stakeholders such as provinces were represented in Paris. Often we find there is a high sense of co-operation between the different levels of government on those important issues, upon their return. Working with Ottawa and provinces, they can come up with good, sound environmental policies. We can learn from provincial jurisdictions. Some provinces are more progressive than others in different areas of development. The federal government has a role to encourage best practices where it can, and to ultimately have that holistic approach in the overall promotion and development of standards across Canada. As well, where necessary, it needs to be more directly involved, as with Trans Mountain.

When we look at the legislation coming before us, what the member is proposing is that Ottawa ultimately transfer its responsibilities to the provinces. Often my concern with members, whether from the Bloc or the separatist element, is that even though part of their motivation on the surface might be to introduce positive legislation, another part of the motivation is to not necessarily do what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole, but for one region of the country.

Ultimately, what is in Canada's best interest is in the best interest of our provinces, both collectively and individually.

We must continue to work with provinces, municipalities, indigenous groups, and others to ensure that we continue to build that consensus so that Canada remains a country of diversity and a country that understands and appreciates the true value of being a federalist state, and so that we ultimately develop our resources.

As spoken

Aeronautics ActGovernment Orders

June 19th, 2018 / 6:05 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to outline my position and the position of the NDP on the bill put forward by my colleague from Repentigny.

I think her bill has many interesting elements with regard to respecting the jurisdictions of Quebec and the other provinces, municipal officials, and certain acts and regulations Quebec or other provinces have passed to protect ecosystems, public health, or local residents. Legal and constitutional matters are being raised. There is also the matter of respecting the Quebec nation, as well as respecting the concept known as social licence. Today, no government of any kind can just barge in like in the old days and try to impose its projects in spite of misgivings or fierce opposition from local, regional, or indigenous communities.

I found it hilarious, but at the same time kind of tragic, to hear the Liberal member say earlier that this bill would undermine her party's efforts to promote co-operative federalism.

That takes some nerve. I do not know whether Kinder Morgan, health transfers, or marijuana mean anything to them in terms of co-operative federalism. That is the type of approach they promised to take during the election, but since they took office, the Liberals have been all about unilateralism, federal imperialism, bulldozing, and charging ahead. I think that is absolutely shameful.

In fact, I would like to point something out to the member for Winnipeg North, the parliamentary secretary. He asked a question earlier and I remembered it. I would simply like to tell him that Quebec is not a region. It is a nation. It was not the National Assembly that said that. That was recognized here in the House of Commons and by the Parliament of Canada. I think the member should do his homework and find out exactly what motions have already been adopted here.

The bill introduced by the member for Repentigny has to do with Quebec, of course, but it also has to do with all of the provinces. It seeks to establish a balanced approach that respects the different jurisdictions of the provinces, the federal government, the municipalities, and first nations.

I would like to remind members of the NPD's approach. A few years ago, we had a leader named Jack Layton. He believed that the recognition of the Quebec nation should have implications and consequences, and he took that very seriously. That resulted in a very interesting document entitled the Sherbrooke declaration, drawn up by Pierre Ducasse. The Sherbrooke declaration, which was historically adopted by the NDP, recognizes the Quebec nation and asymmetrical federalism. For years, we have been accused of being a centralist party, but all of the Canada-wide programs that the NDP has proposed have had a Quebec clause that would allow the province to opt out with financial compensation if it was not interested in the program or if it already had an equivalent program. That is what I mean by asymmetrical federalism.

In terms of co-operative federalism, the bill is a step in the right direction. That is why the NDP will proudly support this bill so that it may be studied in committee. We have questions about the mechanics of the bill and how the courts will interpret the fact that we are restoring balance between various jurisdictions and, if possible, those with the best environmental assessments and the strongest social licence. However, I think that this is worth studying. We agree in principle. Second reading is a vote on the principle. We want to refer the bill to committee to be studied. We have some questions, but we think that the spirit of the bill is consistent with our vision. It is also a step in the right direction toward better understanding, to better protect our communities and the people who want to protect their lakes, rivers, farmland, and simply their peace and quiet. They can protect their creek from one end to the other as well. I am sure that if we can sit down and talk about this we will come to an agreement at some point.

The member for Repentigny introduced a bill that will amend eight federal acts, forcing Ottawa to respect applicable provincial laws and municipal regulations governing land use and development.

That is very important because land development is key here and the government has to do a better job of respecting that. This bill will affect wharves, ports, airports, telecommunications infrastructure, federal properties, interprovincial pipelines, and more.

This bill does not explicitly state how it changes the status quo, and that is what we have questions about. The bill simply says that the exercise of the powers in question must comply with provincial laws.

I believe my colleague from Repentigny mentioned an example to do with the Canada National Parks Act, which already takes certain provincial jurisdictions and regulations into consideration. In many cases, the exercise of powers under federal law is already subordinate to provincial laws, including those that govern land development and environmental protection. We do not see this as an inapplicable precedent or something unprecedented. This is the natural extension of a principle we agree with. Remains to be seen how it will apply in real life.

The bill's purpose is to give the governments of Quebec and the other provinces more power over land development within their borders. The bill would require the federal government to recognize agricultural zoning regulations, for example, and to respect more exacting environmental assessments, such as those carried out by the BAPE, Quebec's environmental assessment agency. We can talk more about that.

As the Green Party leader said, the Liberal government's Bill C-69 does not inspire confidence in the seriousness of the government's new environmental assessment processes. In some ways, this bill is full of holes. We do not even know if it will be enforced or if the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will abide by these recommendations. After all, her discretionary power is absolute.

In accordance with the division of powers under the Constitution, the laws affected by this bill are a matter of federal jurisdiction. According to the Library of Parliament analysis that we requested, it is impossible to determine the legislation's exact scope from its current wording. It is possible that the courts will interpret the provisions of Bill C-392 as an incorporation by reference of provincial laws, meaning that it incorporates, for the purposes of the eight laws amended, the rules set out by the provinces. If it turns out that the courts consider that the provisions of Bill C-392 incorporate by reference the provincial laws related to the eight laws amended, these provincial laws, for the purposes of these eight laws, will be considered to be federal laws. This is a common legislative technique that has a great deal of precedent. However, the real effects remain unknown for the time being. It will be important to examine these points and questions when the bill is studied in committee.

We also consulted David Robitaille, tenured professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa. He thinks this bill is interesting and could result in a better division of the responsibilities and decision-making powers between the federal government and provincial governments, or the Government of Quebec in this particular instance.

There are a number of examples in which this could have made a difference if the bill introduced by the member for Repentigny had already been applied. For example, there is the private developer operating near Shawinigan that had the right to operate a small airport on private land or to fly a float plane on a lake, even though it was prohibited by a municipal zoning bylaw or provincial law, such as the Act Respecting the Preservation of Agricultural Land and Agricultural Activities. This is the kind of situation we must stop from happening.

I think it is important to be open, show common sense, and send this bill to committee, so that we can respect Quebec laws, provincial laws, and municipalities.

The current Liberal government violated the rights of indigenous peoples and of British Columbia. It barged in and bought a 65-year-old pipeline for $4.5 billion. It completely disregarded all of the orders from the Government of British Columbia. As a Quebecker, I would be particularly concerned that it might manage to revive a pipeline project like energy east, which had massive opposition throughout Quebec, in Montreal, in the metropolitan area, in towns, and in the regions. Energy east would have crossed 800 rivers in Quebec, including the St. Lawrence. The government needs to understand that it must sit down with Quebec, the provinces, and municipalities to talk things over, like a respectful partner.

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Aeronautics ActGovernment Orders

June 19th, 2018 / 5:45 p.m.


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Kanata—Carleton Ontario

Liberal

Karen McCrimmon LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today about Bill C-392.

Bill C-392 touches upon several subjects, including intergovernmental relations, federalism, and the paramountcy principle, matters that have been debated in both houses of Parliament in relation to a wide range of subjects. In essence, this bill seeks to allow provincial governments to impose restrictions on environmental protection activities and land use for projects which the federal government undertakes across the country.

I applaud the member for Repentigny's initiative to give more prominent consideration to the environment and land use when projects and activities that fall under federal jurisdiction are being considered.

The government also believes that the environment is worth protecting. Canadians should know that their governments, at all levels, are working together to achieve economic and environmental objectives and are acting in the interests of their safety and security.

Every day millions of Canadians can go about their lives in an orderly and predictable way. They get into their cars that start and stop as they should; drive on roads where people follow the rules; buy groceries that are free from contaminants; land in airplanes at airports that are safe; drink water that is clean; and sleep well at night, knowing that our police, fire departments, paramedics, and military personnel are on guard for our security.

Our society depends on laws and rules to function, and each level of government is responsible for those things that fall into its jurisdiction. Education, building codes and highways, for example, are primarily provincial responsibilities. Matters such as defence, aeronautics, and radio communications, for example, extend beyond provincial borders and impact the country as a whole. In these areas, it falls to the federal government to implement a nationally consistent approach that serves Canada and its people.

As we all know, the division of powers in Canada has been defined in the Constitution Act, but we also know that this division is not black and white. There are many areas and many issues where interests will cross jurisdictional lines, where two or even three levels of government have a stake in an issue, like the environment, like health, like safety, like employment.

The Government of Canada works with the provinces on matters such as education, health, and employment. Likewise, the provinces work with the Government of Canada on matters that fall under federal jurisdiction.

This division of power is essential to maintaining order and predictability in our society. It ensures that we avoid the scenario of too many leaders in one situation or a leadership void when no one else wants to take responsibility in another. In Canada, all jurisdictions must work together on certain issues to promote and protect the interests of all Canadians. Even when we agree to work together, we must still respect jurisdictional boundaries.

Recent Supreme Court decisions on the doctrine of interjurisdictional immunity have stated that provincial and municipal legislation cannot impair core matters of federal jurisdiction over aeronautics or radio communication infrastructure.

While these decisions quite clearly establish federal authority on matters such as aerodromes and cell phone towers, the government does not hide behind interjurisdictional immunity to run roughshod over communities.

In fact, to ensure that local concerns are taken into consideration for activities and projects that fall under federal jurisdiction, the government puts processes in place for consultation and the consideration of environmental laws and land use.

I would like to illustrate this point with a few examples.

First, in January 2017, following a regulatory consultation process, Transport Canada implemented a new regulation called Canadian aviation regulation 307–aerodromes–consultations. The regulation was specifically established to require proponents of certain aerodrome projects to consult with affected stakeholders before starting work so local concerns could be identified and mitigated.

As another example, under the Canada Marine Act, Canada port authorities are charged with the management of federal real property and marine assets as well as navigable waters within the ports. In addition to abiding by all federal legislation and regulations, the Canada Marine Act provides for the incorporation of provincial legislation by reference to address specific issues when the need arises. As a result, British Columbia's liquefied natural gas regulation is being applied to the federal lands being managed by the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

My third and final example is the Canada Infrastructure Bank funding program. The Canada Infrastructure Bank acts as a minority partner in delivering federal support to infrastructure projects, alongside co-investment by private sector and institutional investors and sponsoring governments. Projects supported by the bank must respect all applicable laws in the relevant jurisdiction, including any applicable environmental or labour laws. Project sponsors are required to provide assurance to the bank and other investors that all applicable laws in a province have been respected.

The reason these specific examples were chosen is because these initiatives, all of which require consultation and consideration of local issues related to land use and the environment, are taken from the very acts that the private member's bill seeks to amend. There are countless other examples in the same acts and elsewhere that demonstrate the government's commitment to hearing the concerns of Canadians.

Because the government is not above listening and improving, it is constantly looking for ways to demonstrate this commitment.

Recently, it introduced Bill C-69, 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. Bill C-69 exceeds the amendments proposed in Bill C-392 and would explicitly reflect the consideration of environmental, social, safety, health, socio-economic issues, including gender-based impacts, economics, and impacts on indigenous peoples.

Bill C-69 will also provide the public an opportunity to express their views during review processes.

As we all know, there are many issues that transcend municipal and provincial boundaries, and many others where the federal government may be unaware of local concerns. For this reason, taking a co-operative approach achieves the best possible outcome for all Canadians. With a country as large and diverse as Canada, we must all act in good faith and work together to achieve the best possible results for our economy and the environment and for our citizens.

Co-operation is a fine balance. There have been, and will continue to be, times when differences arise despite our best efforts to work together. Even the strongest relationships will experience disagreements.

Bill C-392 would represent a major shift in federal-provincial dynamics in Canada and would undermine the co-operative relationship that we have worked so hard to establish.

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Aeronautics ActGovernment Orders

June 19th, 2018 / 5:40 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the hon. member from Repentigny on her private member’s bill. I fully support the bill’s objective.

As my colleague mentioned, it is unacceptable that the government is ignoring the will of British Columbians in the matter of the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

With Bill C-69, there will be no credible assessment process for projects such as pipelines at the federal level. We must protect the provinces’ right to conduct more appropriate assessments, such as those conducted by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement.

What does my colleague think about this shortcoming in Bill C-69?

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 19th, 2018 / 3:10 p.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

It being 3:10 p.m., pursuant to an order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the third reading stage of Bill C-69.

Call in the members.

As spoken

The House resumed from June 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-69, 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, be read the third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

National Security Act, 2017Government Orders

June 18th, 2018 / 8:15 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I would say this to the hon. member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. I remember the fight we had in the 41st Parliament with respect to Bill C-51, the so-called Anti-terrorism Act, which I believe made Canada much less safe. It is hard for me to actually vote for Bill C-59 now, especially when I hear his very good arguments.

However, I will tell him why I am going to vote for Bill C-59. I am very relieved to see improvements to what I thought were the thought-chill provisions in Bill C-51, the rules against the promotion of unexplained terrorism “in general”. There are big improvements to the no-fly list. However, there are not enough improvements, for my taste, to the ability of CSIS to take kinetic action. The big failure in Bill C-59 in front of us is the information sharing around what Canadians are doing with other governments.

The irony for me is that the Liberals voted for Bill C-51 in the 41st Parliament and voted against the destruction of environmental assessments in Bill C-38. Ironically, I think they have done a better job now of fixing the bill they voted for than of fixing the bill they voted against, at least as far as environmental assessments go. Therefore, I am voting against Bill C-69 on environmental assessments. However, I am voting for Bill C-59. I am influenced a lot by Professors Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, who overall think this is an improvement. I do too, overall. However, it does not fix everything Bill C-51 did to make us less safe.

I appreciate the member's thoughtful analysis, and I am going to vote for it, but with misgivings.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 18th, 2018 / 4:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap brings up a great point. I meant to bring it up, but I got so excited about all the other topics.

Bill C-69 and Bill C-68 are fluff pieces that kind of weighed into the 2015 campaign promises to the environmental groups. Fishermen groups have come to my office to tell me that when the Conservatives were in power, they could get in to see a minister, and now they need to go through an environmental group to see a minister. I have also heard that sitting around the table to develop this policy are more environmental groups than the actual stakeholders whom this is going to affect the most. We also know who is calling the shots at the highest level of government. It is Gerald Butts, who was the president and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund prior to coming to his current office and calling the shots.

Bill C-69 represents another fluff piece of legislation that both sides have said does not go far enough. I have said it before: Canadians and industry deserve a champion, and they are going to get one in 2019.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 18th, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our colleague from Calgary Midnapore for a very heartfelt intervention. I think I have just scrapped my entire speech because of what our colleague has mentioned.

It brought me back to growing up in the Cariboo and what our thoughts and dreams were as kids. I was one of the those kids who wanted to be a hockey player and to move on. However, the reality was, we were probably going to become a logger or a farmer, because that is what we did, and that is what we do very well in the Cariboo.

Bill C-69 bring us back to yet another failed election promise of the Liberals and to some of what we have mentioned throughout this House over recent days, weeks, and months. When the member for Papineau was campaigning in 2015, he talked about letting debate reign, yet here we sit.

This is the 44th time allocation that has been imposed on this House, meaning that the members of Parliament on the opposition side, and the Canadians who elected them, have not had the full opportunity to present their feelings about what the government is doing, whether it is on Bill C-69, Bill C-59, Bill C-71, or Bill C-68.

Thank goodness that the Standing Orders dictate that private members' bills cannot be time allocated, and our late colleague, Senator Enverga's private member's bill, Bill S-218, has had the full breadth of comments and support.

Bill C-69 seeks to reverse the 2012 changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I will bring us back again to the promise from the member for Papineau, or one of the Liberals, who said that the government would undertake a full review of laws, policies, and operational practices when it comes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

There are a number of people, groups, and organizations that have serious concerns over what Bill C-69 proposes. Our hon. colleague has mentioned, and it has been mentioned before, that most notably the legislation says it intends to decrease the timelines for both major and minor projects. Unfortunately, there are a myriad of ministerial and Governor in Council exemptions that can be exercised to slow down approvals.

What Bill C-69 represents is not a further clarification of the rules and regulations so that project proponents and those who are trying to enforce the act know where they stand, but rather it muddies the waters. What we have heard time and again, what the committee heard time and again, was that it was a wait and see. There was a lot of concern, and indeed those very groups, the environmental groups, that the Liberals campaigned to and got their vote are now saying that it does not meet the standards.

We have seen this over and over again with the government. It likes to say it has consulted with Canadians, and its Liberal members stand with their hand on their heart and talk about how important consultation is. Yet we know, time and again, as it is with the cannabis legislation, the Liberals are rushing legislation through without fully looking at some of the concerns that have been brought forward by the groups, the organizations, and the stakeholders who are going to be most impacted.

Let us talk about the Arctic surf clam in my file. I cannot stand up and do a speech nowadays without bringing up this injustice. The minister was given the authority and the discretion to go in and implement policy, without anybody checking how this would impact the stakeholders, and without the minister consulting about how that policy would impact those on the ground, the stakeholders, whose livelihoods truly depend on the Arctic surf clam fishery. These are some of the concerns that we have.

When the member for Papineau was campaigning, he said that omnibus bills were done for, and yet here we are again debating another 400-page piece of legislation.

He also talked about maybe having a small deficit of $10 billion. We now know that it will not be our children but our grandchildren who will see a balanced budget, because of the Liberal government's spending.

Bill C-69 represents more broken promises, and it does nothing to give confidence to industry. We know at this time that foreign investment is fleeing our nation at record levels. The CEO from Suncor recently spoke to Bill C-69 and said that it had absolutely put a nail in the coffin of Canadian investment in industry.

The government would like everyone to believe that it knows best and that the Ottawa-developed policies have the best intentions for Canadians, yet the Liberals are not listening when Canadians are speaking. They are not allowing members of Parliament to stand and bring the voices of Canadians to Parliament.

It would not be one of my speeches if I did not remind the House and Canadians that the House does not belong to me, and it sure as heck does not belong to those on the government side. It belongs to Canadians. All 338 members of Parliament and the Canadians who elected them deserve to have a say and to have their voices heard. When the government is forcing time allocation on pieces of legislation that fundamentally are going to have an impact on Canadians' lives, Canadians deserve to have a say.

Industry is shaken at the government's lack of consultation and lack of understanding on how we are moving forward. A good friend of mine, the hon. member for North Okanagan—Shuswap, asked our colleague from Calgary Midnapore about the industry's lack of confidence. Is it the carbon tax and the fact that the government refuses to tell Canadians how much it is going to be? Is it Bill C-69, the regulatory environment, that is shaking the confidence of the industry? Is it other legislation that is shaking the confidence of industry, or is it all of the above?

I would offer one more. The Prime Minister, in one of his earliest speeches to the world, spoke about how Canada was going to be known more for its resourcefulness than for its natural resources. The Liberals have waged war against our energy sector from day one. He said he wished the government could phase out the energy sector sooner and apologized for it.

Canadians and the energy sector, our natural resource industry, deserve a champion. The Minister of Natural Resources has said that it is about time our forestry producers and our energy producers got in line with what the world is doing in terms of technology and sustainable harvesting.

Whether it is our softwood lumber producers, our oil and gas producers, our fishermen on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or our farmers, Canada has some of the best, if not the best, in terms of technology and harvesting. They are leading the way. They just need a champion. Guess what? They will have that in 2019, when the Conservatives regain the right side of the House.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 18th, 2018 / 4:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Sadly, Mr. Speaker, my colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap knows that the response is “all of the above”. It is for a multitude of reasons that we are in fear of this piece of legislation, and for all of those reasons, the project approval, the uncertainty in regard to market access, the foreign investment that is in large exodus from Canada. The sad thing is that there are so many other reasons beyond those three, and as they relate specifically to Bill C-69, they are the carbon tax, red tape, taxation structures in general. It is a very unfortunate time for not only the oil and gas sector, but for Canadian industry in general. I am very worried for the future of not only my son, but for all the young inhabitants of Calgary Midnapore.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 18th, 2018 / 4:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George.

The proposed legislation before us is very concerning for me, and I will tell members why.

I am a member of Parliament who is very fortunate to have grown up in my riding of Calgary Midnapore and to represent the place where I grew up. Calgary Midnapore is a beautiful riding in the south-central part of Calgary. It is home to five beautiful lakes. I was very fortunate to have grown up in one of these lake communities, called Lake Bonavista. In addition to Lake Bonavista, there is Lake Midnapore, Lake Chaparral, and Lake Sundance. We are so very fortunate to have come from these communities, which are lovely family environments. People grow up in the summer swimming in these lakes and in the winter skating on them. These communities really are the backbone of the riding.

These communities were built on the back of the energy sector, the oil and gas sector. It is something everyone in the community recognizes. Everyone is very proud that these lovely communities were built with the oil and gas sector. When we went to school in Calgary Midnapore, it was with the hope that one day, we would go on to high school and perhaps the University of Calgary, where we have prestigious business and engineering programs. I am a very proud graduate of the University of Calgary.

When I went to my niece Samantha's grade 4 graduation six years ago, all the students who were moving on to middle school went to the microphone and said what they hoped to do. Outside of many young people there wanting to be hockey players, so many said that they wanted to be accountants or engineers like their moms and go on to work in the oil and gas sector.

This was just part of who we were and our upbringing. We would grow up in these lovely communities and get an education with not only the hope but the confidence that we would have good jobs in the oil and gas sector when we were finished our education. We would get married, raise families, and have confidence that we would be able to provide for our families as a result of the oil and gas sector, which was so relied upon by this community for so long. It was such a backbone of not only Calgary Midnapore but of Calgary itself, Alberta, and beyond. It is similar, perhaps, to how people in our capital might reference the public sector.

In addition to that, there was an appreciation of the National Energy Board. It was seen as an institution in Calgary. It was well understood that the decisions that came out of the National Energy Board had gone through a rigorous process, with proper consideration of all the factors necessary to support a thriving oil and gas sector and a prudent oil and gas sector, one that took into account the many needs and considerations of project approval.

These are two sacred cows in the riding I represent and grew up in: the oil and gas sector, and the confidence within that sector; and the National Energy Board. Unfortunately, with Bill C-69, we are seeing these concepts, these things Calgarians count on, thrown out the window entirely. These things will not exist any longer as we knew them before.

It is because of these considerations that provide so much more uncertainty in this sector, not only for the citizens of Calgary Midnapore, but in Calgary and beyond. Of course, the considerations I am referring to are numerous, but they include health, social issues, gender issues, and indigenous rights.

Therefore, going forward, everything has changed as we know it in the oil and gas sector for my constituents of Calgary Midnapore. We are seeing this take place in a number of ways, and one is in the uncertainty of project approval. I have a quote from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.

CEPA is very concerned with the scope of the proposed new Impact Assessment process. From the outset, CEPA has stated that individual project reviews are not the appropriate place to resolve broad policy issues, such as climate change, which should be part of a Pan-Canadian Framework. Including these policy issues adds a new element of subjectivity that could continue to politicize the assessment process.

That is what I said when the NEB review came out last year. I said that the right hon. Prime Minister wrote the report he wanted, and he got the outcomes he wanted in regard to what I believe is essentially destroying the NEB. Everything certainly has changed.

We are hearing a lot of other things in regard to project approvals from industry members themselves, who are very concerned. Here is a quote from a land manager at Cona Resources, a foreign investment company that has left Canada. I will talk a little more about this later, but it is not alone in its exodus. It said, “To a certain extent, Canada will remain a higher cost country because of the social infrastructure that we have in place and our social licence to operate. While there is some opportunity to reduce some of those, the costs are not a net benefit to the country. I don't think that is what is deterring foreign investment. I think if we had greater consistency in both the royalties and taxation structure, people would be more comfortable. The uncertainty is what drives away project approval and foreign investment, and you have to sort of rely on your desire. If the project is a net benefit to Canada as a whole, you have to trust that the federal government will be able to enforce the decisions that were made, and trust that they are making the right decisions.”

Therefore, Bill C-69 is very concerning to industry members as well.

With regard to uncertainty to market access, we have seen that in a number of projects recently. Petronas LNG, a $36-billion project, has left Canada as a result of the uncertainty of project approval, and therefore market access. Keystone, with 830,000 barrels of oil a day, an $8-billion project, is at this time not going forward. Energy east, a $15.7-billion project, was abandoned, squarely on the NEB decision to consider direct and indirect greenhouse emissions. Northern gateway would have provided close to 4,000 jobs.

What else are we seeing? We are seeing foreign investment fleeing, as I mentioned previously. The corporations are too numerous to mention, but I will name a few of them. There is Royal Dutch Shell. It has gone. Growing up in Calgary Midnapore, I remember during the 1988 winter Olympics, people wearing their Shell jackets with pride. There is Statoil, a Norwegian company. We have heard a lot about Norway in our conversations here. Marathon Oil is out the door, as is ConocoPhillips. Investment is simply not attractive in Canada at this time, and we continue to see these investments leaving Canada.

I mentioned previously an event I went to called SelectUSA, where the U.S. consulates network is working very hard to attract even Canadian investment outside of Canada to the States. That is because that environment is providing a more competitive environment and better place for corporations to do business at this time.

In conclusion, I will say for Calgary Midnapore and Canadians that things will never be the same after Bill C-69.

As spoken

Standing Order 69.1—Bill C-59—Speaker's RulingPoint of OrderRoutine Proceedings

June 18th, 2018 / 3:55 p.m.


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The Deputy Speaker Bruce Stanton

The Chair is now prepared to rule on the point of order raised June 11, 2018 by the hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly concerning the applicability of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters.

The Chair would like to thank the hon. member for having raised this question, as well as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his intervention.

The hon. member argued that Bill C-59 is an omnibus bill as he feels it contains several different initiatives which should be voted on separately. On a point of order raised on November 20, 2017, he initially asked the Chair to divide the question on the motion to refer the bill to committee before second reading. As the Speaker ruled on the same day, Standing Order 69.1 clearly indicates that the Chair only has such a power in relation to the motions for second reading and for third reading of a bill. The Speaker invited members to raise their arguments once again in relation to the motion for third reading.

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly pointed out that each of the three parts of the bill enacts a new statute. Part 1 enacts the national security and intelligence review agency act, part 2 enacts the intelligence commissioner act, while part 3 enacts the Communications Security Establishment act. He argued that since each of the first two parts establishes a new entity, with details of each entity's mandate and powers, and since the third significantly expands the mandate of the CSE, he felt they should each be voted upon separately. He also argued that each part amends a variety of other acts, though the chair notes that in most cases, these are consequential amendments to change or add the name of the entities in question in other acts.

The hon. member argued that parts 4 and 5 of the bill should be voted on together. They deal with new powers being given to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, relating to metadata collection and threat disruption, as well as with the disclosure of information relating to security matters between government departments.

As part 6 deals with the Secure Air Travel Act and what is commonly referred to as the “no-fly list”, he felt that this was a distinct matter and that it should be voted upon separately.

Finally, the hon. member proposed grouping together parts 7, 8, 9, and 10 for a single vote. Part 7 deals with changes to the Criminal Code relating to terrorism, while part 8 deals with similar concepts in relation to young offenders. Part 9 provides for a statutory review of the entire bill after six years, while part 10 contains the coming into force provisions.

In his intervention on the matter, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader indicated that the provisions of the bill are linked by a common thread that represents the enhancement of Canada’s national security, as well as the protection of the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians. In order to achieve these objectives, he mentioned that it is necessary for Bill C-59 to touch on a number of acts, and that the bill should be seen as a whole, with several parts that would not be able to achieve the overall objective of the bill on their own. He concluded that Standing Order 69.1 should not apply in this case.

Standing Order 69.1 gives the Speaker the power to divide the question on a bill where there is not a common element connecting all the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked.

Bill C-59 does clearly contain several different initiatives. It establishes new agencies and mechanisms for oversight of national security agencies and deals with information collection and sharing as well as criminal offences relating to terrorism. That said, one could argue, as the parliamentary secretary did, that since these are all matters related to national security, there is, indeed, a common thread between them. However, the question the Chair must ask itself is whether these specific measures should be subjected to separate votes.

On March 1, 2018, the Speaker delivered a ruling regarding Bill C-69 where he indicated that he believed Standing Order 69.1 could be applied to a bill with multiple initiatives, even if they all related to the same policy field. In this particular case, while the Chair has no trouble agreeing that all of the measures contained in Bill C-59 relate to national security, it is the Chair's view that there are distinct initiatives that are sufficiently unrelated as to warrant dividing the question. Therefore, the Chair is prepared to divide the question on the motion for third reading of the bill.

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly has asked for six separate votes, one on each of the first three parts, one on parts 4 and 5, one on part 6, and one on parts 7 to 10. While the Chair understands his reasoning, it does not entirely agree with his conclusions as to how the question should be divided.

As each of the first three parts of the bill does, indeed, enact a new act, the Chair can see why he would like to see each one voted upon separately. However, the Chair's reading of the bill is that these three parts establish an overall framework for oversight and national security activities. For example, the national security and intelligence review agency, which would be created by part 1, has some oversight responsibilities for the Communications Security Establishment provided for in part 3, as does the intelligence commissioner, established in part 2. Furthermore, the intelligence commissioner also has responsibilities related to datasets, provided for in part 4, as does the review agency. Given the multiple references in each of these parts to the entities established by other parts, these four parts will be voted upon together.

Part 5 deals with the disclosure of information between various government institutions in relation to security matters. While the relationship between it and the first four parts is not quite as strong, as the member indicated that he believed that parts 4 and 5 could be grouped together, the Chair is prepared to include part 5 in the vote on parts 1 to 4.

The hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly has not addressed the question of the new part 1.1 added to Bill C-59 by the adoption of an amendment to that effect during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill. Part 1.1 enacts the avoiding complicity in mistreatment by foreign entities act, which deals with information sharing in situations where there is a risk of mistreatment of individuals by foreign entities. Since the national security and intelligence review agency, created by part 1 of the bill, must review all directions prescribed in this new part, it is logical that this part be included in the vote on parts 1 to 5.

The Chair agrees with the hon. member that part 6 dealing with the “no-fly list” is a distinct matter and that it should be voted upon separately. The Chair also agree that parts 7 and 8 can be grouped together for a vote. Both largely deal with criminal matters, one in the Criminal Code and the other in the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

The Chair has wrestled with where to place parts 9 and 10. They are, in the words of the hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly, largely procedural elements, but they apply to the entire act. Part 9 provides for a legislative review of the act, while part 10 contains the coming into force provisions for the entire act. The Chair also must ensure that the title and preamble of the bill are included in one of the groups.

There is an obvious solution for coming into force provisions in part 10. Since clauses 169 to 172 relate to the coming into force of parts 1 to 5 of the bill, they will be voted on with those parts. As clause 173 deals with the coming into force of part 6, it will be included in the vote on that part.

This leaves the title and the preamble as well as the legislative review provided for in part 9, which is clause 168. Though these apply to the entire bill, the Chair has decided to include them in the largest grouping, which contains parts 1 to 5 of the bill.

Therefore, to summarize, there will be three votes in relation to the third reading of Bill C-59. The first vote will deal with parts 1 to 5 of the bill, as well as the title, the preamble, part 9 regarding the legislative review, and clauses 169 to 172 dealing with coming into force provisions. The second vote relates to part 6 of the bill and the coming into force provisions contained in clause 173. The third vote relates to parts 7 and 8 of the bill. The Chair will remind hon. members of these divisions before the voting begins.

I thank all hon. members for their attention.

Partially translated

Business of the HouseOral Questions

June 14th, 2018 / 3:10 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will finish debating the last opposition day motion in this supply cycle. Then, we will debate the main estimates.

Tomorrow morning, we will begin third reading of Bill C-68 on fisheries.

Next week will be a a busy one. Priority will be given to the following bills: Bill C-45 on cannabis, Bill C-59 on national security, Bill C-64 on abandoned vessels, Bill C-69 on environmental assessments, and Bill C-71 on firearms.

Translated

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 11:45 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I have looked up the mandate letter the Minister of Natural Resources received, dated November 12. It says that in relation to environmental assessment and working with the environment minister, he is to “restore robust oversight and thorough environmental assessments of areas under federal jurisdiction”.

I want to highlight that part, “federal jurisdiction”, because the expert panel the government mandated to look into environmental assessment, at a cost of over $1 million, came back with the clear advice that federal jurisdiction include, “at a minimum, federal lands, federal funding and federal government as proponent, as well as: Species at risk; Fish; Marine plants; Migratory birds; Indigenous Peoples...; Greenhouse gas emissions”, and the list goes on.

However, the government chose to ignore the mandate letter, to ignore its campaign promises, and to deliver in Bill C-69 not reviews of environmental assessments for areas of federal jurisdiction but only for major projects, which will be found on a list we can see later. The government explicitly said it does not include federal funding. It explicitly said that this is not about federal jurisdiction, for instance, for permits issued by the Minister of Transport under the Navigation Protection Act or permits issued by the Minister of Fisheries. Therefore, the undoing, the wrecking of environment assessment law by the previous government, is being entrenched by the current government.

Why did the Minister of Natural Resources ignore his mandate letter?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 11:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on the question posed by my colleague, and it has to do with UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Implicit in that is free, prior, and informed consent. That is an element that we in the Conservative Party have some serious concerns about because of the possibility of it being interpreted as being an absolute veto right.

However, in the last election, the Prime Minister made it very clear that he would incorporate UNDRIP into all legislation in Canada. In fact, earlier this year, there was a vote in the House on Bill C-262, a bill from the NDP, which agreed that UNDRIP would be incorporated into all government legislation.

At the amendment stage of Bill C-69, the NDP and the Green Party brought forward 25 different amendments asking the Liberal government to incorporate UNDRIP in the legislation, as it promised during the election campaign. On 25 different occasions, the Liberal government and the Liberal members of that committee voted no. They opposed the inclusion of UNDRIP.

Why would Liberal members of the committee vote against UNDRIP 25 times, when the Liberal government made such a clear commitment to incorporate it?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 11:20 p.m.


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Northumberland—Peterborough South Ontario

Liberal

Kim Rudd LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise again in the House to speak to a piece of legislation that represents a major turning point in how Canada develops its vast resources.

After listening to the discussions over the past while, it is important that we come back to a sense of reality. This is legislation that strengthens investor confidence, restores public trust, advances indigenous reconciliation, and enhances environmental performance, all while ensuring that good resource projects get built in a timely, transparent, and responsible way. It is legislation that has also been improved by committee review, the input of its witnesses, and the advice of its members.

Today, we have an amended bill that not only reflects, but confirms, our belief that Canada works best when Canadians work together. It is an even better bill that delivers on our government's vision for Canada in this clean growth century, and one that supports our goal of making Canada a leader in the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

This is critical because the world is at a pivotal moment when climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our generation, and when marrying the strength of prosperity with the protection of our environment is the new imperative.

Bill C-69 would do that. It recognizes that Canada was built, in large measure, through investments and innovation in the natural resource sectors. It addresses our need for a new and more effective approach to environmental assessments and regulatory reviews. It helps to ensure Canada capitalizes on a new wave of resource development that could top $500 billion over the next 10 years.

Canadians get that. They told us so through our extensive pre-consultations on Bill C-69, in response to our discussion paper, and again in committee. They also stepped forward in unprecedented numbers to join Generation Energy, our national discussion on Canada's energy future that culminated in a two-day forum in the minister's home city of Winnipeg just last fall.

What did we hear? Hundreds of thousands of Canadians made it clear to us that they want a thriving, low-carbon economy. They want Canada to be a leader in clean technology and innovation. They want an affordable and reliable energy system, one that provides equal opportunities to Canadians without harming the environment. They want smart cities with integrated energy systems, increased energy efficiency, and low-carbon transportation. They want rural and remote communities to have better options than diesel for generating electricity or for heating their homes.

They also told us they want regulatory reform that includes increased transparency and more communication with Canadians to restore public confidence. They want regulatory reform that ensures indigenous peoples are part of the decision-making, and that they benefit from the opportunities that resource development creates. They want regulatory reform that supports a competitive and sustainable resource sector, one that creates good jobs and shared wealth. They want regulatory reform that takes the politics out of decision-making so that science, facts, and evidence carry the day. We agree with all of that.

This is why we created a 14-member Generation Energy council, which came out of the two-day forum, to maintain the momentum and develop recommendations on how best to move forward on everything we had heard. That council is due to report shortly, but much of the optimism of Generation Energy, and many of the ideas from it, have already found their way into Bill C-69.

The amended bill also reflects what committee heard from indigenous peoples, and includes an even clearer commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by enshrining it in the bill's preamble and by providing greater transparency regarding the way indigenous knowledge is used and protected.

Other amendments respond to issues important to industry, including concerns that the length of a project review could cause uncertainty. The proposed amendments address this by establishing a baseline of 300 days for review panels involving federal regulators, and a timeline of 45 days to appoint panel members; by improving the transition provisions so that there are clear and objective measures to confirm our commitment that no project will go back to the starting line; by providing new incentives to encourage the proponents of existing projects to proceed under the new impact assessment regime; and by clarifying that final decisions on resource projects are based on, and do not just consider, the assessment report and other key factors set out in the legislation, including both positive and negative impacts.

As amended, Bill C-69 would also address concerns raised by environmental groups to strengthen public participation and transparency. These include placing additional emphasis on meaningful participation; ensuring opportunities for public comment are always part of the review process for projects on federal lands; posting a broader range of information online and for longer; fine-tuning the role of federal life cycle regulators on a review panel, while ensuring impact assessments continue to benefit from their expertise; and the list goes on.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has done excellent work, and its amendments only build on the legislation's strengths. The proposed changes capture the spirit of a bill that will not only improve the way Canada reviews major resource projects, but can ultimately redefine the way projects are even contemplate.

By providing project proponents with clearer rules, greater certainty, and more predictability, we also ensure local communities have more input and indigenous peoples have more opportunities in the resource sectors.

For example, Bill C-69 would help us ensure project proponents and their investors would know what was expected of them from the outset, by introducing an early engagement and planning phase to identify the priorities and concerns of each new project. This would allow resource companies to plan better, engage earlier, and develop smarter, all of which would bolster their competitiveness, enhance performance, and move Canada to the forefront of the clean growth economy.

At the same time, our new approach would rebuild public confidence by introducing greater transparency and stronger protections for the environment, while advancing reconciliation with indigenous peoples and giving Canadians a more meaningful say. Of course, none of this guarantees unanimity. We cannot legislate agreement with every decision a government makes. However, with Bill C-69 and its amendments, Canadians would always know their voices were heard, their evidence was considered, and the process was fair.

For Canadians tuning in for the first time, Bill C-69 would do all of this by taking a more comprehensive approach to resource development, starting with the principle of “one project, one assessment”. To support this, our legislation proposes the creation of a new government agency for impact assessments. The impact assessment agency of Canada would be responsible for a single integrated and consistent process that would include the specialized expertise of federal regulators, which is where our simultaneous creation of a new, modern, and world-class federal energy regulator would come in.

The Canadian energy regulator would replace the National Energy Board and would be given the required independence and proper accountability to oversee a strong, safe, and sustainable Canadian energy sector in this clean growth century, starting with five key changes: more modern and effective governance; increased certainty and timelier decisions for project proponents; enhanced public consultations; greater indigenous engagement and participation; and stronger safety and environmental protections. The amendments support these goals by proposing changes to respond to such things as the evolving landscape for indigenous rights and new technologies that promote greater transparency and broader public engagement.

Before I highlight some of the important ways the amended bill would do these things, it is useful to take a step back and talk about the motivations behind our plans for a new federal energy regulator.

When our government came to office, we started from the very simple premise that while the National Energy Board had served Canadians well, it needed modernization to reflect the fact that its structure, role, and mandate had remained relatively unchanged since the National Energy Board Act was first introduced in 1959.

That is what the Canadian energy regulator act would do. It proposes a new federal energy regulator with clearer responsibilities, greater independence, and more diversity. For example, we would separate the regulator's adjudicative function, which demands a high degree of independence, from its daily operations, where a high degree of accountability is required.

We would do this by creating a board of directors to provide oversight, strategic direction, and advice on operations, while a chief executive officer, separate from the board, would be responsible for day-to-day operations. In addition, there would be a group of independent commissioners responsible for timely, inclusive, and transparent project reviews and decision-making, the very things Canadians have been telling us and that witnesses told the committee.

The amended Bill C-69 also enhances the diversity and expertise of the new regulator's board of directors and commissioners, with a fair and transparent recruitment process to identify the most qualified candidates; a new emphasis on expertise in indigenous knowledge as well as municipal, engineering, and environmental issues; and a requirement for at least one member of the board of directors and one commissioner to be first nations, Métis, or Inuit.

The amended legislation proposes to restore investment certainty by making regulatory reviews more timely and predictable without compromising on public input, indigenous engagement, or environmental protection.

I have already touched on some of the key changes proposed by the committee: establishing a baseline of 300 days for review panels, ensuring panel members are appointed within 45 days, and confirming that no existing projects are sent back to the starting line.

These measures build on the bill's underlying principle of one project, one assessment and the new Impact Assessment Agency of Canada's responsibility for coordinating consultations with indigenous people.

Bill C-69 proposes that all of this work will be carried out in closer collaboration with the new Canadian energy regulator, making its reviews clearer, its powers more defined, and its timelines for decision shorter, more predictable, and better managed, with fewer opportunities to pause the ticking clock.

In addition, the new federal regulator would retain final decision-making authority for minor administrative functions such as certain certificate and licence variances, transfers, and the suspension of certificates or licences. The Canadian energy regulator act would also restore the regulators' pre-2012 decision-making authority to issue a certificate for major projects subject to cabinet approval. This change is important because it removes the federal cabinet's ability to overturn a negative decision from the CER, but maintains cabinet's right to ask commissioners to reconsider their decisions.

Other amendments in the bill would advance our commitments to greater public consultation and indigenous engagement. The CER act already featured more opportunities for Canadians to have their say including the elimination of the NEB's existing test for standing; explicit consideration of environmental, social, safety, health, and socio-economic issues, as well as gender-based impact on any effects on indigenous peoples; expanded participant funding is also extended to new activities; and more opportunities outside of the traditional hearing process for public debates and discussions.

The amendments to the Canadian energy regulatory act offer greater clarity.

On indigenous knowledge, for example, our new protections would be enhanced through a requirement for consultations before any details could be disclosed and the minister would be able to place conditions on their disclosure based on those consultations. The bill would now also require, rather than just provide, options for a committee to provide advice on enhancing indigenous peoples involvement under the Canadian energy regulator act. Other changes would ensure that public and indigenous participation is more meaningful and that Canadians have the information, tools, and capacity to contribute their perspectives and their expertise.

Finally, the amendments on Bill C-69 expand on our efforts to clarify ministerial discretion and ensure stronger safety and environmental protections. For example, through committee's proposed changes to the Canadian energy regulator act, the public decision statements would clearly demonstrate how a report formed the basis for the decision, and how key factors were considered. As well, future exemption orders would only be made to ensure safety and security, or for the protection of property or the environment.

These are in addition to existing provisions in the CER act, such as assigning new powers to federal inspection officers so they can act quickly and, if necessary, place a stop work order on any project that is operating unsafely or falling short of agreed to conditions, requiring that companies increase the protection of their infrastructure, clarifying the regulators oversight role to include enforcing standards related to cybersecurity, and authorizing the federal energy regulator to take action to safely cease the operation of pipelines in cases where the owner is in receivership, insolvent, or bankrupt.

Through Bill C-69 and its amendments, we see legislation designed for the Canada we have today and, indeed, the Canada we want tomorrow. The Canadian energy regulator act is an important piece of that, helping us to diversify Canada's energy markets, expand our energy infrastructure, and drive economic growth through timely decisions that reflect our common values as Canadians.

I hope all members of this House will support this important legislation as we seek to create the shared prosperity we all want, while protecting the planet we all cherish.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 10:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Chong Conservative Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

Madam Speaker, Bill C-69, in front of us today, has a lot of different changes to current acts of Parliament, but also introduces new acts of Parliament. While I support one of the principles in the bill, which is the “one project, one assessment” process for major natural resource projects, there are too many problems with this bill for me to support it.

In particular, I want to focus on the new impact assessment act that the bill creates. First and foremost, the bill will not streamline, and make quicker, assessments for projects designated to be included in the project list. While the government says that the proposed impact assessment act would reduce the current legislated timelines for reviewing projects from 365 days to a maximum of 300 days for assessments led by the new review agency, and from 720 days to a maximum of 600 days for assessments led by a review panel, it is failing to acknowledge that while these timelines are shorter, the new legislation also introduces a planning phase ahead of an assessment led by either the review agency or the review panel. That planning phase can last up to 180 days.

In fact, this legislation will actually increase the amount of time that it takes for major natural resource projects to be reviewed under a federal environmental assessment. Furthermore, while the timelines put in place for the actual impact assessment are shorter, the timelines in the current legislation in front of the House can be extended by the Minister of Environment and by the cabinet, repeatedly.

There is nothing in this legislation to suggest that the process by which we review proposed projects will be shorter, in fact it suggests that it is actually going to be longer. The legislation in front of us will not actually lead to more efficient and less costly assessments for companies looking to invest in Canada's natural resource sector. In fact, the evidence in the bill is that it is going to be much more expensive for companies to make these applications, because the government has proposed to substantially expand the number of criteria that the review agency or review panel has to take into consideration when it is assessing a project. It does not just have to take into account environmental factors. It now also has to take into account health, social, and economic impacts, as well as impacts on other issues, and these impacts over the long term.

When we take into account this vastly expanded criteria and that it is vastly expanded over the long term, it is clear that companies are going to have to spend a lot more money preparing for these applications and working through the application process.

Proposed section 22 of the impact assessment act lists more than 20 factors that have to be considered in assessing the impact of a designated project. For example, there is a reference to sustainability and to the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors. These are just some of the added criteria that the government has added to the process, which is just going to increase the cost and complexity for proponents. It is not only going to be a much longer process for proponents to go through; it is also going to be a much costlier process.

This is a big problem, because we have a problem in Canada with attracting, not just domestic but foreign investment for natural resource projects. In fact, Statistics Canada recently, this past spring, highlighted that there has been the biggest drop in foreign direct investment into this country in eight years. Last year saw the deepest plunge in foreign investment in this country since the deep, dark days of 2010, when we were just coming out of the recession of 2009 caused by the global financial crisis of 2008.

We have seen a massive plunge in foreign direct investment, a massive drop in investors willing to invest in Canadian companies. In fact, last year, for the second year in a row, we saw more foreign selling of Canadian companies than purchasing of Canadian companies. This has led to a drop in investment, particularly in the oil sector, with the commensurate drop in jobs and growth.

However, there is another problem with the bill that I want to highlight, which has to do with the designated project list. In other words, there is a problem in how certain projects get designated for an environmental assessment and how other projects do not. It remains to be seen with the proposed legislation whether or not the government will get it right in regulation.

Earlier this year, the government announced that it was going to undertake consultations with a view to help revise the regulations concerning the designated projects list. The Liberals said they would be coming forward with new regulations under the proposed act, and I hope they read the Hansard transcript tonight of the debates here in the House of Commons to ensure that our input is incorporated, if the bill does pass, in these new regulations.

The problem is one of inequity and unfairness from a whole range of perspectives. If a mine is proposed in western Canada, let us say in Alberta, under both the pre-2012 rules and the current 2012 rules, and potentially under the proposed legislation, it would undergo a federal environmental assessment. However, if that same mine was proposed in southern Ontario, mines that we often call “gravel pits” or “quarries”, it would not undergo a federal environmental assessment.

I will give members an example of this. In 2011, a mega-quarry was proposed in southern Ontario by an American company that had acquired over 2,500 acres of prime farmland in Dufferin County. That American company had acquired the equivalent of 10 square kilometres of land to build an open pit mine. Under the pre-2012 rules and the 2012 rules, and potentially under this proposed legislation, the federal government said that it did not require a federal environmental assessment, yet if that same 10 square kilometre mine was proposed in Alberta, let us say an open pit bitumen mine, a federal environmental assessment most certainly would have been required. This is an example of the unfairness of the current and potentially the proposed system the federal government has.

If one builds a mine to extract iron ore or bitumen in western Canada, one would undergo a federal environmental assessment, but if the same mine is proposed in southern Ontario, then do not worry, the government will turn a blind eye and not have it undergo that federal environmental assessment. Therefore, it is not just treating one sector of the economy different from another, the oil and gas sector, or the iron ore sector compared with the aggregate sector, but it is also treating one region of the country differently from another, and that is not fair. I hope that the government, in undertaking these consultations, takes that into account.

It is also not fair to the environment when a 10 square kilometre open pit mega-quarry is proposed for southern Ontario, which would have plunged 200 feet deep and pumped 600 million litres of fresh water out of the pit each and every day. It should undergo the same federal environmental assessment that a mine of similar size would undergo in western Canada. It should undergo that, because in southern Ontario we have the most dense biosphere in the entire country. There is all the more need to protect this dense biosphere, which is under greater threat than any other part of the country largely due to the growing urban populations we see in the Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Windsor, and Toronto corridor.

I hope the government's yet-to-be-created project list, whether it is based on the current legislation or the proposed legislation, treats all sectors of the economy and all regions of the country fairly, and I hope the department is incorporating this input as it comes forward with new regulations.

There is yet another problem with the proposed legislation before the House, and it plays into a broader pattern of the government, and that is of political interference. As the member for St. Albert—Edmonton just pointed out, the proposed legislation would allow the minister a veto power over natural resource project applications. This is unprecedented in this country. Until the Liberal government came to power, not a single natural resource project had been rejected or approved by the federal cabinet before the federal environmental assessment process had been completed, and not a single federal environmental assessment process had been overruled by federal cabinet.

In other words, up until this government, the federal cabinet accepted every single recommendation coming out of a federal environmental review process over the many decades that it was in place. The current government's rejection of the northern gateway pipeline was the first time the federal cabinet had stopped the process for the review of a major natural resource project before allowing that process to be completed and before allowing the cabinet to accept fully the recommendations of that process.

Here, in this legislation, we see a repeat of that pattern. They are proposing to give the minister a veto power. Before an impact assessment can begin, the minister will have the power not to conduct an assessment if the minister believes the proposed project would cause unacceptable effects. That is so broad a criteria that a person could drive a Mack truck through that. There again we see the politicization of processes that were once arm's length, quasi-judicial, and left to the professional public service.

Another example of this politicization of what was once performed by the professional public service, by quasi-judicial entities, is Bill C-49. Bill C-49 gives the Minister of Transport a political veto over a review of joint ventures by an airline. Up to Bill C-49, and for many years, any airline that wanted to enter into a joint venture had to undergo a review by one of the premier law enforcement agencies in the world, the Competition Bureau, to ensure that there were no anti-competitive results from a joint venture. In fact, when Air Canada proposed a joint venture with United Airlines some years ago, the Competition Bureau said no to the original proposal for that joint venture and said they had to pull out of that joint venture a number of cross-border routes because they would be deleterious to competition, and because it would increase prices for consumers and for businesses across Canada.

What the current government has done through Bill C-49, which it rammed through the House and Senate, is it has given the Minister of Transport the ability to veto that process through a broad definition of public interest to bypass the Competition Bureau's review of a joint venture, and to rubber-stamp a joint venture in the interests of the airline and against the competition interests of consumers in this country. With the recent passage of Bill C-49, Air Canada has announced a joint venture with Air China. I do not think that is any coincidence.

Thus, these are just a few examples of how the government is politicizing the process for law enforcement of our competition laws and for the review of major natural resource projects that no previous government has ever done.

Finally, I want to critique the Liberal government's general approach to environmental issues. The Liberals have created a climate of uncertainty. On pipeline approvals, they have created uncertainty. That is why Kinder Morgan has announced that it is pulling out of Canada and why it sold its assets to the Government of Canada. They have created a climate of uncertainty in the business community. That is why, as I previously mentioned, Statistics Canada, this spring, reported that foreign investment into Canada plunged last year to its lowest level in eight years. There has been an exodus of capital from the country's oil and gas sector. Statistics Canada reports that capital flows dropped for a second year in a row last year, and are down by more than half since 2015. Net foreign purchases by foreign businesses of Canadian businesses are now less than sales by those foreign businesses, meaning that foreign companies sold more Canadian businesses than they bought.

On climate change, they have created a great deal of uncertainty.

The Liberals came with big fanfare with their price on carbon, but they have only priced it out to $50 per tonne to 2022. They have not announced what happens after 2022. We are four short years away from 2022, and businesses and consumers need the certainty of what happens after 2022.

Furthermore, the Liberals have created uncertainty because $50 per tonne does not get us to our Paris accord targets. In fact, last autumn the Auditor General came forward with a report saying that Canada will not meet its Paris accord targets of a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 with the $50-per-tonne target. He estimated that we are some 45 megatonnes short of the target.

The Liberals have created uncertainty with their climate change policy because they have been inconsistent on climate change policy. They are inconsistent with how they treat one sector of the economy versus another. For example, they demand that projects in the oil and gas sector take into account both upstream and downstream emissions, while not requiring projects in other sectors of the economy to do the same.

They are inconsistent with climate change policy in the way they treat one region of the country versus another. The Auditor General's report from a week ago, report 4, highlights the inconsistency in the way they treat central Canadians versus the way they treat westerners.

For example, the Liberals tell western Canadian oil and gas producers that climate change impacts need to be part of the approval process of any major natural resource project, and yet they turn around, and one of the first decisions they make as a government is to waive the tolls on the new federal bridge in Montreal, a $4-billion-plus bridge. The Auditor General reported, in report 4 last week, that waiving the tolls will result in a 20% increase in vehicular traffic over that bridge, from 50 million to 60 million cars and trucks a year, an additional 10 million vehicles crossing that bridge every year, with the attendant greenhouse gases and pollution that this entails.

The Liberals tell companies and Canadians on one side of the country that they have to take into account greenhouse gas emissions when they propose a new project in the oil and gas sector, but when the government builds a brand new federal bridge in Montreal for $4 billion-plus, it is not going to take into account those greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, it will waive the tolls, which is going to lead to a 20% jump in traffic, with the attendant greenhouse gas emissions that this entails.

Finally, the Liberals have created a climate of uncertainty by their failure to realize that our income taxes are too high. The government talks a good game about the environment and the economy, but the facts speak otherwise. They blew a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reduce corporate and personal income taxes. They failed to seize the opportunity of using the revenues generated by the price of carbon to drive down our high corporate and personal income taxes. They also failed to seize the opportunity to reform our income tax system to reduce its complexity and its distortive nature.

Our system was reformed in 1971 by the government of Pierre Trudeau. It was reformed again in 1986 by the government of Brian Mulroney. It has been over 30 years since we have had any significant income tax reform to our personal income tax system or our corporate income tax system, and the Liberals blew the chance to do it, even though they promised to take a look at tax reform in their very first budget.

The government talks a good game on the environment and the economy, but the facts say otherwise. It is a story of a missed opportunity, and that is why I cannot support this bill.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Madam Speaker, the member brings up very valid points about investment in Canada.

I will read from an article from Bloomberg today, which states, “Unlike portfolio investment, foreign direct investment is considered a stable source of funding that comes with the additional benefits of a transfer of know-how. Instead, an increasing amount of Canada’s funding needs are being met by short-term funds denominated in foreign currencies”, meaning loans, “which makes the country more vulnerable to a sudden loss of interest from foreign investors.” Bloomberg is saying that Canada is relying on debt for growth and not foreign investment.

It notes in this article that the amount that the Government of Canada is giving Kinder Morgan to buy Trans Mountain is greater than the entire investment in Canada in the last quarter of last year. Bill C-69 is only going to pile on the flight of capital from Canada.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Madam Speaker, the Minister of Environment stated that one of the objectives of Bill C-69 is to increase investor confidence. The hon. member for Edmonton West pointed out that under Bill C-69, the Minister of Environment has the discretion to cancel a project at any point, including during the planning stage before any environmental assessment is conducted, before any economic impact is studied, and before any scientific analysis is done. How does that square with increasing public confidence and investor confidence? It seems to me to be some kind of joke.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Madam Speaker, if only the Liberals were as efficient in governing as they are in skullduggery around such issues, Canada would be a much better place.

My colleague brings up some very valuable points. The U.S. treasury department is, right now, investigating Russian interference in its energy industry. Russia views the U.S. and Canada as major energy competitors. Without its energy industry, Russia would be bankrupt, so it is against the interests of the U.S. and Canada to grow their energy industries. Russia is funnelling money, as the U.S. treasury department says, into Tides U.S.A. Tides U.S.A. sends its money to Tides Canada, which then funnels it to Leadnow, which campaigns on behalf of the Liberal government of Canada.

Now the government is introducing Bill C-76 that will open the floodgates for more foreign money coming into Canada and Bill C-69 would also allow equal standing for radical environmentalists from the U.S., Russian activists, and a Canadian appearing before the regulatory regime.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Madam Speaker, I would ask the member for Edmonton West about the issue of standing in Bill C-69. Peeling that back to the last election, we saw an unprecedented assault on Canadian democracy with U.S. money funnelled to third parties that, in turn, backed the Liberal Party. Now we have Bill C-69, which opens standing up to foreign anti-oil sands activists. The government has now introduced Bill C-76, which leaves a major loophole with respect to foreign funding of third parties, which essentially says that it is open season for foreign entities to fund registered third parties if the monies are transferred before June 30.

Does the hon. member for Edmonton West think that this is all a coincidence or is this just a case of the Liberal Party trying to benefit from foreign funding to help it during elections and to advance its activist radical agenda to keep Alberta energy in the ground?

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight at this late hour to speak to Bill C-69, 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, also known as an omnibus bill. I also like to call this bill the let us never build another pipeline or major energy project in Canada bill, or we could call it the labyrinth act, after the David Bowie movie Labyrinth, with its never-ending maze, which is what our regulatory process is going to be.

According to the Liberal government, the main purpose of this bill is to create an environmental assessment process that increases consultation, broadens a number of social economic criteria for approval, and decreases legislative timelines. At a lengthy 350 pages, this bill has so many proposed changes, it is tough to digest them all at once. Here is one clear takeaway. It will ensure the private sector pipelines will never see the light of day in Canada again.

This comes straight from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association that these introduced amendments or “Regulatory 'poisons' are 'suffocating' oil industry by driving investors away”.

At committee we heard this from a witness, “The impact assessment does not address the pipeline sector's most fundamental concern: a process that is expensive, lengthy, polarizing, and ends with a discretionary political decision.”

Hence, the the labyrinth act.

I was pleased to quote Ozzy Osbourne in an earlier speech today on Bill C-344, which is another act from the Liberals that will create another regulatory burden. I am glad I was able to mention the late David Bowie as well.

We have seen the Trans Mountain pipeline put on life-support worth $4.5 billion because of the Liberals' action and inaction. However, knowing the Liberals' spin machine, they are going to say that this $4.5 billion life-support system is actually a health care investment.

The Liberals want to introduce this bill to ensure that we never see another pipeline built in Canada again. In this bill, we can clearly see that this regulatory process is designed for political influence and intervention. The minister can step in any time she wants and kill any major energy resource project at any time. This even includes the various stages where there is no formal ministerial approval required. It is going to be energy east all over again. It does not clarify or streamline an objective evidence-based process where decisions will be made by experts.

The Liberals can scrap entire pipeline projects for purely political reasons, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Of course members are sitting there saying that surely the Liberals would not kill something like an energy project, like a billion dollar gas plant for political reasons? I know that it was the Ontario Liberals, but where do people think most of the current Liberal PMO staffers come from? Of course, they come from Queen's Park.

Placing this kind of power in the hands of the minister will reduce transparency and give industry no guarantee that sensible projects will move forward. This planning phase is also concerning because, under the proposed bill, an environmental advocacy group from Sweden has as much right to be heard as a Canadian energy industry advocacy group.

I suppose we should give even more ministerial powers to the Liberals. After all, what could go wrong? We have had ad scam, the sponsorship scandal, the gun registry, Shawinigate, HRDC under the previous Liberal government, and of course the clam scam, where the fisheries minister personally intervened to give a lucrative clam fishing quota to, now get this, a brother of a sitting Liberal MP, a former Liberal MP, and a family member of the current fisheries minister. A Gordie Howe hat trick is described as a hockey game where one gets into a fight, scores a goal, and gets an assist. This is a Gordie Howe hat trick of corruption: a brother of a Liberal MP, a former Liberal MP, and to top it off, a family member of the deciding and interfering Liberal minister.

I could mention more Liberal scandals, but I should not talk about that if I want to finish by midnight. However, if people at home who are watching on CPAC are bored and want a more fulsome understanding of some of the Liberal scandals, they should take a look at https://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums/topic/4466-199-liberal-scandals.

I will return back to the bill. Steve Williams, the CEO of Canada's leading integrated oil and gas company, Suncor Energy, said that this legislation will effectively end his corporation's ability to invest in major Canadian projects. Suncor is worried about Canada's lack of competitiveness because, as he said, “other jurisdictions are doing much more to attract business”. The Liberal government just gave $4.5 billion of taxpayers' money to Kinder Morgan to invest back in the U.S. No offence to Mr. Williams and his comment, but he is incorrect. With the current government, other jurisdictions do not have to do more to attract business, because it will give money to companies to invest in other jurisdictions.

Canada's largest developer in the oil industry says it will not be able to invest in Canada, will not be able to create jobs in Canada, will not be able to pay more taxes in Canada, or create more wealth for Canadians. Suncor is a valued employer in Alberta, and provides thousands of well-paying jobs to indigenous people, youth, and new Canadians. Maybe if we change the name to Suncorbardier, then the Liberals would not try to phase out Suncor and our oil sands, but here we are.

We are talking about billions of dollars in investment going straight to the U.S. and other energy producing jurisdictions. This combined with higher taxes and more government uncertainty makes Canada a more difficult place to invest capital.

Bill C-69 completely fails to improve our ability to compete. In fact, it is only going to make matters worse. GMP FirstEnergy has also criticized Bill C-69 because it has “increased complexity, subjectivity and open-ended timelines”. The company sees “nothing in these proposed changes that will attract incremental energy investment to Canada.”

These statements do not exactly sound like a ringing endorsement for Bill C-69. We have some of the strongest and most stringent environmental regulations and standards in the entire world, so why are we introducing even more regulations when our system is world renowned?

We have seasoned experts telling us that over the years the ability of these major resource projects to get completed has become exceedingly difficult and is now almost impossible, and the Liberals want to introduce even more regulations to effectively put these projects six feet under.

Unfortunately, six feet under will refer to Alberta's economy and not the placement of a pipeline. Of course, the Liberals believe that adding increasingly complex legal frameworks and indeterminate regulatory methods will somehow expedite the process. The environment minister says we need a process with no surprises and no drama. I think what she meant to say is that she wants a process with no surprises, no drama, and no development, and perhaps no future for the young workers in Alberta.

I am sure members have heard this many times before. The Liberals love to talk about how the environment and the economy go hand in hand. However, Bill C-69 does not even live up to their own shaky standards in this regard. This policy puts red tape and the interests of foreigners first and the economy, jobs, and prosperity of Canadians dead last.

Energy development is crucial to jobs and economic opportunity in this country and Bill C-69 will only make it more difficult for private companies to receive approval for critical infrastructure projects.

I will remind the Prime Minister that many Albertans are still struggling to find work and pay their bills. His policies will only cause further harm to them and kick them while they are down.

Former premier Frank McKenna announced in mid-February that Canada has lost $117 billion due to pipeline woes. How does this legislation address that issue? I will answer that question: it does not. It does absolutely nothing. I would argue that the $117-billion loss is only going to climb higher in the future.

Bill C-69 will decrease Canada's economic competitiveness, without resulting in any meaningful environmental protection. While the United States scraps excessive regulations and cuts taxes for its citizens, the Liberal government has chosen to impose more unnecessary red tape, longer project timelines, and higher taxes for middle-class families. Bill C-69 will make it increasingly difficult to compete with countries around the world and grow our economy. The approval process will become even longer, more tedious, and completely unappealing to the private sector.

Seriously, what company wants to come forward and invest billions in Canada when they see the government actively kills energy projects and their only hope to get something done after the Liberal action is to nationalize it?

Venezuela is a mess right now because of nationalizing its oil industry. Experts are saying the way for Venezuela to get out of the hellhole it has created is to un-nationalize its oil industry. What are we doing? We are nationalizing our pipeline. We cannot afford to add uncertainty for companies who want to invest in Canada.

The Liberal government has managed to consistently decrease investor confidence with each and every passing day. It should be more cautious with its legislation. Liberals continuously outdo themselves and are setting the bar for failure as a government. We already have $20 billion in deficits every year, so what could possibly go wrong as investor confidence reaches new lows?

I cannot support a bill that would kill jobs in Edmonton, that would kill jobs in Alberta, and that would chase away energy investment at the same time as doing nothing for the environment.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:30 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, in the past I practised environmental law for a while and I have worked in the environmental field for a long time and I am quite familiar with laws in other countries. It is unlikely that the hon. member will take my word for it, but Canada does not have the best environmental assessment process, the toughest regulations, and the best endangered species law at all. That was the case even before Bill C-38 in the spring of 2012. After the changes to environmental assessment by the Harper government in Bill C-38, we had one of the worst, weakest, and most inconsistent and incoherent environmental assessment processes in the industrialized world. Sadly, tragically, Bill C-69 would not restore the consistent, predictable process we had that ensured that anything within federal jurisdiction would be reviewed.

Just so the hon. member knows what countries to which I refer, anything in the European Union is stronger, the United States is much stronger, and New Zealand is much stronger in their anticipatory environmental assessments, which is why it is such a tragedy that Canada, which knows how to do this better, is failing to do so now.

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Larry Maguire Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to stand this evening to debate Bill C-69. I would like to say a number of things at the outset. The most obvious one is that the Liberals broke their promise with the bill. It has nothing to do with the wording of the bill and everything to do with the size of it.

First, the government said it would not have omnibus legislation and, as my colleagues mentioned earlier this evening, this is a 370-page bill. It cannot be put in any other context than it is an omnibus bill.

The second broken promise is that the bill is not very environmentally supportive by its very voluminous weight. It could have helped, in spite of its size, if it really would improve our environment, but this bill fails to do that.

A number of things have been said about the bill this evening and I will come back to those. However, a whole host of events has taken place around the rhetoric the government has put in this bill. The Liberals talk about trying to improve the environment, to create more jobs, and to improve those jobs, but they have ended up killing two pipelines already. One was the northern gateway pipeline across northern British Columbia to get oil in Alberta over to the west coast. The other one was the eastern access line to move oil to the New Brunswick area for refining purposes in that part of Canada.

Before I elaborate on that, I should inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Edmonton West. I know he will have much to say about the situation taking place in Alberta.

My perspective comes from the small amount of oil in southwest Manitoba, which happens to all be in my constituency. This is a very important issue to the communities, maybe not to Winnipeg as much, though it is impacted because a lot of income comes out of that area from this oil, and to the people who live in those communities and on the farms in that region as well. A great deal of work is being done by the oil industry in the southwest region, from trucking to the building of lines to the building of batteries to the moving oil from the wells to the batteries to the tracks to the loading facilities. We also have a major pipeline running right through the middle of my constituency, which moves the oil east and down through the United States.

There are thousands of jobs in my little southwest corner of Manitoba because of this industry. That is why it is so important to have certainty in this industry. It impacts the lives of individuals on farms as well. I went through the downturn in the farm economy, particularly BSE in 2003, droughts in 2003, and flooding in 2005, 2011, and 2014. Therefore, off-farm jobs in the oil industry have been a stabilizing factor in many of the family operations in southwest Manitoba.

It is pretty important to ensure there are sound rules so investors in the economy, not just in my area but more particularly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and, to a certain extent in Newfoundland, have the assurance they can make investments and know they will get returns from those investments.

I will refer to my colleague from Carleton when this debate started. He had a good economics lesson, I thought it was Economics 101, about whether the government learned anything from the lesson he was trying to teach about how important it was to have a sound investment process. We know that comes with great difficulty in Canada right now, and there is a lot of concern about it. As he pointed out, and as we all know, the country's debt is three times higher than it was supposed to be this year.

One thing I did not know, and it is worth repeating, is there are overpayments in Ontario's hydro of $176 billion over the last 30 years. That is a tremendous amount of money, when we consider that is a quarter of Canada's debt. The other number we need to bear in mind is that we have already lost $88 billion worth of investment in our oil industry. It has moved out of the country. It has gone south, as my colleague from Calgary Shepard just indicated. Thousands of jobs have gone south, 101,000 jobs in Alberta alone.

There is a little more drilling going on right now in our area of southwest Manitoba, but the bill would not help that economy survive. Bill C-69, this omnibus legislation, and the amount of regulations in it would not make it easier to grow our economy, which puts people to work.

I was the environment critic for seven of the 14 years I was in the Manitoba legislature. I want to put a few things into perspective. When we look at a situation where infrastructure and investment is required, the government always talks about how we can have both, the economy and the environment. That is not new. It is certainly not foreign to anybody in the House or to any Canadian for that matter.

This is about ensuring that Canadians know that the environment and the economy have gone hand in hand probably since oil was found in Canada in the late 1940s, early 1950s. Anyone who does not abide by those rules of trying to ensure the environment is kept as pristine as we possibly can is not paying attention. My colleagues have already stated tonight that we have the cleanest rules for dealing with environmental packages of anywhere in the world, particularly in our oil industry.

Rules have been brought, and not just in Bill C-69 or Bill C-68, the Fisheries Act. We know full that the efforts in Bill C-69 will not help the economy in any way. They certainly will not make jobs.

As I said, I was asked to become the environment shadow minister in Manitoba when I was first elected in 1999. It was either conservation or the environment. As the representative for Arthur-Virden, the constituency receives water from all of eastern Saskatchewan, southeastern Saskatchewan as well as northeastern Saskatchewan, and all of it comes into the Souris River, coming down the Assiniboine, and even through the Qu'Appelle in central Saskatchewan.

We know the impacts of what the environment can do to our province. The current provincial government is spending its infrastructure dollars rather responsibly. It is using them to protect cities like Brandon and Winnipeg particularly, Portage la Prairie, and the shorelines of Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipeg. This is responsible management. Why? It is because the provincial government is spending the money on infrastructure to prevent flooding, instead of paying billions out after the fact in flood damages and devastation.

The Liberals need to heed that example and respect investments, instead of killing investment opportunities like the eastern access and northern gateway. These are important issues.

I could go on about a lot of other shortfalls in the bill. Changes to the National Energy Board is just one of them. It may have needed tweaking, but the government decided it knew best and threw out the baby with the bathwater.

My colleague, the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, certainly has more experience, having a master's in biology, and he has certainly hit the nail on the head with respect to the Fisheries Act and Bill C-68. I have spoken to him about this bill as well.

I just want to wrap up by saying that I will not be supporting Bill C-69 for a number of reasons outlined, particularly by my colleague from Abbotsford today, as well—

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June 12th, 2018 / 10:10 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I suppose we agree that the bill is flawed, but I want to correct a few things.

There were at least two opposition amendments accepted. I still cannot vote for Bill C-69, but I want to make sure that people know that, on the recommendation of Professor Martin Olszynski, who was referenced in my friend's speech, we amended proposed subsection 6(3) to say, “The Government...must, in the administration of this Act, exercise their powers in a manner that adheres to the principles of scientific integrity, honesty, objectivity, thoroughness and accuracy.”

I would rather see more about science in the bill. I would rather see less ministerial discretion. However, this debate, repeatedly, for weeks now, has singled out large oil companies leaving Alberta, as if the only reason these large oil companies have left has something to do with pipelines. The reality is global.

Globally, to give some context, investment in fossil fuels is shrinking. Globally, investment in renewables is growing like Topsy. In fact, in 2017, solar investment alone eclipsed investment in coal, nuclear, and all the renewables. The price of solar has been plummeting. Globally, greenhouse gases fell last year in the U.S., Russia, Brazil, China, throughout the EU, and, of course, in the U.K. They dropped infinitesimally in Canada. It was a 1.4% drop.

We are part of a global transition right now, which is why large companies like Statoil, from Norway, Royal Dutch Shell, France's Total, and ConocoPhillips, when they left the oil sands, said that they were leaving because they did not want stranded assets. In the words of Mark Carney, current president of the Bank of England, they did not want “unburnable carbon”, because there are assets in oil and gas that will be left in the ground, which represent a financial liability.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 9:50 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be rejoining the debate on Bill C-69. I have a tough job. I am following the member for Lakeland, who has probably contributed more in this House, in the last two and a half to almost three years, to defending Alberta and Canada's energy industry than any other member of the House. In fact, she has a very long history of defending Canada's energy sector and Alberta's energy workers in her private sector experience before.

She provided us with an overview of the damage that Bill C-69 would do to Canada's economic sector related to the energy industry, and the depth of how much damage would be caused to the energy workers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

I cannot match those numbers, but I have seven points I want to go through with respect to Bill C-69, and the different parts of the bill that I think will be very damaging to investments and the future jobs in the energy sector, and to Canada's GDP growth and how much it will be reduced by.

One of the things we often hear about in the House is how strong Canada's growth is. It is often said that we are leading the G7. In fact, that is not even true. We are not leading the G7. The projections by the OECD, and in the PBO's own economic update, has us in the middle, at number four, especially for 2018, with a 1.9% growth. We are actually behind the United States, and we know why. It is because it does not have a carbon tax, which will damage Canada's economy with up to 0.4% less GDP growth.

When I was at the finance committee and I asked the parliamentary budget office officials if ever they had seen a government policy that was intentionally damaging to Canada's economy the way the carbon tax is going to be, they had no answer for me. They could not come up with a response to it because there simply is not one. It is a damaging policy that is being introduced and forced down the throats of provinces that do not want it, including the electorate of Ontario, which last week rejected the damaging policies of the federal Liberal government.

We also know that the natural resource sector in 2016 accounted for 16% of Canada's economic activity. Therefore, 16% of Canada's economic engine is related to the natural resources, and 38% of non-residential capital investment is related to this one sector.

We also know, because the member for Lakeland did a good job of itemizing it, how much foreign investment has fled the country. Again, we know why. It is because we are not as competitive with our main trading partner, the United States, as we used to be. It has introduced drastic tax changes and reforms to its system that make its companies much more competitive. I cannot tell members how many of my constituents, friends, and supporters have moved down to Texas, which I often call “Alberta south”, to work in its energy sector. We know that next year the state of Texas will become the number one producer of oil in the world. It is going to exceed even large producers, such as Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela. It will be producing more oil than any one of them. This is just one state in the United States of America.

We also know that Texas, for instance, does not have a personal income tax system. It has a sales tax instead. However, the offering it provides to workers and to companies is that it will get out of the way. It provides a simple to understand regulatory system that typically does not change from government to government. It provides stability, whereas the current Liberal government is providing more instability.

These are the seven points that I want to raise, and they are in no particular order: moving away from science-based decision-making; the timelines for a final decision will be changed; there are self-processes that will be stopping the clock; we will have open questions about what constitutes a major or minor project; the concentration of power in this legislation; the restoring of the public trust concept, which is highly politically charged; and finally, a question that I asked previously to one of the parliamentary secretaries with respect who would have standing to appear before the renamed NEB regulator to have their voices and their issues heard. Those are the seven points I want to raise in my intervention tonight on this issue.

This legislation has been referred to in the National Post, and this is how it was described. It said, “This new process repeats the mistake in believing that those groups dedicated to the destruction of our oil industry can be reasoned with”.

I, like many other Albertans, did not work directly in the energy industry but was related to it in ways. I worked in human resources. I was a registrar for a profession, and many members worked for organizations that participated in providing HR advice, recruitment, benefits, pension plans. Therefore, it was not directly related to it, but they worked in companies but also provided ancillary services to them. They believed that there is simply no way to satisfy those who are ardently opposed to large-scale industrial energy development of any kind. We can never create a system that will satisfy any of them. No matter how complex the labyrinth becomes, it will never satisfy those who are opposed to development, period.

Social licence does not exist. There is no way to reach the end point where there is broad consensus. In fact, one of the reasons the carbon tax was introduced in Alberta was so that we could get a pipeline built of some sort. Since then we have lost northern gateway. Since then we have lost energy east. Since then LNG projects have been cancelled all over British Columbia. Oftentimes this would have been an outlet for a lot of the natural gas production in Alberta and in British Columbia to world markets. We often do not talk about those, but they are just as important as oil pipelines.

Now Trans Mountain finds itself in the hands of the Liberal government. The Liberals truly have the ability to follow through on the dream of the Prime Minister's father, and I think of many supporters of the Liberal Party today, to phase out the oil sands, to phase out Alberta's energy industry. Twice that has been said by the Prime Minister. The first time he apologized and we all believed that he had misspoken, but the second time he said it at the National Assembly in Paris, France.

Many Albertans, even those who are not directly in the energy industry simply do not believe the Liberal government when it says it will get this pipeline built, because there is no plan going forward. Liberals have not itemized how they are going to get it done. They have simply talked about a very specific purchase agreement that they have successfully negotiated with Kinder Morgan, because it is looking to flee. It is fleeing because of things like Bill C-69, which add more complexity and do not make it simpler to go from a project application to a project completion.

I do not mean the application process being finished. I mean construction actually being completed on the ground. That should be the measure of success and the very minimum expected by the House. If we are going to spend $4.5 billion of taxpayer funds, a contract should be provided to the House so that we can judge the quality of it, who is getting and receiving payment, but also a plan attached to it that has an itemized detailed timeline of when construction will begin, when construction will be finished on particular components of it, and when it will be operating. Again, something we will not see anytime soon, at least not in my mind.

In terms of the moving away from science-based decision-making in this piece of legislation, the Liberals are adding in a lot more qualitative factors over quantitative factors. It has been said by the GMP FirstEnergy Research team:

The qualitative factors look to be nearly impossible to measure or assess. Additionally, certain quantitative measures such as gender-based analysis may be almost impossible to implement in practice.

This has a huge implication for a company with a large-scale industrial project when it is preparing to apply at the beginning. Just as with any application there will be a bunch of boxes to fill in and information to provide. If companies do not know how to meet the test, if the multiple choice question does not have any multiple choices to pick, how are they supposed to satisfy the government on what it is trying to get? This is where the complexity increases. This is where a lot of energy companies will struggle to satisfy the government's want for more information.

Second, on the timelines for a final decision a lot has been said in the House by members that in fact the supposed timelines provided for Bill C-69 are not true timelines. What will happen instead is that there are ample opportunities for it to be blocked and ample opportunities for it to be deviated.

Third, the sub-processes are stopping the clock. Again, GMP FirstEnergy noted that included allowing for additional studies and submissions by interested parties and “other delaying tactics such as the Governor in Council having an unlimited ability to extend a pending decision by the minister for as long as desired and suspending the time limit under which the notice of the commencement of assessment begins.” These are issues itemized by researchers who work for energy companies, who advise energy companies on how to comply with regulatory complexity, which is increasing under Bill C-69.

If the goal was never to have another major industrial project be built in Canada, then the Liberal government has achieved its goal, but I just do not think that was the goal.

We have the CEO of Suncor Energy who has said that no new major industrial projects will come forward. We have the CEO of Sierra Energy, a smaller player in the field, but still a very important one, saying that under this legislation, no new large-scale industrial projects will be proposed to the regulator. I can understand why. It will become way more complex to get anything done.

I mentioned the problem identifying what is a major or a minor project. That is not clarified in this piece of legislation. It would still be difficult to determine that, and again, researchers said that this was a problem.

There would be an immense concentration of power, which many members have issues with, especially on the Conservative side. We have itemized our concern that the minister is getting too involved in the decision-making around projects. There are paths projects could be redirected to that would add to the complexity and add to the burden on the company to try to prove things with information and criteria that might be difficult to collect.

This would not help energy workers in any way. This would not help us get to the “yes” side. This would not help us get to a project being completed and Canada yielding additional prosperity with wealth generated.

At the end of the day, I am convinced that the government wants more revenue. The government wants people to generate income. It wants projects to be undertaken and built. It wants to see that to have an opportunity to levy income tax and sales tax. That cannot be done without having wealth generated.

If the CEO of Suncor Energy is saying that no new major industrial project is going to go ahead, we have serious issues.

The concept of restoring public trust is highly politically charged. It is a manufactured narrative that before there was no trust, but now there is trust. That is interesting. Perhaps that should be told directly to those who are protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline. Maybe that should have been told to those protesting the energy east pipeline, when it was still on the table before the Liberal government killed it off by introducing new regulatory rules.

In its news release at the time, Trans Canada said that it was the decision to introduce new regulatory rules that led to its cancellation. This false concept about restoring the public trust is not helpful in any way. It somehow speaks again to this idea of social licence, which again does not exist. It has been proven over the past few years that nothing will satisfy those who are opposed to energy development of any sort.

Finally, who can be involved in NEB hearings? That was a question I asked before. Subclause 183(3) would eliminate the NEB standing test, which is very important to narrow the scope of the determination of who could appear before the NEB to make the case that they are impacted, beneficially or not, and could make the case that the project should be modified in a certain way to meet their personal or local community needs. Now there would be the opportunity for international groups to appear before the regulator and make a case that they would be somehow impacted directly.

If communities are the ones that can say yes, then it can only be the local community directly related to the project that should have a role in saying how it would be impacted. It should be individuals in those communities who should have the greatest role. It should not be spokespeople who are self-appointed saying that they speak on behalf of a certain group. It should be people locally who can go before the NEB to make their case, as they were able to do before. Now there would be the potential situation where foreigners or people from different parts of Canada, totally unrelated to the project, would make submissions and appearances, slowing down the process and adding more complexity and further delays to the regulatory process to try to meet their demands and their goals.

There are some in the legal community who have offered their opinions, such as Jean Piette, an environmental lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright, in The Lawyer's Daily, on February 9, 2018. This was very early on, before some of the amendments were made. He said, “I think there are going to be delays inherent to this new process which are going to be of concern to proponents.”

Martin Ignasiak, national co-chair of Osler's regulatory, environmental, Aboriginal and land group, again in The Lawyer's Daily, on February 9, 2018, said, “there is nothing in these legislative proposals that suggests future assessments...will be in any way streamlined, more efficient, or more effective.” In fact, they will not be.

We know that to be true. We know that to be a fact, having seen the final bill that was jammed through the natural resources committee without even a single amendment from the Conservative side accepted as reasonable being added to the docket.

I often hear members of the government caucus say that the committee worked collaboratively. “Collaboratively” gives the false impression that somehow it was a multi-party process, where amendments from each side were considered and included in the final version of the bill that was reported back to the House of Commons. In fact, we know that not to be true. Not a single Conservative amendment was approved on this particular piece of legislation, and often on other pieces of legislation. I hope this will not be a trend that will continue from now until election time, but it speaks to the type of work that is being done on committees. There is a lot of talk and a lot of rhetoric, but the reality is that very few, if any, Conservative amendments are given their full due so that we can consider them in amending government legislation. It does happen, but it is a rare occurrence.

I know I do this quite often, but I want to end on a couple of points, because I know certain points are made by government caucus members about the record of the previous government and how many pipelines were approved and the concept of the economy and the environment going hand in hand. The Yiddish proverb I would like to use on this one is “One cross word brings on a quarrel.” I want to start a quarrel, not directly, but maybe verbally in the House. My quarrel is that we talk about the environment and the economy going hand in hand, but too often, the rhetoric I hear is as if one unit of the economy has to be lost for a unit of the environment to be gained. That is not the case. Why is it that every time the Liberals talk about the environment and the economy going hand in hand, what they mean is that taxpayers pay more and more every single time? They pay more in carbon taxes and more in CPP premiums and payroll taxes and a higher tax on the goods they purchase. On and on it goes. Every single time, small businesses are paying more because of tax changes the Liberals are introducing, despite lowering the small business tax after they rediscovered their promise. It goes on an on.

The second point I want to make is on the record of the previous government. There were countless pipelines, both oil and gas, that were approved: the Melita to Cromer oil pipeline capacity expansion, the TMX-Anchor Loop oil pipeline, the Cochin oil pipeline, the Keystone oil pipeline, the Alberta Clipper oil pipeline expansion—Line 67, the Bakken oil pipeline, the Line 9B oil pipeline to Edmonton, the Hardisty oil pipeline, the Deep Panuke offshore natural gas pipeline, and the South Peace pipeline, and it goes on and on.

There was an immense record of success in the previous system that existed to approve large-scale projects. These pipelines I mentioned are operational today. We know that the government has overseen the cancellation of the most kilometres of pipeline of any government in recent memory. Thousands of kilometres of pipeline have been cancelled or not approved under its watch. I do not see very many new projects going ahead, aside from Trans Mountain, and being put before the regulator for consideration, that would have a meaningful impact on either the differential or on bringing our natural gas to new markets and ensuring that they reach different parts of the United States and international markets.

This is my concern. The rhetoric does not match the reality. The president and CEO of Suncor and other major energy companies, such as Sierra Energy, are right. There will be no new major industrial energy projects proposed under Bill C-69. It is a flawed piece of legislation. It does not address the underlying need to ensure that the rule of law is respected in Canada. That is the fault and defect in the current Liberal government. It is refusing to apply the Constitution. It is refusing to apply the rule of law and to ensure that the permit that was provided in the case of Trans Mountain is actually followed through on. A permit from a regulator is not worth the paper it is written on if it is not backed up by the rule of law, with the courts ensuring that those who continue to obstruct a project illegally face the judicial system. That is the way it should be done. It should also have clear support from the government that does not involve nationalizing a pipeline in the name of trying, in vain, to get it built, when in fact, it is simply bringing it under the control of the government so it can set the timelines on what happens in the future.

Albertans do not trust the government. Alberta energy workers do not trust it controlling the Trans Mountain pipeline, and because of that, I will be voting against the bill.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 9:40 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that we likely approach the legislation from different world views and ideological perspectives. Regardless of that, I was dismayed to see the Liberals reject the vast majority of the 400 amendments put forward in good faith, after the hard work done in an almost impossible committee situation created by the Liberals.

From our different perspectives and on behalf of the diverse constituents we represent, we wanted to improve the legislation and participate meaningfully in this omnibus bills, which will have a serious impact on the entire Canadian economy and on our future as a country.

I agree completely with the member about her concerns with respect to the multiple areas in which either the minister or commissioners are granted wide discretion, from deciding what a completed application looks like; to when a project gets into the assessment process; to whether more information is required, which enables the minister and the commissioner to stop and start the timeline; and to suspend the timeline for review as many times as they want and indefinitely.

This is reflective of a key thing about the Liberals. They so often say one thing and then do another. Their key argument is that they are in favour of objective, independent science and expert-based decision-making. However, it is clear, with Bill C-69, that they have allowed multiple political influences, and the influence of non-Canadians, on Canadian resource projects that are important to every community in the country.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 9:20 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Lakeland, I oppose Bill C-69, which would have wide-ranging, significant impacts on Canada's oil and gas, nuclear, and mining sectors, and by extension on every other sector in the country.

Bill C-69 does not involve minor tweaks. It is a major overhaul of multiple laws and regulations related to Canada's assessment processes, and it would damage Canada's capacity to attract investment that benefits everyone. Canada is a resource-based economy and is a world leader on responsible resource development.

Those facts are among Canada's greatest strengths and contributions to the world. Canada's exploration and mining sector is a major driver of the economy. In 2016, it contributed $60.3 billion directly to Canada's GDP, 19% of Canada's total domestic exports worth $92 billion, and the employment of nearly 600,000 Canadians. As a sector, it is the largest private employer of indigenous people in Canada, often where jobs and opportunities are scarce, in remote and northern regions.

At the end of 2015, the value of Canadian mining assets at home and abroad totalled $171 billion across 102 countries. From remote and indigenous communities to large cities across Canada, and the Toronto Stock Exchange, the mining sector generates significant economic and social benefits for Canadians. Of course, the oil and gas sector is also a key generator of middle-class jobs and Canada's high standard of living.

The International Energy Agency projects global oil demand will continue to grow, with oil maintaining the largest share of any energy fuel source in the global energy market for decades. The average energy demand is predicted to increase approximately 30% by 2040. For context, that is the equivalent of adding another China or India, the most populous countries in the world, to the current level of global energy consumption.

Canada is home to the third largest oil reserves in the world, with recoverable reserves of 171 billion barrels. Canada is the fifth largest producer of natural gas and has the 19th largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, enough to supply consumers with natural gas for more than 300 years.

The Canadian Energy Research Institute says that every job in Canadian upstream oil and gas creates two indirect and three induced jobs in other sectors across the country. Scholar Kevin Milligan notes that without income derived from the resource boom, Canadian inequality and the well-being of Canada's middle class would be much worse.

The Liberals talk a big game about making life better for middle-class Canadians, but, in fact, the Prime Minister has turned his back on the hard-working men and women who have given so much to our country through responsible resource development. Last year, the Prime Minister talked about phasing out the oil sands, and a couple of months ago, he told the world he regrets that Canada cannot get off oil “tomorrow”. The cumulative impacts of the Liberal-caused uncertainty and their imposition of layers of cost and red tape are driving investment out of Canada.

The Liberals have imposed a carbon tax on everything, which is something that major oil and gas producers are not imposing on themselves around the world, and the anti-energy legislation and policies like removing the tax credit for new exploratory oil and gas drilling last year was at a time when more than 100,000 energy workers had lost their jobs after the Prime Minister chased more energy investment out of Canada than in any other two-year period in 70 years, more than half a century.

The Liberals killed the nation-building energy east pipeline with last-minute rule changes and a double standard of upstream and downstream emissions assessments that they would now formally be imposing on all pipeline reviews with Bill C-69. The Liberals outright vetoed the already approved northern gateway pipeline. Both of those were the only actual new stand-alone proposals for exports to markets other than the U.S. in recent history. They are forcing a tanker ban on B.C.'s northern coast, which is really just a ban on the oil sands and on pipelines, and they have imposed an offshore drilling ban in the north.

Even before Bill C-69 has been implemented, the Montreal Economic Institute says that “The message being conveyed to investors is: ‘Don’t come here to do business. Even if you fulfill all regulatory requirements, you’ll still face many obstacles.” That is exactly what happened to the Trans Mountain expansion because of the Liberals' failures and the Prime Minister's response was to pay $14.5 billion tax dollars for Kinder Morgan to take its $7.4-billion private investment plans out of Canada. It is clear, the Prime Minister's anti-energy policies are chasing energy investment away at historic rates.

Now, the Liberals would pile on even more regulatory uncertainty for investors in Bill C-69. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said that “If the goal is curtail oil and gas production, and to have no more pipelines built, this legislation may have hit the mark.”

In a recent letter to Alberta MLA, Prasad Panda, several associations directly impacted by Bill C-69 outlined the following criteria essential to attract investment to Canada: “Certainty in regulations, in order to plan capital investments of large magnitudes and reach final investment decisions in Canada's favour. Permanence, because if programs or policies are temporary or have an expiry date, they will be deemed too high risk to factor into capital planning life cycles, which span approximately 6-8 years. Certainty in the form of timelines. Performance-based policies, ensuring benefits to communities by tying incentives to performance-based measures such as job creation, research and development, innovation and capital investment.”

These criteria were hallmarks of Canada's regulatory framework for decades, with the most rigorous assessment, comprehensive consultation, highest standards, and strongest environmental protections in the world.

A 2016 WorleyParsons study echoes conclusions of the 2014 benchmark analysis of Canada against the top major oil and gas producing jurisdictions in the world. It confirmed: “Canada is a global leader in environment, Aboriginal relations, and governance of resource use, with state of the art processes, practices, and legislation. Canada is recognized internationally as a nation that has contributed significantly to the development and advancement of regional and strategic environmental assessment since the introduction of the Canadian Directive in 1990 requiring federal departments and agencies to consider environmental concerns at the strategic level of policies, plans, and programs.”

However, every time the Liberals attack the last 10 years of Canada's energy and environmental assessment and evaluation for politics, trying to keep the NDP and Green voters who helped them win in 2015, they empower foreign and domestic anti-Canadian energy activists who are fighting to shut down Canadian resources. It is becoming a crisis, and this debate is a critical policy question for the future of our country. Canada must be able to compete.

Of the top 10 most attractive jurisdictions for oil and gas investment, six U.S. states rank at the top 10 global jurisdictions: Texas, Okalahoma, North Dakota, West Virginia, Kansas, and Wyoming. According to a 2017 World Bank report, Canada ranked 34 out of 35 OECD countries in the time required to obtain a permit for a new general construction project. There are real impacts of falling behind in competitiveness.

In committee, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers representative said:

Canada is attracting more uncertainty, not more capital, and we will continue to lose investment and jobs if we do not have a system of clear rules and decisions that are final and can be relied upon.

...Unfortunately, CAPP and the investment community today see very little in Bill C-69 that will improve that status.

Suncor said, “The competitiveness improvements that we're achieving as an industry through ongoing innovation are being largely negated by the continuously increasing cost of new regulations.”

Paul Tepsich, founder of High Rock Capital Management Inc., said, “I'm not crazy about Canada. We've got taxes going up and regulations going up.”

In committee, the president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada said, “Proponents making billion-dollar investments need to know what the rules are and how they will be implemented. You can't have this certainty knowing that the rules may change midstream in some way.”

The Liberals have already caused a regulatory vacuum for major resource developers since January 2016, and they have exacerbated uncertainty for investors and for workers. With Bill C-69, the Liberals might as well hang a sign in the window that says, “Canada is not open for business”.

Clear timelines and requirements, and predictable rules and responsibilities provide certainty. The Liberals claim Bill C-69 would implement short and clear timelines for reviews, but that is not true. The planning phase, during which the impact assessment agency would determine whether a project is in the public interest, for which Bill C-69 sets some guidelines but leaves wide arbitrary discretion for the minister to define, would add an extra 180 days, which could be extended by 90 days at the request of the minister or Governor in Council. That is before a project can even get approved to start an impact assessment. Bill C-69 also does not establish criteria that a project must meet, or what constitutes a complete application for it to be granted an assessment in the first place.

The bill has been amended so the minister would no longer have the power to veto a project before it can move on to the impact assessment stage, which I support. However, under proposed paragraph 17(1), the minister could still interject opinions about the potential environmental impacts of a project that may or may not influence the impact assessment agency's decision to review. So much for objective, independent, expert-based decisions. Even after the Liberals pass Bill C-69, the parameters of the project list would not even be revealed to the public until fall, and regulations would not be fully implemented until 2019.

When the Liberals ram through this legislation, there will still be ongoing uncertainty for potential proponents of long-term, capital-intensive, multi-billion dollar, major resource projects, following almost three years of the same.

If a project is granted an assessment, there are still no concrete timelines in Bill C-69. Proposed subsection 37(6) states, “The Minister may suspend the time limit within which the review panel must submit the report until any activity that is prescribed by regulations made under paragraph 112(c) is completed.” Bill C-69 would allow the assessment to be stopped and started, and for timelines to be extended indefinitely. Obviously, there would be yet more uncertainty for potential proponents and investors.

In committee, the director of environmental services at Nova Scotia Power, Terry Toner, stated, “while the timelines in the bill provide some guidance for project proponents, the government's goal of process predictability is significantly diluted by provisions in the acts that permit limitless extensions and suspensions.”

Time is of critical value, and it can make the difference between a project built and a project abandoned. We accept that there must be some flexibility, but there must also be discipline and transparency in order to ensure investor confidence in Canadian infrastructure projects.

In committee, the president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission stated, “It is important that we all know, from the get-go, the length of time to get project approval. From our experience, industry can accept a quick 'yes' or 'no' decision. What is unreasonable is to get a 'maybe'.”

Unfortunately, Bill C-69 is ripe for a swath of “maybes” on project applications, because of the potential for suspensions, delays, and uncertainty about measures for applications and outcomes. Clearly, Bill C-69 will not deliver on discipline and transparency in all aspects of the assessment of major resource projects.

According to proposed subsection 183(5) in part 2 of the bill, the regulator may exclude any period of time from the time limit calculations so long as reasons are provided. If resource development proponents have a choice between multiple “maybes” over years of review in Canada and a timely “yes” south of the border, where do the Liberals think their investments will go? Unfortunately, the answer is already obvious in the flight of investment capital from Canada, with U.S. investment in Canada falling by nearly half and Canadian investment in the U.S. going up two-thirds.

While the Liberals claim that Bill C-69 would streamline and clarify the approval of major federal resource projects, its requirements create confusion and unanswered questions. For example, Bill C-69 mandates that proponents must demonstrate “health, social and economic effects, including with respect to the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”.

Obviously, job creation, research and development, innovation, and capital investment from resource development reduce poverty, benefit the economy, and provide revenue for governments and public services such as health, education, and social services, as well as funds for academic and charitable organizations, but I think proponents can be forgiven for uncertainty around how their investments and initiatives relate to identity factors.

It is rich for the Liberals to argue that Bill C-69 would enhance scientific evidence in reviews, beyond what has already been done in Canada's regulatory system. In fact, during committee, Mr. Martin Olszynski of the University of Calgary pointed out that the terms “science” and “scientific” are mentioned only five times in all the 400 pages of this major omnibus bill that the Liberals are using all procedural tools to push through, while rejecting the vast majority of the over 400 amendments submitted by opposition members.

In the process of issuing certificates, the Canadian energy regulator is tasked with establishing a commission and undertaking public consultation. At committee, one of my amendments was adopted, which requires the commissions to make public any reasons for holding a hearing about the consideration of issuing a certificate. However, there still remains uncertainty around the assessment, and Bill C-69 would open the door to foreign influence in these public hearings.

Bill C-69 would enable increased foreign influence on Canadian resource development decisions because of the removal of the previous standing test, which ensured that intervenors in the process either were impacted directly by the project under review, or had specific knowledge or expertise that would contribute to the assessment.

Some claim that foreign groups have always been allowed to participate in Canada's environmental assessment processes, but that is just not true. This has only rightfully been the case for projects that cross international borders. Canada has never permitted foreign interference in the environmental assessment process for interprovincial pipelines or other resource projects in federal jurisdiction that do not cross international borders. However, the removal of the standing test now opens up this process to groups that are either directly or indirectly backed by foreign dollars or by Canada's competitors.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association warned that “[t]here are recent examples in Canada where the absence of a standing requirement has led to highly inappropriate participation that had no probative value with respect to the issues to be decided in the review” and that the elimination of the standing requirement could “be used to clog the hearing process in an attempt to delay projects to the point that they are abandoned”.

Foreign interference in Canadian resources is already growing, to the detriment of all of Canada. Millions in foreign money is funding opposition to the Trans Mountain expansion. It was used to challenge Canadian LNG development opportunities, too, and it is growing as a barrier to Canadian mining.

The Financial Post recently revealed that “Tides has granted $40 million to 100 Canadian anti-pipeline organizations”, which, in return, fight to stop Canadian energy development and access to export markets, disadvantaging Canada against the U.S., its most significant energy competitor and primary energy customer.

Foreign funds are interfering in and influencing electoral outcomes in Canada, too. A report to Elections Canada and Senator Frum has highlighted foreign funding funnelled to third party groups, such as the Dogwood initiative and Leadnow, to defeat incumbent Conservative MPs in certain ridings in the 2015 election, and to fight Canadian resource development.

I support Senator Frum's bill, Bill S-239, which would define foreign contributors, add classifications of foreign contributions, and make it an offence for any third party to accept foreign dollars “for any purposes related to an election”.

However, the Prime Minister defends using Canadian tax dollars to fund jobs specifically for activists to stop the approved Trans Mountain expansion, and he is resisting Conservatives' calls to ban foreign funding in Canada's elections, too, which makes the case that he seems to welcome foreign influences to deliver on his stated objective of phasing out Canadian energy.

Bill C-69 would put Canada's economic future at risk.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers warns that Bill C-69 would harm Canada's reputation as a transparent, stable, predictable, and fair place to do business, and this would risk Canada's ability to be a supplier of choice for world demand of responsible energy in the future.

Suncor's CEO warns that “Canada needs to up its game” to attract investment and to compete with the United States. Instead of upping its game, Bill C-69 is the equivalent of the Liberals folding Canada's hand.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association warns that Bill C-69 would damage Canada's reputation as a priority choice for energy investment. It says:

[I]t is difficult to imagine that a new major pipeline could be built in Canada under the impact assessment act, much less attract energy investment to Canada.

Investment in oil and gas is projected to drop 12% this year from 2017, and the Bank of Canada already says that there will be no new energy investment in Canada after next year, 2019. In the last two years, at least seven multinational companies have divested from Canada's energy sector completely, and many more have frozen existing operations or shelved future plans.

CEPA's CEO says:

Currently there is profound uncertainty in advancing new major pipeline projects. We now have a significant problem as a sector and as a country in accessing new markets for our products around the world. The development of new projects is grinding to a halt. CEPA member companies that have material assets in other countries are actively pursuing those opportunities because of the uncertainty and potential implications of further potentially seismic regulatory changes that will directly impact the pipeline sector. Our sector is suffocating because of it.

It is clear that Liberal red tape and uncertainty are already forcing investors and developers to seek out other markets, causing hundreds of thousands of Canadians to lose their jobs. Bill C-69 would make it worse. The Prime Minister must stop sacrificing Canada's interests to the rest of the world. Canada already has the highest environmental standards in the world and the most responsibly produced oil and gas.

Canada will continue to do so long into the future, if only governments would allow energy, and all responsible resource development, to continue to fuel Canada's economy and contribute public revenue for all levels of government.

Resource jobs are middle-class jobs, so if the Prime Minister truly cares about the middle class, he will stop increasing red tape and imposing policies that drive out investment and the hundreds of thousands of middle-class jobs in every corner of the country that go with it.

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June 12th, 2018 / 9:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the parliamentary secretary's speech, she talked mostly about the navigable waters act, but I want to bring it back to the standing test the NEB used to have. It will be eliminated in this act. Section 183(3), specifically deals with the standing test. The practice of the NEB had been, and I think it was the right one, that persons directly affected by a project that ran through a community should be the ones before the National Energy Board in order to present their views on any proposed project and how it would impact them directly.

I think it was said by the Prime Minister that only communities could give consent, so why not allow those people most locally affected by it to have a direct say in it?

This bill will eliminate that test, and that is actually two steps backwards. As an example, during the Enbridge Line 9B reversal and the Line 9 capacity expansion, the NEB received 177 applications to participate, of which 158 were granted, 11 received an opportunity for a written submission, and only eight were denied. The reason those were denied because they were not directly affected by it.

However, under the model proposed in Bill C-69, even international individuals can come before the new regulator and basically say that they are affected by it directly and therefore permission should not be granted. I think in a great deal of cases Canadians will support local projects because of the jobs and the shared prosperity they benefit from it directly. Therefore, this is two steps backwards.

Does the parliamentary secretary agree with me?

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June 12th, 2018 / 9 p.m.


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Kanata—Carleton Ontario

Liberal

Karen McCrimmon LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I would first and foremost like to thank the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development for its careful study of Bill C-69. I would also like to thank the witnesses and those who have made written submissions for having taken the time to make their views heard. This work has strengthened the bill and has been an important step in getting us to where we are today.

I would like to speak particularly about part 3 of Bill C-69, which would create a new Canadian navigable waters act.

Our country is bordered by three oceans, giving us the world’s longest coastline, and we are internally connected by thousands of rivers and countless lakes and canals.

Canadians rely on our navigable waters. They are vital to our economy and to our way of life. We have a profound relationship with our waters. That relationship is part of what it means to be Canadian.

We need to protect navigation on these waters for our use and enjoyment today, and for the benefit of generations to come.

When the previous government introduced the Navigation Protection Act, many Canadians were concerned that most of Canada's navigable waters were left unprotected. In response to these concerns, the minister was asked to review the changes made by the previous government to restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards.

In June 2016, the review of the Navigation Protection Act was launched. As a first step in this process, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities examined the act. The committee reported its findings and recommendations in March 2017.

I would like to take this opportunity to also thank this standing committee, the witnesses and those who made written submissions for their early input. This input provided the foundation for the new Canadian navigable waters act that was eventually tabled as part of Bill C-69.

During its first year of review, the work of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was complemented by consultations with recreational boaters, as well as other levels of government, indigenous groups, industry, and environmental organizations. What did they tell us? Many of them told us they wanted all navigable waters protected, and that is what we are doing.

Under the existing legislation, the minister has the power to review new projects and deal with obstruction to navigation only if they are on the navigable waters listed in the schedule. However, we believe that all navigable waters should be protected. We promised to restore lost protections, and we are delivering on that promise.

What would this legislation do? The act would include, for the first time, a comprehensive definition of navigable waters. It would provide oversight for all works on those navigable waters in Canada, whether those works are minor, requiring approval, or are subject to the new resolution process.

It would give communities and recreational waterway users more chances to have their say on infrastructure and resource projects that could affect their right to navigation. It would deliver a new level of transparency by creating a new online registry that would make information about projects easily accessible. It would extend the powers to address obstructions to all navigable waters in Canada, not just those waters listed on a schedule.

Finally, the act would advance reconciliation with indigenous peoples, consider their rights and knowledge, and give them the opportunity to partner with the government to manage the navigable waters that would be important to them.

Let me discuss some of these improvements in more detail. As I said, this legislation would include a comprehensive definition of “navigable water”.

The new definition includes bodies of water with public access or multiple shoreline owners that are used for transport or travel for commercial or recreational purposes or by indigenous groups to exercise their constitutionally protected rights.

This new definition strikes the right balance: it is not so broad as to capture any ditch or irrigation canal that could float a canoe, nor is it so narrow as to exclude bodies of water that are important to Canadians.

All works in navigable waters in Canada will be under the oversight of the new act, regardless of whether the navigable water is listed on a schedule or not. Someone building a minor work, such as a cottage dock or a boat ramp, in a navigable water could proceed, provided they build and maintain the work in accordance with the requirements set out in the minor works order.

There will also be some works that will always require approval because of their potential impact on navigation. These are major works on any navigable waters in Canada as well as works on scheduled waters.

I strongly believe users of navigable waters and local communities have a right to express their views about projects that may impact navigation. The proposed act meets a new standard of transparency by requiring owners to notify the public of their project and to seek feedback before beginning construction on any navigable water. In some circumstances, owners could be required to post notice of their project in community centres, marinas, local newspapers, or other appropriate places.

Further, the new Canadian navigable waters act will require the creation of a new online public registry that will make project information more accessible than ever before. For millennia, the indigenous people of Canada have used navigable waters to fish, hunt, trade, and travel, and they continue to do so today. Indigenous peoples played an active role of the review of the Navigation Protection Act.

Transport Canada participated in more than 90 meetings with indigenous groups and received close to 150 submissions. What did we hear from indigenous peoples? We heard that they wanted a say in what happened within their traditional territories.

This past February, the Prime Minister announced his commitment to reconciliation through the recognition and implementation of rights framework. The Government of Canada recognizes that reconciliation is a long-term undertaking. Rebuilding relationships will require sustained government-wide action.

A strengthened crown-indigenous relationship is at the heart of the proposed approach. This new relationship with indigenous peoples is based on respect, cooperation, and partnership.

The act would also provide new opportunities for indigenous peoples to partner with the Government of Canada to protect navigation in their traditional territories. Indigenous peoples have helped to shape the proposed legislation, and I am very proud of the work we have done together.

Whether they are tourists on a river cruise, or cottagers taking the boat out to do some fishing, or kayakers exploring secluded bays, Canadians get a lot of pleasure out of our waterways. However, under the existing legislation, these navigable waters may not be protected for recreational purposes.

Under the new Canadian navigable waters act, a more inclusive schedule will provide a greater level of oversight for navigable waters that are important to Canadians and that are vulnerable to development. The new act proposes a process for adding navigable waters to the schedule that will take into consideration recreational uses, not just commercial ones.

The proposed changes to the navigation legislation will offer better navigation protections for recreational boaters on every navigable water in Canada.

Bill C-69 would not only restore navigation protection for every navigable water in Canada, but it would also position the new Canadian navigable waters act to play an important role in the proposed new impact assessment system.

Bill C-69 would establish the impact assessment agency of Canada to lead all federal reviews of designated projects. The impact assessment agency would work with other bodies, such as the new Canadian energy regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and off shore boards, and in co-operation with the provinces and territories, and indigenous jurisdictions.

The impact assessment agency of Canada would identify the types of projects and areas of federal jurisdiction that could pose major risks to the environment, and would therefore require a review.

A whole range of potential impacts would be considered, not just the project's impact on the environment, but also the impact on communities, health, indigenous peoples, jobs, and the economy in general.

We are finding better ways to measure the potential impact of designated projects to make sure only good ones go forward.

The new Canadian navigable waters act will be transformational. It will restore protection for navigation on all navigable waters in Canada, and it will create a new standard of transparency. It will restore public confidence and it will provide new opportunities for indigenous peoples to partner with the Government of Canada to protect navigation in their traditional territories.

As I wrap up, I move:

That this question be now put.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:50 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his concern for the member for Edmonton Strathcona.

She accomplished a massive amount of work. She is very knowledgeable, thorough, and detail-oriented, and she truly cares about working with other parliamentarians to improve bills that are important to the future, like Bill C-69. She went to committee in good faith and listened to experts and people familiar with the topic. She worked in this field for years. She is familiar with it. She wanted to make this bill as good as possible.

Unfortunately, she was told that they did not want to hear from her. The Liberal government does not listen to the opposition parties. I think the leader of the Green Party had the same experience. Very few of her amendments were adopted. This is quite unfortunate, because we are trying to do a good job, but, once again, the government is not listening.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:50 p.m.


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Conservative

John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON

Mr. Speaker, one of the consequences of the process of Bill C-69 going through the committee was the unfortunate loss of the member for Edmonton Strathcona. She became frustrated with the process because of what she saw as the top-down approach of the PMO and a lot of the committee members having their strings pulled.

I wonder if the hon. colleague could comment on the frustration felt by the member for Edmonton Strathcona as we went through the committee process.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:30 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, again, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-69 on a new impact assessment and environmental assessment process.

I must begin by saying a few words about the approach to adopting this new process. Cloaked in righteousness, the Liberal government set to defending democratic institutions. It sought to give MPs their power and their voice back, respect the work of Parliament, and break from the Conservatives' despicable practice of cutting debates short. The Liberals said they wanted to give MPs time to do their work in order to represent their constituents well.

However, bad habits die hard, and closure has been imposed more than 40 times already. These are what we call time allocation motions that seek to limit the time for debate.

It seems that this bill is important to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. However, the Liberals imposed closure at every stage. At first reading, at report stage, and now at third reading, they gave parliamentarians a maximum of four or five hours before closing debate. We were promised, hand on heart, that a Liberal government would never do such despicable, undemocratic things. It has now become routine.

My Conservative colleague, who is a member of the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development, said that the government was bragging about having collaborated, studied amendments in committee, and listened to the opposition. It also brags about the fact that about 100 amendments were adopted in committee to improve the bill. Congratulations. I just want to point out that 99% of the amendments adopted were Liberal amendments. I have no doubt that that makes things easier.

It is mind-boggling to think that the bill was so poorly drafted and cobbled together, right from the start, that the Liberals were forced to present about 100 amendments in committee to try to patch it up and repair the damage. The bill lacked clarity and was poorly crafted, so it needed a lot of clarifications. That gives you an idea of the process, since government members are almost never required to fix a lousy job from the minister's office.

I would now like to talk about timeframes. It took the government 28 months to come up with a bill for a new environmental impact assessment process. During the campaign, the Liberals said that it was a priority because Canadians lost confidence in the process when it was destroyed and dismantled in the previous Parliament. They claimed that the Conservatives' process turned away from science and that we urgently needed to restore a transparent, valid, and scientific process that people could rely on. It took 28 months to come up with this bill.

During these 28 months, the government continued to sit back and to use the previous Parliament's process, a process that was supposed to be terrible.

What did the government do in the meantime? For one thing, it authorized the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which was Kinder Morgan's priority. How convenient that is for the government. When it wants a project to go ahead, it holds off on establishing a more serious, more credible, more scientific, and more rigorous process. The government used the tool left behind by the Conservatives, a means of fast-tracking and rubber-stamping projects, and was thus able to approve everything and anything.

The Liberals go through the motions of sticking a few bandaids on so it appears different, but they are not fooling anyone. Once again, the government used what it once criticized. This is more proof of the Liberals' hypocrisy.

The Trans Mountain expansion was approved in November 2016. It is now June 2018, and we are once again discussing the new environmental assessment process. Halfway through their mandate, the Liberals still have not passed a bill because they keep dragging their feet, citing consultations. The Liberals had no problem speeding some things through; a more rigorous process would have gotten in their way.

They broke their promise to assess the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion under a new environmental assessment process. While in British Columbia during the election campaign, the Prime Minister swore that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would never be assessed under the Conservatives' rules, yet that is exactly what happened. He also promised to change the voting system and institute democratic reform. It seems to be a bad habit of his. When he solemnly swears something, look out because he is about to flip-flop.

We have a new agency that is based on the old environmental assessment agency, but with more powers and a bigger role. It will be above certain commissions, like the National Energy Board, which will become a commission. That is a step in the right direction we had been waiting for, but we are still concerned about the fact that two organizations we have heard little about, which will exist alongside the new impact assessment agency of Canada, will be getting much more authority and a bigger role. I am referring to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

These two boards are separate, independent assessment committees that are responsible for assessing any drilling that may occur in marine environments, in the oceans, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, potentially, or off the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. That troubles us, because the mission of these two boards is to promote offshore oil and gas development. Their job is not to protect the environment, the seabed, ecosystems, or endangered species. It is to promote oil and gas development off the coast of certain provinces.

This flies in the face of everything the government says about how much it cares about the environment and its claims that it is here to protect our oceans, our natural resources, and our ecosystems. In itself, that is a total contradiction. We in the NDP find this really troubling, and I doubt we are the only ones, judging by the spontaneous reaction of the Green Party leader, who is just behind me.

When you tell a story, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is not complicated. That is what kids learn in school. I want to talk about those three stages in the context of Bill C-69. In the beginning, a decision has to be made as to which projects will be submitted to the new agency for assessment, because all of this has to be good for something. If it is decided that the project will not be assessed because it is not worth it, everything in Bill C-69 and everything that was said about public consultations, indigenous consultations, and considering reports from climate change experts—all of that goes out the window.

As things now stand, and the minister confirmed it in her speech, Bill C-69 does not establish a list of projects. It also does not set out any clear, definitive, and verifiable criteria that would allow us to determine which projects require an environmental assessment. There is nothing about that at all.

From the start, there has been a very serious grey area. The agency can arbitrarily decide for itself what it considers to be important or unimportant.

It is all well and good to have a good process, which as we will see is not as good as all that, but if that process is never used, then it does not do anything more to protect us as Canadians, as people who are concerned about the environment, ecosystems, and global warming.

Take the following oddity, for example. The bill states that if the project is deemed to be a major project, it will fall under the responsibility of the new assessment agency. If it is deemed minor, then it can be reviewed by a commission, such as the National Energy Board. What is the difference between major and minor? There is nothing in the bill about that, so we do not know.

There are things like the steam-based oil sands development technology called “in situ”, which has been completely left out of the scope of the bill and any new environmental assessment. The government says it will not look at it even though it is an increasingly common technology that could have serious impacts. Those impacts could be relatively minor, but for the people living in the indigenous community or the town involved, it does not necessarily take a thousand-litre spill or a huge amount of pollution to jeopardize their health, pollute their environment, or cause a public health issue.

There is no clear explanation for why in situ bitumen extraction was excluded. Knowing what gets assessed and what does not is just the beginning. There are a lot of vague and arbitrary elements. There is very little clarity, and that is what worries us. That is the first problem.

The second problem is with the middle part, the public consultations, the dialogue with indigenous communities, and the appointment of review panels to do the scientific environmental assessment.

Consultations are another novelty of the Liberal process, and on that topic, assessment timeframes are being shortened. Depending on the size of the project, they will drop from 365 days to 300 days. That means that we will lose 65 assessment days. For major projects, the process will drop from 720 days to 600 days, for a loss of 120 days. This Liberal decision was taken in direct response to the demands from investors and private companies.

The decision worried many environmental, indigenous, and citizen groups. They do not understand, if we want a credible, serious process we can trust, why the government is adopting an attitude where it seems to want to expedite things as quickly as possible and satisfy the desires and needs of the industry first and foremost.

The Liberal government is also saying that first nations will have a greater role to play in the assessment process. Connect the dots to what I just said. If we greatly shorten the timeframes of a project and process, it is rather unlikely that there will be enough time to conduct extensive consultations with first nations. Again, they say one thing, but in fact there is a good chance that nothing will come of it or that the process will be flawed or absolutely incomplete.

That is what we know about the duration, the timeframe of the process.

The second aspect is the appointment of these experts we have been talking about to the panels that will carry out these ostensibly scientific, environmental impact assessments. There are many groups, including the Quebec Environmental Law Centre, that are concerned about the fact that the Liberal plan has no mechanisms to ensure that these will not be partisan appointments, that Liberals will not appoint their cronies, and that panel members will not be prone to making recommendations or a report that merely reflects what the government wanted from the start.

It is a simple process that is already in place in other jurisdictions. I am thinking of BAPE in Quebec, which is well regarded and credible, and has this type of mechanism. Here, we get the feeling that the Liberal government would allow the appointment of people who will not really care or who will listen to what the government says and wants.

It is really not that surprising. If I have time, I will come back to Kinder Morgan and the absolutely ridiculous purchase made recently.

While public consultations were being held on the Trans Mountain expansion, while first nations were being told that they were being listened to, that it was important, that they really wanted to hear their perspective, it became apparent that a decision had already been made. The government was already looking for excuses and reasons to legally say that the decision was made and that it would be approved.

Phony consultations were held very recently, and I believe that people should be concerned about the possibility of these partisan appointments to the expert panel.

After the beginning and the middle, we get to the end. Let us say the project has been assessed. Let us say the consultations lasted long enough and were sufficiently credible, although perhaps a bit limited. Let us say the experts really were independent, they did their job diligently, and they prepared a report with recommendations based on science, social licence, the impact on climate change, our ecosystems, and so on. After all that, it is completely up to the minister if he or she wants to dismiss all the recommendations of the impact assessment agency. All of that good work, even if it is perfect—and we already have some misgivings about that—could very well be taken and tossed into the trash, and the project could be deemed in the national interest and approved.

The national interest is being tossed around a lot these days. It can be made to mean pretty much anything. A majority government can simply declare something to be in the national interest since it knows that it can force it through the House either way, and everyone else will have to deal with it. I think it would be in the national interest to listen to experts, scientists, Canadians, and first nations. When the minister of the day has all of this discretionary power, the process can become arbitrary. Say that you like the current Liberal government, and that you trust its environment minister. That is fine, and I am sure there are people out there who feel that way, but once a bill passes, it will not change with every cabinet shuffle, with every federal election, or with every change in government. Things could turn pretty quickly under someone who has a different style or vision of development. I am really being very kind to the sitting minister, who has the instincts of an industry minister rather than those of an environment and climate change minister. Incidentally, anyone claiming to champion environmental protection and the fight against climate change should not go out and buy a 65-year-old pipeline that is already leaking everywhere.

I would like our Liberal colleagues to take out their 2015 electoral platform and show me the part where they told voters they wanted a pipeline so badly that they were prepared to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to buy one if necessary and that Canadians would have to assume all the risks associated with such a project. Let us be clear, Kinder Morgan deemed the project was too high risk. The current Prime Minister even acknowledged that no private company wanted to take on these risks because legal challenges have been filed by British Columbia and many of its first nations.

There are difficulties and challenges with respect to our international commitments under the Paris Agreement and our greenhouse gas reduction targets. The project simply does not make sense. We will be spending at least $12 billion on infrastructure that might be worthless in 25 or 30 years. On top of taking a huge financial hit, we will have invested in the energy source and jobs of the past, when we could have been investing in renewable energy. Those types of investments create six to eight times more jobs. The Prime Minister would have become a leader with a vision for the environment and for sustainable development. Sadly, that will never happen.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:25 p.m.


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Conservative

John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON

Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding a minor hiccup at the end there, Canadians saw in the hon. member for Abbotsford's passion and heard tonight in his speech the truth about Bill C-69 and not the platitudes, rhetoric, and buzzwords used by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

He spoke about the committee. I was there. I actually saw this sham of a committee meeting go on, where every single amendment that the Liberal members of the committee tried to put through was adopted. When the Conservative side tried to move amendments forward to make this bill better, and even when the NDP member for Edmonton Centre tried to move amendments to make this bill better, all of them were lost. They were not accepted by the Liberal members of the committee.

The one thing that is really disturbing about this bill, and I mentioned this when the Minister of Environment and Climate Change was here, is the fact that this consolidates power. It actually would bring the decision-making into the minister and into the cabinet, which effectively means that the potential exists that no further projects would occur in this country. I wonder if the member shares that same assessment.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, as I articulated in my speech, the minister certainly would have the power under this legislation, in Bill C-69, to do pretty well anything she pleases because she would have broad discretionary powers to suspend, extend, and then veto projects, which is the exact opposite of what industry expected the current government to do. People in industry expected there would be more certainty in the process, the process would be science-based, and instead it is something quite different.

To the member's earlier comment on amendments, as I mentioned, every single amendment of the over 100 amendments that the Liberal members of the committee brought forward was passed. None of the Conservative amendments were passed because the committee was not interested in getting this legislation right. It was interested in ramming through legislation that the minister wanted to have through.

By the way, I move, seconded by the member for Barrie—Innisfil, that the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that”, and substituting the following: Bill C-69, 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, be not now read a third time but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development for the purpose of reconsidering all of its clauses.

Mr. Speaker, you will understand why we are doing this. It is because of the sham of a process that the Liberal government undertook to address amendments that were brought forward in good faith by my Green friends in the corner, by the NDP, and by our Conservative members of the committee, most of which were disregarded and treated in a very cavalier manner. This is intended to rectify that and give the House another opportunity to get this bill right.

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June 12th, 2018 / 8:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is poppycock. He talks about consultation with the public, but he left out the members of the House, who Canadians have elected to review this kind of legislation. A government can have all the consultation it wants across Canada, but if it does not provide the elected members of Parliament the opportunity to do their work, that is a scandal. That is why Bill C-69 is a scandal of a process. It has been short-circuited.

The member refers to the process by which the former government introduced bills, which is very similar to the process we have here, where the Prime Minister introduces omnibus bills and he then invokes closure and cuts off debate in the House. Where were the 14 months of consultations and work that the House could do on this bill? Where were they? We were cut short here. Is that the kind of government the Prime Minister leads?

If one were to review the mandate letter that the Minister of Environment received, one would see that there are numerous references to raising the bar on the relationship between the minister and the committees that review her legislation, and on how she relates to the members of the House. None of those mandate requirements were complied with in this case. Again, it is a true shock and scandal to the House.

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June 12th, 2018 / 7:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, here we are again speaking to Bill C-69. The minister pretends the bill is going to wonderfully restore trust in Canada's impact assessment program. That is a myth. In fact, she spent a lot of time talking about the process we needed to establish that would restore this trust.

Let us talk about the process that the minister embarked upon to get the bill through the House of Commons. Rather than consulting broadly, rather than allowing the committee and the House to do its work in the time required to do it well, she and her government invoked closure in the House again and again.

The Liberals introduced a bill they claimed they would never introduce, an omnibus bill. It is a bill that touches on a whole raft of different pieces of legislation, including the Environmental Assessment Act, the National Energy Board Act, and the Navigation Protection Act. Before they were in government, the Liberals said they would never use omnibus bills. Then they present us with one, try to ram this through the committee, and ram it through the House, invoking closure.

I sit on that committee as vice-chair. I know the minister spoke well of the committee. That is because she got her way. The majority of the members on that committee are Liberals. They rushed the bill through. It got so bad that hundreds of witnesses wanted to appear on the bill because it was important to their industries or their environmental movement.

We had heard about 24 witnesses out of the hundreds that wanted to appear, and suddenly, the Liberals on the committee introduced what is called a programming motion. Basically, the programming motion gives a set number of days to hear witnesses, review all the amendments, pass the legislation and send it back to the House. That programming motion was so inadequate. It did not provide anywhere close to the amount of time required to actually evaluate the legislation. It is very serious legislation and it is absolutely critical to Canada's national prosperity and our ability to get Canada's resources to world markets. They could not even spend the appropriate time doing the review.

Over 400 amendments came forward at committee, and over 100 amendments were Liberal amendments. This is the Liberal government bringing forward legislation. It rushes it forward, saying, it has to get this done, that it needs to restore trust, that it will ram it through, but it will introduce some of its own amendments because it got it wrong and it wants its Liberal members to fix the mistakes. One hundred Liberal amendments were introduced, so that was 100 mistakes in the legislation.

That is symptomatic of a failed Liberal government. Of course every Liberal amendment passed. How many Conservative amendments passed? Not one. These were common sense amendments that improved the legislation, to the degree it could be improved because it is deeply flawed legislation.

Here is something else, and I think Canadians need to hear this. It is the hypocrisy of the Liberal government. The government has said that it supports the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and has said it will implement that in Canadian law. Members of the NDP and Green Party who were at committee brought forward 25 different amendments where UNDRIP would be incorporated into the legislation, the way the Prime Minister promised when he ran for government.

How many times do members think the Liberals on a committee voted in favour of UNDRIP being incorporated into the legislation? Zero. Is that hypocrisy? I think we can all agree that he spoke out of both sides of his mouth. That is the whip coming from Gerald Butts and his team, who were sitting behind the Liberals telling them exactly how they should vote at committee.

This was the process that was supposed to restore trust in our impact assessment review process. This legislation went through a process that was a sham. The stakeholders across Canada who expected to be heard on it were not heard. We, as members of the committee, were not allowed to speak and debate many of the amendments that were brought forward, because we were cut off by this programming motion.

That is just the context of Bill C-69, the supposed efforts by the government to introduce Bill C-69, which was to restore trust in our environmental review process. It has done nothing of the sort.

Let me talk about the bill itself. We have talked about the flawed process that was followed to actually get this bill through. I am assuming the same rushed process will be imposed in the Senate. This bill has three main parts. It addresses the environmental assessment approval process. It also creates a new Canadian energy regulator to replace the former National Energy Board, and it also fixes what the government believes are flaws in the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

Let me talk about the last one first. In 2012, the former Conservative government identified that the Navigable Waters Protection Act had not been reviewed or amended for 150 years, basically going back to the time of Confederation. This was legislation that was so antiquated. Now the environmental movement had taken the Navigable Waters Protection Act and had treated it as an environmental piece of legislation. They would always trot it out and say the Navigable Waters Protection Act prevents one from doing this and this, and this. “We are protecting the environment.”

However, the Navigable Waters Protection Act had nothing to do with the environment. It was all about transportation on Canadian waters, and making sure that navigation was free and open across Canada. Think about going back 150 years and how transportation has changed. Think about that. This legislation had not been changed.

Therefore, the Conservative government went about modernizing that legislation and it was excellent legislation. It improved the process in which we address navigation issues, especially as they relate to areas of our country that are subject to farming, and farmers, who could not get work done on their lands because of antiquated navigation laws.

However, there is a second piece. That was the Canadian energy regulator. Think about this. This is what the Liberals do. This characterizes the Liberals. They took the National Energy Board, one of the most competent and capable boards of its kind in the world, in fact noted around the world, and sought out for its expertise in the world, and created a whole new Canadian national energy regulator. Imagine that. Was it necessary? Of course not. It is another make-work project for the Liberal government, more costs, hundreds of millions of dollars of additional costs to create this new organization to implement a new environmental review process. Who pays for that? It is the taxpayers.

The government promised that this legislation, Bill C-69, was going to shorten the timelines in which resource projects would be reviewed and approved. Okay. People took them at their word. What came out of the sausage maker? Wow, what a mess, just like sausages look like quite a mess as they are being made. This legislation was the same.

The government said that these new timelines shortened the actual environmental review process, the assessment. However, it tacked on 180 days at the beginning called the “planning phase”, which of course has extended the time frames involved far beyond what people expected.

Beyond that, within the legislation itself, the government incorporated numerous opportunities for the minister to exercise her discretion to extend or suspend a timeline. Therefore, throughout this process that a proponent goes through there are opportunities for the minister to say, “I want to suspend the process right now because I have some concerns about that and that”, and the proponent has no power to prevent that. The minister also has a right to say, “I'm going to extend the timelines. Notwithstanding our government's promise that it was going to be a shorter assessment process, I'm going to extend it. I have the power in this new legislation to do that.” Therefore, the time frames are actually longer, and the certainty is much less because of the amount of discretion given to the minister in this legislation, contrary to what the government had promised.

At the end of this process, the planning phase and the environmental review process, one would think that decisions would be based on science, and that would be it, we have moved to a fully science-based process. No. The government has reserved unto the minister the right to veto a project at any point along the line, including at the end of the environmental review process, again undermining certainty for the investment community, which is shopping its money and investments around the world saying, “Where is there a warm and welcoming environment in which we can do business, where we drive prosperity for the people of that nation, and we are able to build critical resource projects and infrastructure that gets those resources to market?”

This bill does not live up to its billing at all. The timelines are longer and the discretion is greater, as is the uncertainty for the people who want to move forward with resource projects.

It gets worse. Do members remember the minister saying that the government wants this process to be more streamlined, more welcoming, and with certainty for proponents of research projects in Canada? Bill C-69 includes a host of new criteria that will now be applied to those who want to get projects approved, including upstream and downstream impacts of things such as pipelines.

It gets worse. On top of that, the government has included a provision that says that every project must take into account the impact that project will have on Canada's greenhouse gas emission targets under the Paris Agreement. If we were thinking of sending a message to the world that we are open for business again, this would be the wrong way of doing it. Bill C-69 does not do that in any way. We have heard some of my colleagues quote organizations in Canada that are focused on resource projects and that have lamented the fact that Bill C-69 is a huge step backward, and that no further pipelines will ever be approved in Canada based on the legislation as it is.

We tried to improve the legislation at committee. It is not like we sat on our hands and said that it was a fait accompli. We worked very hard. We brought forward about 100 amendments that would have improved this legislation, made it more timely, made it more certain, and made it a vehicle that would attract investment to Canada. What did our Liberal friends across the table do? They voted against every single one of those amendments. That is what we are dealing with, with the Liberal Party.

It gets worse. Let us talk about the precautionary principle, which is also incorporated into this legislation. A lot of people do not understand what the precautionary principle is. Effectively, what it is saying is better safe than sorry.

In other words, if there is anybody, whether it is the minister or someone on the minister's staff or someone in industry or someone in the environmental movement, who says that they think this project, before it has ever been assessed based on the science, it could be a danger to Canadians' health or the environment, the precautionary principle would dictate that the project would not go ahead.

The minister has the power to use the precautionary principle to simply say, “I am not allowing this project to go ahead.” The proponent could say, “Well, Madam Minister, we have all this evidence, scientific evidence that we have paid millions and millions of dollars to secure. This scientific information will prove to you that this project can be built and operated in an environmentally sustainable way.” The minister could say, “No. Precautionary principle. Better safe than sorry. Bye, bye.” That is what is included here.

Members may recall that there was a lot of complaining by the Liberals during the last election that somehow the environmental review process did not allow for enough people to become engaged in the process. What did the Liberal government do? It changed what is called the “standing test”. The standing test is very simply the rules under which Canadians and others are entitled to appear as intervenors before an impact assessment review.

Members can imagine what this would be like, if we had no control over who could be an intervenor. If any Tom, Dick, or Harry in the world wants to appear before an environmental review process but has no direct nexus to the project, or cannot prove that they have an interest in that project, why would we allow that individual to line up in this queue of people wanting to intervene?

What the Liberals have said is, “We are going to open this wide up. We don't care how many people come to be intervenors. If special interest groups use large numbers of intervenors to basically slow down the process, drag it out, and discourage investment, so be it.” That is what we are left with now in Bill C-69, a deeply flawed piece of legislation that has introduced numerous new opportunities for special interest groups to delay and obstruct projects that are of a national interest.

Let us talk about projects of a national interest. The government says that this legislation is going to attract all kinds of investment. We know industry is saying, “Absolutely not. There will not be one more pipeline built in Canada.” Now we have a pipeline, the TMX pipeline, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which was approved in Canada, which was ready to be built, but, as usual, there are special interest groups that say, “Notwithstanding that there is a process, like Bill C-69, a process that is supposed to be legal, supposed to be fair, we will disagree with the decision, and we are going to fight this all the way. We are going to protest, lay our bodies down in front of the bulldozers.” On and on it goes. That is what we have with Kinder Morgan.

We have a Prime Minister who does have some options. He is, after all, the Prime Minister and has constitutional powers. One of those is the declaratory power under the Constitution. He has the ability to state that a project is in the national interest, and that supersedes provincial powers. Under the BNA Act, interprovincial pipelines are considered federal projects. The federal government has a right to intervene and promote. Rather than doing that, our Prime Minister says, “I am not going to exercise my constitutional powers. I am going to see if somebody else out there in the world will buy this pipeline, because TMX wants to sell it, wants to get out of it.”

Did he find any takers? None. What he says to taxpayers is, “I want you to pay this bill. I am going to pay $4.5 billion for this pipeline, even though its book value is only $2.5 billion.”

The cost is $2 billion more than the book value of that pipeline. That is what Canadians now have from the government. We have bought ourselves a pipeline, where all of the risk now falls on the shoulders of Canadian taxpayers.

This is awful legislation and we were never given the time to properly assess, review, and amend it. That should be a shame on this Liberal government.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 7:50 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech. Sometimes I have trouble following the Liberals' logic. The minister just reminded us that previous Conservative governments gutted the environmental assessment process, that they broke the trust of Canadians, and that they removed science from the process. Then, all of a sudden, as soon as they took office the Liberals used the very environmental assessment process they are criticizing to approve the Trans Mountain expansion.

The Liberals will say that they tried to fix it up, but no one believes them. It was the same thing. Bill C-69 was introduced a year and a half later, after the Trans Mountain project was approved using the Conservative approach that the Liberals are criticizing. That makes no sense whatsoever.

The question I would like to ask the minister is this. Let's say I give the Liberals the benefit of the doubt and that the process really is better than it was before, even though we have our doubts. How is it that Bill C-69 does not include a list of projects that will be assessed and does not contain any clear and definitive criteria for determining which projects will be assessed? Why do we not know how that will be decided?

It is all well and good to have a good process, but if no projects are ever assessed, then it is useless.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 7:45 p.m.


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Conservative

John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON

Mr. Speaker, if there is anything Bill C-69 speaks of, it is another broken promise by the Liberals, given the fact this is again another omnibus bill. However, it really does fulfill a prophecy that has been stated widely by the Prime Minister. He said it in Peterborough and Paris about moving to an alternate based economy. In fact, his inside operatives, the de facto prime minister in the country, Gerald Butts, has said that it is not about alternative pipelines; it is about an alternative economy.

What is most disturbing in the bill is the consolidation of power, a consolidation that would give power to the environment minister and to cabinet to basically destroy any project that comes forward. It gives them unilateral control of this.

Will the Minister of Environment and Climate Change stand in the House and finally admit that it is your intent to destroy the oil and gas industry in the country and not to protect it?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 7:30 p.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

moved that Bill C-69, 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, be read the third time and passed.

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I wish to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe peoples.

I am very pleased to once again address the House in support of Bill C-69. This is a key priority of our government. With the bill, we are keeping our promise to put in place better rules to protect our environment and build a stronger economy. It reflects our view that the economy and the environment must go hand in hand and that Canada works best when Canadians work together.

I am going to speak about why our government introduced the bill, and why there is a clear need for better rules to protect our environment and govern how decisions about resource development are made. I will talk about how the bill's balanced approach addresses the priorities of indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and how it delivers what Canadians expect.

I will also describe how our better rules will benefit all Canadians, how they will lead to a cleaner environment for our children, more investment as good projects go ahead, and more jobs and economic opportunities for the middle class and those working hard to join it.

We made a commitment when we formed government to regain public trust and help get Canada's resources to market. We committed to put in place new, fair processes that would ensure major project approvals are based on science and indigenous knowledge, that serve the public interest, and that allow good projects to proceed.

Why is this so important? Madam Speaker, $500 billion in major resource projects are being planned across Canada over the next decade. We need rules and processes in place that will allow these projects to move forward. Under the previous system, people lost confidence in Canada's environmental assessment processes.

Since participation in the review of major projects was limited, some Canadians were not able to contribute their knowledge and expertise.

The decision-making process was opaque, and Canadians began to fear that decisions on projects were being made based on political considerations, not on science and evidence.

Furthermore, after amendments were made to the Fisheries Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act, Canadians discovered that major protections had been lost, leaving Canada's fish, waterways, and communities at risk.

The changes made by the previous government eroded public trust and without public trust, it became very difficult for good projects to move forward. Weaker rules hurt both our environment and our economy.

All these changes eroded public trust, and without public trust, it became very difficult for good projects to move forward. Weaker rules hurt both our environment and our economy. If Canada wants to capitalize on the next wave of resource development, we need better rules that reflect Canadians' priorities and concerns, provide certainty, and foster the competitiveness of proponents operating in Canada, while respecting our responsibility to protect the environment.

Knowing this, we introduced interim principles in 2016 to guide our government in reviewing major projects until we could put the better rules in place.

To rebuild trust in the environmental assessment process, our government launched a 14-month review involving two expert panels and two parliamentary committees. Input from provinces and territories, indigenous peoples, companies, environmental groups, and Canadians from across the country informed a discussion paper released in June 2017 and, ultimately, helped shape the approach set out in this bill. What we heard through those panels and committees is that Canadians want a modern environmental assessment and regulatory system that protects the environment, supports reconciliation with indigenous peoples, attracts investment, and ensures that good projects go ahead in a timely way to create new jobs and economic opportunities for the middle class. We have also heard from industry about the importance of a clear and predictable process.

Bill C-69 would put in place the better rules that Canadians and companies expect. Thanks to indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians who contributed their knowledge and perspectives, this bill would help rebuild public trust through key improvements that include decisions that are transparent and guided by robust science and indigenous knowledge; project reviews that consider a wide range of positive and negative impacts on the economy, health, indigenous rights, and communities, in addition to the environment; more timely and predictable review processes; measures to advance reconciliation and partnership with indigenous peoples; reduced duplication and red tape through a one project-one review approach; and through amendments to the current Navigation Protection Act, restored protection for every navigable waterway in Canada. It also complements Bill C-68, which proposes changes to the Fisheries Act to ensure it provides strong and meaningful protection for our fish and waters.

As I said, we made a commitment to restore public trust in Canada's environmental assessment system, to restore the protections that were lost, and to make sure that Canadians can trust the review process and its results.

It is essential that we ensure that all decisions are transparent and serve the public interest in order to restore trust. That is exactly what Bill C-69 would accomplish.

Under the previous system, Canadians had no idea how decisions were made. Under our new rules, Canadians can rest assured that all major project reviews are done fairly and based on evidence, that all decisions serve the public interest, and that good projects will go ahead.

Bill C-69 would clarify that project approval would be based on the impact assessment report. Decisions would also have to fully consider the factors that informed the review, as well as key public interest factors, including the project's contribution to sustainability and impacts on indigenous rights. That means all final decisions would need to have a clear basis in facts and evidence.

That alone is a major advance over the previous system, but even this important step is not enough to restore trust if Canadians are not informed about how final decisions have been made. To build that trust whenever a final decision is made on a project, a public statement of the rationale for that decision would be issued. That statement would clearly demonstrate to Canadians how the assessment report formed the basis for the decision and how factors like sustainability were taken into account.

To make good decisions, we need good processes that take into account a broad range of considerations. Bill C-69 provides clarity on the factors that would guide project reviews. We know that the impacts of major projects go beyond the environment alone. Projects also affect Canada's economy, our health, and our communities. They can also affect indigenous peoples and their rights.

Our government also recognizes that not all effects of major projects are negative. They also have positive impacts, like creating well-paying jobs for local communities. That is why under our new rules, both positive and negative consequences, economic, environmental, social, and health, would be taken into account. At the same time, tailored guidelines for project reviews would ensure they focus on factors relevant to the specific project.

These improvements will help improve the decision-making process and enhance public trust. Indigenous people, businesses, and the general public will know ahead of time what factors will guide project reviews. These reviews and the resulting assessment reports will the provide the basis for the final decisions.

Public decision statements will provide Canadians with the assurance that key factors were properly taken into consideration and that all decisions serve the public interest.

Without the support and partnership of indigenous peoples, there is no way to move forward with major resource projects. This is not optional. It is integral to ensuring that indigenous peoples, and all Canadians, can benefit from increased jobs and investment.

That is why Bill C-69 fully reflects our government's commitment to a renewed relationship with indigenous peoples based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership. This has been a focus of our government from the very beginning. We have taken important steps to put that commitment into action.

For example, we announced our full support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, we are working in partnership with indigenous peoples to develop a new recognition and implementation of rights framework, and we are making major new investments in education, health, infrastructure, and indigenous communities.

This bill puts our commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People at the forefront, in the preambles of impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act.

It also states that, when exercising their powers under the impact assessment act, the government, the minister, the agency, and federal authorities must respect the government’s commitments with regard to the rights of the indigenous peoples of Canada.

The new Canadian energy regulator's mandate will specify that it is to exercise its powers and perform its duties in the same manner.

Indigenous peoples, as well as stakeholders and the public, would have meaningful opportunities to participate in project reviews from the start and throughout the process. Recognizing the important contributions that indigenous knowledge makes to project reviews, our bill would make it mandatory to consider this knowledge alongside science and other evidence in every assessment, and would require transparency about how it was taken into account and used. At the same time, it would provide strong protection for the confidentiality of indigenous knowledge across all parts of the bill.

I have said that our better rules are designed to help good projects move forward to get Canada's resources to market. Companies have told us what they need to make sure that happens: clear, timely, and predictable processes that provide certainty at every stage.

Under our proposed legislation, one agency, the proposed impact assessment agency of Canada, would be the federal lead for all major project reviews. This would mean more consistent, more predictable reviews for all projects. At the same time, the agency would work closely with regulatory bodies so that their valuable expertise could continue to inform assessments.

A revised project list would provide clarity for companies, indigenous communities, environmental groups, municipalities, and all citizens on how our new rules would apply. We have consulted with Canadians on the criteria that would guide that revised list, and we will be consulting again in the fall on the proposed list itself.

Our bill would require a new early planning and engagement phase before an impact assessment could begin. This new phase would help companies identify and address issues early on. It would result in a clear set of products to guide the impact assessment. These would include tailored impact statement guidelines that are scoped to reflect the scale and complexity of the project, a co-operation plan, an indigenous engagement and partnership plan, a public participation plan, and a permitting plan.

While a broad set of factors would be considered in early planning, the tailored guidelines would reflect only those that are relevant to the specific project. Following early planning, proponents would be notified if a project is likely to have unacceptable impacts. This would not stop the process. Instead, it would allow the company to make an informed decision about whether, or how, to go forward with the project in the impact assessment process.

As I have said, companies would have a clear understanding of what would be taken into account in the review itself, including positive and negative effects on the environment, the economy, health, and communities. Companies could also be certain about how final decisions are made. They would be based on the assessment report, and on consideration of key public interest factors, including the project's contribution to sustainability. This would be clearly demonstrated through public decision statements.

To provide the timely decisions and reviews companies expect, Bill C-69 sets out clear time limits for each stage of the process, including the new early planning phase. That includes 300 days for reviews carried out by a review panel with input from a life cycle regulator. When justified, more complex projects may take up to 600 days. This is a major improvement over the 2012 Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the CEAA, which allowed up to 120 days for all reviews carried out by review panels.

This bill will also reduce red tape and prevent duplication through opportunities to collaborate with the provinces. It provides for joint assessments in which a single assessment process can meet the requirements of several levels of government. The bill also provides for substitution should a process carried out by another level of government satisfy the federal government's requirements.

Bill C-69 will facilitate a smooth transition toward the new impact assessment system. The bill would set objective criteria to determine which projects will continue to be reviewed under the 2012 CEAA, give companies the option to go through the new process, and confirm that nobody will ever be sent back to square one.

This bill would also provide certainty and help restore public trust by providing opportunities for public participation at every stage of the review process.

When it comes to resource development, public trust and support are essential for projects to move forward. That will not happen if Canadians are not able to take part in project reviews. Bill C-69 would remove the “standing test” imposed by CEAA 2012, so that a broader range of Canadians could contribute their knowledge and perspectives.

With the new early planning and engagement phase, Canadians would be able to make their voices heard from the beginning.

Bill C-69 would provide for the public and for indigenous peoples to participate in a meaningful manner, and would ensure that they have the information and tools they need and the ability to share their thoughts and expertise.

The bill would strike a balance between allowing for meaningful participation and the need for assessments to be completed in a timely manner.

Canadians want projects to be approved based on scientific facts and indigenous knowledge. Our government is committed to adopting policies based on evidence, and Bill C-69 is proof of that.

This bill includes a clear commitment to implementing the act in a way that respects the principles of scientific integrity, honesty, objectivity, rigour, and accuracy. This is perfectly in line with our strong commitment to science and shows that we intend to implement this act.

Bill C-69 also provides for regional and strategic assessments. These studies would inform project reviews by looking at crosscutting issues and cumulative impacts, those that go beyond any one project. To ensure they can play an important role in our impact assessment system, these reviews would benefit from the best available advice and fully take into account indigenous knowledge. We are committed to moving forward with these assessments, beginning with a strategic assessment on climate change.

As we transition to the new system, we will invest up to just over $1 billion over five years to support the proposed new impact assessment regime and Canadian energy regulator; increased scientific capacity in federal departments and agencies; changes required to protect water, fish and navigation; and increased indigenous and public participation.

I am extremely proud of our government's work on this bill. It is the result of extensive public engagement and fulfills the commitment we made when we formed government: to rebuild public trust and get Canada's resources to market sustainably.

I want to acknowledge that many people have contributed to the development of this bill. Of course, I want to recognize the indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians who participated in our 14-month review process, as well as those who have continued to engage after we introduced the bill.

I also want to recognize the members of this House who have contributed to debate on Bill C-69 and its further development. In particular I want to express my appreciation for the members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. Their efforts in hearing from witnesses and amending the bill have resulted in important changes that have strengthened the legislation.

Throughout this process, the government and the standing committee worked on adopting a balanced approach that addresses the priorities of indigenous peoples, the industry, environmental groups, and other stakeholders. I think that, together, we succeeded.

Through this balanced approach, our better rules will protect Canada's environment, help good projects move forward, and recognize and uphold the rights of indigenous peoples. I think all of us in the House can support that.

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Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 7:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Madam Speaker, that, quite simply, has nothing to do with the topic at hand. The issue at hand is how the current government is weakening fish habitat protection, hurting Canada's fisheries, and will be layering its new fisheries act on top of Bill C-69. It will drive industry and investment away from this country, and it is especially going to harm rural communities, the kind that I represent.

As spoken

Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 6:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Madam Speaker, it is no secret that foreign investment has been fleeing and will continue to flee Canada at an alarming rate. I have seen this first-hand in my dear hometown of Calgary, Alberta, where we have seen the exit of organizations and of corporations such as Murphy Oil, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, and I can go on and on with respect to the foreign investment that has fled. That is even prior to the installation and royal assent of such damaging legislation such as Bill C-68, which we are discussing today, and Bill C-69. The government has to take responsibility for the investment that is fleeing Canada and ruining the lives of Canadians.

As spoken

Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 6:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Madam Speaker, I was on the fisheries committee back in 2012 when the changes were made. I helped author them. I was also on the fisheries committee when the Liberal government tore apart extremely good legislation. I have also had the honour of being in the environment field for over 35 years and did pipeline assessments. My colleague is exactly right about how carefully pipelines are made these days.

Just as an aside, I would recommend my colleague get on the fisheries committee, she is so competent in this field.

I was also on the environment committee recently when we looked at Bill C-69, and the horror stories from industry are legendary. Chris Bloomer from the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said that Canada had a toxic regulatory environment. He talked about pancaking regulation on top of regulation. It is an environmental lawyer's dream. The lawyers are the ones who will to get rich.

Could my colleague talk about the effect of this and other acts on Canada's investment climate?

As spoken

Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 6:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Madam Speaker, tonight I would like to focus my attention on the detrimental effects Bill C-68 would have on development. Before I do so, I want to point out to those listening at home that the government has once again moved time allocation.

When the Liberals were in opposition, they absolutely railed at the thought. They used every tactic in the book to disrupt and to stall debate. Now, however, it seems that every time the Liberal government House leader has a chance, she moves time allocation in an effort to limit our free speech.

This bill is completely unnecessary and, as the House has heard from my colleagues, this matter was studied in depth at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. In fact, it was the minister himself, in 2016, who asked the committee to examine the lost protections in the Fisheries Act.

After months of debate, do members know how many witnesses testified on lost protections? It was none. Zero. Not a single one. Now the Liberals have brought forward this unnecessary legislation, which is already expected to cost close to $300 million to implement. I want to clarify that as part of our previous government's economic action plan of 2012 and in support of the responsible resource development plan, changes to the Fisheries Act were introduced and received royal assent in November of 2013.

The legislative changes we, on this side of the House, made to the fisheries protection provisions of the act supported a shift from managing impacts to all fish habitats to focusing on the act's regulatory regime on managing threats to the sustainability and ongoing productivity of Canada's commercial, recreational, and aboriginal fisheries.

Prior to these sensible amendments, all fish, and consequently all potential fish habitat, regardless of economic or social value, were covered under the Fisheries Act. This created a system that was impossible to manage, and created impediments to the most minor work on ditches, flood prevention etc. This creates an incredible amount of red tape for towns and municipalities, and means completely unnecessary hardship for Canadians trying to simply go about their business, and protect their property, a fundamental Canadian right.

The Liberals' approach to the legislative, regulatory, and policy framework governing infrastructure projects would cause a competitive disadvantage for all Canadian companies and would be felt by local governments across the country. I would also like to point out that the Liberal strategy of layering broad policy considerations into environmental regulations, such as Bill C-68 and Bill C-69, would lead to a marked decrease in investment and competitiveness for Canada's energy sector, as though it could possibly get any worse. This threatens the sector's sustainability and its contribution to Canada's future social, economic, and development objectives.

What the Liberals have done is put forward a piece of legislation with a bunch of “fill in the blanks” or “to be considered” slots, and asked Canadians to trust them. Unfortunately for business, this approach does not work and only serves to undermine industry.

In relation to the authorizations pursuant to the Fisheries Act, it is uncertain as to the types of projects that would require approval and potentially trigger an impact assessment pursuant to Bill C-69. Depending on forthcoming codes of practices and regulations, there could also be the need for additional approvals for low-impact activities, and the result would be a longer process with no different outcome than is achieved under the current legislation.

The unknown of the project specifics that would trigger approvals pursuant to the Fisheries Act is most concerning since it has a strong likelihood to impact all project development, not just those projects requiring assessment by the proposed impact assessment agency.

Former Liberal cabinet minister, the Hon. Sergio Marchi, who is now the president and CEO of the Canadian Electricity Association, has made it clear that he sees Bill C-68 as a missed opportunity. In its press release, the CEA stated:

...Bill C-68 represents one step forward but two steps back.

CEA is particularly concerned that the government has chosen to return to pre-2012 provisions of the Fisheries Act that address ‘activity other than fishing that results in the death of fish, and the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction (HADD) of fish habitat’. In practical terms, this means that virtually any action, without prior authorization, could be construed as being in contravention of this Act. Consequently, the reinstatement of these measures will result in greater uncertainties for existing and new facilities, and unduly delay and/or discourage investment in energy projects that directly support Canada’s clean growth agenda and realize its climate change objectives.

Bill C-68 is a missed opportunity for the federal government to anchor the Fisheries Act on a reasonable, population-based approach rather than focusing on individual fish, and to clearly define fisheries management objectives.

Regarding criteria for project designation, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans heard from the Pembina Pipeline Corporation and were told of a number of alternative measures that could be used to lessen any environmental impact. Unfortunately, it seems any suggestions fell on deaf ears as the committee refused all 20 amendments put forward by my colleagues.

Pembina is a Calgary-based pipeline corporation that has provided transportation and midstream services to North America's industry for over 60 years. Sixty years is not a small amount of time in the span of Canadian history. In fact, it has one of the best integrated pipeline systems in the entire world and transport hydrocarbon liquids, natural gas, and natural gas products all over Alberta.

In its brief to the committee, it highlighted that pipeline associated watercourse crossing construction practices and technology had in fact come a long way over the last few decades. These processes are state-of-the-art, and horizontal directional drilling is a perfect example of a technology that is widely used and eliminates environmental impacts of a pipeline crossing waterways.

I will not go into the complete detail on the briefing submitted by Pembina, but I will say that this bill is unnecessary. It would create more bureaucratic red tape and would only serve to hinder development. In fact, the legislation is so very ambiguous that Pembina cautions that the Liberal government is virtually ensuring future conflict among indigenous communities because it has not considered the complexity of overlapping traditional territories.

On this side of the House, we support the protection of our oceans and fisheries. Our previous changes to the Fisheries Act were enacted to support transparency in the decision-making process and provide a level of certainty to those invested in the act.

The Liberals have done the exact opposite with Bill C-68. As usual, what they say is not actually what they do. They have said that they are restoring harmful alteration or disruption or the destruction of fish habitat. However, they sidestep any obligation to uphold the HADD regulations in the legislation by providing the minister with the ability to exempt certain provisions.

I want to reiterate also that Bill C-68 seems to undermine transparency and due process by allowing the minister to withhold critical information from interested proponents, and this goes against the Prime Minister's commitment to openness and transparency.

There is no way the Conservative Party of Canada will support this burdensome bill that serves no purpose other than to check off an election promise from the Liberals' 2015 red book.

As spoken

Department of Public Works and Government Services ActPrivate Members' Business

June 12th, 2018 / 5:45 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-344, an act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act regarding community benefit. While this bill has commendable intentions, it is my great concern that it will actually have a negative impact on our communities and the small and medium-sized construction businesses that employ so many Canadians. In my opinion, this private member's bill continues the Liberals' assault on SMEs by adding another layer of red tape to federal government contracts.

Just last week, I spoke on Bill C-69 and the Liberals' changes to the Navigation Protection Act contained within that bill. Like Bill C-344, the changes to the NPA would add more red tape and cost for project proponents and the construction companies that do the work. While this private member's bill may be smaller in scope and thereby seen as less problematic for small and medium-sized businesses than the government's omnibus bill, Bill C-69, it still reflects a worrying trend by the government.

The Liberals' mentality seems to be that they can add any amount of new taxes on businesses and that it will have no effect on their bottom line or the price they charge their customers or, on this occasion, that they can attach any amount of red tape on businesses' activities and they will happily absorb the administrative burden. This is not the case. There are consequences every time a government does this, just as there are benefits every time a government reduces taxes or cuts red tape for job-creating small and medium-sized businesses. If passed, this bill would pertain to those projects and the subsequent contracts awarded by the federal Minister of Public Services and Procurement.

I will talk about the substance of narrow scope of the bill in a minute, but for the moment, I will speculate about why the Liberals, through this private member's bill, have limited the application of the bill in such a way. It could be that the Liberals actually know that applying these principles more broadly would generate a larger backlash among the construction industry and the many partners that often work with the federal government to fund projects. It could be that Liberals want to use this private member's bill as a virtue-signalling talking point in order to win over a certain segment of the population. It could also be that some Liberals actually realize that slapping this requirement onto all federally funded projects would have a negative impact on the construction industry, as I have already identified, and as a result, they have decided to limit the damage to a more narrowly defined category of projects.

As I mentioned earlier, this private member's bill covers a limited number of projects and contracts of which the federal government is a partner. This private member's bill would amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act and would not apply to the projects that the federal government supports through the department of infrastructure. Still, the government's support of this bill is something that the construction industry and the federal government's partners should be aware of and concerned about.

Looking at the substance of the bill in a bit more detail, I find the level of ambiguity contained in Bill C-344 troubling. In clause 1 of the bill, the section creating new subclause 20.1(2) states, “The Minister may, before awarding a contract for the construction, maintenance or repair of public works, federal real property or federal immovables, require bidders on the proposal to provide information on the community benefits to be derived from the project.” First, this clause says, “The Minister may”. “May” is a small word, but it sure has huge implications. Right there, we have uncertainty. This rule will not be constant. How will bidders know if this requirement will be applied?

Next, the new subclause 20.1(3) states, “A contracting party shall, upon request by the Minister, provide the Minister with an assessment as to whether community benefits have derived from the project.” Here we have more ambiguity, particularly in the needlessly vague and nebulous term “community benefit”. How is a bidder to determine what constitutes “community benefit”?

As we heard from the question I asked the sponsor of this bill, he could provide no definition. How is a bidder to know whether said benefit will meet whatever subjective criterion the minister choses to employ? When the bill states, “upon request by the Minister”, there is no certainty for the bidders or ultimately the successful bidder. This means that if this bill were to pass, people bidding on a contract will have to price into their bid the risk of being required to do or produce what the minister wants without knowing what that may be.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, I think the intent behind Bill C-344 is commendable. However, it leaves me wondering how the Liberals feel about charity and social responsibility, and whether they have considered the law of unintended consequences.

I would like to quote from Michael Atkinson, President of the Canadian Construction Association, who appeared before the transport, infrastructure and communities committee when this bill was being studied.

Regarding corporate social responsibility, Mr. Atkinson stated:

Corporate social responsibility is becoming something that we are looking at very earnestly in our industry. It's a very important part of doing business today. We have a how-to guide coming out for our contracting members in the industry, but CSR is not social procurement. CSR is a voluntary program that a corporate entity takes on to ensure that what it does as a company meets environmental sensibilities, good HR practices, etc. Social procurement is a government coming out and saying, “If you want to do business with us, then you have to have a CSR policy.” I think that's a very important difference.

Mr. Atkinson highlights a very important distinction. Businesses in general, and many companies in the construction industry, already make investments in their local communities as part of their commitment to corporate social responsibility. I believe that it is important that in this conversation about community benefit, we do not minimize the benefit that communities are already receiving from businesses of all sizes. The picture painted by those in the Liberal Party and the NDP is that corporate Canada simply takes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Corporations, big and small, give back to their communities. They provide jobs to families in the communities in which they operate. However, beside this very basic economic support, small, medium and large businesses sponsor community events, support local infrastructure, and provide support to non-profit community groups like sports teams. They do this not out of obligation or necessity but out of an appreciation for the community they work and operate in, and sometimes live in, because they know they are part of the community. They do not need to be told how to be good corporate citizens. Most already are.

Of the reasons that I will not be supporting Bill C-344, the most notable are that I believe it minimizes the support and benefits that already accrue to communities when a project is undertaken in their backyard, that it is needlessly ambiguous, and that it fails to consider the unintended consequences that may arise from its implementation.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—Leadership on Climate Change and Clean EnergyBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


See context

Liberal

Robert-Falcon Ouellette Liberal Winnipeg Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, a lot of the environmental programs we see do not have to be a windmill or solar power panels we see outside buildings. In fact, they can actually be about energy efficiency and the things we do on a day-to-day level to ensure that we actually save energy and use the good types of energy.

For instance, our government is ensuring that we are a model for sustainability by greening our government. We are on track to reduce the government's own greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and by 80% by 2050. Even when I was in the Canadian Armed Forces, there were many times, 20 years ago, when someone would leave the door open. We would be heating the outdoors, because someone thought it was too hot, and we were not able to actually turn down the heat. The government today is actually reviewing a lot of the policies on how we conduct ourselves in our day-to-day operations to see if there are energy savings. It is listening to people on the ground, asking civil servants, and even our military personnel, what we can do to ensure that we can meet that target. That takes a lot of effort, because it is going to be an effort by all Canadians to ensure that we actually get there.

I am proud of our government. Not only are we committed to those agreements but we are intent on actually trying to achieve those targets. It is not simply empty rhetoric. It is actually something we hold in our hearts to be true that we will get there if we work day in and day out, and we are doing that.

We are passing a number of bills that are repairing the damage from the decade of darkness. We are engaging with our international counterparts to ensure that we are going to be meeting those targets. For instance, we are changing legislation through Bill C-69 and Bill C-68. We have also introduced Bill C-74, and the list goes on.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—Global Climate Change and Clean Energy LeadershipBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.


See context

North Vancouver B.C.

Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Mill Woods.

I am very pleased to stand in the House today to discuss the motion of my colleague, the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

I appreciate the call for Canada to be a global climate change leader. I agree, and Canada is. However, this motion fails in a number of areas, including its failure to recognize the actions the government has taken in ensuring that the environment and the economy go together as we build a clean energy economy. Our government has been steadfast in its belief that a strong economy and a clean environment go hand in hand. The NDP motion completely ignores the historic investments that the government has made through successive federal budgets that specifically address Canada's environment, coastlines, waterways, and wildlife, as well as the introduction of government legislation such as Bill C-69, Bill C-68, Bill C-57, and Bill C-74, which would further strengthen our ability to protect the environment and grow the economy in sustainable ways.

Today, I will highlight the global market for clean technologies and the enormous opportunity Canadians are already taking advantage of that is estimated to be in the trillions of dollars, with demand only increasing, and at an incredibly rapid pace.

This is an area I personally know very well, having spent the past almost 20 years as a chief executive officer and senior executive in the clean technology and renewable sector. The clean technology industry presents significant opportunities for Canadian businesses from all sectors of the economy. That is why investing in clean technology is a key component of our government's approach to promoting sustainable growth and to addressing key environmental challenges.

Our government also recognizes that clean technology is a source of good, well-paying jobs for Canadians. Therefore, when it comes to clean technology, Canada has the opportunity to be a true global leader, creating good, well-paying jobs for Canadians, while helping to meet our climate change and other important environmental goals.

Clean technologies are central to Canada’s low-carbon, globally competitive economy that provides high-quality jobs and opportunities for our middle class and those working hard to join it.

Clean technologies are by definition innovative technologies. Our government understands that innovation is a key driver of economic success. That is why we developed an innovation skills plan that will assist in making Canada a world-leading centre for innovation.

Today, clean technology already employs over 170,000 Canadians, and we sell about $26 billion annually in goods and services. Of that $26 billion, about $8 billion is exported.

Clearly, there is a strong appetite for Canadian innovation, but we have only just scratched the surface and there is so much more room to grow. That is why our government set aside more than $2.3 billion for clean technology in budget 2017. For the record, that is Canada's largest-ever public investment in this field. Prior to making this historic investment, we worked closely with industry to develop a comprehensive strategy that will successfully accelerate the development of the sector.

This $2.3 billion will support clean technology research, development, demonstration, and adoption and the scaling up of our businesses.

We know that access to financing fuels the growth of companies and provides the capital needed to hire new staff, develop products, and support sales at home and abroad, which is why we have set aside $1.4 billion in new financing for clean-tech providers. This is in addition to the $21.9 billion investment in green infrastructure, which will create jobs and position Canada for the low-carbon economy of the future.

We have also allocated $400 million to recapitalize Sustainable Development Technology Canada. This fund is helping our Canadian businesses develop world-class expertise in clean technology engineering, design, marketing, and management. To date, the fund has invested $989 million in 381 Canadian companies, supporting projects across the entire country. The funding has helped these companies develop and demonstrate new clean technologies that promote sustainable development, including those that address environmental issues, such as climate change, air quality, clean water, and clean soil.

There is also the Business Development Bank of Canada with its $700 million commitment to help clean technology producers scale up and expand globally. Since mid-January, I am pleased to say that four investments worth $40 million have been made. Through our participation in mission innovation, the Government of Canada will work with the international community to double federal investment in clean energy research and development over five years.

These are very significant and substantive investments, and we will drive for strong results. The government will carefully monitor the results of its investments both in terms of economic growth and jobs, as well as the environment.

Through a new clean-tech growth hub within Innovation Canada, the government will streamline client services, improve federal program coordination, enable tracking and reporting of clean technology results across government, and connect stakeholders to international markets. The clean growth hub is the government's focal point for all federal government supporting clean technology. Since launching in mid-January, the hub has served over 450 companies. This one-stop shop is a major innovative win for government that industry is already recognizing as a key step forward.

The 2017 Global Cleantech Innovation Index, which investigates where entrepreneurial companies are most likely to emerge over the next 10 years, ranked Canada fourth, up from seventh in 2014. Further, in January of this year, the Cleantech Group released a Global Cleantech 100 list. The list recognizes the clean-tech companies that are most likely to have significant market impact over the next five to 10 years.

Under the Harper government, Canada's share of the global clean-tech market shrunk by half. In partnership with the clean-tech industry, we have successfully turned this around. This year, a record 13 Canadian clean technology firms comprised the top 100. All the winning companies are clients of the Canadian trade commissioner service, and seven of the 13 companies are Export Development Canada customers.

We know that is only a small sampling of the innovative clean technology companies that are doing amazing work every day across the country to create economic growth, and solve our most pressing environmental challenges.

For example, in Montreal, GHGSat has developed the technology to monitor industrial greenhouse gas emissions using satellite technology. They launched their first satellite in 2016. In my own province of British Columbia, Carbon Engineering is developing a process to turn carbon dioxide in the air into a clean fuel. I could go on and on, speaking about all of the fantastic and innovative clean technology companies working across the country in so many industries and sectors of the Canadian economy.

In order to ensure their continued success, we will continue to collaborate with all stakeholders and jurisdictions across Canada to meet our climate change commitments and bring innovative and competitive clean technologies to market.

We have developed strong international linkages that promote Canadian technology as solutions to global challenges and attract private sector investment. This government is focused on scaling our great Canadian clean technology success stories, and in the process, helping to solve the world's most pressing environmental challenges.

As we move forward, the Government of Canada will continue to be a strong partner for clean technology producers. Our government is incredibly proud and impressed by the innovative work being done by the entrepreneurial women and men working in this sphere and we will continue to support them and their work, and with their success, generate future wealth for Canadians, while safeguarding the environment for future generations.

Partially translated

Opposition Motion—Global Climate Change and Clean Energy LeadershipBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 12th, 2018 / 10:40 a.m.


See context

Northumberland—Peterborough South Ontario

Liberal

Kim Rudd LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his motion. In many ways, I thought he did a great job in his opening comments and in his motion of summarizing our government's record to date, as well as our vision for Canada's future in this clean growth century.

Among other things, his motion acknowledges our commitment to making Canada a global climate change leader, and rightly so. After all, we did not just sign the Paris accord on climate change; we helped to shape it.

Then we took a leadership role in the creation of Mission Innovation, a new global partnership that is accelerating clean energy solutions like never before.

We sat down with the provinces and territories. We engaged with indigenous peoples. We consulted with Canadians on how best to reach our climate change targets. The result was the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, which lays out a path to the clean growth, low carbon economy, a blueprint for reducing emissions, spurring innovation, adapting to climate change, and creating good, sustainable jobs across the country, the very things the hon. member opposite prescribes in his motion. However, we have not stopped there.

We continue to make generational investments in clean technology and innovation as well as foundational science and research. We are making similar unprecedented investments in the green infrastructure that supports clean growth. At the same time, we are putting a price on carbon and accelerating the phase out of coal. All of this leads me to think the hon. member opposite wrote his motion by taking a page out of our policy book. That will become even clearer as this debate proceeds.

Over the course of today, a number of my colleagues will speak to specific elements of the motion, including our comprehensive efforts to combat climate change, such as our record investments develop clean and renewable sources of energy, our focus on promoting energy efficiency, and our plan to protect Canada's oceans and coastal communities.

I would like to begin as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources by setting the scene, explaining how the many moving parts fit together, and how Canada's abundant natural resources, including our vast supply of energy, are a key piece of the clean tech puzzle.

The world is in the midst of something that has only happened a few times in history, a fundamental shift in the types of energy that power our societies. The page of that transition may vary from country to country, but it is under way and it is irreversible.

Climate change is forcing all of us to think differently about how we power our factories, heat our homes, and fuel our vehicles, and about the importance of using both traditional and renewable energy more efficiently.

This is not just another issue. We are not talking about tinkering with a particular government policy or deciding whether to build a road somewhere. We are talking about the future of our planet. We are talking about creating an entirely new direction for our economy, redefining how we see our connectiveness to other nations, and about the importance of global action.

That is why our government is taking action. This year alone we have invested in smart electricity grids, electric and alternative fuel for charging stations, more energy efficient homes, and help for northern communities to move off diesel. Each of these takes us a step closer to the future we want, a country driven by clean technology and defined by innovation.

We are also reimagining carbon by turning otherwise harmful carbon dioxide emissions into valuable products, such as building materials, alternative fuels, and consumer goods.

Just last week we heard exciting news reports about a company on the west coast that had found a way to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and turn it into a low carbon fuel for vehicles at an economical price of less than U.S. $100 per tonne. That is where Canadians are taking us with their ingenuity and their imagination. This is the kind of innovation that will transform our economy and create great green jobs for years to come.

Then there is energy efficiency, an area that is too often overlooked. According to the International Energy Agency, improving energy efficiency could get us almost halfway to our Paris commitments. Just think of that: halfway. Thus is why we have proposed new building codes that will require our homes and offices to do more with less and transform the use of energy in the country for generations.

Canadians are helping to lead the way with innovative and novel ways to reduce our energy consumption. Our government is investing in those opportunities but there is still plenty of work to be done, which is why we continue to invest in our traditional sources of energy, and why we continue to develop our vast oil and gas reserves as a bridge to tomorrow's low-carbon economy.

There are two reasons for that. First, as the IEA also tells us, global demand for energy will increase by 30% by 2040. That is like adding another China in terms of energy demand. Even under the most optimistic scenarios for renewable energy, and even with our best efforts at enhancing energy efficiency, much of that increased demand identified by the IEA will have to be met by fossil fuels. The fact is the world will continue to rely on oil and gas for some time, meaning that our conventional energy is not “increasingly obsolete”, as the hon. member opposite would have us believe.

The second reason for developing our oil and gas resources is so Canada can leverage the revenues it generates to invest in our low-carbon future. I will have more to say on that in a moment, but first I would like us to return to the motion before us.

I presume the hon. member opposite's reference to fossil fuel infrastructure is a thinly veiled reference to our government's decision last month to secure the Trans Mountain pipeline and its expansion. Even on that score, I would argue that the hon. member is playing catch-up to our government. Let me explain.

As all members of this House know, our government approved the Trans Mountain expansion and Line 3 replacement pipelines based on the best science, the widest possible consultations, and Canada's national interest. Those decisions were made as part of a sensible policy that includes diversifying our energy markets, improving environmental safety, and creating thousands of good middle-class jobs, including in indigenous communities.

However, what the member opposite may have forgotten is that we made two other key decisions at the same time. First, we rejected the northern gateway project because the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for an oil pipeline. Second, we placed a moratorium on tanker traffic along the northern B.C. coastline, including around the Dixon Entrance, the Hecate Strait, and the Queen Charlotte Sound.

All of those decisions reflected balance, and our belief that economic prosperity and environmental protection can, and indeed must, go hand in hand, and that there must be a balance. The Trans Mountain expansion pipeline is part of that balance. It is part of the plan that I described earlier using this time of transition to Canada's advantage by building the infrastructure we need to get our resources to global markets and then using the revenues they generate to invest in cleaner forms of energy. By moving more of our energy to tidewater, our producers will have greater access to global markets and world prices, which according to analysts at Scotiabank and others, could add about $15 billion annually to the value of our oil exports.

In addition, the construction and operation of the pipeline is expected to generate as much as $4.5 billion in new federal and provincial government revenues. Those are new tax dollars to pay for our hospitals and schools, to build new roads and bridges, to fund our cherished social programs, and yes, to invest in clean technology and renewable energy.

The TMX pipeline will operate within Alberta's own 100-megatonne cap on greenhouse gas emissions, making the project consistent with Canada's climate plan. For all those reasons it was essential that our government take the necessary steps to protect the project from the political uncertainty caused by the Government of British Columbia. However, as the Minister of Finance has said, our plan is not to be the long-term owner of the TMX pipeline. We know that the TMX pipeline has real economic value and we fully expect that investors will want to be part of the project's future. In fact, we are already seeing that. A number of investors, including indigenous groups, have expressed interest in taking an ownership position.

This is all part of a well-begun journey to our clean energy future, a journey that started as soon as we formed government and set about restoring public confidence in the way major resource projects, such as the TMX pipeline, are reviewed.

One of the first ways we did that was by adopting an interim approach for major projects already in the queue. These principles include assessing direct and upstream greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project, expanding public consultations and indigenous engagement, and recognizing the importance of indigenous knowledge, all the while ensuring that no project proponent would have to return to the starting line.

This new approach led to a number of significant breakthroughs. For example, we led the single deepest indigenous engagement ever for a Canadian resource project in Canada, and we responded to what we heard from those consultations by co-developing an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee to oversee the lifespan of the TMX pipeline, as well as an economic pathways partnership to enable indigenous workers to reap the benefits of the projects. Both are Canadian firsts. Our government also appointed a special ministerial panel to hear from Canadians whose views may not have been considered when the National Energy Board concluded its review of the TMX project.

In the end, we approved the project and accepted the NEB's 157 binding conditions as part of our larger plan for clean growth. It is a plan that combats climate change, protects our oceans, invests in clean technology and energy, restores investor and public confidence, and advances indigenous reconciliation.

We introduced legislation, Bill C-69, as a permanent fix to the way environmental assessments and regulatory reviews are carried out in Canada. We have also launched a historic process to recognize and implement inherent indigenous rights, a new approach that will renew Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, rebuild indigenous nations, and set a real path to indigenous self-determination based on mutual respect and partnership. We have tabled budget after budget that promotes clean growth, improves opportunities for indigenous communities, and supports fundamental science. Our budget this year builds on its predecessors by encouraging businesses to invest in clean energy and use more energy-efficient equipment. It also invests in cybersecurity for critical infrastructure, such as energy grids and information networks.

Budget 2018 recognizes that Canada will not get ahead if half of its population is held back, that investing in women is not just the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do.

Our government has matched its words with actions, investing to build exactly the kind of future that the hon. member opposite envisions, one where science, curiosity, and innovation spur economic growth. All of these things I have talked about today are part of a solid plan, a balanced practical plan, one with many elements but a single goal: making Canada a leader in the global transition to a low-carbon future by creating the prosperity we all want while protecting the planet we all cherish.

I know the hon. member opposite shares those same goals. His motion speaks to our vision, and I hope he will continue to support our efforts.

As spoken

Report StageFisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 11:15 p.m.


See context

Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak on Bill C-68 tonight. The comment that was made earlier this evening from one of my colleagues across the floor was that he was happy that a member from the west coast or a coastal riding was getting up and speaking about this. I am not picking on him for any reason, but I think it highlights one of the issues we are having with this bill. There seems to be a lack of knowledge or scope when it comes to our friends in the Liberal government not understanding the ramifications and implications that the decisions they are making with this bill will have on every region of the country. That is why we are seeing many of the rural members of Parliament from the Conservative side getting up to speak to this bill, because it will have very real and profound consequences on our rural communities.

I want to back things up prior to 2012, when these changes to the Navigable Waters Act and the Fisheries Act were made by the previous Conservative government. I recall I was a journalist at that time in a small community newspaper throughout southern Alberta. I remember covering numerous council and town hall meetings hosted by rural municipalities that were having significant issues when when it came to dealing with culverts, small bridges, drainage ditches, seasonal waterways, and irrigation canals, and the hoops, bureaucracy, and red tape they had to go through to try to complete some of those projects.

Prior to 2012, municipalities had to go through labour-intensive regulatory requirements when it came to areas of what was then called “navigable waters”. They were forced to endure lengthy delays, because the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was inundated with thousands of applications from municipalities that were waiting for it to come and make decisions on their projects, not to mention the length of those delays. It proved extremely costly to these municipalities that were having to endure these very long wait times. I would think many of us who have rural municipalities in our ridings understand that many of these municipalities are extremely small. They simply do not have the financial or staffing resources to be able to handle the workload and amount of paperwork that comes along with a Department of Fisheries and Oceans assessment. Therefore, our rural municipalities were coming to the previous Conservative government with these problems and issues with respect to managing their own lands. That is when the previous Conservative government came up with these changes to try to reduce some of that regulatory burden. We wanted to turn the focus to ensuring that the protections in that legislation focused on the most critical fish and fish habitat in navigable waters. At the same time, we wanted to take some of that regulatory burden off some of the waterways that probably never had fish habitat and would never have fish habitat, but were still under the same regime and regulatory layers of bureaucracy that any river, stream, ocean, or lake would come under, when we were just talking about drainage ditches and irrigation canals, for example.

When we talk about some of the changes that were made, I think we need to highlight that the act maintained a very strong regulatory regime and protected very important fish habitat, but it had more of a practical scope. It reduced that administrative burden on not only municipalities, but also the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It had now freed up a lot of its time and resources to focus on the most important cases and waterways without having to deal with very minor projects for municipalities. However, it also empowered municipalities to be the environmental stewards of their own waterways. When it comes to those types of projects and waterways, who would be better to be the stewards of those lands than the municipalities, the councils, and their staff, who are on the ground each and every day? They know the history. They have that local knowledge. They know whether it is fish habitat. They know if it is a seasonal waterway. Certainly, they know that better than a bureaucrat in Ottawa. Therefore, I think it was a win-win situation for the municipalities, as well as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Now we are faced with these changes in Bill C-68, which would expand the definition of fish habitat, expanding it even wider and more broad than it was prior to 2012. That is very disconcerting in the fact that it was burdensome and difficult to deal with and almost impossible to enforce prior to 2012. How difficult will this be when not only we restore it to the previous definition, but have even expanded that definition to a much wider scope. It has re-engaged a lot of those same regulations, but it also introduces something that is new, which is designated projects. This will include any projects within a category that could impact any waterway, whether it has a specific impact on a known fish habitat or not.

What is even more concerning for our stakeholders, municipalities, farmers, and ranchers is the fact that there is no definition on what a designated project is. This is really a larger narrative that we have seen from the Liberal government. It rushed through this legislation without doing all the homework and all the background work first so that it tabled a complete document that everyone could understand exactly where they stood. The legislation is very clear. The rules and regulations are very clear. There are still some very large holes in it with which stakeholders are very concerned.

The other issue, which is a large narrative with some of the Liberal legislation we have seen, is the minister would have more expanded and broader powers. This is very similar to what we have seen with Bill C-69.

We now have proponents in the energy sector that are divesting themselves of the energy sector because they do not feel there is a clear path to success. If they do apply for a project, whether it is pipeline, a mine, a forestry initiative, LNG, they could go through the regulatory process, through every environmental review, could pass all of those things, but at several steps during the process, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change would have the authority to step in and tell them to go back to the beginning. The minister could cut it off right there and tell them the project was not in the public interest or it was not something that could be supported. That would be the end of that project.

There is no clear definition of how to reach success or if there is a definitive pathway that people would know their projects would not succeed. We cannot have those types of projects at the whim of one person. That is very similar to what we see in Bill C-68 where the minister would have similar powers.

This is a crippling burden for municipalities that do not have the resources or the infrastructure to deal with these things. Imagine the burden and the impact it will have on farmers and ranchers who absolutely do not have the wherewithal to handle some of these issues.

Prior to 2012, a farmer in northern Alberta explained to me that he had a spring run-off area that went through his field. He would put a couple of 2x4s down during the spring so he could drive his machinery over it when he sprayed or seeded. However, Fisheries and Oceans came to him before 2012 and said that it was a waterway because it could float a canoe or a kayak. Certainly it could for about two weeks in the spring, but the rest of the time it was dry. He had to build a bridge over that seasonal spring runoff area. We are not talking about a river for the last pirate of Saskatchewan to float down the plain. This was simply a spring run-off. He was very concerned that he would have to go back to this. This will very burdensome to him.

Again, this goes back to the narrative that the Liberal government implements knee-jerk legislation, without doing the due diligence, without having an idea of what the ramifications will be and the unintended consequences, or doing the economic impact analysis of these decisions and what they will have on other sectors.

This is again another attack on rural Canadians. It is not science-based, front of package labelling, food guide, carbon tax. These changes will impact our rural communities, farmers, and ranchers who are struggling just to stay in business. Now there is a potential trade war with the United States.

For farmers and ranchers in rural municipalities, their livelihoods depend on healthy waterways, lakes, rivers, streams, aquifers. No one would take better care of these waterways than those who are on the ground, rural Canadians, farmers, and ranchers.

As spoken

Report StageFisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 9:45 p.m.


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Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Madam Speaker, this is a very interesting discussion and there have been some good speeches this evening.

I will start by saying there are two pieces of federal legislation aimed at protecting the quality of Canada's fresh water. These laws implement Ottawa's clearly stated constitutional jurisdiction and responsibility in two specific areas: navigation and the fishery. I am speaking of the Navigation Protection Act, formerly the Navigable Waters Protection Act and soon to be renamed the Canadian navigable waters act by virtue of Bill C-69, which passed at report stage today and is on its way to passing at third reading. The second piece of legislation, of course, is the Fisheries Act. These two laws are really the basis of federal water policy. Often water policy comes more out of provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government has something to say about water policy, and it is through those two main pieces of legislation.

Navigation and fishing were key aspects of life at the time of Confederation and remain significant today in our diversified modern economy. This is no doubt the reason that jurisdiction for both navigation and the fishery were given to the central government, this plus the fact that, as Pierre Trudeau famously said, “Fish swim,” which means they cross provincial boundaries, as do marine vessels for that matter.

Based on the speeches I have heard here and on what I know to be the Conservative narrative, it is fair to say the Conservative opposition does not see these two laws broadly as environmental laws. This is despite the fact that both laws govern and protect the aquatic environments on which vessels traverse and in which fish live. The Navigation Protection Act and the Fisheries Act are part of a grouping of four federal laws that are the basis of federal environmental policy in Canada, a grouping that includes the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which is being renamed the impact assessment act under Bill C-69, and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which has just gone through its five-year legislative review at the environment committee under the very able stewardship of the member for King—Vaughan.

It was the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Fisheries Act that the Harper government targeted for revamping in order to restrict their scope and significance for the environment. The Harper government amended the Navigable Waters Protection Act twice, including at one point changing its name to the Navigation Protection Act. The first time it restricted the act's scope was in a 2009 omnibus budget bill, and the second time in a 2012 omnibus budget bill.

I know members find it hard to believe that the Conservative government would ever do that, but yes it did use omnibus budget bills and they were not necessarily encompassing only financial matters. The 2012 omnibus budget bill by the Conservative government removed broad Fisheries Act protections for all fish habitats, stipulating that the act would from then on only prohibit “serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery, or that support such a fishery”.

Incidentally, Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative government used the 2009 omnibus budget bill, if I am not mistaken, to also weaken the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which is why the government had to bring in Bill C-69 to strengthen environmental assessment in Canada and to regain the trust of Canadians regarding the federal government's commitment to protecting the environment.

I know the Conservatives are unhappy with government budget bills when they have too many pages, and call them omnibus bills, but there is no comparison—Madam Speaker, you will recall, you were in the House—to the blatant manner in which the previous government stretched the meaning of budget bill to effectively cover everything from banks to canoes and sailboats to trout, shellfish, and crustaceans. That is what the Liberal platform objected to: the Harper government's semantic elasticity with regard to the notion of a budget bill.

Bill C-68 rolls back the changes the Harper government made to the Fisheries Act. As has been mentioned by others, the bill protects all fish and fish habitat. The definition of “serious harm to fish” is also being removed.

Those carrying out projects would be generally responsible for avoiding harmful alteration, disruption, and destruction of fish habitat. However, when proponents are unable to completely avoid harm to fish, an authorization permit with conditions may be issued by the minister to allow a project to proceed without contravening the act. I wonder if the opposition is critical of this ministerial discretion, given its criticism of ministerial decision-making power in Bill C-69.

It is important to note the distinction in Bill C-68 between designated projects and routine projects. I have not heard that distinction mentioned on the other side. Designated projects would always require ministerial approval. These are of course expected to be large-scale projects. Currently, under the bill the previous Conservative government was responsible for, projects requiring authorization are determined on a case-by-case basis, which adds complexity and uncertainty for business.

As for routine smaller projects, published codes of practice would provide advice to proponents on how to avoid project impacts on fish or fish habitat. Although the regulations defining designated projects have not been created, I imagine irrigation canals or flood canals on farms would not be considered major, large-scale projects, like dams. I believe they would be considered routine projects, and farmers could just avail themselves of a guide of best practice and do the best job they possibly could. There is a bit of fearmongering on the other side about what the impact of the bill would be on farmers, who are indeed very much the backbone of a large part of the Canadian economy.

Laws are all well and good, but enforcement is always the key. The government will invest $384.2 million to ensure the capacity to enforce the Fisheries Act. Among other things, this money would go toward increasing the number of front-line fishery habitat officers.

Also worth mentioning, Bill C-68 would empower cabinet to make regulations for the rebuilding of fish stocks. It would also empower the minister to make regulations for the purposes of the conservation and protection of marine biodiversity. Again, I am curious to know whether the opposition objects to ministerial discretion in these cases.

Significantly, the bill requires that the government consider the rights of indigenous peoples and traditional knowledge when making decisions about fish habitats. This supports the government's priority on reconciliation with Canada's indigenous peoples.

Finally, Bill C-68 would ban the capturing of whales, dolphins, and porpoises for the purpose of keeping them in captivity. This should be welcomed by those who hold to the protection of marine wildlife. They are people like the beluga specialist, Dr. Pierre Béland, who is the world's most well-known expert on the beluga whale, and who was actually involved in an aqua-hacking conference in Toronto this past weekend. Aqua hacking is a process by which we look for solutions to problems, like pollution affecting our waterways.

Lastly, it is worth noting that extensive consultation was undertaken to arrive at the measures we are debating today. There have been two rounds of online public consultations, and over 100 meetings with partners, stakeholders, and indigenous groups. In 2016, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asked the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to review the previous government's changes to the act. This review resulted in 32 recommendations, which helped shape Bill C-68. This is on top of all the debate that took place in 2012 around changes to the act undertaken within the context of a rather egregious so-called budget omnibus bill.

As spoken

Report StageFisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 8:45 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak tonight to Bill C-68, the new Fisheries Act. Although I grew up, and still live, far from the coast, my family has deep history in coastal fisheries. My mother's family, the Munns, once controlled the cod fishery of Labrador. My great uncle William Azariah Munn was what one might call a cod liver oil baron. Luckily, my mother hated the stuff so much that she did not force it on me and my siblings.

Getting back to the bill, the bill comes from a Liberal promise in the last election campaign when both the NDP and Liberals ran on platforms that included the repealing of Conservative legislation that gutted all of the environmental protections of federal legislation. We are very happy the Liberals have finally acted on this, although I am not sure why it took so long.

The bill would finally restore protection for all fish across Canada. When I say all fish, I would like to point out that under the previous Conservative legislation, all fish were not created equal. Only those fish that were part of a commercial or indigenous fishery were protected, and they were not protected as strongly as they were in the past. I am happy that some of our rarest and most vulnerable fish species, like the speckled dace of the Kettle River, are now protected in this manner once again.

In the past, the Fisheries Act was the strongest piece of legislation that actually protected habitat in Canada. As many here know, I was a biologist in my past life, and I spent a long time working on ecosystem recovery plans and species at risk. Time and again, my colleagues would point out that the only legislation, federal or provincial, that effectively protected habitat, was the Fisheries Act. As a biologist who worked on land, I was always a bit jealous of my fisheries colleagues since there was little or nothing that had the same power of protection for terrestrial habitats.

This habitat protection was at the core of earlier versions of the Fisheries Act. The Conservatives took this habitat protection out in 2012 through Bill C-38, one of their omnibus budget bills. This action resulted in a huge public outcry, and among the voices were four former fisheries ministers, including one of my constituents, Tom Siddon, a former Conservative fisheries minister. He wrote an open letter to the government, urging it to keep habitat protections in the act.

This new act is still deficient in a few ways regarding habitat. For instance, while it talks about the water in rivers and lakes as fish habitat, it does not discuss the amount of that water. That is clearly important. Increasingly, low water levels in our rivers and lakes are causing difficulties for fish. Many of our fish require good quantities of clean, cool water, and more and more often they are faced in late summer with low levels of warm water that can be lethal to fish, especially to salmonids.

This act also does not address the habitat conflict between wild salmon stocks and the practice of open-net salmon farms. We should be moving in an orderly fashion toward closed containment farms to isolate fish health issues caused by the farms that impact wild salmon stocks under the open-net regime.

Bill C-68 empowers the fisheries and oceans minister to make management orders prohibiting or limiting fishing to address a threat to the conservation and protection of fish. Of course, I am fully in favour of this power, but I wonder how often it would be used, despite the fact that it would likely be recommended on a regular basis by scientists.

Fish are consistently treated differently from terrestrial species in conservation actions. As an example, of all the fish species assessed as threatened or endangered in recent years by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, less than half have actually been placed on the Species at Risk Act schedules. If a terrestrial species is in trouble, it is generally added to the list as a matter of course. However, but if a fish is in trouble, it is out of luck. This attitude has to change.

As well, the bill would give a lot of discretion to the minister to make decisions based on opinion rather than on scientific evidence. This practice must be limited and only used in exceptional circumstances. I am always concerned when it is enshrined in legislation and seemingly encouraged, as it is here and in other recent legislation, such as Bill C-69 on environmental impact assessments.

I am happy there is a provision in this act to give the DFO more resources for enforcement. I hope some of those resources can be used to rebuild the DFO staff that used to be found throughout the British Columbia interior to promote fish habitat restoration and rebuilding fish stocks.

There are no DFO staff left at all in the Okanagan and Kootenay regions now, despite the fact that there are numerous aquatic stewardship societies across my riding that used to have a great relationship with DFO and its work, and which benefited from that work. Volunteer groups that are devoted to aquatic habitats on the Arrow Lakes, the Slocan Valley, Christina Lake, the Kettle River watershed, Osoyoos Lake, and Vaseux Lake would all benefit through a renewal of those staffing levels. They talk to me regularly about that, and that they miss that help.

I would like to close with a good-news story that shows what can happen when Canadians take fish conservation into their own hands, identify the problems and solutions, and then work hard to make good things happen. That story is the restoration of salmon populations in the Okanagan. This story involves many players and funding from the United States as well as Canada, but it is mainly a story of the Okanagan Nation Alliance, ONA, the first nations of the Okanagan, who came together to bring salmon back to the valley.

Salmon, or n’titxw, is one of the four food chiefs of the Okanagan peoples, and is central to their cultural and trade traditions. When I was a kid in the Okanagan, salmon were in very low numbers. The Okanagan is part of the Columbia system, and those fish had to climb over 11 dams to get back to the spawning grounds. Most of the Columbia River salmon runs died out, but a few sockeye came back to the Okanagan every year, though maybe a only a couple of thousand in some years. However, after years of work by the ONA and other groups, we often see runs of over 100,000 fish. The Okanagan River is once again red with sockeye in the autumn. The ONA has taken an ecosystem-collaborative restoration approach that combines cultural ceremonies and salmon feasts with technical restoration. They work collaboratively with provincial and federal authorities, and everyone in the region has benefited, with recreational fishery openings, an increase in licence revenues, and local salmon to the public. I enjoy the sockeye out of Osoyoos Lake every year now.

This approach has enabled the ONA to grow to one of the largest inland first nations fisheries organizations in Canada. It has 45 full-time staff, which is probably 10 times the staffing level of DFO in the interior of B.C. It has its own hatchery, biology lab, habitat restoration course, and courses that are even taken by DFO staff.

However, even though they have been working collaboratively with DFO, they have still identified some serious issues to me.

First, there is a need for a harvest sharing agreement between Canada and the U.S. There is no agreement in place to ensure minimum food fishery requirements for first nations, and there is no other place in the Pacific region where there is up to 150,000 salmon harvested between Canada and the U.S. that does not have such an agreement in place.

Second, ONA has asked for support for the Columbia River Treaty renewal and the importance of Canadian salmon. Okanagan salmon are the only Columbia River salmon returning to Canada, and they are directly affected by how Canada stores water in its treaty dams.

Third, it points out the need for support for ONA's salmon restoration in the upper Columbia, which is in the Kootenay region. There are no salmon there now. ONA submitted a proposal to DFO and asked the minister back in September 2017, but it has received no response.

Fourth, the ONA regrets to see the overall exclusion of first nations at the Columbia River Treaty table, which is something that is very important to them.

To conclude, we will be supporting Bill C-68, but there is clearly still a lot of work to be done to protect our fish and our fisheries.

As spoken

Report StageFisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 8:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Darrell Samson Liberal Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-68 following the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans' review and analysis of this bill.

We thank the committee members for their careful study of this legislation and their thoughtful amendments. During this review of Bill C-68, my colleagues in committee heard from many different witnesses and experts. I would like to take this time to talk about what they heard. I would also like to share the concrete steps proposed to make improvements and move forward with this legislation.

From the environmental NGO community and members across the aisle in the Green Party and the NDP, the committee heard about the importance of water flow for fish habitat. The government supported the associated amendments put forward in committee.

The committee also heard from industry groups seeking amendments to the rules proposed for the processing of applications for habitat authorization during the transition from the current to the new legislation. In response, the committee adopted the amendment to provide clearer transition provisions.

The committee also heard about strengthening the federal government's legal obligations when major fish stocks are in trouble. This is why the committee proposed the inclusion of requirements, under the legislation, that the minister sustainably manage or rebuild fish stocks that are prescribed in regulation. However, the legislation would require that when such cases arose, Canadians would be informed and provided with a rationale. Our aim is to sustainably manage fisheries resources for the long-term benefit of Canadians.

As members know, in 2012, the previous government decided to change habitat protection without the support of or consultation with indigenous peoples, fishers, scientists, conservation groups, coastal communities, and the Canadian public. In contrast, our government has worked with all Canadians and has encouraged everyone to be part of this process. The proposed amendments to Bill C-68 are part of our government's broader review of environmental and regulatory processes under Bill C-69, 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, which was reviewed by the committee.

The Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development also adopted some important amendments, which have been reflected in Bill C-68. These include better protections for indigenous knowledge and clearer transition provisions that would ensure better business continuity.

The changes proposed in Bill C-68 would support several government priorities, such as partnering with indigenous peoples; supporting planning and integrated management; enhancing regulation and enforcement; improving partnership and collaboration; and, finally, monitoring and reporting back to Canadians. This is transparency.

This bill would include the reintroduction of the prohibition against the harmful alteration, disruption, or destruction of fish habitat as well as the prohibition against causing the death of fish by means other than fishing. There are measures to allow for better management of large and small projects that may be harmful to fish and fish habitat through a new permitting scheme, for big projects, and codes of practice, for smaller ones.

The amendments would enable the regulatory authorities that would allow for establishing a list of designated projects, comprising works, undertakings, and activities for which a permit would always be required. We have been, and will continue to be, engaged with indigenous peoples, provinces and territories, stakeholders, and others to capture the right kinds of projects on the designated project list.

Habitat loss and degradation and changes to fish passage and water flow are all contributing to the decline of freshwater and marine fish habitat in Canada. It is imperative that Canada restore degraded fish habitat. That is why we proposed changes to the Fisheries Act that would include the consideration of restoration as part of project decision-making.

The bill is motivated by the need to restore the public's trust in government, which was lost following decisions made in 2012.

In order to re-establish the trust of Canadians in government, access to information on the government's activities related to the protection of fish and fish habitat, as well as protecting information and decisions, is essential. We listened and we proposed, through Bill C-68, measures to establish the public registry, which will enable transparency and access. This registry will allow Canadians to see whether the government is meeting its obligations and allow them to hold the government accountable for decision-making with regard to fish and fish habitat.

The addition of new purpose and consideration provisions will more clearly guide the responsibility of the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard when making decisions and provide a framework for the proper management and control of fisheries, and for the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat, including by preventing pollution.

Fisheries' resources and aquatic habitats have important social, cultural, and economic significance for many indigenous peoples. Respect for the rights of the indigenous peoples of Canada, taking into account their unique interests and aspirations in fisheries-related economic opportunities and the protection of fish and fish habitat, is one way we are showing our commitment to renewing our relationship with indigenous peoples.

We listened to Canadians on the need for modern safeguards. That is why we have proposed changes to the Fisheries Act that provide a new fisheries management order power to establish targeted fisheries management measures for 45-day increments where there is a threat to the proper management and control of fisheries or to the conservation and protection of fish. This will help to address time-sensitive emerging issues when a fishery is under way and targeted measures are required.

Proposed changes to the Fisheries Act include a new ministerial authority to make regulations to establish long-term spatial restrictions to fishing activities under the act, specifically for the purpose of conserving and protecting marine biodiversity. This will support our international commitment to protect at least 10% of our marine and coastal areas by 2020. Proposed changes also include authority to make regulations respecting the rebuilding of fish stocks.

As I mentioned earlier, our government reached out to Canadians to help put the bill forward. We listened to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development and the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans and provided direction for the restoration and recovery of fish habitat and stocks. We were pleased with the amendments of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans during its clause-by-clause review. We listened to environmental groups, and the committee proposed provisions aimed at implementing measures to promote the sustainability of the major fish stocks.

In addition, in keeping with modernizing the act in line with other federal environmental law, changes are being proposed to the Fisheries Act to authorize the use of alternative measures agreements.

Through Bill C-68, the Government of Canada is honouring its promise to Canadians. By restoring the lost protections and providing these modern safeguards, the government is delivering on its promise as set out in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Fisheries.

Since introducing this bill, we have heard support from a broad range of Canadians for these amendments that will return Canada back to the forefront when speaking about fish for generations to come.

I urge all hon. members on both sides of the House to join me in supporting this bill, which is so important.

As spoken

Report StageFisheries ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 8:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act and other acts in consequence. I would like to start by stating that the official opposition supports the protection of our oceans and fisheries. Our previous changes to the Fisheries Act in 2012 were enacted to support transparency in the decision-making process and to provide a level of certainty to those invested in that act. Unfortunately, the Liberal government is proposing amendments through Bill C-68 that add additional layers of regulatory uncertainty.

The hon. Sergio Marchi, president and CEO of the Canadian Electricity Association stated that while Canada's electricity sector remains committed to protecting and conserving our natural resources, Bill C-68 “represents one step forward but two steps back”. The Canadian Electricity Association's concerns centre on the government's shortsightedness in choosing to return to pre-2012 provisions of the Fisheries Act that address “activity other than fishing that results in the death of fish” and “the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction”, otherwise known as HADD, “of fish habitat”.

While the Liberals say they are restoring HADD they sidestep any obligation to uphold the HADD regulations in the legislation by providing the minister with the ability to exempt certain provisions. The CEA points out, and rightly so, that virtually any action without prior authorization could be construed as being in contravention of Bill C-68.

The Canadian nuclear agency shares these concerns. In its testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans it stated that the definition of fish habitat has been changed so that the term now means “water frequented by fish”, while retaining the “directly or indirectly” terminology. The Canadian Nuclear Association warned that this has the potential to include waters not designated to support fish, like tailing ponds, or drainage ditches, or waters not intended to be fish habitats, or where no fish are present at any time of the year. As such, it called on the government to revise the term “fish habitat” to exclude these structures.

The Canadian Electricity Association echoed the same sentiment, seeking amendments to provide greater certainty around the definition of fish and fish habitat, focusing on fish population conservation.

Ontario Power Generation agrees. In its written statement to the standing committee it recommended that exceptions, including intake canals and other structures that were constructed for the purpose of facility operations and not intended to be frequented by fish, should also be considered.

All of this is falling on deaf ears. Bill C-68 would also result in greater uncertainties for existing and new facilities and discourage yet more investment opportunities in energy projects, something the government seems to be quite good at.

The Canadian Nuclear Association in its submission to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans stated, “the concept of 'cumulative impact' is not only a key issue with respect to the environment, but also with respect to sustained investment in Canadian energy projects”.

The Canadian Nuclear Association's testimony continued, highlighting the plight of Canada's energy sector, advising that, “Right now, investment in Canada is facing significant challenges - including uncertainty caused by a suite of changes to federal and provincial regulatory policies, trade restrictions, corporate and individual tax rates”. This regulatory uncertainty is shared throughout industry.

The Canadian Electricity Association recommends that the minister be required to consult with any jurisdiction also exercising potentially duplicative, overlapping, or conflicting orders. Regulations are important. No one in any industry in Canada would refute the need for regulations. However, it makes no sense that a company has to go through the same regulatory conditions at every level of government simply to satisfy duplicate regulatory conditions. This costs time and money, and ultimately it costs investment opportunities.

This is at a time when the U.S. President's tariff action against Canadian steel and aluminum remains unfair and a serious threat to workers across the country who rely on this industry to put food on the table for their families, at a time when, according to Statistics Canada, the total foreign direct investment in Canadian oil and gas extraction slumped 7.4% in 2017, down to $162.2 billion.

That is due to a hasty retreat by international oil producers last year, including massive divestment by Royal Dutch Shell, about $9.3 billion, and ConocoPhillips, about $17.7 billion, totalling nearly $30 billion.

The government's carbon-tax scheme threatens to increase the cost of living for every Canadian, emphasized by the new report recently released by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. It found that the Liberal carbon tax will take $10 billion out of the Canadian economy by 2022, while other estimates argue that it could be as much as $35 billion per year, hurting jobs, workers, and families.

The current Liberal government is compelled to introduce bills like Bill C-68, which would add layers of regulatory ambiguity, adding massive uncertainty in an already turbulent investment climate. When will the government realize that investment opportunities are highly perishable prospects?

Bill C-68, like other bills, such as Bill C-69, appears to undermine transparency and due process by allowing the minister to withhold critical information from interested proponents, which runs contrary to the Prime Minister's promise of a more open and transparent government.

The act would require the minister to take into account indigenous knowledge and expertise when it was provided, and all decisions would have to take into account the possible impact on indigenous rights. However, that knowledge would be protected from being revealed publicly, or even to a project's proponents, without explicit permission from the indigenous community or the people who provided it.

The government has announced $284 million in new money to implement and enforce the new law through the hiring of new fisheries officers to enforce the act and educate people about it. There are, however, no timelines or details on when and how many officers would be hired. This bill would allow for the establishment of advisory panels and for members to be remunerated. However, there is no guidance or limitation on their use.

Bill C-68 would expand the reach of a prohibition against anything that alters or impacts fish habitat to all waters where fish exist. As the member for Cariboo—Prince George indicated earlier, the goal of the Fisheries Act is and should remain to protect and enhance Canada's fish stocks while avoiding any unnecessary negative economic impacts on industries that rely on access to Canadian land and water. In 2012, the Conservative government improved fisheries conservation, prioritized fish productivity, protected significant fisheries, and streamlined an overly bureaucratic process. The current government, though, through Bill C-68, would revert to rules that caused confusion, were difficult to enforce, and that negatively impacted farmers, communities, and resource development. The only real winners here would be regulatory lawyers, who would reap the rewards of Bill C-68.

I have no doubt that my colleagues across the way will question our commitment to the preservation of fish habitat. I have said before that we clearly support the protection of our fisheries and oceans. What the current government fails to understand is that they can protect the environment and have responsible resource development. It only makes sense to protect fish habitat if they want a robust fisheries economy, and that is what the current Fisheries Act does.

It is my hope that the government will continue consulting with industry on fish-habitat restoration plans moving forward. The government's knowledge and appreciation for the protection of fisheries is essential. We will continue to work closely with fishers, farmers, industry groups, and communities to ensure that their questions are heard.

I would rather be having a longer debate instead of being under time allocation, but this is the situation we are in. I look forward to questions from my hon. colleagues.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 11th, 2018 / 3:10 p.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

It being 3:12 p.m., pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, 2018, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motions at report stage of Bill C-69.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 15 to 23, 28 to 61, 100 to 103, 105 to 147, 149 to 205, 208 to 214, and 216.

A negative vote on Motion No. 1 requires the question to be put on Motions Nos. 3, 4, 5, and 11.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 7th, 2018 / 6 p.m.


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Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his comments. I was in the middle of preparing my remarks on Bill C-59 and I am planning on speaking to Bill C-69 next week. I will have a chance to talk about it at third reading. I may have lost it, I am not sure. I have already said half of what I intended to say on the matter.

At the same time, I know that our sitting hours have been extended because we cannot fit all the members who want to speak into the limited time that the House has to implement all of our legislation and amendments. It is a shame we do not have thousands of hours to speak in the House. These are the hours we have, and we have only four years to fulfill all our election promises.

Now, we are working on fulfilling our promises, and I think I will get a chance to speak on Bill C-69 next week and Bill C-59 a few minutes from now.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 7th, 2018 / 6 p.m.


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Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Mr. Speaker, we have just very clearly seen that members on this side of the House want to talk about bills. We want to talk about Bill C-59. We want to talk about Bill C-69. All the parliamentarians on this side of the House want to express their views. Unfortunately, the Liberals have cut parliamentarians' speaking time so much that some members have to talk about two bills at once.

I would like my colleague who spoke about both Bill C-59 and Bill C-69 in the same speech to tell me whether he sometimes feels forgotten by the government because he sits on this side of the House. The Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party all represent our constituents here in the House, and they want to hear us speak about all of these bills.

I commend my colleague over here for wanting to speak about two bills, because he knows that we will not have time to talk about all of these things and that the members on the other side of the House often prevent us from speaking. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to talk about Bill C-69. It is an important piece of legislation.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 7th, 2018 / 5:55 p.m.


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The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota

Is the member speaking to Bill C-69?

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, as much as I am interested in the member's speech right now, I think we are still talking about Bill C-69. I believe the member is referring to Bill C-59 in his statement, which is not germane to the discussion we are having in the House.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 7th, 2018 / 5:50 p.m.


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NDP

Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague to expand on the concept in Bill C-69 with regard to a minister's arbitrary powers. We saw a little of that when the Conservatives changed the process. I would like to know if there are concerns now with respect to some of the explicit powers which will not be based on science.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:50 p.m.


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Whitby Ontario

Liberal

Celina Caesar-Chavannes LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke about the Stephen Harper government and how it was accused of fearmongering and sowing doubt. The Conservatives are still doing that.

The hon. member spoke about the economy and jobs and how the ministers needed to be accountable. Under this government, we have had the fastest growth in the G7. Over 600,000 jobs have been created by Canadians. We have a robust oceans protection plan. We have Bill C-69. We have a $1.3 billion investment in biodiversity and conservation.

What would the hon. colleague across the way say to his constituents, who have benefited from the fact that our government has taken the growth of the economy and the environment hand in hand?

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise in response to Bill C-69, the government's environmental and regulatory bill, one that is supposed to be revolutionary. This just brings us to another long list of broken promises that the Prime Minister made when he campaigned in 2015 as the member for Papineau at the time. He made some great promises to Canadians.

We heard a lot about sowing the seeds of fear, that Canadians had lost confidence in some things like our environmental assessment plan. The groups that were promoting that had a sole purpose. There was a lot of talk about foreign-funded groups and how they had influenced elections, both on this side of the border as well as the other side of the border recently.

We know very well that during the 2015 election, and I know because I was one of the candidates who was targeted, groups were targeting Conservative members of Parliament. They were talking about how damaging Mr. Harper was to our environment. We heard people say how we were fearmongering with respect to Bill C-59. If we looked at it and followed where the dollar started, these groups started in other jurisdictions, and perhaps not in Canada.

What would be the sole purpose for those groups to sow the seed of fear or perhaps put doubt in the minds of Canadians in the industry or in the government of the day. It would be to really shake up the economy. Why would they do that? Probably because the money they get comes from big oil or big energy groups in the U.S. This is the fact. We know this. To some extent, the Prime Minister, the Liberals, and perhaps the NDP have bought into those groups. I know about the NDP candidate who I ran against in my region, the one who had probably the best photography team I have ever seen. Again, my riding was one of those targeted because ridings they thought they would win, but I proved them wrong.

Let us talk about the growing list of broken promises, and this is so relevant to Bill C-69.

The Prime Minister talked about a small deficit of $10 billion at that time, and the budget would be balanced. There is a record and a history with this. He also said that under his government, the Liberals would be the most open and transparent government in Canadian history. There is a smattering of applause on the other side, but we know it is not true. When he created the mandate letters, he said that the ministers would be more accountable and more open to Canadians. He also said that he would let the debate reign, yet today we are in the 41st closure of debate.

During the campaign, the member for Papineau said that under his government the Harper government's way of doing omnibus bills would be in the past, that it would never happen again. Today, we are speaking to a 400-page bill.

We know the Prime Minister is not really very happy. He is not a very strong champion of our energy sector. We know this from one of his very first speeches to the world, when he said that under his government Canada would be known more for our resourcefulness rather than our resources. We know he has gotten himself into a little trouble for some of the comments he made on the world stage, when he said that he wished the energy sector could be phased out a little faster. We also know he got himself into trouble when he went into Alberta, during a time when we were facing some terrible issues, to speak to the out-of-work oil workers. There is that famous clip where a gentleman asked “What am I going to do? I'm out of work. I don't know whether I'm going to have a home. I don't know how I'm going to feed my children.” What was his comment? “Hang in there.”

The Liberals hated our Navigable Protection Act. The reason I bring this up is because the fisheries, oceans and Canadian Coast Guard committee, FOPO, studies some of the changes to legislation brought forward by government. The Liberals said that Prime Minister Harper had a war on the environment, and the changes he made to the Navigable Waters Protection Act were because the Conservatives did not care.

The Liberals like to bring in academics, NGOs, and environmental groups. Witness after witness, when asked to provide proof if any of the changes from 2012 to the Fisheries Act and Navigable Waters Protection Act would cause any harmful death or damage to our waterway, not one witness could provide proof. In fact, one of our hon. colleagues was part of the group that wrote the changes to the legislation. He talked about why some of these navigable waterway regulations were changed. He said that it was because of our farmers. If farmers had a drainage ditch that had been washout and repairs had to be made, whether to accommodate their livestock or their crops, it took a lot of time, waiting to get that done. Also, if a municipality was isolated because a road had been washed out, there were a lot of challenges in getting the repairs done.

I could go on and on.

The Prime Minister and all of his ministers like to stand and with their hands on their hearts, they pledge they will consult with Canadians from coast to coast to coast. They tell us that every Canadian will have a say. We know the consultations are not true. In fact, they are shutting down debate.

As I like to do every chance I get, I want to remind folks on the other side, and all Canadians, that the House is theirs. Shutting down debate means the 338 members of Parliament who were elected to be the voices of all Canadians do not have their say. They are not able to bring their constituents' voices to Ottawa. The Prime Minister, his cabinet, the other Liberals want to bring the voice of Ottawa to those communities. We know that the only voice that seems to matter is the Prime Minister's voice.

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member both for his question and his appreciation of Yiddish proverbs. We sometimes share them in the lobby.

Some ministerial accountability for the decisions Liberals make and the activities of the department should be expected by the House of Commons. It should be an expectation. Excessive amounts of ministerial oversight, such as an ability to overrule or redirect decisions and impose one's own personal political views on a process or individual projects, is the wrong way to go. The balance between having just enough regulatory and ministerial oversight and too much burdensome regulation with ministerial discretion is the balance that we are trying to find, and it is not in Bill C-69.

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:35 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech, and especially for his Yiddish proverb. We all wait for that with bated breath each time he rises.

We have heard a lot of concern from the Conservatives about the excessive powers the minister would have to intervene at any stage of the impact assessment process and to put a stop to it, or create an extra process.

I am wondering if the member could comment on the fact that it was the Conservatives who initially gave the minister and cabinet that power with the National Energy Board. Previously, National Energy Board decisions were final, but the previous Conservative government gave that final say to cabinet, and now those members are concerned that the Liberals have run with this and made it rampant throughout Bill C-69 and will put it into law. Could he comment on that?

As spoken

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-69, 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:25 p.m.


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The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota

The hon. member will have approximately two minutes and 10 seconds when we return to Bill C-69.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to this debate, obviously in opposition to the bill before us.

I will begin as I always do, because I want to get it in early, with a Yiddish proverb: “Misfortune binds together.” That is how a lot of Calgarians feel, especially in my riding.

Bill C-69 is simply more misfortune piled on other ill-advised decisions by the government that have hurt constituents and energy workers in my riding. They have spent a lifetime getting experience, an education, and then pursuing a career they were hoping would last their entire lifetime. This is something they were passionate about, producing energy in a responsible and ethical way, which they will now not be able to do.

I have been told repeatedly by executives, industry, and energy workers, including a constituent of mine, Evan, a few days ago, that when Bill C-69 passes Parliament, it will put an end to all future major energy infrastructure projects. No company will put forward major projects again, because the process will be much too complex, involve too many criteria, and will be too complicated, with too much political risk associated with satisfying a minister in order to reach the completion date of just the permitting process. The CEO of Suncor has said publicly that this will put an end to investment in the energy industry. The CEO of Sierra Energy has said exactly the same thing. Therefore, misfortune binds together.

I will explain other things that bind together as a result of this particular piece of proposed legislation, which that would damage the opportunity of energy workers and their families to continue working in this very successful sector.

We should be very proud of this sector of the economy, because we have been exporting the R and D, innovation, commercialized products, and services from it for a long time, alongside the product that we export to our friends down south. Even though we have had difficulties negotiating a successful NAFTA renewal, they are still our friends, and we are still trying to make them understand that at the end of the day, our success is their success.

We often hear government members say that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. The Liberals are making it seem like it is a zero-sum game: one unit of the environment gained is one unit of the economy lost. It is zero-sum, and there are no two ways around it. When we look at Bill C-69, that is evident. The Liberals are trying to gain many more units of environment, and we are going to be losing out on the economic side, based on commentary by both energy workers and executives, who are simply saying that there is no way that they can invest in the Canadian economy, hire energy workers in Canada, in Calgary and Alberta, with these types of rules in place.

On the misfortunes I talked about, there is the carbon tax, for instance. Often in this chamber, I hear members say things like, “We should refine it and upgrade it where we mine it, where we extract it out of the ground.” Well, the highest carbon taxes are paid by refineries and upgraders. It is a GHG-intensive industry.

Do we say the same thing to farmers who produce wheat, that we should upgrade it and refine it here? Do we say that to the farmer who produces canola? Do we say that to the farmer who produces big lentils? Maybe we should force all farmers to produce soup. They should not be allowed to export lentils outside Canada. The same idea, the same drive that says we should never export any type of bitumen or oil out of the country until it is refined and upgraded to the highest level product, could be applied to our agricultural sector.

I have heard repeatedly from energy workers that the tanker ban off the B.C. coast is damaging, because it sends a signal that there is a tanker ban now. Actually, it is just a pretend ban because it just moves tankers 100 kilometres farther off the coast to an area where there already is tanker traffic, which is going to continue as long as it does not stop in a Canadian port. However, it sends a signal that those types of workers and that sector of the economy are not wanted anymore by the government.

On the misfortune, there is a close electoral alliance between radical environmentalists, their foreign financiers, and the future electoral prospects of the Liberal government. That is the case. We know it to be true. The Liberals' success in the 2015 election was closely linked to their making promises on the environment that they absolutely could not keep. They made those promises fully knowing they would never be able to keep them. The misfortune continues.

Twice already, the Prime Minister has said he would like to phase out the oil sands. Every single time the Prime Minister says that, the first thing I get by email and phone from Albertans in my riding is, “He has done it again. He said it again.” The last time he said it was at the Assemblee Nationale in Paris.

Many workers question the sincerity of the Prime Minister when he says that he wants this sector to succeed, which is supposedly why he expropriated Kinder Morgan and purchased its pipeline for $4.5 billion. Workers do not trust him. They do not believe him when he says it. They think he is speaking from both sides of his mouth. He is saying one thing to one crowd and something completely different to another crowd. They do not trust him. However, it is their misfortune that he is the Prime Minister right now.

Bill C-69 increases the number of criteria that will be considered during the regulatory process. What logically happens is that before a company even puts in an application to consider a major new energy infrastructure project, they will do their research and due diligence. That will add months and years to the pre-regulatory process. Before even applying, one has to have more information to prove to the regulator that one meets all of the new criteria. Embedded in Bill C-69 is the opportunity for the minister to say “no” at multiple stages of the process.

I have heard Liberal caucus members say how great the bill is and that shortened timelines give certainty. The bill does no such thing because it will increase the number of criteria and datasets that one needs to collect to prove one's case.

This is exactly where I am going to come to my last point of why energy east was cancelled. Energy east and the company's executives and energy workers said they had no way of meeting the new requirements of downstream and upstream emissions. To collect that vast sum of information and provide it to the government was impossible. The company made the only wise decision on behalf of its shareholders and abandoned the permitting regulatory process. There was no other choice. However, that was a political decision by the government. The government is responsible for that and nobody else. The business decision that drove driving Kinder Morgan out of the country, which led to the government expropriating the company and purchasing the pipeline, was the same type of decision-making process Trans Canada had to use on energy east. Those decisions are deeply connected.

Obviously, I will be voting against this bill. The last point of data I want to provide is that under the government, we have seen thousands of kilometres of pipeline cancelled, whereas under in the previous government, we had thousands of kilometres of pipeline finished.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5:15 p.m.


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NDP

Cheryl Hardcastle NDP Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Mr. Speaker, I certainly cannot argue with the fact there is much distorting of the truth here. I really want to talk to the hon. member about the last Parliament, when the Conservative government did remove or gut the environmental assessment process. It also removed almost all of the protections of our waterways. That is a fact that can be looked up.

Then the Liberal government promised that it was going to restore those things. As we see with Bill C-69, it has really fallen short of the mark. Bill C-69 has done nothing. It does nothing to reverse these changes, which the Liberals promised they would do.

Do the Conservatives still believe that waterways and lakes do not need any protection? Is that what I am hearing—that we do not need any protections for water?

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I agree. I am very concerned. The Liberals campaigned on being science based, open, and transparent. They were going to make decisions based on those criteria, but Bill C-69 shows very clearly that they are going to make decisions that are not science based. We have seen that in a larger narrative within the government. Let us look at the food guide and front-of-package labelling. All these things that are going to have a significant impact on our industries and constituents are not based on science whatsoever. In fact, we have heard from stakeholders and constituents that they are actually going in the complete opposite direction of what science would tell them to do.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 5 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I find it a little ironic that the member is asking what we would like to put forward. The Liberals should give us a chance to have a full debate and discussion on these bills, rather than ramming them through with time allocation.

Are they listening? I do not believe they are. Conservatives put forward amendments on Bill C-69 that they refused, as well as on every other bill. I have just one piece of advice on how to strengthen Bill C-69: scrap it.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately it is not an honour for me to rise to speak to Bill C-69, which would create some burdensome regulation and red tape and add additional uncertainty to our natural resource sector.

Over the last few months, we have seen the impact the policies of the Liberal government on this industry and the jobs that go with it.

Bill C-69 has not even gone through the House yet, has not been given third reading, but we have already seen the ramifications of it. The private sector has seen the writing on the wall and is divesting itself of their interests in Canada: Statoil, Shell, BP, and certainly Kinder Morgan, which has made a substantial profit from the Canadian taxpayers of $4.5 billion on the purchase of an existing pipeline. As part of those companies divesting themselves of their interests in Canada, they have also taken $86 billion in new investment and new opportunities to other jurisdictions.

Let us be clear: these companies are not going to stop investing in the energy sectors, but they are going to stop investing in the Canadian energy sector. They are taking those dollars to other jurisdictions. They are going to be investing in places like Kazakhstan, Texas, and the Middle East, not in Canada. Unfortunately, we will suffer the consequences when it comes to our economic opportunities.

I want to take an opportunity to clarify something we heard again in question period today. The Liberals keep touting themselves as somehow building a pipeline to tidewater. All this $4.5 billion has done is purchased an existing pipeline. It does not remove any of the obstacles to the building of the Trans Mountain expansion. In fact, the Liberal purchase of this pipeline, which we heard is closer to $2 billion in market value than $4.5 billion, does not build one inch of new pipeline to tidewater. They should be very clear that this purchase does nothing. It removes none of the obstacles that the provincial Government of B.C. has put forward. It does not remove any of the protesters who will be blocking the construction of the pipeline. It does not remove any of the judicial challenges that opponents of the pipeline have put forward.

When the Liberal Prime Minister had opportunity to show some leadership, stand with Canada's energy sector, and use section 92 of the British North America Act, the constitutional tools he had to ensure the project was done, he did none of those things. This will cost our economy thousands of jobs.

I want to make another thing very clear, and I think my colleagues across the floor do not quite understand this. These jobs are not for wrench monkeys and roughnecks, which are also extremely important, as they are the backbone of our energy sector, but they are for highly skilled individuals. They are engineers, geophysicists, and geologists. I have spoken to many of them in western Canada. Some of them have been without jobs for more than two years. These are highly skilled individuals who will go to other areas of the world to find work, and they will not come back. It will be very hard to attract these highly skilled individuals back to Canada.

I have spoken about the impact this has had on western Canada. I have certainly spoken to many of these unemployed energy sector workers in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and B.C. However, the Liberal government also needs to understand that the implications of its decisions on the energy sector ripple right across the country. I would like to talk about just one example.

A General Electric plant in Peterborough, Ontario, made turbines for the pipelines across Canada. General Electric had announced plans to expand that facility should energy east, Trans Mountain, or northern gateway be approved and move forward. However, when energy east was killed on a political decision by the Liberal government, and after the foot-dragging and mismanagement of the Trans Mountain decision, General Electric announced it would close its plant in Peterborough, costing 350 jobs.

Therefore, the ramifications of the Liberal decisions, lack of action on Canada's energy sector, and the Prime Minister saying we are going to phase out the oil sands have real consequences across the country. These 350 jobs in Peterborough, Ontario, are now gone because of the Liberal decision on the energy sector. These families in Peterborough are now going to have to find new work.

I do not think our colleagues across the floor really do understand that. In fact, the Liberal member of Parliament for Peterborough—Kawartha supported killing energy east and supported Bill C-69. She is not fighting for her own constituents. She is not fighting for the jobs of those families in her own riding. The Liberals are making an ideological decision to listen to the vocal minority of activists.

Even today, my colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek talked about how great things were in Hamilton because it was building all these grain cars. I am not too sure how all these new grain cars help the energy sector. They will not be hauling oil in grain cars because we do not have a pipeline. Maybe he is anticipating that the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have lost their jobs in the energy sector are all of a sudden going to start farming. I do not think that is a real solution.

The solution is standing behind our energy sector, championing it and the jobs it creates and the social infrastructure it supports. That is the direction we should be supporting, not trying to find new jobs for those who have lost their positions. These are very well-paying middle-class jobs across the country, jobs that have now been lost in places like Fort McMurray, Calgary, Leduc, and certainly in Peterborough, Ontario, because of these ideological decisions. Bill C-69 would simply make matters worse.

We have heard from stakeholders and employees in the energy sector. They say that one of the most important drivers of investment in Canada has been that confidence, that reliability, and that regulatory certainty in Canada. Bill C-69 would do everything it possibly could to dismantle that certainty in our regulatory process.

The process is being politicized. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change would have the sole responsibility to decide whether a project would be for the greater good or in the national interest. One person, one minister, would have that decision.

Let us say an investor or a large energy company has an opportunity to apply for a project in Canada. It goes through all the regulatory processes and does all of its environmental assessment studies and financial assessments. However, as part of Bill C-69, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change will have the authority to say no even before it has its foot in the door. Even if it has passed all those environmental assessments, even if it has the support of first nations and communities along the way, even if it is proven to be in the national interest, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change has the authority to say that it is not something the government supports. That is what happened with energy east. The government put so many double standard burdens upon that project that there was no way the stakeholder would go ahead with it. That is what we are seeing as part of this process.

I spoke earlier about the ramifications this had on the sector and how we saw a government make ideological decisions, not decisions made on consultation with Canadians, not decisions based on science, not decisions that are fiscally based, and certainly not decisions based on economics. For example, let us look at agriculture.

This week or last week the Minister of Agriculture said that the vast majority of Canadian farmers supported the carbon tax. That was patently false, and we have heard that it is false. The Liberals are making decisions contrary to what Canadians are asking them to do. That is where this becomes extremely frustrating.

Farmers have reduced their use of diesel fuel by 200 million litres a year. Our energy sector now takes a third of the carbon footprint to produce one barrel of oil than it took 10 years ago. Members are going ask why the government is not investing in renewable energy and fossil fuels. Who do they think has been doing all the investing in renewable resources? It is our fossil fuel companies. Those are the ones which have the funds to invest, and they have been doing it for decades.

Why does the taxpayer have to be doing this when the private sector has already been doing it, and doing it successfully for decades? What the sector is asking for is for the government to get out of its way. It wants the government to let it do what it has been doing successfully, better than anybody in the world for generations. It just wants to do its job and get back to work.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 4:45 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear my colleague's very passionate speech about the environment.

In the previous government, the Conservatives took away the final say in the decision-making process on these projects from the regulator, the National Energy Board, and gave it to cabinet. Bill C-69 would entrench that in law, and would expand it. The minister would have tremendous discretion, throughout this document, at every step of the regulatory process. Does he agree with that decision to give the minister so much discretion?

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, this is a first for me. I am using my tablet to deliver my speech. We all need to row in the same direction, and every Canadian must be part of the effort to protect our planet. Today I am pleased to rise to debate Bill C-69, 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.

We believe in taking action and building on what we have already done to ensure that Canada remains an environmental leader. Those of us on this side of the House believe that. As I often say, the Liberal Party likes labelling the Conservative Party as anti-environment. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will keep saying that as long as the Liberals keep slapping a label on us that in no way reflects how hard Conservative men and women are working for the environment.

My Green Party colleague called this bill incredibly weak earlier today. This, from a party whose primary focus is the environment. I find this surprising coming from that member, but I completely agree with her. I agree that this massive bill is weak and unacceptable, and it does not meet the objective of protecting the environment for our children and grandchildren.

I am a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and I want to work. This committee has good intentions, and we would like to implement measures to improve the environment. However, I would guess that this government probably forced the chair, who is from the governing party, to pressure the committee to introduce a bill quickly. This is irresponsible.

It is irresponsible because the environment is important to all Canadians and to the members of the Conservative Party of Canada. These kinds of actions are unacceptable.

I will explain what happened in committee. We received 150 briefs totalling 2,250 pages within a month and a half. Fifty organizations appeared before the committee, 100 were not able to appear but submitted briefs, and 400 amendments were moved, including about 100 by the Liberal Party of Canada.

I would like to point out that, just like all Canadians, all MPs are human beings. If we want to do a good job, we need time to do research and to read, so that we are not saying just anything. We have to be rigorous and conscientious. If this government really intended to put together something to protect the environment, it would not have acted this way.

On another matter, in the 2015 election campaign, the Liberal Party of Canada had this to say on page 39 of its platform:

Canadians want a government they can trust to protect the environment and grow the economy. Stephen Harper has done neither. Our plan will deliver the economic growth and jobs Canadians need, and leave to our children and grandchildren a country even more beautiful, more sustainable, and more prosperous than the one we have now.

It seems important to them to talk about Stephen Harper, who was our prime minister and someone I am very proud of. What was our economy like when the Liberal government took over? It was doing very well. We introduced a balanced budget in 2015, and we left the Liberals with the tools they needed to keep it going, but this spendthrift government managed to create a structural deficit.

The 2019 election cannot come soon enough. This government is going to run a deficit of over $80 billion during its term, so let us hurry up and put the Conservatives back in power so that we can provide sound economic management.

With regard to the previous Conservative government's supposed failure, as I mentioned, here are some of the practical measures that it put in place. The Liberals like to say that we are anti-environment, but that is completely false. I will set out the facts and give concrete examples.

We created the clean air regulatory agenda. We established new standards to reduce car and light truck emissions. We established new standards to reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and their engines. We proposed regulations to align ourselves with the U.S. Working Group III standards for vehicle emissions and sulphur in gasoline. We sought to limit HFCs, black carbon, and methane. We established new rules to reduce emissions from carbon-based electricity generation. We implemented measures to support the development of carbon capture technologies. We implemented measures to support the development of alternative energy sources. We enhanced the government's annual report on the main environmental indicators, including greenhouse gases. We, the big bad conservatives, even abolished tax breaks for the oil sands. In 2007, we invested $1.5 billion in the ecotrust program. It was not a centralist program like the Liberals tend to introduce. Rather, it was a program that worked well with the provinces.

Do you know who sang our praises? Greenpeace, that is who. Wow. We must not be as bad as all that when it comes to the environment. Maybe someday the Liberals will realize that we Conservatives are not here to destroy the planet.

I would like to point out that I, a Conservative MP, established a circular economy committee in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. Why would I waste time doing that if I were anti-environment? That is real action. In my view, and in the view of all the witnesses I had the privilege of hearing at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, Bill C-69 is unacceptable. The witnesses told me and the rest of the committee that this bill is nothing but the usual Liberal window dressing.

I am obliged to say that I personally, along with the other members of the Conservative Party, cannot accept this bill. We want to move things forward, but the government across the aisle does not.

We are willing and able to contribute and help the people across the aisle implement proactive, productive, efficient, and rigorous measures. However, it takes time to do that. Let us give ourselves the tools we need to respect the environment instead of defiling it. Let us implement a process that will protect the environment.

In their electoral platform, the Liberals said they wanted to leave a legacy for our children and grandchildren. First of all, environmentally speaking, this bill accomplishes nothing. Secondly, financially speaking, we are going to mortgage the lives of our children and grandchildren. That is unacceptable.

On that note, I know my time is running out. I am now ready to take questions from my colleagues here in the wonderful House of Commons.

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June 7th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, as much as I want to join in the conversation and keep discussing climate, in looking at Bill C-69 I really want to make a point and ask the hon. member for his commentary.

We had an expert panel on EA. The government spent over $1 million to get its advice, and that advice was very clear: the projects subject to review must include much more than the large controversial projects, and we must ensure that all areas of federal jurisdiction are covered. Smaller projects can do serious environmental damage. I want to ask my hon. colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay about this, as he has an extensive scientific background. Smaller projects are not going to be caught at all by Bill C-69.

This is about the review of a couple of dozen projects a year, all big ones. That is a fatal mistake for a federal government to make. It will be fatal to our environment. Smaller projects can destroy a species and wipe out a key ecosystem, and we will never even know about it. That is what I would like to ask my hon. colleague to comment on.

As spoken

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June 7th, 2018 / 4:15 p.m.


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NDP

Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise here today to speak to Bill C-69, one of the most important attempts to modernize our environmental protection laws in Canada.

In large part, I think it was meant to deal with some of the actions of the Conservative government, which gutted a lot of our environmental protection laws in the previous Parliament through changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Fisheries Act, et cetera. We dealt with fisheries in Bill C-68, but Bill C-69 is an answer to try to fix some of the other acts that were radically changed by the previous government.

I have to say, off the top, how disappointed I am that the government not only brought in this bill as an omnibus bill, a huge bill, well over 300 pages long, but it moved time allocation in the first debate after only two hours. It moved time allocation on the bill yesterday as well. This is a bill that really should get full debate. I am disappointed that not only did the government move time allocation, but it took so long to bring in this bill.

The NDP originally asked the Speaker to rule this an omnibus bill so that we could deal with it separately. The government agreed that we could vote on the navigable waters section separately. We also asked that the bill be split up for committee study. The first section, on the impact assessment, is ideally suited for study by the environment committee. The central part, which deals with the National Energy Board and the Canadian energy regulator, belongs with the natural resources committee. The navigation protection section, obviously, should have gone to the transport committee.

That division of labour would have provided for a thorough and efficient study. Instead, the whole bill was thrust onto the environment committee, where, with impossible deadlines, many important witnesses could not testify. I was contacted early on by a consortium of Canadian scientists who had studied this and wanted to present evidence before the committee. This was not a single scientist; these were a lot of the important environment scientists in Canada. They were denied access to the committee simply because, I imagine, there were too many witnesses trying to testify before the committee in those tight timelines.

At committee, the NDP submitted over 100 amendments, none of which were accepted. Tellingly, the government submitted over 100 amendments of its own. This tells me that the legislation was clearly rushed into the House and should have been written with more care.

The Liberals are hashtagging this bill #BetterRules, but the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the legal experts who arguably know more about this subject than most Canadians and most politicians, has said that this legislation in neither better, nor rules.

I will quote from a briefing note prepared by Richard Lindgren of the Canadian Environmental Law Association:

[T]he IAA is not demonstrably “better” than CEAA 2012. To the contrary, the IAA replicates many of the same significant flaws and weaknesses found within the widely discredited CEAA 2012....

[T]he IAA does not establish a concise rules-based regime that provides clarity, consistency, and accountability during the information-gathering and decision-making process established under the Act. Instead, the key stages of the proposed impact assessment process are subject to considerable (if not excessive) discretion enjoyed by various decision-makers under the IAA.

At the most fundamental level, for example, it currently remains unclear which projects will actually be subject to the IAA.... [It] contains no benchmarks or criteria to provide direction on the type, scale, or potential effects of projects that should be designated under the new law.

I would like to spend a little while speaking more to the second part of the bill, the energy regulator section.

This section disbands the National Energy Board and creates a new but rather similar body called the Canadian energy regulator. The section opens with a preamble and a statement of purpose. Surprisingly, in this day and age of a brave new world of energy, neither makes reference to linkages between energy and climate. In fact, there is no mention at all of climate in this entire section.

Much of the public work of the old NEB was about regulating pipelines. One could easily come to the conclusion that this is a case of closing the barn door after the horses have left, since it seems unlikely that the new regulator will ever have to review an application for a major new oil pipeline.

The Minister of Natural Resources has risen countless times in this place declaring that the government has restored confidence in the energy regulation system, and that is why the Kinder Morgan pipeline can be built. Unfortunately, he is deeply misinformed.

A couple of months ago, I met with Dr. Monica Gattinger of the Positive Energy group at the University of Ottawa, who studies this very issue of public confidence in energy issues, and Nik Nanos, whose polling firm had asked Canadians about that confidence. Perhaps not surprisingly, Mr. Nanos found that public confidence in the Canadian energy regulation system was at an all-time low. If we thought it was low during the Harper government, it has continued to decline, and now only 2% of Canadians have strong confidence in the energy regulation system. That lack of confidence is shared by members of the public on both sides of the issue: it is lowest in both Alberta and British Columbia. It results in situations like the Kinder Morgan impasse. I should mention that the last time I heard the minister speak on this subject, he did admit that confidence was suddenly a problem in this area.

The Liberals promised during the last election to put the Kinder Morgan proposal through a new, stronger review system, but instead sent a three-member ministerial panel on a quick tour along the pipeline route, giving communities, first nations, governments, and the concerned public almost no advance warning to prepare their presentations. No record was made of the proceedings.

Despite the serious shortcomings of this process, the panel came up with six questions that it said the government would have to answer before making its decision about Kinder Morgan. I will mention only the first three.

First, can the construction of the Trans Mountain expansion be reconciled with Canada's climate commitments?

Second, how can pipeline projects be properly assessed in the absence of a comprehensive national energy strategy?

Third, how can the review of this pipeline project be squared with the government's commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples?

I would suggest that none of these questions was answered, even in part, before the government made its decision to approve the Kinder Morgan expansion, and none of them were answered before the government bought the pipeline, which was actually the old pipeline. This leaves a lot of questions about how the government is to regulate itself in getting that pipeline built.

Amazingly, none of those questions are properly answered in the legislation before us, which comes two years after the Kinder Morgan decision. After the government has accepted Bill C-262, which calls for government legislation to be consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, there is no mention of this in the body of Bill C-69. Only after much pressure did the government agree to put it in the preamble, where it would have no legal effect.

We need to restore the confidence of Canadians in our energy regulatory system and in our environmental impact processes. Without that confidence, it will be increasingly difficult for Canadian companies to develop our natural resources, which are at the heart of our national economy.

The Liberals continue to pretend they are doing good, but they are all talk and no action, or as we say in the west, all hat and no cattle. We need bold action to build a new regulatory system that gives voice to all concerned Canadians.

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June 7th, 2018 / 4 p.m.


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Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-69.

It is obvious that Bill C-69 would ensure that major private sector pipelines will never see the light of day. This Liberal Bill C-69 will forever be known as a black death to the oil and gas sector, killing jobs from coast to coast to coast. The Liberal government has enacted a series of anti-resource policies and has sent signals that discourage economic growth. The hikes in tax rates, increased capital gains taxes, which entrepreneurs are averse to, and the carbon tax all affect investment in Canada. We have witnessed that Liberal policies and lack of action on the energy file have chased over $80 billion out of our country, taking with them hundreds of thousands of jobs.

When I was first elected, anyone across the country who was willing to work could find a job in Alberta. Those willing to work hard, often more than 40 hours a week, could support their families, send their kids for post-secondary education, and still save for the future. Small businesses across Alberta were also booming from the economic activity that the industry brought into almost every town and community in the province. That is not the case today. An oil crash later, a provincial government change, and a federal government change have all Albertans concerned for their future.

The global price of oil will always fluctuate, but what many Canadians do not know is that we do not receive the price per barrel that is commonly reported. The price reported is the North American benchmark, West Texas Intermediate. Our oil is traded as Western Canadian Select. The difference between the two prices is about $34 a barrel, on average. The good news is that pipelines can help to close that gap in prices. The more access we have to markets other than the United States, the better the deal we can obtain.

Instead of supporting the building of these pipelines, the Liberal government has introduced regulation after regulation to cripple the industry and deter investment. Today we are talking about the unpopular move that the Liberal government has struck against the west and our oil industry by robbing the National Energy Board of most of its powers through the creation of the Canadian energy regulator.

The National Energy Board has served as a world-class regulator for the natural resource sector since its creation in 1959. Since then, it has reviewed and approved major energy projects across Canada. Over the last decade, the NEB has approved the pipelines Alberta desperately needs, which made it a target for political interference. When the Liberal government took power, the natural resource minister's mandate letter called on him to “Modernize the National Energy Board to ensure that its composition reflects regional views and has sufficient expertise in fields such as environmental science, community development, and Indigenous traditional knowledge.”

While the government believes Bill C-69 would complete this mandate, I would like to cover how this bill would drive investment out of Canada.

One of the changes the bill would bring in is the establishment of timelines. The government claims that there will be timelines of 450 days for major projects and 300 days for minor projects, respectively, pursuant to subclauses 183(4) and 214(4). While many Conservatives are in favour of timelines for projects, the devil is in the details, and unfortunately we did not have time or enough witnesses at our round tables to go over these details. The application process can be dragged out, and that will not be considered in the timelines. The lead commissioner will be given the ability to exclude time. Lastly and most importantly, the minister can approve or deny an application before it even gets to the assessment phase. We only have to look at the cancelled northern gateway pipeline to see that the government has no problem putting national interests on hold and dismissing a pipeline for political reasons.

I am also concerned about the changes to the NEB standing test. Currently, individuals and organizations directly affected by the project or capable of providing valuable knowledge are heard by the National Energy Board. The new rules would allow anyone to participate and be heard. This would ensure that groups who oppose all energy projects across Canada will be given a bigger voice. Groups outside of Canada will be given a voice as well, and they do not have our best interests at heart.

I can only imagine what our global competitors think of this legislation. It would give them the opportunity to fund groups that will oppose every project that has the ability to threaten their market share. To think that this will not occur in the future is foolish and short-sighted.

Briefly, I would like to bring your attention to the projects that have died under the Liberals' watch.

The Prime Minister imposed offshore drilling bans in the Northwest Territories without notice to the territorial governments, which killed exploration and future development, and the Petronas-backed NorthWest LNG megaproject on the west coast was cancelled. The Liberal government has ever-changing policies and roadblocks, which led to the cancellation of energy east. The Liberals also cancelled the Conservative-approved pipeline project known as the northern gateway, which would have brought our oil to tidewater. They legislated the northern B.C. coastline tanker ban, which will ensure projects like the northern gateway and Eagle Spirit will never be possible.

In addition, many Canadians and experts are concerned over the purchase of a 65-year-old pipeline at twice its book value, but the biggest concern is the current condition of the pipeline.

Some of the questions I have are these: What is the life expectancy of the 65-year-old pipeline? What is the projected cost of the maintenance and upgrade of the 65-year-old infrastructure? Will the newly created crown corporation be self-sufficient or end up like the CBC, dependent on taxpayer handouts? Will the construction of the twinning of the pipeline be subject to Bill C-69? Did the government assume all liability from Kinder Morgan, including liabilities from the past?

We should all recognize that the natural resource sector has brought tremendous wealth to my riding, all of Alberta, and Canada. The oil sands alone have brought $7.4 billion to the Canadian economy outside of Alberta: $3.9 billion to Ontario, $1.3 billion to British Columbia, $1.2 billion to Quebec, $333 million to Newfoundland, $143 million to Manitoba, $142 million to Saskatchewan, $96.7 million to Nova Scotia, $50.8 million to New Brunswick, $11.4 million to the Northwest Territories, $6.3 million to Prince Edward Island, $1.6 million to Yukon, and the list goes on. These figures include everything from especially made overalls to high technology for reducing global emissions.

Members need to consider that if we keep our resources in the ground, as environmentalist David Suzuki wants us to do, we are not saving the environment; we are just moving resource development to countries around the world that have lower safety standards and lower environmental protections. I believe that if resources are needed, it is better that they come from here and not from human rights abusers and dictators.

I know that many members of Parliament have voted for regulations of every type and will continue to do so. What they need to consider before voting on this bill is that we are part of a global market. Right now we are competing with countries across the world to sell our goods and attract investment.

We only need to look across the border to see a government intent on bringing in billions of dollars of investments and the jobs that come with them. Since taking office, the Trump administration has given the energy industry a tremendous amount of confidence to invest by cutting regulations and taxes. Future natural resource jobs in my riding, in Alberta, and across Canada are at stake if this bill passes, and that is why my Conservative colleagues and I stand against this bill.

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June 7th, 2018 / 4 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague. We work very well together on the agriculture committee. He touched on something when he pointed out that although we are talking about Bill C-69, this really is about a larger narrative.

The government is making making significant decisions that will impact almost every aspect of our economy, whether it is energy, farming, ranching, or small business. As we have seen over the last few days, and certainly over the last couple of weeks, the Liberals are trying to ram these decisions through with little to no consultation either from members or from Canadians who are going to be impacted by this decision.

I would like my colleague to talk about some of the things he is hearing in his constituency about the impact, or about the frustration from his residents as a result of the decisions being made by the Liberal government with no consultation with Canadians.

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:45 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-69. It is an opportunity that unfortunately many colleagues in the House will not be able to have. We are currently debating it under time allocation, so we have a limit of five hours to debate it.

I want to walk the House through a little history lesson.

If we go back to the 2015 election, the Liberals, particularly the Prime Minister, made a lot of promises during that campaign. One of them was a repeated promise that if the Liberals were elected, they would immediately restore a strengthened federal environmental assessment process. They made a commitment that they would not approve any projects without first enacting that strengthened assessment process to ensure decisions were based on science, facts, and evidence, and that they would serve the public interest.

In fact, the Prime Minister made a visit to British Columbia. He came to Vancouver Island to the community of Esquimalt on August 20, 2015. People will know Esquimalt, because that is the home of the main Pacific naval base for Canada. He was asked specifically about the promise in the context of Kinder Morgan. He said, quite clearly, that the Kinder Morgan pipeline review process would have to be redone under stronger and more credible rules.

However, what we have before us today, with Bill C-69, is a gargantuan bill, clocking in at 364 pages. It is too little too late, because we are now debating a bill after the government has approved Kinder Morgan and after it has announced the purchase of the pipeline.

The bill comes to us roughly 28 months since the Liberals were elected. I have heard other members of Parliament express in this place that the bill should have gone to three separate committees. It should have gone to the transport committee, the natural resources committee, and the environment committee so each of those collective bodies, with the experience and knowledge that members attain while working on them, could have studied the constituent parts and called forth the appropriate witnesses.

Instead, one committee was entrusted to this monumental task, this herculean task. I know the efforts of the member for Edmonton Strathcona in listening to the evidence and in trying to put forward amendments to see that the bill lived up to the promises the Liberal government had made. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints and the Liberal members on the committee not really listening to her, most of those amendments were defeated, and here we are at the report stage of the bill.

I also want to go back to the time before Bill C-69 was introduced. The Liberals keep on saying that Kinder Morgan did go through a renewed review process. Well, let us just examine what they in fact set up.

The Liberals had set up what was known as a “ministerial review panel”. In fact, that panel admitted that it lacked the time, the technical expertise, and the resources to fill the gaps in the National Energy Board process. It ended up with little more than questions that remained unanswered. They kept no public records of hearings, admitted that the meetings were hastily organized, and confirmed that they had a serious lack of public confidence in the National Energy Board and its recommendations.

I attended one of those meetings when it came to Victoria. I remember the room unanimously coming out against Kinder Morgan. It was kind of a slapdash piece of work.

Despite all of the setbacks of the ministerial review panel, its members still came out and acknowledged that Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline proposals could not proceed without a serious reassessment of its impacts on climate change commitments, indigenous rights, and marine mammal safety. Therefore, they, in a sense, were acknowledging the huge problems that existed with this project.

The Liberals keep on openly wondering why there is such passionate opposition to this project, specifically in British Columbia where the risks are very much concentrated. It is because people did not have faith in the previous process. Many of them were lured to vote Liberal. They had hoped that the new Liberal government would actually live up to its promises.

Instead what they got was a ministerial review panel, judgment passed by the Liberal government before the facts, and now this bill, Bill C-69, which still has many problematic elements. One of the big ones is that the Minister of Environment will still have an arbitrary right to monitor environmental projects. It leaves them open to political influences instead of scientific evidence.

Governments come and go. We may have an environment minister in one government whom the public can trust and know that the person's heart is in the right place, but if a new government comes in that has completely different leanings and gives that kind of power to ministers, it can sway its decisions according to which way the political winds blow. That is not the way to enact strong, scientific, consensus-based decision-making.

I want to start framing this debate a bit more in the context of Kinder Morgan and the very fact that the government has made promises to get rid of subsidies to the oil and gas sector, that we are now last in the G7, and that the government has tried to strive to a 2025 goal.

The Liberals have paid $4.5 billion for a 65-year-old pipeline, one that exports diluted bitumen, and this is just the cost of the existing infrastructure and not of anything that will come from it. I hear members from all sides talking about a national energy strategy, but this pipeline serves foreign interests. It is not accumulating the best value for our product.

Diluted bitumen is the lowest grade of crude we can export. That is why it fetches the lowest prices. Expanding Kinder Morgan's capacity will not change the price. I see no incentive and I have seen no evidence that customers will be willing to pay more for the same product just because we can ship more volume. The existing pipeline exports 99% of it to California, so I would like to see evidence of all the buyers from Asia lining up at the door. They are currently not buying what Kinder Morgan is exporting today.

The Liberals like to use a favourite phrase that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. There are a few things that are wrong with this. It supposes that the environment and the economy are equal partners. That is not the case. I would argue that there is a relationship, but the economy is very much the junior partner. When we start affecting our environment, when we start polluting the waterways, and we see the effects of climate change, the economic ravages that can have far outweigh any of the benefits we can get.

There are economic opportunities in keeping in line with our environmental goals if we start to make the right investments into renewable energy. We have to see the way the world is going. This is 2018, and there is a trend. I want our country to take advantage of the economic opportunities of the 21st century economy, not invest in something that rightfully belongs in the 20th century.

Along the way, we have to be speaking to current energy workers. We have to ensure they come along with us. Everyone acknowledges that the oil sands will not stop production tomorrow, but we need to have a plan where we talk about the just transition of those workers to bring them with us into the new energy economy, so Canada is best placed for the 21st century.

I also want to talk about the Liberals' vote for Bill C-262 last week and how little those commitments mean this week.

The member for Edmonton Strathcona tried repeatedly, both at committee and now at report stage, to insert language into Bill C-69 that would live up to what Bill C-262 would do. Bill C-262 seeks to bring the laws of Canada into harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If we look at all the report stage motions, we can see that the member for Edmonton Strathcona has tried to insert language in there that acknowledges the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and acknowledges the Constitution Act, 1982 and all of our commitments. I have been questioning Liberals repeatedly on this. Will they at least have some consistency and vote in support of those amendments, following their support for Bill C-262?

This bill is too little too late. There are gaps in it that we could drive a bus through. While we appreciate some elements of the bill, we have to look at the whole thing.

When it is this large, there are just far too many negatives. They outweigh the positives. That is why the NDP is going to withhold its support for the bill. We were hoping for a lot more, and frankly, so were the Canadian people.

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:45 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many farmers and ranchers in rural Canada about the changes in Bill C-69 and the impact they will have, especially when it comes to working on their own land. When they are working in spring runoff areas, little waterways and ditches, they will be forced to work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, even if someone cannot even get a raft or a balloon down that waterway. They are going to be treated like the last pirate of Saskatchewan is going to be sailing down the plain in his ship. It is going to cause a lot of burden and red tape for these farmers when they are trying to produce food and work on their land.

Could my colleague talk about the impact the changes in Bill C-69 will have on the agriculture sector?

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:40 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I heard my friend's comments loud and clear with respect to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Canada had the legislation since 1867, originally under our first prime minister. It remained virtually unchanged until the very significant changes in 2012.

My friend and I will disagree. The omnibus budget bill, Bill C-45 in the fall of 2012, really did damage to our ability to protect navigable waters across Canada. This version in Bill C-69 represents a real improvement. The tragedy is that although the Minister of Transport has done a really good job in repairing that damage, because the impact assessment law does not create a requirement for a review of permits being given by the Minister of Transport, the whole system remains rather shattered, as it was by the budget bill and Bill C-38.

Has she looked at the definition and not recognized that this new definition in Bill C-69 does in fact take into account that waterways that can be used only part of the year and are not actually used for human navigation will not trigger any governmental involvement in navigable waters?

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:30 p.m.


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Conservative

Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-69, 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. My remarks this afternoon will focus on part 3 of this misguided bill.

Part 3 is the section of the bill that makes amendments to the Navigation Protection Act. This section of the bill continues the Prime Minister and the Liberals' assault on common sense laws and regulations that promote jobs and economic growth. The only people calling for the changes proposed in the bill are those opposed to resource projects that create economic development and jobs. They are representatives of the same people who have been protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline, the pipeline the Liberals recently purchased for $4.5 billion in taxpayers' money.

It is rather ironic that the Liberals are burning the bridge, so to speak, with the very voter pool they had hoped to pacify with the bill.

Bill C-69 proposes to change the name of the Navigation Protection Act to the Canadian navigable waters act. While seemingly cosmetic, this change reflects a substantial refocusing of the act on the protection of waters rather than the protection of navigation.

Canada is a large country, the second-largest in the world. In the 1800s, waterways were often the primary means of transporting goods across our vast geography. The legislative forerunners of the Navigation Protection Act were designed to protect the navigability of waterways for the sake of our economy.

With the advent of Canada's rail and road systems, as well as our transportation system, Canada's transportation system has become less reliant on water navigation. However, that said, waterways remain an important element of our transportation system in many regions of the country.

As I said a moment ago, the changes in Bill C-69, including changing the act's name, demonstrate the Liberals' complete disregard for the original intent of the Navigation Protection Act, and instead reflect their misguided attempt to virtue signal in order to obtain the obscure idea of social licence. Without definition or boundaries, social licence is no more real than a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

The Liberals' fixation on this abstract idea is costing Canadians dearly. Again, just consider the $4.5 billion, and counting, that the Liberals have spent to buy the old Trans Mountain pipeline. Now consider the substantial changes to the Navigation Protection Act contained within this bill.

The current Navigation Protection Act includes a schedule of waters to which the act applies. This schedule was created by the previous Conservative government because we realized that not every seasonal creek, tiny river, or stream was used for the purpose of commercial navigation. We also realized that these seasonal creeks or tiny rivers were already protected by other environmental legislation and that when economic development was planned on or near them, it was duplicative and redundant to make these projects subject to the NPA when in fact these small bodies of water were not used for navigation.

Our changes were strongly supported by a broad range of stakeholders and organizations across Canada. They ranged from the construction industry, to the resource development industry, to municipalities and their associations. These organizations recognized that Canada needed prudent, careful environmental laws and regulations, but not duplicative ones. They realized that applying the NPA to projects where navigation was not a consideration was a waste of time and money and led to increased project costs.

On this point, the opposition by municipal organizations and the construction industry was highlighted to parliamentarians at the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities when we undertook a study in 2016 of the former Conservative government's changes to the NPA. The genesis of that study by the committee was very interesting and should be noted.

What prompted the committee's study of the NPA was twofold. First, I believe there was a misguided eagerness on the part of Liberal and NDP MPs to do the bidding of the Prime Minister, rather than focusing on the real issues, which would have had a more meaningful and positive impact on Canadians and our economy. The committee's study of the NPA was a case of the legislative branch taking its marching orders from the executive branch.

Second, and connected to my first point, the transport, infrastructure and communities committee undertook the study of the NPA as a result of an inadvisable letter from the Minister of Transport, co-authored by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, which was sent to the chair of the transportation committee. In this letter, the Minister of Transport, in effect, directed the committee to undertake this study to provide political cover for introducing changes to the previous Conservative government's legislation. Add to that the fact that the instructions contained within the Minister of Transport's ministerial mandate letter directed him to reverse the changes that were made when the NPA became law.

By directing the committee to undertake the study, the minister was foisting upon a parliamentary committee an instruction that he, himself, had been given. It is no wonder, then, that the conclusions of the committee study were pre-determined. To this day, I find this invasion by the executive branch into the workings of a committee of the legislative body to be a very egregious act on the part of the Minister of Transport and this Prime Minister.

Getting back to Bill C-69 and the new provisions it contains, if passed, the bill will maintain the schedule of waters to be covered by the bill, but it will change the rules and regulations for any work on any navigable water listed in the schedule. Additionally, the bill will create new rules and regulations that will apply to all navigable waters, not just those listed in the schedule.

When I say “navigable water”, it is important to note that this term is code for any body of water or seasonal stream that can float a petroleum-produced canoe or kayak. These new rules include providing an opportunity for the public to express concerns over a work's impact on navigation.

While noble in concept, we all know that this new provision has the potential to be abused by individuals and organizations ideologically opposed to certain projects. This bill is about undoing the good work of our previous Conservative government for spite, rather than implementing policy for the good of the country.

In conclusion, I believe that Bill C-69 is a bad bill and completely unnecessary. While I have only touched on a small part of this bill, I know that its other elements, which my colleague, the member for Abbotsford and others have articulated, will have an equally damaging effect on the Canadian economy and the investment environment in Canada as a whole. This damaging bill is just another piece of bad policy that is causing investment and job creators to look at other countries and/or leave Canada.

It is my sincere hope that the Liberals will reconsider what they are doing to Canada's economy and reputation with misguided pieces of legislation like this one.

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:25 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-69, which is an omnibus bill that affects the new Canadian energy regulator, which was the National Energy Board; the Impact Assessment Act, which was the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act; and the navigable waters act. Having practised environmental law for most of my life, I do not suppose she will believe me when I tell her, but I will try to tell her, that this bill is incredibly weak and does nothing to make development more difficult. It cannot possibly drive away investors unless they only want to put their money in countries where environmental assessment meets the minimum standards of rigour that Canada used to have between the early 1970s and 2012.

I do not suppose she is reassured, but I am voting against Bill C-69 because it is absolutely weak. I wonder if she has read it in detail and recognizes that it keeps in place most of what the previous government had done.

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June 7th, 2018 / 3:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise again today to finish my remarks. I started them at five minutes to midnight last night, so I am glad that I have this opportunity to continue.

I want to remind my colleagues that Kinder Morgan never asked for a single dollar of taxpayers' money. It asked the government to provide certainty that its pipeline could be built. Even though the Liberals approved the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, they sat on their hands and did not champion it. Kinder Morgan was not given the certainty it had asked for. Instead, it got delay after delay. That failure led to the nationalization of the pipeline, and as I have said, it has come at a significant cost to Canadian taxpayers.

Of the bailout, Aaron Wudrick, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said it is “both a colossal failure of the [Prime Minister's] government to enforce the law of the land, and a massive, unnecessary financial burden on Canadian taxpayers.”

Pipeline projects can be built without taxpayer money. The former Conservative government approved 4,500 kilometres of new pipeline through four major pipeline projects.

The role of the government should be to ensure that projects that are scientifically determined to be safe for the environment, and in the interests of Canadians, receive approval. Through low taxes and a clear and less burdensome regulatory system, the government could achieve some success. More than halfway through their mandate, the Liberals have not learned that lesson. That is why Trans Canada pulled out of the energy east pipeline project.

That was not the only energy sector loss. The Liberals' poor management of our energy sector has chased away over $80 billion of investment. As I am sure every member in this place will remember, just recently the Liberal government passed the oil tanker moratorium act through the House. This legislation, when enacted, will prevent an entire region from accessing economic opportunities in the oil and gas sector.

Chris Bloomer, president and CEO of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said, “Projects require clarity and predictability, and once approved should not be subject to costly delay tactics that thwart Canada's economic and social prosperity.” It is really quite a simple ask from Canada's energy industry. It wants to know the rules, know that they are fair, and know that they will not change erratically.

Bill C-69 would not provide that assurance to those working in the energy sector. First, it would provide a slew of ministerial and Governor in Council exemptions that could be used to slow down the approval process. It would also add a planning phase to the process, a brand new process that would be an added 180 days.

The legislation we have in front of us does not provide me with any measure of confidence that it would decrease project timelines or improve certainty for investors. Rather, it would do just the opposite. This legislation would not make investment in Canada more appealing. Rather, it would make it more complicated and more uncertain.

Bill C-69 proposes increased consultation and would expand the criteria to be considered in the assessment of a project. It would seek social license, but it would not increase scientific analysis of the project.

Let us not forget the fact that the minister would have a veto right at the end of the planning phase. This would certainly not instill confidence in investors. It would tell potential investors that decisions on the approval of a project could be decided on a political whim.

We have to also remember that this is happening while the United States is cutting regulations and lowering its taxes. Canada has lost significant business investment. We cannot afford the cost of increased regulation and increased uncertainty. This legislation would not strike the appropriate balance between protecting the environment and growing our economy.

This legislation, like the Liberal government's policies, is flawed. It would propose new regulatory burdens that, when combined with other measures the Liberals have introduced, such as the carbon tax, would drive investment away from Canada.

If Canada wants to compete globally, we need to lower taxes and streamline the regulation system. We need a government that works with Canadians and not against them.

Bill C-69 would result in a loss of jobs, a loss of economic growth, and a loss in global competitiveness. I cannot support the Liberal government's continued efforts to undermine Canada's long-term prosperity.

As spoken

The House resumed from June 6 consideration of Bill C-69, 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Business of the HouseOral Questions

June 7th, 2018 / 3:10 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-69, the environmental assessment act.

Following this, we will turn to Bill C-75, the justice modernization act, and Bill C-59, the national security act.

If time permits, we shall start debate at report stage of Bill C-68, the fisheries act, and Bill C-64 on derelict vessels.

Tomorrow morning, we will begin third reading of Bill C-47 on the Arms Trade Treaty. Next Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are allotted days. Also, pursuant to the Standing Orders, we will be voting on the main estimates Thursday evening.

Next week, priority will be given to the following bills: Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act; Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters; Bill C-64, the wrecked, abandoned or hazardous vessels act; Bill C-68 on fisheries; and Bill C-69 on environmental assessments.

We also know, however, that the other place should soon be voting on Bill C-45, the cannabis act. If a message is received notifying us of amendments, that will be given priority.

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June 7th, 2018 / midnight


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The Assistant Deputy Speaker Anthony Rota

The hon. member will have five minutes and 45 seconds the next time Bill C-69 comes up for debate.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening, and almost tomorrow, to speak to Bill C-69, 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.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak to this legislation, as the measures proposed in it would have a significant impact on the constituents in my riding. The energy sector is a central industry in my riding of Battlefords—Lloydminster, and ensuring the industry's viability and growth going forward is crucial to my constituents. While the responsible development of our natural resources is important to my riding, it is equally as important to all Canadians.

Our country owes a lot of its prosperity to our natural resources, a fact that even the Prime Minister has admitted. In his mandate letter to the Minister of Natural Resources, he wrote, “Throughout Canada’s history, our prosperity has been built on our natural resources.” It is a fact that he cannot and should not forget. Our development of natural resources creates jobs in Canada and economic development, and through taxes, it contributes significant revenues to the government.

The energy sector is a key natural resource sector in Canada. It creates over 800,000 Canadian jobs and represents nearly 10% of Canada's nominal GDP. Those figures are nothing to scoff at. Unfortunately, despite the Prime Minister's acknowledgement of the importance of our natural resources, both his actions and inactions have come with a tremendous price tag.

The Liberal government has a terrible record when it comes to Canada's energy sector. While the members across the aisle may want to claim that this legislation is a positive step for the future of our energy sector, that is just not the case, and the Liberals simply cannot be trusted on this file.

This legislation proposes a one project, one review system for approving proposed projects. In principle this looks very positive, but a closer look at this bill quickly reveals that it is full of measures that could be taken to slow down the approval process. In actuality, the process that has been outlined is lengthier.

This perhaps comes as no surprise to many, as we have repeatedly seen the Prime Minister make promises to Canadians and then fail to deliver on them. In fact, since forming government, the Prime Minister has repeatedly failed our energy sector. The recent taxpayer purchase of the Kinder Morgan pipeline is a great example of the Prime Minister's failure, a failure with a $4.5-billion price tag and one that puts Canadian taxpayers on the hook for billions more in costs.

I remind my colleagues that Kinder Morgan never asked for a single dollar of taxpayer money. All it asked for was that the government provide certainty that a pipeline could be built. Even though the Liberals approved the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, they sat on their hands and did not champion it. Kinder Morgan was not given the certainty it asked for. Instead, it saw delay after delay after delay.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:40 p.m.


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Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

The Conservatives can heckle whatever they want. The reality is that they did not build one inch of pipeline to tidewater. They failed. There were 10 years of failure on that front. What they asked for was to see a pipeline built, because they could not do it.

Now we have a government that is actually making it happen. One would think the Conservatives would be happy to see that, but no. Now they are asking why the government is buying a pipeline. Do I need to remind them that it was Harper who bought automobile shares to protect an industry? Imagine the thousands of jobs that were saved because of the Harper decision to invest in the automobile industry. That money was ultimately returned. Need I remind them they cashed out a billion dollars on it in the last budget they presented? Why are they saying no to Alberta, and to Canada as a whole? That is the challenge I put to my Conservative friends, because it just does not make any sense.

What does Bill C-69 do? It protects our environment, fish, and waterways. This is good stuff. We are re-establishing public confidence in the environment and in economic development because they can go hand in hand. We are also respecting indigenous rights.

If I go back to my New Democratic friends, they will point out that there is a group that is in opposition to it. The logic of the NDP, which at times can be a challenge, is that if we do not get 100% buy-in, then we should kill the project, no matter what the project is. That seems to be the New Democrats' approach to economic development. I think they owe it to Canadians to be a little more clear and transparent.

I believe we have seen political parties on all sides recognize exactly what we have been able to accomplish with regard to the Trans Mountain expansion project. It is something the Conservatives could not accomplish. Whenever you have a major project, there are divisions, even within the NDP ranks. Take a look at the premier of Alberta. What does she have to say? She is very encouraging and very positive that we finally have a national government able to get the job done. On the other hand, we have the NDP in British Columbia who are determined to kill the project, and now we have the national party, whose position is a little harder to peg, but I think in the last week or so it has become very clear that it does not see the value of pipelines.

I will tell members why it is in Canada's national best interest from the narrow perspective of my province of Manitoba. We can talk about the thousands of jobs that will be created and the endless opportunities for indigenous people and communities in all regions of our country. We will all benefit from it. However, I want to focus on something that does not get talked about very often, which is that the Province of Manitoba will spend roughly $6 billion on health care, and probably quite a bit more than that. It has been awhile since I was a member of the Manitoba legislature, but we are very dependent on equalization payments, transfer payments, and so forth. A province like Alberta, for example, contributes billions of dollars towards equalization. If Manitoba did not receive that kind of funding, we would be unable to provide the type of services we do in health care, education, and many of the social programs that are so very important and part of what I believe Manitobans and all Canadians would like to see.

When I first learned that we were acquiring the Trans Mountain expansion project, I felt very good about it. I thought this is what it means to be in government, which is to have a vision that would ultimately see Canada continuing to grow. Our middle class today will be healthier tomorrow as a direct result of this acquisition. At the end of the day, that was a commitment we made to voters back in 2015. We committed to looking at ways to build Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, and to look at ways to strengthen our economy.

However, those naysayers, the New Democrats, do not understand or appreciate the importance of energy and getting our commodities to market, and would rather say no to anything and everything. The Conservatives do not appreciate the importance of our environment and respecting indigenous rights.

On this side of the House, this Prime Minister and this caucus understand the value of a government that is prepared to make tough decisions that will have a profoundly positive impact in many different ways in every region of the country. I am so proud to be part of a government that does not shy away from acting in the national best interest. That, to me, is one reason we should all be getting behind the Trans Mountain project and, specifically, this proposed legislation.

This proposed legislation would reinforce that trust by having, for example, the Canadian energy regulator ensure that on the issues the agencies are addressing, the required conditions are in fact being met. That would be a good thing. There would be more efficiency. At the end of the day, we will be better off with the passage of this legislation.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:35 p.m.


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NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, it would be speculation indeed, because it does not seem to make a lot of sense to have commissioned that work, have it done, and then largely ignore it.

We saw something similar with the Special Committee on Electoral Reform. There was a budget for that committee too. It did a lot of travel, heard from a number of witnesses, and produced a really great report. Everybody put a bit of water in their wine to clear the path for the government to move forward and make good on its election commitment. Without really even taking time to consider that report, the government decided to throw it in the wastepaper bin. It is a theme, but the motivation behind that theme is not exactly clear.

On the issue of electoral reform, by way of analogy to Bill C-69, one could imagine the government creating a really good proportional representation voting system that actually satisfied Canadians who voted for change, but putting in a caveat in the bill that the government of the day could decide in advance of an election whether it would use that process or the old process. I do not think anybody would say that made sense. Right?

Effectively, the ministerial discretion to decide whether to apply this framework to a project and then to ignore it afterwards would be a further caveat. We would be saying, “If we had the election and we do not like the results, we will actually just rescind it and then will redo the election under the old process.” Nobody would think that was a good idea, and effectively that is what is happening here.

There may be virtues in the change to the process, but the real problem is whether the process will be applied and whether it has to be respected once it is seen through.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:35 p.m.


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NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that notwithstanding any virtues of the process proposed in Bill C-69, if the minister is the one who will decide whether the process will be applied to a project or not, because the process itself is not mandatory, and if at the end of it the minister is able to simply ignore the outcomes of the process, then no, we would not have a process that is fundamentally better than the one the Harper government had, because the government could ignore it at will.

The major problem with the Harper process as far as I am concerned is that at the end of the day, the government, for whatever reason, could simply ignore the science and the evidence. That fundamentally has not changed.

Incidentally, members looking to the National Post to validate whether or not their policies are progressive are probably barking up the wrong tree.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote about Bill C-69 from the National Post. It reads:

Bill C-69 outlines a number of factors that the minister must consider before approving a project including sustainability and impacts on indigenous groups and on Canada's ability to meet its climate change commitments. That's an improvement over the existing system where the government's reasons for project approvals are often 'mysterious' according to Jamie Mean, spokesperson for Mining Watch Canada.

I would just like the member's comments on that quote. Could he say whether or not he feels this quote reflects the fact that we have a bill that is an improvement on the existing process brought in by the Conservatives?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 11:20 p.m.


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NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-69. I want to take a moment to talk specifically about some of the deficiencies of the bill. Then I would like to talk a bit more about a general pattern of behaviour that the bill fits into, which is problematic in and of itself.

With respect to the bill, Canadians were upset with the previous government and its approach to environmental assessment, if we can call it that. The previous government really gutted the existing environmental assessment process. The key feature of that gutting in my opinion and the opinion of many Canadians across the country was that the Harper government essentially made the final approval of large natural resource projects a political decision at the cabinet table. It became a decision that was not inherently tied to evidence, to science, to predictable impacts with respect to the effect of these projects on the climate. It was not tied to the rights of indigenous peoples to have a say over what happens on their own land. It was simply a political decision to be taken by cabinet. Therefore, one would think that a party that ran against the Harper Conservatives, in part because the latter had gutted environmental assessments and the Liberals committed to Canadians in the election that they would fix that, would have to address the issue of that approval becoming essentially just a prerogative of the government to make according to its own reasons.

The problem with Bill C-69 is that after waiting well over two years for the government to present its fix to the Harper approach to approving these projects, the bill does not in fact do that. It maintains the absolute prerogative of the government to plow ahead, irrespective of the facts, the science on a particular project, or the views of many first nations that may be affected by a particular project. To me, that is a clear and obvious deficiency in the legislation. It does not meet the commitment the Liberals made in the last election to Canadians who are really concerned about this issue. One of the clearest and most obvious things those Canadians wanted was to try to depoliticize the approval process for many of these projects and to have decisions based on science and evidence. It was not to allow the government a choice as to whether or not to go along with the science and the evidence, but to bake it into the process so that the government would not have a choice other than make decisions based on that evidence, or to have an independent body make that decision based on that evidence and science. That is a clear deficiency with the bill, and one that is very disappointing.

With regard to the rights of indigenous people being respected in the approval of these kinds of projects, my colleague, the member for Edmonton Strathcona, presented a number of amendments that would not have put that commitment in the preamble alone, which is what the government ultimately decided to do. The government's decision to put that commitment in the preamble gives us a measure of how strong its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples really is, because the preamble is non-binding. That, of course, is the kind of commitment that Liberals seem to prefer, the non-binding ones. That was evidenced in their rejection of a number of amendments that would have given UNDRIP real force and effect in the environmental review process. Putting that commitment in the preamble does not give UNDRIP real effect. They are nice words, but they do not get the job done when we have a government that is not interested in respecting the rights of indigenous people. What indigenous people needed was something with the force of law that they could take to court when the government trampled on their rights. The Liberals opted not to do that, and it really does not do it a service to say that it was a missed opportunity.

It is wrong for them not to have done that. It is wrong in principle, but it is also wrong in light of the commitment they just made in voting in support of Bill C-262 last week, which is essentially all about trying to implement UNDRIP within Canadian law. It is wrong, according to the claims of the Prime Minister, who often says that the nation-to-nation relationship is one of the most important relationships.

In light of all those things, it was clearly wrong for the government to do that.

It is part of a theme on a number of files within the government, where the attitude is that we should just trust the government. The government admits there is a lot of discretion, but it says discretion allows it to do the right thing, and it wants to do the right thing. It does not think it has to put the right thing in law or require itself to do the right thing, because it really wants to do it, so we should just take its word for it. That is what is happening with Bill C-69. That is what it means to maintain ministerial prerogative to decide on a project regardless of the evidence.

We heard the minister say something to that effect in the debate on time allocation earlier, when she said that the government cares about science and evidence and therefore it does not need to put a requirement in the law to make decisions based on science and evidence. She said that if we wait and look at the decisions the government makes, we will see, in hindsight, that they were based on science and evidence.

I do not think that this is what Canadians were asking for when they elected a government that said it was going to create a new process based on science and evidence. It is a bad way of making law. It means that a future government that comes in will not be required to do that, just as the current government is not.

Frankly, I do not think the Liberals are really committed, in many cases, to evidence-based decision-making. They would not have bought a 65-year-old leaky pipeline for far more than it is worth if they were actually serious about making information-based decisions. We could go down that road, but even if we do not, it is very clear that if one's commitment is to build a good process, this process should not rely on the goodwill of the government of the day. It should be a process that requires the government of the day to do the right thing, notwithstanding who is in power. This bill obviously fails that test.

We saw something similar with Bill C-49 with respect to voice and video recording devices in locomotives. The government said that we need not worry because it has no interest in invading the privacy rights of workers, and that it would look after it, but without putting it into law; it would just put it in regulations. The government asked us, when voting on the legislation, to trust that it would do the right thing later in regulation.

Never mind the fact that even if the current government does the right thing, and we have not seen that yet, it is still up to some future government to simply change the regulations by order in council without coming to Parliament, because it is not in the law. I do not think the government has done any great favour to workers in that industry by setting up a law that could be so easily abused.

We have seen a similar thing from the government when it comes to approving funding for all its new budget initiatives for 2018-19. It is asking for approval of over $7 billion up front. Department officials and ministers have been very clear in committee that they do not actually have a plan for the money yet. They do not know what they are going to do with that money yet. They have not designed the program, and it has not been to the Treasury Board. They do not know how many people they are going to hire. They do not know whether they will build a building, rent an office, or use existing space. They do not know if they will be travelling across the country. The government does not know what it is going to be spending the money on, but its answer is clear: We should just trust it that things are going to work out and that everything will be okay.

Canadians are looking to the government for leadership on a number of issues, whether it be fiscal responsibility, or being open and accountable, or the very important issues that Bill C-69 is at least nominally meant to address. I have given some indication that I am not convinced it actually addresses those issues.

Regardless of the issue, when Canadians are looking for leadership, they are looking for legislation that holds the government to account. If the government of the day is sincere in giving its word, it should not mind being held to a higher standard, allowing Canadians to test that in court if they have to. Hopefully it will not come to that and the government will keep its word, which remains to be seen.

Canadians deserve to have the tools to hold the government to its word. They also deserve to have future governments bound by those things. At the very least, if a future government wants to change that, it should have to come to Parliament to make the case to Canada's elected representatives, instead of being able to do it fly-by-night through regulation. That is the problem with Bill C-69.

As spoken

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Dan Ruimy Liberal Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my parliamentary colleagues for their careful review and analysis of our navigation protection legislation.

Many Canadians told us they were unhappy that the previous government's changes were made without an opportunity for them to participate and voice their concerns about the changes. My parliamentary colleagues changed that. They heard from Canadians and responded with recommendations and legislation that would protect Canadians' right to travel on all navigable waters in Canada.

This journey started almost two years ago when the government launched a broader review of environmental and regulatory processes. The broader review included the review of environmental assessment processes, the modernization of the National Energy Board, and the restoration of lost protections for the Fisheries Act and Canada's navigation protection legislation.

Reviewing the Navigation Protection Act is important to parliamentarians, so important that the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities carried its own study of the act. The committee tabled its report in March 2017, taking into the account the views of witnesses and the many submissions received from interested Canadians. The committee's reported findings and recommendations helped supplement our review.

Consultations have been at the heart of this review. I would like to take this opportunity to also thank Canadians who contributed to the committee's study.

The committee's work opened the dialogue on the protections Canadians wanted to see for navigation in Canada. What did we hear? We heard that Canadians wanted to see protections for all waterways in Canada, including those left unprotected by the current law. We also heard that Canadians wanted a smarter way of protecting navigation, one that would put resources where they were needed most.

In June 2017, the government responded to the committee's report, accepting all of its recommendations. Shortly thereafter, the government released a discussion paper, setting out proposals for all four components of the broader review. This kicked off a second phase of consultations.

Consultations were held with other levels of government, indigenous peoples, voters, environmental non-governmental organizations, and industry. What we heard through the summer and early fall of 2017 helped us shape the proposed Canadian navigable waters act introduced in Parliament in February of this year as part of Bill C-69.

I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the work done by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. I would also like to thank the committee, the witnesses, and those who made written submissions for their time spent studying the new Canadian navigable waters act and providing their views.

Bill C-69 delivers on the government's commitment to restore lost protections by providing oversight for all works on all navigable waters in Canada. The Canadian navigable waters act in Bill C-69 would keep the minor works order. This order allows works with minor interference to navigation to be built, provided they meet the terms and conditions set out in the order.

The bill also introduces a new major works order. This order would require anyone building a major work with significant interference to navigation to apply to Transport Canada for an approval before building on any navigable water in Canada. Similarly, the bill would also require anyone building works, except minor works, on waters listed on the schedule to apply to Transport Canada for approval.

Works under the new Canadian navigable waters act not covered above would be subject to the new dispute resolution processes set out in the act. This process would require builders to notify the public before starting construction and to resolve any navigation related concerns. If these concerns are not resolved, the builder may be required to apply to Transport Canada for an approval. This process would allow local communities to have a say in the projects that could have an impact on their navigation. This is a good step forward.

I am pleased to see the committee has made important improvements to the new Canadian navigable waters act, including clarifications to the provisions related to indigenous knowledge, the sale of obstructions, and the regulatory power that allows the Governor in Council to exclude small bodies of water from the definition of navigable waters.

Perhaps the most important amendment is the one that makes it clear that changes to water levels and water flows will be considered when assessing the interference that works will have on navigation. Clearly navigation cannot continue if water levels are too low. The impact of works on water levels or water flows will be considered when works are assessed, and conditions can be put in place to mitigate these impacts.

I come from the riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge. We are a watershed community. When I was elected, one of the first things I did was gather a diverse group of people in the community who cared about the environment, who were interested in what was going on, and I listened to them. As a result, we spent almost two years talking to local stream keepers, talking to the municipality, talking to folks who care about the salmon and the connected waters. Through that we were able to put together a report on the Fisheries Act and on making amendments to it.

The one thing I kept hearing over and over again from everyone in my community was that the previous government had gutted not only the Fisheries Act but a lot of acts as well that were supposed to protect our environment. These steps that we are taking now are to restore those lost protections.

I would like to conclude by highlighting the extensive consultations that led us to this bill. Canadians truly had a say in restoring lost protections.

We have built on the foundation of the initial review by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and the recent review by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development with what Canadians told us they would like to see in navigation protection. Both committees have provided a key forum for ensuring that the views of Canadians are heard, and the bill responds to these concerns.

I cannot stress enough that I keep hearing from the opposition members that there was nothing wrong with their act, that everything was fine, everything was great, yet that is not what my community was telling me. That is not what I saw in my community. It is not what I see today when I see the challenges we face with fish and fish habitats and our waterways.

Before summer it is possible to canoe on the Katzie Slough with no problems whatsoever, but then halfway through the summer invasive species of plant life take over the entire slough, and people cannot even canoe over it. Those are real problems. They are not problems made up in the House. That is what is happening in our communities right now.

As spoken

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:45 p.m.


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Liberal

Churence Rogers Liberal Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join today's debate on Bill C-69. The proposed changes are important, because they build on and strengthen the legislation that has been described as historic, groundbreaking, and a major turning point for resource development in Canada.

There is a good reason for all these superlatives, because Bill C-69, even more so now that it has been amended, is a potential game changer in the way Canada reviews new major resource projects by creating greater investment certainty; restoring public confidence; advancing indigenous reconciliation; strengthening protections for our environment, fish, and waterways; and establishing better rules for co-operation among the various levels of government and federal regulatory agencies.

For example, there is a proposed early engagement and planning phase that would bring the proponents of new projects together with local communities and indigenous peoples to identify priorities and concerns. This would have two immediate benefits. First, project proponents and their investors would get a clearer lay of the land before they spent a lot of money advancing their proposals. Second, by identifying the key issues early, the project reviews would be shorter and more focused.

These kinds of results would be transformational for Canada's resource industries. They would enhance our competitiveness at the same time that we are ensuring sustainability, demonstrating yet again that economic prosperity and environmental protection are not competing interests but equal components in a single engine that will drive clean growth.

Bill C-69 features many other innovative measures that are equally significant. I am pleased to see that the amendments proposed at committee are consistent with the spirit and intent of the legislation. They include amendments that would further advance the recognition of indigenous rights, amendments that would enhance public participation and transparency, amendments to improve timelines and predictability, and amendments to clarify both ministerial discretion and the factors to be considered during impact assessments and regulatory reviews.

Many of these amendments extend across all acts within the bill, but I would like to focus my time on how the proposed changes would reinforce the goals of the Canadian energy regulator act.

For those who may be watching at home and are new to Bill C-69, the proposed new Canadian energy regulator would replace the National Energy Board. Our aim is to create a more modern federal regulator, with the required independence and the proper accountability to oversee a strong, safe, and sustainable Canadian energy sector in this clean-growth century.

The Canadian energy regulator act proposes to do this in these five key areas: more modern and effective governance; greater certainty and timelier decisions for project proponents; better public consultations; greater indigenous participation; and stronger safety and environmental protections. The amendments before us would move the yardsticks in each of these areas.

For example, we have a proposal from committee to clarify the factors to be considered by the Canadian energy regulator to ensure that climate change is considered when the regulator is making decisions about non-designated projects, such as pipelines, powerlines, and offshore projects.

I am disappointed in the opposition for how it has treated this historic piece of legislation. During the committee review, opposition members attempted to completely remove the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board from the review panel process. This was quite shocking, as it was proposed despite massive objections from Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, as well as the experts.

In fact, the biggest single criticism of the 2012 changes by the previous government in Newfoundland and Labrador was that it left the CNLOPB out of the entire process. It is clear that the opinion of the Conservatives has not changed. I am proud that Bill C-69 incorporates the critical role of the CNLOPB.

In its appearance before the environment committee, the CNLOPB said that Bill C-69 would provide for improvements over the current process and would allow it to work more closely and more collaboratively with federal agencies and regulators. It also said that regional assessments allowed for in Bill C-69 would strengthen the process.

Other amendments propose ways to enhance the new energy regulator's transparency and to provide for more meaningful opportunities for Canadians to participate in the regulatory process. This includes a requirement for processes and funding to support indigenous and public engagement. Further, there is an important amendment stipulating that whenever a project proponent issues a notice, which means that it has submitted information to the Canadian energy regulator, that the regulator would be required to put that notice on its website. This is an important step to inform the public about projects.

As for discretionary powers, the only exemption orders that would now be allowed under the Canadian energy regulator act would be to ensure safety and security or for the protection of property or the environment.

Other proposed changes build on the principle of one project, one review. For example, we see an amendment proposing that integrated review panels be allowed to include other jurisdictions, thereby ensuring a single impact assessment that still meets all requirements.

Also, other amendments that would provide greater certainty about the transition to a new review process. This includes adding objective criteria to determine which projects would continue to be reviewed under CEAA 2012, as well as a provision to encourage proponents to opt in to Bill C-69's new process. Of course, there are further clarifications that no project proponent will be asked to return to the starting line.

These are all good amendments that our government welcomes.

These changes will help to create an even better Canadian energy regulator. They will ensure good energy projects go ahead with timely and transparent decisions reflecting common values and shared benefits. They would lead to smarter resources, more effective reviews, and better results.

Taken together, Bill C-69 and its amendments are appropriately ambitious and historic. They reflect the adage that one has to swing for the fences if one wants to hit a home run. Bill C-69, as amended, does that.

I hope all members will support Bill C-69 and its changes so we can get on with the business of building an even better Canada, one where the way we manage and develop our natural resources truly reflects who we are as Canadians and the values we cherish most.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:40 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I do not think the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke is interested in the bill we have before us, Bill C-69. Bill C-69 does not include anything about carbon taxes. The bill actually does not apply in any way to the issues she has raised about Ontario's policies for energy.

Personally, I cannot vote for Bill C-69, because it is so terribly weak and fatally flawed because of the persistence of the philosophy that is now embedded in the Government of Canada, left behind by the previous Harper government. Therefore, while I suppose I share the way I will vote with her, I cannot share anything else.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, the $475 million payout for the solar panel company he was with was even more astounding when we consider the fact that most of the power electricity consumers are forced to pay for from that contract is sold at a loss to American border states.

People gaming the system could have been avoided. However, this is what happens when a regulatory body is stacked with partisan political appointees, which is what Bill C-69 would do.

Consumer watchdog Brady Yauch said this was a big mistake and that the OPA was ignoring the issue of aggregators. How many billions of dollars the greed energy policy actually ends up costing us remains to be seen.

The email said:

It's one thing to keep...government in the loop with changes and issues. But it's another thing to take direction from government—especially on very detailed programs.

These are technical issues that the government does not fully understand

Mr. MacDougall said,

Like I said, I no longer know where the lines are between [the Ontario Power Authority] and government.

I think the government didn't trust the OPA to launch and roll out this program as aggressively as they wanted us to.

When we would give advice they would consider it, but they would make their own decisions and largely ignore some of the key policy recommendations that we were trying to put into place.

The Global News article continued, “The government refused to answer specific questions about whether the policy advice was being ignored.”

If government members want to understand why Kathleen Wynne conceded the election to Doug Ford last weekend, they should heed the Global News story I have been quoting from. The parallel is the pipeline debacle that is unfolding as I speak. There is real anger in Ontario over the mismanagement of Ontario—

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:35 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I know the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke is very entertaining, and I hate to interrupt the flow of the narrative, but it has nothing to do with Bill C-69.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Cheryl Gallant Conservative Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, I am pleased to be given this opportunity, on the eve of the Ontario provincial election, to deliver a warning to voters about Bill C-69 about why they need to elect a majority Doug Ford Conservative government.

While there are many aspects of this government legislation that I find objectionable, the greatest cause for concern is the politicization of the Canadian energy board. The decision to move from a fact-based, scientific decision-making process to one based on greed is a regressive move that Ontario electricity ratepayers are all too familiar with.

Whereas under the previous Conservative government Canadians had an environmental and regulatory system that commanded the confidence of all Canadians, the Liberal strategy to invoke a culture war to deflect from the true fallacy of what is being proposed can only end badly for all Canadians.

Under the Conservatives, the National Energy Board was an arm's-length regulatory agency in the way the Ontario Energy Board used to be. The decision by the Toronto Liberal Party to stack the Ontario Energy Board with political appointees, which is similar to what is being proposed federally in Bill C-69, has resulted in the highest electricity prices in North America. Energy poverty in this province has become the new normal, particularly among seniors, anyone on a fixed income, and the working poor.

What is so very unfortunate is the support given by the NDP for these same failed energy policies, failed policies that are being repeated at the federal level in misguided legislation like Bill C-69, which we are discussing today.

Let me be clear: There is a direct link between the failed policies of Kathleen Wynne and the NDP, which supports those same policies. The direct link is Gerald Butts, the Prime Minister's principal assistant. He is the most powerful unelected, unaccountable, technocrat in Ottawa today. He is in the same position he held in Toronto when he set up the greedy policies that have resulted in Ontario being the most indebted subnational government in the world today.

As for the green hustle, anytime anyone questioned the “Greed” Energy Act, the environment was used as an excuse, with zero facts to back up the claim.

For the benefit of all Canadians watching this debate, I encourage voters in Ontario to go to the Global News website for stories from June 1, and watch its investigative story exposing the corruption that has reduced Ontario to a have-not province.

Global News obtained 4,000 pages of internal emails and documents from the now-defunct Ontario Power Authority showing billions of dollars in unnecessary spending that could have been avoided had the government followed the early advice of the Ontario Power Authority, which was tasked with designing many of Ontario's energy policies. In fact, according to Global News, when it comes to the FIT and microFIT programs, which are a key component of the province's greed energy act, documents show that decisions made by the Liberal government in 2009 and 2010, when Liberal Party insider Gerald Butts was in Toronto, as well as design flaws in the programs themselves, put Ontario on a collision course with rising electricity costs.

Brady Yauch, an economist and executive director at the Consumer Policy Institute, independently reviewed all 4,000 pages of documents and shared his views with Global News. According to the director of the Consumer Policy Institute, “The province hijacked the [FIT and Micro-FIT] programs from the very expert agencies it established to handle these types of technical, complicated energy policies. Worse still, [the Liberal Party ignored]...concerns of those experts [about] overpaying [electricity] generators.” Mr. Yauch observed, “That’s very concerning, because now you have a political electricity system, as opposed to one that’s based on economics or cost-effectiveness.”

This is what Bill C-69, the federal legislation we have before us now, will do at the federal level.

Further quoting Global News, the man responsible for designing the FIT and microFIT programs, Jim MacDougall, also said that the government “ignored” expert advice that could have saved Ontarians billions of dollars in greed energy spending. So much for fact-based, scientific decision-making. The Liberal Party refused to answer specific questions about the FIT and microFIT programs in relation to the Global story.

As Global News reported, “Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), which merged with the Ontario Power Authority in 2015, also refused to answer specific questions about design and implementation of” the failed programs. “Instead, it provided a written statement to [Global News] saying the OPA 'worked closely'” with its political masters “to make sure that the programs met the government's 'broader economic and environmental policy objectives.'”

On October 1, 2009, the OPA started receiving applications through the renewable energy programs it was directed to create. Unlike the main program, designed for large-scale commercial projects, such as big solar farms, industrial wind turbine installations, and hydroelectric dams, the microFIT program was supposedly “created so homeowners could put a solar panel on their roofs to 'offset' electricity use and lower hydro bills.”

The Global News report continues:

What ended up happening, however, is the [Ontario Power Authority] was quickly overwhelmed by the number of Micro-FIT applications it received.

Electricity bills started to skyrocket.

By mid-November, about six weeks after the program was launched, emails show the [Ontario Power Authority] was worried some applicants were “gaming” the system—meaning that people were submitting multiple applications for small solar projects on the same property, which, though technically not against the rules, violated the “spirit” of the program.

“Aggregators”, as they became known, submitted hundreds of Micro-FIT applications with plans to set up solar panels on “vacant lots” or on farmers' fields. This was a problem, because Micro-FIT contracts were to pay nearly double what large solar projects received.

And because the cost of building larger projects was significantly lower than what a homeowner might pay to put a solar panel on a roof, aggregators received higher government payouts than the...OPA initially intended.

One of the worst abusers of the greed energy program was the Ontario president of the Liberal Party of Canada, Mike Crawley. His company received a contract that guaranteed $66,000 a day for 20 years, or $475 million over the life of the contract. During the bidding process, he even had the nerve to send out an email encouraging various other parties to attend an infamous pay-to-play soirée, at $5,000 a pop. Liberal Party—

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:25 p.m.


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NDP

Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC

Mr. Speaker, one of the realities in my riding of North Island—Powell River is just how much people care about the environment. We live in an amazing and beautiful area and need to know that the environment will be protected, because it means jobs and the well-being of indigenous communities, families, and people in the community.

One of the concerns I heard again and again, and continue to hear, is that there is a lack of trust and faith in the process. During the election campaign, the Liberal platform stated, “We will end the practice of having federal Ministers interfere in the environmental assessment process.” However, we know that in clause 17 of Bill C-69, we see the very opposite.

I would like the member to explain to me why the environment minister will still have a lot of power to make decisions. If we looking at a process that is going to meet the scientific evidence, and that is how decisions are going to be made, why is it that the minister will still have this incredible power and how will that allow communities to trust the process? When I talk to people in my riding, this just raises the concern again.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:10 p.m.


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Liberal

Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of Bill C-69. As chair of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I found it a privilege to be able to study this bill and report it back to the House with important amendments. These amendments were developed after listening to over 55 witnesses and receiving over 150 briefs from NGOs, indigenous peoples, unions, experts, and industry representatives. The amendments adopted were to bring more predictability, transparent decision-making, clarity on expectations, and timely reviews.

Our government is committed to regaining public trust in the review of projects and to getting Canada's resources to market. That is what this bill will do.

Since 2012, we have seen that weaker rules have hurt Canada's economy and our environment. Without public trust and support, projects cannot move forward and investment is put at risk. This bill would result in better rules to govern major project reviews, helping ensure that Canadians can benefit from over $500 billion in major resource projects planned over the next decade. It would provide predictable, timely project reviews to encourage investment. At the same time, it would ensure that our environment is protected and that we can meet our commitments to reduce carbon pollution and transition to a clean-growth economy.

Engagement with industry as well as with indigenous peoples, provinces and territories, stakeholders, and Canadians has been instrumental in the development of this bill. Over 14 months leading up to its introduction, the government heard from companies about what they need to keep good projects moving forward. Since then, the government has continued to stay engaged with companies, indigenous peoples, and stakeholders. Consistently, companies have told us that they need certainty about the process, about what is required and when, and about how decisions on project approvals are made. Bill C-69 would provide that certainty.

To begin with, one agency, the new impact assessment agency of Canada, would act as a federal lead for all major project reviews. This will result in reviews that are more consistent and more predictable. We have consulted with Canadians on the criteria that will form the basis for a revised project list, which will provide clarity on how our new rules will apply.

Through a new early planning and engagement phase, companies would be able to identify and address issues early on, before an impact assessment begins. The bill provides clarity on the scope and outputs of this new phase. It would result in tailored impact statement guidelines that reflect factors and requirements relevant to the project, as well as a co-operation plan, an indigenous engagement and partnership plan, a public participation plan, and, if required, a permitting plan.

Details on these products will be set out in regulations, which the government is consulting on now, and which would come into force at the same time as the impact assessment act. The early planning stage would define requirements and clarify expectations so that companies would know what was expected of them, and when. It would help them design and plan their projects and more effectively engage indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and local communities.

The minister would also be able to inform companies early on if a project is likely to have negative impacts, without stopping the process. This would give companies an earlier opportunity to decide whether to continue with an impact assessment.

Bill C-69 would ensure that companies know in advance what would be considered in a project review and in decision-making. Reviews would take into account not just environmental impacts, but also social, economic, and health effects, as well as impacts on indigenous peoples and their rights.

This bill would also provide strong transparency measures so that proponents are informed about key decisions, as well as the reasons behind them. That includes, for example, decisions to extend the timeline for a review or to refer a final decision on a project to cabinet.

When final decisions are made on whether a project will go ahead, the proponent would be informed of the reasons for the decision and would be assured that all key factors were appropriately considered.

Bill C-69 would also respond to what we have heard from industry by providing more timely assessments. Our better rules would include stricter timeline management, with shorter timelines for assessments. Specifically, timelines for agency-led reviews would be reduced from 365 to 300 days; panel reviews would be shortened from 720 days to a maximum of 600 days; and, in addition, panel reviews for designated projects reviewed in collaboration with a federal life-cycle regulator would be shortened to 300 days, with the option to allow the minister to set the timeline up to a maximum of 600 days if warranted, based on the project's complexity. As well, timelines for non-designated projects reviewed by life-cycle regulators would be shortened from 450 to 300 days.

Regulations would require clear rules around when timelines could be paused. When there is a decision to extend a timeline, the proponent would need to be informed about the reasons why.

I would like to briefly mention how Bill C-69 would support one project, one review, and how this would contribute to our goal of getting our resources to market. The bill would provide for joint reviews and substitution, in which a review process led by another jurisdiction would fulfill the requirement for a federal review. Those provisions would help promote co-operation with provinces and territories, reduce red tape, and prevent duplication. We are also increasing opportunities for partnership with indigenous peoples and for indigenous governing bodies to take on key responsibilities. That could include taking the lead on assessments through the bill's substitution provisions.

Our government has heard from industry how important it is for Bill C-69 to provide a smooth transition between the current assessment regime and the new regime. Transition provisions must be clear and predictable to encourage investment and keep good projects moving forward. Bill C-69 would provide that clarity by setting out objective criteria to identify projects that would continue to be reviewed under CEAA 2012, giving companies the option to opt into the new process, and confirming that no one would go back to the starting line.

I would just like to emphasize that as a result of the committee's work, Bill C-69 now includes stronger transparency provisions that would benefit proponents and provide more certainty and consistency across the legislation. For example, assessment reports would be required to incorporate a broader range of information, including a summary of comments received, recommendations on mitigation measures and follow-up, and the agency's rationale and conclusions. Public comments would have to be made available on the Internet, and information posted online would need to be maintained so that it could be accessed over time.

The standing committee also addressed feedback from industry that some smaller projects with federal life-cycle regulators, such as offshore renewable energy projects, could face longer reviews than they do now. The amendments address this by establishing a new timeline of 300 days for reviews of projects with a life-cycle regulator, with the possibility of setting the timeline to a maximum of 600 days, if warranted.

Complementing the existing provisions to support timeliness, the amended bill would set a clear 45-day timeline for establishing a review panel. The committee's amendments would clarify that public comments must be provided during a time period specified by the agency, so that meaningful participation would be ensured and balanced with the need for timely assessments.

The standing committee further advanced the objective of one project, one review. As a result of the committee's amendments, integrated review panels involving federal regulators would also be able to include other jurisdictions, making it possible to have just one assessment that meets all of the requirements. Finally, the standing committee responded to feedback from companies by making the bill's transitional provisions even clearer.

To conclude, the bill responds to what we have heard from companies, providing clarity on expectations and requirements, predictable timely reviews, and transparent decision-making. By rebuilding public trust, it would encourage investment and help create new jobs and opportunities for Canadians.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:10 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Lévis—Lotbinière.

I am confused because my colleague is talking about a bill that does not exist. We are deliberating Bill C-69 today. It is a very weak bill that includes the same principles as under the Conservative government. It does not contain any measures that will actually strengthen the environmental assessment process or protect our bodies of water.

I am astonished to hear that he opposes this bill, because it contains the same principles as under the Conservative government.

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June 6th, 2018 / 10:05 p.m.


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NDP

Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC

Mr. Speaker, during the last Parliament, the Conservative government gutted the environmental assessment process, removing protections of almost all of Canada's lakes and rivers. Bill C-69 does very little or nothing to reverse those changes.

Do the Conservatives still believe Canada's lakes and rivers should remain unprotected?

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-69, 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, introduced by the Liberal government.

As members no doubt know, this bill would create a new impact assessment agency of Canada to replace the Canadian Environmental Protection Agency. This agency will be responsible for all federal reviews of major projects and will have to collaborate with other agencies, like the new Canadian energy regulator, currently known as the National Energy Board, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and offshore offices.

As a citizen and as member of Parliament for Lévis—Lotbinière, I have always taken an interest in protecting our waterways and keeping them safe. The prestigious St. Lawrence runs not too far from my home, and all of these issues are close to my heart. This is one of the reasons our Conservative government amended the Canadian Environmental Protection Act in 2012.

I obviously have many concerns about Bill C-69, in particular about the merits of these amendments and the Liberal government's flexible ethics. The government claims to be accountable and transparent. In reality, the Liberals keep showing that all they care about is helping Liberal cronies and promoting Liberal partisanship by filling their party's coffers, from coast to coast, under some guise or other.

On the surface, this bill has the noble goal of ensuring that all projects will be assessed on the basis of their impact on the environment and health, and on social issues. However, we may need to cry foul on the practices of these good old Liberals, masters of all that is crooked and scandalous. Take, for example, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard and fishery allocations for a highly valued shellfish.

Where things go downhill with the Liberal government is that it puts forward these bills that give ministers more discretionary power, and then issues around the economy and so-called gender and indigenous rights take a back seat to the financial interests of the highest bidders and people with Liberal connections.

The government loves nothing more than a taxpayer-funded spending spree and thinks it can reinvent the wheel. This bill lays out its plan to spend up to $1 billion over five years on the new regime, on necessary changes, and, ostensibly, on increasing the participation of indigenous peoples and the general public.

Let me once again point out that these objectives look very similar to those of the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, who we hope will soon be under investigation.

We all know that the former Conservative government knew how to make things better without raising Canadians' taxes. Canada's Conservatives understand how important certainty, predictability, and regulatory clarity are to ensuring the viability of major energy projects.

We know that these projects create tens of thousands of jobs and benefit communities across Canada, without any political favouritism. With the Conservatives, solid economic policies do not come at the expense of solid environmental policies, or vice versa.

Greater prosperity and better environmental performance always go hand in hand, but all the Liberal government sees are enticing opportunities to dole out goodies to friends and family members.

Bill C-69 will create two new regulatory burdens that, combined with the pointless federal carbon tax, will hurt Canada's global competitiveness even more without improving environmental protection in any way. This is scandalous.

These fresh repercussions are troubling, as are so many others we have suffered since this perpetually failing Liberal government took office.

The Liberals have a very long way to go before the next election if they want to start defending Canada's natural resource industry properly, instead of throwing up one roadblock after another.

Fortunately, in accordance with our values and commitments, we, Canada's Conservatives, will continue to oppose costly regulations that hurt jobs, economic growth, and global competitiveness.

Bill C-69 does not in any way meet the Conservative Party's objective of always striking a balance between protecting the environment and growing the economy.

When we look at what is happening with our neighbours, it is appalling to see that, while the American administration is relaxing regulations, lowering taxes, and encouraging energy production from natural gas or coal, Canada is regressing.

We cannot hamper our competitiveness by tightening regulations and creating uncertainty around the environmental assessment process. We need to stand up against and do away with any bill like this one that would harm Canada's economic competitiveness.

On this side of the House, we firmly believe that, in order to be effective, economic and environmental policies must not contradict each other, undermine each other, or cancel each other out. All the empirical evidence shows that prosperity brings with it a better environmental record. It is one thing for the Prime Minister to embarrass us and lose all credibility in our eyes and the eyes of the world, as he did on his trip to India, for example; it is quite another, however, for him to put Canada at a political disadvantage and jeopardize our position in the global economy. We will not allow him to do that.

We have repeatedly seen his picture in every situation and costume imaginable, but what we are interested in and concerned about on this side of the House is not Superman, it is Canada's image, its role, its prosperity, and the well-being of all Canadian families.

I am worried about how this bill will be used to determine whether a project should undergo an assessment by the agency or a panel. Beyond the process that has been set out, the answer is very easy and predictable. The assessment process will remain very political because it is the minister who will determine whether it is in the public interest for a project to be submitted to a panel instead of the agency's shorter impact assessment.

I am also concerned about why the government is saying that the bill will shorten the assessment process for resource projects. The government is misleading Canadians by saying that project assessments will be shorter. The planning phase adds 180 days to the process, even if the impact assessment is a bit shorter.

What is more, Bill C-69 provides for broad ministerial discretion to extend or suspend the process. In the Consultation Paper on Information Requirements and Time Management Regulations, a proposed impact assessment system, the Liberal government recognizes that in some cases, the proposed time limits in the legislation will not be met. In light of this discretionary power that will undoubtedly be abused, there is very little we can support in this legislative measure.

We support in principle the process providing for one assessment per project, as well as the commitment on the time limits proposed under the legislation. However, the bill puts up regulatory barriers and additional criteria that will invariably lengthen the assessment period.

We oppose Bill C-69 for many reasons, including the fact that it establishes a number of new criteria for impact assessment, in particular the impact that the project will have on Canada's climate change commitments. From now on we will have to consider the environmental impact upstream and downstream. The bill also substantially increases the number of people that could intervene in a review even if they do not have specific expertise. Finally, at the end of the planning phase and at the end of the impact assessment, the minister or the cabinet will make the final decision. The process remains political in nature, which creates ongoing uncertainty for investors.

There is nothing in today's announcement that would increase investor confidence or attract new investment to Canada's resource sector. We know that Canadian companies are already facing stiff competition even as the United States implements its plan to reduce regulations, cut taxes, and invest in coal-fired and natural-gas-fired electricity in order to cut energy costs.

Canadian businesses deserve a government that works with them, not against them. Canada's approach to fighting climate change must be realistic and strike the right balance between protecting the environment and growing the economy. The Conservatives support regulation, investment in clean technologies, and the mitigation of climate change if these initiatives produce concrete and measurable results for businesses and the environment.

We do not see any guarantees here.

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:55 p.m.


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Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague his comments about Bill C-262 and how that will be reflected in Bill C-69.

As I stated in my comments today, we are dedicated to the idea of reconciliation, and not just the idea but actions of reconciliation. Through the amendments that were made, we have been able to reflect a commitment in the preamble to the legislation that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a key principle that needs to guide the legislation and how it is implemented.

Many pieces of the legislation deal with how indigenous knowledge will be used, how we will consult in a meaningful way with indigenous peoples. This really moves the principles and ideas of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples forward in a meaningful manner. I am quite happy that this is reflected here.

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:55 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I do not doubt at all the commitment of my fellow British Columbian across the way to indigenous rights. I have spoken to him privately about this.

What I am worried about, though, is the commitment of his government. I acknowledge that the Liberals did vote in favour of Bill C-262 last week, and I commend them for doing that.

Now we have an opportunity before us to put that vote into action with Bill C-69. The member will know that the member for Edmonton Strathcona has several report stage amendments on the bill. I will specifically reference Motions Nos. 12 and 13, which would insert language into Bill C-69 to recognize indigenous rights, and make specific reference to the Constitution of Canada and to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Will the member be consistent with his vote last week and vote in support of these report stage amendments so we can make the bill come into compliance, as per the instructions of Bill C-262, that the laws of Canada be brought into harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? I would like to see the member's commitment, right here and now, to support these amendments.

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:55 p.m.


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Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

Mr. Speaker, I truly value the work my hon. colleague from across the way does on the environment committee.

On Bill C-69, I would like to go back. One of the issues that was the driver behind it was that Canadians had lost trust in the process. We heard that clearly during the 2015 election campaign. That was why it was part of our campaign platform. I am pleased with the changes that our government has made in Bill C-69 to the legislation that we saw prior to it.

To the member's question on process, this was a very robust consultation process that our government employed in coming up with the legislation. Consultations were held across the country, from province to territory, indigenous organizations to industry. It was a very robust set of consultations.

When it came to committee, we had opportunities to discuss it, to bring in witnesses. On many occasions, the opposition members did speak to the need to have more time to hear from witnesses. The public record will show, time after time, that our side said we would add days and hours, and that we would come in during constituency week. There was a very robust process at the committee stage, as we moved to report stage, looking at amendments and the testimony, and reflecting those changes in a very meaningful way in the legislation before us today.

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Cloverdale—Langley City, with whom I have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

I like to remind the House every chance I get that Conservative Party members do not wake up every morning looking for ways to destroy the planet. On the contrary, we took very meaningful action when we were in power, and we are proud to work hard every day to make the environment a priority.

As I mentioned at the outset, I have the privilege of serving with my colleague on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, and we have been under tremendous pressure from the government to fast-track the study of Bill C-69.

I must say that we have received a great deal of written evidence because we did not have time to hear from witnesses in committee. We even heard a presentation from a Quebec organization, and the representative told us she was the only person from her province who was able to testify. A number of Quebec organizations would have liked to take part in the debate. Their participation was important to us.

I would like to ask my colleague whether the Liberal government's process for Bill C-69 is adequate and whether we have done everything we possibly can to improve Bill C-69 so as to replace the 2012 legislation.

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June 6th, 2018 / 9:40 p.m.


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Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight in support of Bill C-69. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin and Anishinaabe peoples.

This bill provides the framework for a modern assessment process that would protect the environment, attract investment, and ensure that good projects go ahead in a timely way to create new jobs and economic opportunities.

Today, I am going to focus specifically on how it supports our government's commitment to reconciliation and a renewed relationship with indigenous peoples. Meeting this commitment is challenging, but it is also necessary. I will discuss how Bill C-69 would advance reconciliation and partnership with indigenous peoples. I will also describe what the government has heard from indigenous peoples in recent months, and how their input has helped strengthen this bill.

From the very beginning, our government has been clear that no relationship is more important to Canada than its relationship with its indigenous peoples. We committed to a renewed relationship based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership as the foundation for transformative change, and we have taken important steps to fulfill that commitment.

In 2016, Canada announced its full support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples without qualification, with a commitment to its full and effective implementation. This February, the Prime Minister announced that we will work in partnership with indigenous peoples to develop a new recognition and implementation of rights framework to realign the relationship between the Government of Canada and indigenous peoples based on the UN declaration.

Development of the framework builds on steps we have already taken along this path. That includes launching a review of laws and policies to ensure that the crown is meeting its constitutional obligations with respect to aboriginal and treaty rights, guided by 10 principles rooted in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, guided by the UN declaration, and informed by the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action.

We have begun to make institutional changes to support the renewed relationship. In particular, we have announced the dissolution of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and the creation of two new departments: Indigenous Services Canada and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. This will accelerate work already begun to renew the relationship with indigenous peoples and better enable them to build capacity that supports the implementation of their vision of self-determination.

We have announced our support for Bill C-262, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples act, as a strong first step in the process of implementation. More legislation will be needed in order to fully implement the declaration in Canada. Our government has also made historic investments in indigenous education, health, infrastructure, and communities, including to improve primary and secondary education on reserve, improve health facilities, build housing, and ensure access to clean and safe drinking water.

Finally, recognizing that indigenous peoples have long been stewards of the environment and have knowledge of the land that spans generations, we continue to work closely with them as we take action to protect and enhance Canada's environment and respond to the threat of climate change.

Meaningful participation of indigenous peoples informed the development of the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, and our government is working in partnership with the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Métis National Council to implement it. Given the indigenous coastal communities' deep ties to Canada's oceans, we are partnering with them to implement our $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, for example in developing training programs to increase the participation of indigenous community members and women in marine safety jobs.

Finally, the bill before us today is built on a foundation of engagement with indigenous peoples, along with industry, stakeholders, and a broad range of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

This bill is an important step, which would advance reconciliation and produce better project decisions by recognizing indigenous rights and working in partnership from the start. It would make it mandatory to consider indigenous knowledge alongside science and other evidence, including when the assessment is led by another jurisdiction.

Under the new impact assessment act, indigenous jurisdictions would also have more opportunities to exercise powers and duties, including taking the lead on impact assessments through substitution. Through measures such as the new early planning and engagement phase, the bill would ensure that indigenous peoples have opportunities to participate from the very beginning and throughout the assessment process.

Finally, it would place consideration of impacts on indigenous peoples and their rights at the centre of the decision-making process by including this as one of the key factors that must be taken into account when making a decision following an impact assessment.

Going forward, we are committed to working with indigenous peoples to define processes aimed at securing consent and collaborating with them as we develop regulations under this legislation.

Since the introduction of Bill C-69, our government has continued to engage with indigenous peoples at every opportunity. The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development also heard testimony from a number of indigenous peoples and organizations during the study of the bill. In response to that testimony, the committee made several key amendments that enhanced the bill's potential to advance reconciliation and a renewed relationship.

Indigenous peoples have said that it is important that the bill fully reflect our government's commitment to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Through amendments, the standing committee has ensured this commitment is at the forefront of the bill and will guide its implementation.

The bill now references the UN declaration in the preamble to both the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act. The purposes clause of the IAA now specifies that the government, the minister, the agency, and federal authorities will need to exercise their powers in a manner that respects the government's commitments with respect to the rights of indigenous peoples. Similarly, the mandate of the Canadian energy regulator would include exercising its powers in performing its duties and functions in the same way.

We have heard about the importance of taking a distinctions-based approach, one of the 10 key principles guiding our review of laws and policies. This is needed to ensure that the unique rights, interests, and circumstances of first nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples are acknowledged, affirmed, and implemented. In response to this feedback, the committee has amended the bill to ensure that membership of key committees under the legislation reflect a distinctions-based approach.

Indigenous peoples have told us that considering indigenous knowledge in impact assessments is critical. At the same time, they have called for better protection of this knowledge. The standing committee's amendments would strengthen both its use and protection of indigenous knowledge.

The bill would now require that assessment reports clearly show how indigenous knowledge has been taken into account. It also provides more safeguards across all acts to ensure appropriate protection for indigenous knowledge, while also recognizing that proponents may, at times, need to have access to it. Consultation would be required before indigenous knowledge could be disclosed, and ministers would then be able to place conditions on the disclosure of this information in light of those consultations.

In line with feedback from indigenous organizations, the committee has also clarified that indigenous knowledge would be considered, that this would not be limited to “traditional” knowledge of indigenous peoples.

Finally, throughout the bill, the committee has taken steps to further emphasize the commitment to meaningful participation in assessment processes for indigenous peoples as well as the public.

I am pleased to see that many of the amendments made by the standing committee directly respond to issues raised by indigenous peoples and will further ensure the bill can support reconciliation.

As I have described, our government is committed to advancing reconciliation and a renewed relationship in all of our actions, including this bill.

I want to recognize the contributions made to Bill C-69 by indigenous peoples and organizations across Canada. It is truly a privilege to work with indigenous peoples and to hear their perspectives and priorities. Our government looks forward to working collaboratively with indigenous peoples to implement the legislation.

I would once again like to recognize the committee for listening and responding to the testimony of indigenous peoples and organizations. This is a challenging process but, ultimately, a rewarding one as we work together to protect the environment, create economic opportunities, and advance reconciliation.

On a personal note, I would like to mention that I am a member of the environment and sustainable development committee. It was a great honour to be part of the considerations and the amendments on this legislation.

As spoken

The House resumed from June 5 consideration of Bill C-69, 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, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Bill C-59—Time Allocation MotionNational Security Act, 2017Government Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 8:40 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, as I was unable to rise earlier tonight on time allocation on Bill C-69, I will say, parenthetically, that I find that time allocation even more offensive than this one, because we were time allocated in committee as well. I had clause-by-clause amendments on Bill C-69, and I had clause-by-clause amendments on Bill C-59. At least, to the credit of the Bill C-59 time management, we were allowed to debate all the amendments on Bill C-59, on public security, but we were stopped from debating two full bills' worth of amendments on omnibus Bill C-69.

Why is it required at this point, on a bill that has much that is good in it, to stop this place from being able to have a full debate? It is anti-democratic.

As spoken

Bill C-59—Time Allocation MotionNational Security Act, 2017Government Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 8:35 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, from the 41st Parliament, we have reams of quotes from Liberals regarding the use of time allocation by the then Conservative government. The quotes we have from the member for Winnipeg North would fill several pages.

What we have seen over the last couple of weeks is the government's use of time allocation and using the bare minimum, allocating five hours for debate on this legislation, on Bill C-69, which was done just before this, on Bill C-75, and on Bill C-76. The list goes on.

I have a simple question for the Minister of Public Safety. Given his party's record when it was the third party in the 41st Parliament, does he not feel the slightest bit of shame and contrition over the complete reversal of his position, now that he occupies that side of the House?

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:45 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased the member opposite cares so greatly about climate change. It is really unfortunate that the Conservative members of the environment committee voted to remove the consideration of the impact to our climate from Bill C-69. That might have been an oversight or a mistake. However, we know that unfortunately the Conservatives do not have a plan to tackle climate change. I do not know whether they all believe climate change is a problem or real. Nor do I think they understand the huge economic opportunity.

We understand that. We understand we need to be ensure we do right by our planet, that we tackle our emissions, but that we also have a plan to get our resources to market in a sustainable way. That is exactly what we are doing with Bill C-69. We certainly hope all parties will support it.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Kerry Diotte Conservative Edmonton Griesbach, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association says that if Bill C-69 passes, no other major pipeline project will ever be built in Canada.

Now that we are the proud owners of a 65-year-old pipeline and that we would like to build another pipeline, how will the environment minister manage to get that built given this assessment?

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:35 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, for the minister's recollection, I want to read a summary from Bill C-262, an act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Notice that it does not say anything about a preamble.

The minister previously mentioned that the Liberals accepted an amendment to the preamble, which, as every member in the House knows, is non-binding. I again ask the Minister of Environment, given that the Liberals rejected every single amendment by the member for Edmonton Strathcona at committee to make sure that Bill C-69 would be in harmony with UNDRIP, will she revisit her position and at least be consistent with her vote last week and accept the member for Edmonton Strathcona's amendments to Bill C-69? I am talking about the bill before us now. Will she be consistent? Will all of the Liberals be consistent with the way they voted last week?

The first nations of Canada are watching the government.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was really pleased that the committee had time to do a thorough review of Bill C-69 and to make many thoughtful amendments. There were more than 80 witnesses and more than 100 submissions over a two-month review, and the quality of the amendments actually speaks to the rigour with which they were received. I am proud to say that our government supports the amendments.

We believe that this process is better for farmers. We believe the process is better for industry. We believe the process is better for indigenous peoples. We believe the process is better for folks who believe in science and making decisions based on evidence and facts. We believe, overall, that it will be a better process that will not only rebuild trust, but also ensure that good projects go ahead in a timely way.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my parliamentary secretary for all the hard work he has done in rebuilding public trust and restoring transparency.

The amendments and Bill C-69 would provide additional clarity and safeguards so that Canadians can have confidence in reviews of major projects. When we look at transparency, the bill requires assessment reports to incorporate a broader range of information, including a summary of comments received, recommendations on mitigation measures and follow-up, and the agency's rationale and conclusions. It requires that public comments provided during a project's reviews be made available online and that the information posted online be maintained so that it can be accessed over time. It is critically important that Canadians have an opportunity to provide input, that they have an opportunity to see what folks have said about environmental assessment, and that people understand how a decision was made.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned at committee yesterday, unsurprisingly the Conservatives are once again engaging in delay tactics by moving to delete every single clause of the act with not one substantive amendment. This has happened every step of the way, including at second reading. At committee, the opposition repeatedly refused additional meetings within the timeline established, and Conservative MPs delayed consideration of clause-by-clause.

Despite these actions, our government will ensure that we restore public trust, that we protect the environment, that we introduce modern safeguards, that we advance reconciliation with indigenous peoples and, of course, that we ensure that good projects go ahead and we get our resources to market. That is why we are taking appropriate steps to ensure that Bill C-69 moves forward.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Kevin Sorenson Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, my New Democratic colleague said best when he said “Well, here we go again.”

In the last election, the Liberals said that they would never move time allocation, that they would not move closure, that they would not shut down debate. However, this is the 40th time that they have done it.

The bill before us would have a massive effect on my constituency. I would say that from about 2000 to 2007, when I met with my rural municipalities, without exception the number one concern they had was the navigable waters act. They understood that if they were to replace a culvert or if they were to do any type of construction, they would have to call the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or what they called the “fish cops”. It meant massive red tape and it took forever to happen. This was their number one frustration.

To all those municipalities out there, the Navigable Waters Protection Act would be brought back under Bill C-69. There is not a rural municipality that will like it. Again, the Liberals are doing it, and they are shutting down debate. They are limiting us in being able to represent our constituents, and that is the shame.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:20 p.m.


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Liberal

John Aldag Liberal Cloverdale—Langley City, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to commend the minister for the excellent job she has done. She appeared before committee on Bill C-69 twice and then returned for the main estimates this past week. There has been unparalleled access to the minister as we have discussed this bill, and there have been many fantastic amendments put forward. The bill itself strongly addresses the many concerns that arose. The reason we lost trust in the environmental assessment process arose from the previous government's actions in meddling in CEAA 2012.

One of the areas the committee looked at, which the House will see with the changes coming forward at report stage, deals with timelines. I would ask the minister to speak to the significant improvements in timelines that will be dealt with through Bill C-69. Canadians and the House would benefit from those comments.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:20 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to talk about Bill C-69. While we might not always agree on every point, it is important to note that the committee passed a number of opposition amendments and there were a significant number that received unanimous support. I would like to highlight some of those.

There was a key amendment proposed by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands that was supported by committee members. It clearly reflected the government's strong commitment to science, and it was clearly very important. Liberal members also took into account NDP amendments in drafting the amendments. The member opposite spoke about reflecting the importance of the UNDRIP. That was really key.

Many amendments in relation to indigenous peoples were passed. This bills clarifies that indigenous knowledge would be considered and would not be limited to traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples. A number of amendments would strengthen the protection of indigenous knowledge. We know this is very important to indigenous peoples.

There were many other amendments that I am sure I will have the chance to talk about.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:15 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, here we go again with time allocation.

Now that I have the minister in the House, I have a question for her. Last week the minister and her government voted in support of Bill C-262, an act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The member for Edmonton Strathcona moved roughly 25 amendments at committee to make sure that this bill actually lives up to what the Liberals did last week, and every single amendment was voted down by the Liberals. She now has several motions at report stage that seek to bring this bill in harmony with the UNDRIP.

Will the minister be consistent with her vote last week and support these amendments to make sure that Bill C-69 lives up to the provisions of what she voted for in voting in favour of Bill C-262, yes or no?

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:15 p.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member and all members of the committee for their very thorough review of Bill C-69 and the many thoughtful amendments.

The committee heard from over 80 witnesses and reviewed over 150 submissions over two months, and the quality and scope of the amendments speak to the rigour with which they reviewed the bill. I am very pleased to say our government is supporting these amendments.

We need to do better. Canadians elected us because they wanted to make sure we demonstrated that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. With Bill C-69, we knew we needed to rebuild trust that was sorely lacking because of the Conservatives' actions in gutting our environmental assessment process, so I am very pleased that we have come together and are going to be able to rebuild trust, because it is so critical that we get good projects going ahead after a thorough environmental assessment.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the environment committee who has been involved in the discussion and debate on Bill C-69, I have never been so appalled in my entire life at how bad this particular bill is.

For example, Chris Bloomer, the president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, likened Canada's regulatory environment to a toxic regulatory environment.

Recently Don Lowry, past president and CEO of Epcor Utilities, wrote a piece in the Edmonton Journal on June 5:

Investor flight from energy sector is a national embarrassment

Over the last few years, a thicket of regulatory approvals and processes, both provincial and federal, have crept into place, effectively suffocating through delay and denial anything getting timely approval.

As someone with an environmental background who has worked in pipeline assessments, I can assure the minister that every single pipeline in Canada is built to the highest environmental standards.

Why is the minister piling unnecessary regulations on the Canadian energy sector and denying Canadians the economic opportunity that they need to build this country?

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 6th, 2018 / 7:10 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

moved:

That in relation to Bill C-69, 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, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the report stage and five hours shall be allotted to the consideration at third reading stage of the said bill; and

That, at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration of report stage and at the expiry of the five hours provided for the consideration of the third reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill then under consideration shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.

As spoken

Criminal CodeGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I wonder if there is any sign from the government that the bill will receive due consideration and will not be rushed through committee. I heard the hon. member for Mount Royal say a moment ago that there was an invitation to encourage people to be witnesses.

Recently, and particularly on the omnibus bill, Bill C-69, we went through rushed hearings during which we could not hear from many witnesses and we could not debate all the amendments during clause-by-clause consideration.

I will not go through the many examples of that, but could the member assure the House that the bill will be thoroughly studied? We are at second reading. I think we can all agree that it does some good things, but it needs a lot of work. Is that possible at this point? I thank the member for any light he can shine on that process question.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Notice of time allocation motionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 9:20 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Mr. Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Orders 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the report stage and third reading stage of Bill C-69, 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 1:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I have been saying from the start. When businesses want to innovate, when they have to innovate, when they want to take concrete steps toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping us meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets, the government needs to step up and help them. The government needs to take regulatory obstacles out of their way. It needs to get rid of the notorious carbon tax, which might deter people from ever investing in Canada because they are going to figure out pretty quickly that they can make more money investing where there is less regulation, where it is easier, and where there are lower taxes, by which I mean in the United States. I really do not see how Bill C-69 offers any incentive to businesses or makes it attractive to invest in Canada. The people we have been consulting and talking to about Bill C-69 all say that it will make the process take longer and increase the regulatory burden. That will make it harder to accomplish projects like the one my Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food colleague just talked about.

Translated

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 1:50 p.m.


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Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the discussion back to Bill C-69. It is great to work together with my friend, the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, on the agriculture committee, but today we are talking about energy.

This morning, I met with Alectra and the City of Guelph to discuss a technology and smart grid opportunity that can help us move toward our goal of having 90% renewable energy generated by 2030. However, we have to coordinate with the Department of Environment and Climate Change, with Natural Resources Canada, and with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. Therefore, an integrated all-of-government approach needs to be taken, such as what is being proposed in the legislation.

Could the hon. member comment on how this legislation could help bring forward clean technology projects with a complex basis, connecting different departments, versus the omnibus legislative rhetoric we have been hearing from the other side?

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 1:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to that brief exchange about including the Navigation Protection Act in Bill C-69 and changes made to the act.

During a previous term here in the House of Commons, I had the opportunity to be a member of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, where we discussed the Navigation Protection Act and the waterways that were protected by the previous government's bill to amend the Navigation Protection Act. At the time, nobody complained or called for changed. The government decided to make changes in response to pressure from groups that thought the law was lacking, but it was not actually lacking.

There were no complaints, no requests to add new waterways to the list that had been authorized and announced in the Navigation Protection Act. Sometimes, people want to make changes for reasons other than protecting waterways. They might be trying to please certain lobby groups. That is what happened at the time, and we need to remember that.

Bill C-69 is an omnibus bill that enacts the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, amends the Navigation Protection Act and makes amendments to several other acts. It is another major bill, because it has a considerable impact on how large projects will be environmentally assessed in Canada.

Despite the government's promises of openness and transparency, Bill C-69 is one of the 38 bills for which the government decided to cut short discussions, muzzle the opposition and refuse to hear each of the members of the opposition express his or her intentions. We reached the pinnacle this week but, last week, in the House, in just three days, the government introduced three motions to cut debate short by gagging members who had something to say and wanted to represent their fellow citizens.

A similar thing happened in the committee that studied Bill C-69. They refused to discuss the opposition's amendments, then rejected them and proposed almost identical amendments so that they could say that they were the government's idea and not that of the opposition. If that is not arrogance, I do not know what arrogance is. We see it all the time in the House, and it is only getting worse.

I remind the House that the opposition was gagged 38 times, including 5 times in three days last week. If the trend continues, the same thing will happen in the coming weeks, even if there are only a few weeks left in this session. The government is simply incapable of working together with the opposition parties to pass its bills.

Consequently, it is left to support Bill C-69 all by itself. The Conservatives, the NDP and the Green Party are all against the bill—not for the same reasons, but they are all against it. Once again, everything is about optics with this government. Despite its promises of openness and transparency, it refuses to hear the recommendations of elected members on this side of the House, and it is alone in passing a bill that will have a major impact on the economy.

I would like to remind my colleagues that, on this side of the House, even if we make up less than half of all elected members, we represent more than half of the country's electorate, so when the government constantly breaks its promises, it is disrespecting all of those Canadians we represent as members of the opposition. It can say whatever it wants to make itself look good, but when it comes time to do the work, it fails across the board.

The words fade away and the Liberals' true nature emerges. The Liberals' promise to run small deficits: gone; the Liberals' promise to bring in electoral reform and change the voting system: gone; the Liberals' promise to increase transparency: gone; the Liberals' promise to no longer muzzle the opposition: gone; and the Liberals' promise not to concede one more litre of milk to the Americans through NAFTA: gone.

We learned about this on the weekend. In a speech on NBC, which has a large American audience, the Prime Minister, perhaps thinking that we would not see the show, declared that the Canadian government was prepared to be more flexible, to give Americans access to Canada's milk market. Unfortunately, some Canadians watch NBC and heard the Prime Minister make this promise. It was rather shocking, because Liberals on the other side of the House have been repeating, over and over, since 2015 and even earlier that they will fully protect supply management.

The Liberals will protect supply management, since they created it. The Prime Minister said that they would unanimously protect supply management. I am not sure what “unanimously” means, but the Prime Minister is the one who said it. Meanwhile, when he thinks that Canadians are not listening, he says the opposite.

After all that, the government is asking for our trust with respect to Bill C-69. Since this morning, the Liberals have repeated their talking points so many times that, in my opinion, they do not see the real consequences of the bill. They are too busy repeating their talking points to dig deeper and identify what is wrong with Bill C-69.

The first big problem is that the Liberals are creating new regulatory burdens for project proponents and adding a carbon tax, which makes Canada less and less competitive when it comes to attracting investment. None of this has improved environmental protection one bit. We know that $100 billion in planned investments have already left Canada. I will repeat today, in this chamber, that the Conservatives will continue to oppose costly regulations that negatively impact Canada's jobs, economic growth, and international competitiveness.

There is nothing in Bill C-69 to help increase investors' confidence or to attract new investment to Canada, especially in the resource sector. We know that Canadian firms are already facing significant challenges, whereas the United States is moving forward with its plan to reduce regulations, cut taxes, and invest in coal-fired and natural-gas-fired electricity in order to cut energy costs.

Canadian businesses deserve a government that works with them, not against them. Canadian businesses deserve a government that will work with them to protect the environment, and not against them by ensuring that there are no projects. The government would not have to worry about the environment if there were no projects. That is the reality.

The government's approach to fighting climate change needs to be realistic. It needs to restore a balance between protecting the environment and growing the economy.

Another source of concern is the fact that cabinet is giving itself life-and-death powers over major projects, such as the power to appoint people and the power to say yes or no to projects throughout the process. We know what the Liberals can do when they manage a project, or rather, when they mismanage one. I am referring to Kinder Morgan. The project was approved 18 months ago, but the Liberals sat on their hands all that time instead of putting it in motion.

The Liberal government has known for 11 months that British Columbia is opposed to this project. However, the Prime Minister only dropped by briefly on his way to England, probably so his jet could fill up on fuel for the rest of the trip.

He took advantage of his layover to meet with two premiers. What was the result? Diddly-squat. This government's solution was to nationalize Kinder Morgan, making all Canadians joint owners of a pipeline for which they paid $4.5 billion.

Does this mean that the project will go ahead? No, because we have only bought some pipes. We have bought $4.5 billion in pipes. The company's executives were so proud of what they pulled off that they received $1.5 million each for the fast one they pulled on the Government of Canada, and I could have used a different word. This means that we will have to invest even more in order for the project to go ahead, if it ever does.

I believe it is clear that something crucial was overlooked in Bill C-69. Yes, we have to protect the environment. Yes, we have to ensure that projects go ahead while respecting our environment so that our young people will have an environment in the future that they can enjoy and will benefit from our natural resources. However, the bill should not thwart further investment in Canada by ensuring environmental protection while doing absolutely nothing else.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Mr. Speaker, the issue of incorporating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Bill C-69 was an important one. We had lengthy discussions during the committee proceedings. We on this side of the House most certainly feel that incorporating indigenous rights and ensuring they are respected and that the constitutional protections afforded to indigenous rights are given pride of place in this legislation is of absolutely fundamental importance. That is exactly what we achieved.

Many amendments were brought to Bill C-69 in relation to indigenous rights, including but not limited to UNDRIP, and I mentioned others related to traditional knowledge. Members on this side of the House are extremely proud of how that was achieved.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, the member for Pontiac mentioned that the committee had agreed to make an amendment to Bill C-69 with regards to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. It amended the preamble, but that preamble is non-binding, so it was a meaningless gesture by the government.

I will bring to the attention of all members that the member for Edmonton Strathcona has brought forward report stage amendments, notably, Motions Nos. 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, and 13. Given that the member across the way voted last week in support of Bill C-262, which strives to bring the laws of Canada into harmony with UNDRIP, will he be consistent this week and support those amendments and live up to what he did last week?

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to work with the member opposite who represents Abbotsford. I have enjoyed many positive moments on our standing committee and have great respect for the work he does.

With all due respect, I would refer the member to an opinion editorial that I had published in The Globe and Mail in 2012, where I laid out the critique of the previous government's changes to navigation law in Canada. When the changes were made, Canadians' ability to navigate was still protected by the common law, but most of their statutory rights previously protected by Transport Canada were stripped away. The statutory protections for navigation were stripped away, leaving the public with common law protections only.

I take the point that there is a distinction to be drawn between navigation protections and environmental protections. That is an absolutely valid point to make. However there is no doubt that in past, environmental assessment laws, which Canadian waters were subject to prior to the previous government, the required navigational permitting triggered an environmental assessment. That is how it used to work. The Conservative government stripped all of that away, so we needed to find a new way to bring back navigation protections and a robust impact assessment regime. That is what Bill C-69 seeks to achieve.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, that member is an invaluable member of our environment committee, and I enjoy working with him.

He did mention the navigable waters piece in Bill C-69. We need to make it very clear in the House that navigable waters is about navigation. It has nothing to do with the environment.

The previous government made those changes to the navigable waters act because government officials with sidearms were accosting farmers in fields who had dug a ditch that was classified as a waterway. They told our farmers not to touch or clean that ditch because they would be breaking the law. Imagine how farmers reacted. In my City of Abbotsford, the community I represent, farmers were livid about how the government approached this.

Another reason we moved forward with changes to the navigable waters legislation was because it was about navigation, not about the environment. The Liberal government seems to conflate those and has taken the navigable waters legislation and thrown it in the middle of Bill C-69, which is essentially an environmental piece of legislation. Does the member not understand that navigable waters is about protecting navigation? It should not cover minor waterways.

Why is his government so intent on changing and trying to remediate a piece of legislation that was actually working very well for those impacted by it?

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


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Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-69, which is very important.

Following the debate on the previous government's reform of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, I was very pleased to see that we are moving forward with this bill, which is the product of extensive consultation over the past two years.

I would like to recognize the hard work that the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development did on this file. The committee heard from more than 50 witnesses and received 150 briefs. Several hundred amendments were proposed, 130 of which were adopted. It is therefore clear that this was a very robust process, and I would like to commend my colleagues for the work they did in committee. I was very impressed by their willingness to consider possible improvements.

I would like to focus a bit on that aspect in particular. I note our chair and vice-chair are sitting opposite having a discussion, likely on topics related to the committee's work. This committee was charged with an important assignment, which was to ensure democracy functioned in the context of reviewing complex legislation.

If we rewind to 2012, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 was incorporated into the previous Conservative government's budget bill. It was an entire replacement of the previous Environmental Assessment Act. It was brought through the omnibus budget bill and there were no hearings specifically on the bill to reform the environmental assessment rules. That was criticized across the country, from indigenous communities to environmental groups. Even municipal actors were literally appalled at the anti-democratic approach taken to amend that law.

Therefore, the pendulum swings back a bit. We knew and committed in the previous campaign to reforming that legislation. Thankfully, pursuant to many months of consultation, a better starting point, which was Bill C-69, was achieved. However, when it went to committee, to the committee's great credit, all sorts of analysis was brought to bear from members opposite , from the New Democratic Party, the Green Party, and the Conservative Party. Every party that participated, with the possible exception of the Bloc, independent Bloc, and the CCF, brought forward an amendment that was voted upon and approved, which is a remarkable achievement.

It is also important to note that the government, in particular the Minister of Environment, the Minister of Transport, and the Minister of Natural Resources have commented positively on the amendments brought forward by the committee, on which we will subsequently be voting.

One hundred and fifty amendments were made. The government is responding positively to the fact that these changes are being brought in to ensure openness and transparency, improve public participation, better engage indigenous communities, and to provide greater predictability and certainty for our businesses and those who wish to bring good projects forward. The fact that agreement could be reached on 150 amendments is a tremendous statement and says a lot about the state of democracy right now. That is a really important thing.

I would like to first look at some of the amendments, particularly those related to reconciliation and navigable waters.

With regard to reconciliation, I was very proud to work with my colleagues, including opposition members, to propose amendments that would incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into the bill. That is very important and our government supports enshrining the declaration in law through Bill C-262, which will soon become law.

I would like to congratulate those who worked on Bill C-69, because including the declaration in future impact assessments across the country will be very good for reconciliation and for the development of nation-to-nation relationships.

I would also like to mention how the bill now provides for calling on indigenous peoples' knowledge and expertise when impact assessments are conducted. That will help to improve future project analyses. We need to improve our way of working with indigenous peoples on impact assessments.

Protection of waterways is another very important aspect, and we all know the former government scrapped several provisions protecting navigable waters. Since 2015, the government has been working very hard to improve those protections because waterways and navigation rights are protected not only by statute but also under common law.

The protections for navigable waters are of crucial importance to Canadians, and certainly to the constituents I represent in the Pontiac.

With respect to navigation, very important changes were brought by the committee to ensure water flows would be protected. That is a really crucial piece of the puzzle. Why? Because many Canadian communities, indigenous groups, and paddling groups were concerned that projects might move forward and would not receive the necessary scrutiny, that the law would not necessarily enable protection of the flows of water that would go down various waterways, whether that is the Ottawa River, the Gatineau River, the St. Lawrence Seaway, or other major waterways. That is a key point, and I am very proud our committee brought forward those amendments.

Overall, I would like to conclude by suggesting that beyond the hyperbole, beyond all of the easy, partisan criticism that has been lobbed from the other side, at the end of the day, Canadians are looking for a stronger process that builds trust when good projects come forward and ensures the independence of decision-makers in the context of evaluating projects. We need the public to not only know that a good analysis is being done, but that this analysis is being done independently, on the basis of solid, hard evidence, and on the basis of the engagement of Canada's indigenous peoples.

I am really proud of the work our government has done. Bill C-69 is a good starting point. The committee worked very hard to achieve improvements on it. I commend the government for its positive reaction to the changes brought forward by the standing committee.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has highlighted many of the challenges Bill C-69 presents. We also have concerns with Bill C-69, but they are concerns that investment in Canada is fleeing. In fact, over the last two years, we have seen the most dramatic drop in foreign investment the country has ever seen. We have seen it drop in half. That is because the investment environment in Canada is one that is no longer attractive and welcoming to the people who want to invest, especially in our resource industry.

Recently, the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain was purchased by the government, which shocked all of us. The last time that happened was under the Prime Minister's father, who was prime minister at the time. We know how that played out. Eventually Petro-Canada was returned to the private sector. It always should have been in private hands.

The member clearly is not a big supporter of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, yet we still have a robust oil industry in Canada. Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world. The world still is beating a path to our doorstep, wanting to buy our oil. Therefore, if the member is not supportive of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, does he then propose that we continue to use and increase the use of rail to transport oil? His own province has had a big problem at Lac-Mégantic with oil being transported by rail. Is that his solution to the way we get oil to markets outside of Canada?

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his question.

I share his concern and his apprehension, because this government has said one thing and done the opposite all too often. Therefore, yes, this might look good on paper, but when we consider the decisions this government has actually made, it simply does not pass a reality check. It is constantly contradicting itself.

It is troubling, because if we do not have a mechanism in place to ensure that expert panels really are free of all political influence, it means that the government could easily ignore the lofty principles set out in Bill C-69, just as it is now ignoring the principle of informed, clear, and transparent consultation with indigenous peoples regarding the Trans Mountain pipeline, which the government just bought with our money.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-69 at report stage. It has been a long time coming, since it was one of the major promises the Liberal Party made to Canadians during the last election.

In 2012, the environmental assessment process was scrapped, which undermined Quebeckers’ and other Canadians’ confidence in an independent, transparent, fair, balanced and scientific process based on facts. It was absolutely necessary that we change course and repair the damage done, but, unfortunately, the attempt is a bit late and, once again, half-hearted.

The parliamentary secretary said that the delay was in large part due to the consultations the Liberal government conducted and the fact that it created expert committees that made their own recommendations. I might believe that if the government had listened to the recommendations made by the experts and by the citizens of Canada. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It received a number of good suggestions and recommendations from the panels it created, but it rejected practically all of the suggestions from the environmental and scientific communities.

Despite the Liberals’ rhetoric and their boasting about having collaborated, they rejected 99% of all amendments proposed by the opposition parties in committee in an effort to improve the bill. Almost all of the 33 amendments that were accepted in committee were proposed by Liberal members. I wanted to set the record straight.

We in the NDP believe that the Liberals took their time because they were actually pleased to be able to use the old Conservative system to quickly and quietly pass certain projects that they did not want people to look at too closely. I am thinking in particular of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline project. As luck would have it, it is too late for the project to be assessed under the new system.

They tried to tinker with the existing process by adding criteria, some of which are not being met. Contrary to the clear promise made by the Prime Minister in British Columbia during the election campaign that no new pipeline projects would be accepted under Stephen Harper’s environmental assessment process, the Liberals were far from thorough. Astonishingly, once again, they broke their promise and approved the project under an obsolete system that they criticized and said they did not trust.

Today, we are wondering how we can trust the government’s decision. I do not even want to talk about the fact that we are spending who knows how many billions of dollars to purchase a pipeline that no one will want in 30 or 40 years because it will be worthless.

If we are in trouble up to our necks today because of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline scandal, it is in large part because, from the get-go, the Liberals did not fulfill their promise, did not do their job, and rushed the project through without the people’s consent. They did not respect the first nations’ territories, and the first nations are challenging the legitimacy of the pipeline in court and complaining that they are not getting their due respect and that no one is listening to them.

Last week, everyone, Liberal and New Democrat alike, was pleased with the support for my colleague’s bill making the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples law in Canada. Just five days later, however, the Liberal government was already breaking its commitment by refusing to incorporate the declaration's principles into the Trans Mountain pipeline project. That is a betrayal. I have never seen a government flip-flop in such a way in under a week.

To get back to Bill C-69, we believe that there are three key issues. The first concerns how we determine which projects will be assessed.

The second is how we choose the expert panels to do the assessment, and whether they are truly independent. The third involves the minister’s discretion when it comes to accepting or refusing the experts’ recommendations and the results of the environmental assessment. We have a problem with these three issues.

First, and this is critical, there is no definition or criteria for determining which economic or energy development project will be subject to the new environmental assessment process. Astonishingly, the parliamentary secretary just conceded the point to me. If a project is not assessed, we can have the best process in the world, but it will not do us any good. If I buy a new computer and I leave it in the box in the corner of my office, I will not derive any benefit from it. We now fear the worst. The absence of clear criteria, commitments or a list of projects means that projects that will have an impact on territories and communities might very well not be subject to the new Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency process.

This discretion, this willingness to select projects as it sees fit in a seemingly random fashion is a huge problem for us as environmentalists, and for people who want to do serious work.

Second, there are many in the community who have serious doubts about the political independence of the panels that will be appointed to consult scientists, indigenous peoples and Canadians in general. Will these experts not simply be political hacks that will become complacent or shut their eyes to certain issues instead of doing their job?

We have seen the credibility of the National Energy Board suffer because of this type of cronyism. The Centre québécois du droit de l’environnement shares our concern; it made two statements that I would like to share. The first is, and I quote, “In order to restore confidence, project assessment panels must be truly independent from both industry and the government”, and the second, “Bill [C-69] contains no mechanism for ensuring independence from political interference or avoiding partisan appointments or complacency in assessment panels, on whose recommendations the government now bases its final decisions.”

We are not the only ones to say so. There is a fundamental problem with the fact that there is no guarantee, no structure for preventing politics and partisanship from affecting the assessments. There could be a considerable loss of credibility. That would be a shame, because it is really an institution based on trust. Here is a good example: the BAPE is a respected institution in Québec, and Quebeckers have confidence in it. We would like to see that model used, and we do not understand why, in its bill, the federal government did not include anything about accepting environmental assessment processes carried out in some of the provinces, including Québec, since the BAPE is recognized by all of the stakeholders and groups at the table.

The third issue involves the end of the process. Decisions are made regarding which projects will be assessed, experts are appointed to engage in consultations, scientists and local populations are listened to, the general mood is gauged and the indigenous peoples involved are given a chance to express themselves but, at the end of the day, the sitting minister is not bound by the assessment panel’s recommendation. An assessment panel could say that there are too many dangers, too many risks, that the project is not acceptable to the population and that it is dangerous for the environment but, in the end, the minister could order that the project go ahead anyway.

Today, we have a Minister of Environment who says she is concerned about the environment. In my opinion, sometimes she is, sometimes she is not. However, this legislative provision will remain on the books for many Parliaments down the road. We think that this is extremely dangerous, because in the past we have seen a minister dismiss indigenous peoples, scientists and Canadians in general and opt for projects that pose a danger to our environment, our ecosystems and public health.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, the focus of the conversation today is Bill C-69. I do not think the hon. member was actually speaking to the bill.

The focus is really very much on enhancing the integrity and transparency of the process, and restoring the public trust that was destroyed in 2012 by the Harper government when it introduced significant changes to the environmental assessment process, the Fisheries Act, and the Navigable Waters Act. This government is very focused on ensuring that we are in a position to address legitimate environmental concerns so that good projects can move forward in an expedited way to ensure that we are creating good middle-class jobs for Canadians.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his speech.

The NDP deplores that the Liberal government waited so long to propose a new environmental assessment process. What worries me about this new version is that the government did not explicitly state which projects must be assessed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Furthermore, Bill C-69 does not set out the criteria that will be used to determine whether an assessment is required. It is like buying a Ferrari that can only get up to second gear. What a shame.

Why did the government decide to do this?

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:05 p.m.


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Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson Liberal North Vancouver, BC

Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is important to restore public trust in the processes so that projects can move forward. That was the primary focus of all the work that was done on Bill C-69.

One very important measure that has been introduced is related to the early planning phase. It is something that many resource-based organizations have called for to try to set the parameters and scope of when the environmental assessment would take place so that we can flag issues that need to be addressed early on and not flag them far down the road when they are much more difficult to address. Therefore, I would suggest that the hon. member may want to reflect that comment back to some of the natural resource organizations that asked for this.

With respect to the timelines, there are specific timelines that will provide certainty for proponents going forward. One of the amendments that the member has perhaps not seen is the lowering of the 600-day limit to 300 days. However, the focus is very much on providing timelines that will give certainty to proponents as to how this will proceed in a timely way.

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June 5th, 2018 / 1:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the Liberal government is out to destroy our natural resources sector, not only with this bill but with the introduction of carbon taxes.

In terms of looking at advancements in how we process these things, Bill C-69 proposes a 180-day planning phase, which can be extended by 90 days by the minister or indefinitely by cabinet. There is actually no timeline for establishing the panel. Once it is finally established, the panel has to submit its report within 600 days, and that, again, can be extended by the minister for 90 days or indefinitely by cabinet.

How can my colleague stand in this place and actually imply that the bill would enhance the capability of bringing projects online?

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June 5th, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


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North Vancouver B.C.

Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-69. The bill fulfills a core commitment our government made to rebuild public trust in the environmental assessment system. It is based on 14 months of consultation with provinces and territories, indigenous peoples, companies, environmental groups, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Today, I will start by outlining why we created this bill and what it will accomplish. I will then discuss how our government and the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development have engaged in dialogue with indigenous communities and other partners throughout this process. I will also speak about what we heard.

Finally, I will describe how the standing committee's hard work in studying and amending the bill responds to the comments that have been received, and how it supports our government's commitment to a clean environment and a strong economy.

Before I begin, I would like to congratulate the standing committee and recognize what has been accomplished. Consideration of such a complex and significant bill is a challenging task. I commend the committee for its openness in hearing diverse witness testimony and for making thoughtful amendments that address important issues and significantly strengthen the original bill.

I would like to start my comments by providing some background about Bill C-69: why it is before us today and why it is so important for the future of Canada's economy and environment.

Public trust was eroded as a result of changes made by the Harper government in 2012. Canadians lost confidence in how decisions about major resource projects were made. Bill C-69 aims to restore that trust, put in place better rules to protect our environment, and build a stronger economy. It reflects our conviction that a clean environment and a strong economy can and must go hand in hand in the modern world, something that has guided all of our actions since forming government. It takes a balanced approach: providing certainty for industry while upholding the rights of indigenous peoples, protecting our environment, and facilitating the generation of economic benefits for all Canadians.

I would like to thank indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians who contributed their knowledge and perspectives. The proposed legislation provides many important improvements. Decisions would be transparent and guided by robust science and indigenous knowledge. Project reviews would consider a wide range of impacts on the economy, health, indigenous rights, and the community, not simply the environment. Reviews would be more timely and more predicable. Measures are included to advance reconciliation and partnership with indigenous peoples. Duplication and red tape would be reduced through a “one project, one review” approach.

As I was saying, during months of consultation, indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians across the country helped us develop Bill C-69. Since the bill was introduced, our government has continued to ensure that they participate fully in the process at every opportunity.

Hearing from Canadians directly was also central to the standing committee's consideration of the bill. In recent months, the committee heard from more than 80 witnesses with diverse perspectives and expertise. I would like to share some of the valuable input that we heard from stakeholders during this process.

First, indigenous peoples and organizations have said that Bill C-69 must fully support our government's goal of advancing reconciliation and a renewed relationship based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership, as well as our commitment to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This is critically important.

As the Prime Minister said, no relationship is more important to Canada than the one with indigenous peoples.

Environmental organizations have stressed the importance of public participation and accessible, transparent information. In particular, they told us that the bill must ensure not just participation, but meaningful participation that has an influence on project reviews and decision-making. From industry and other stakeholders, we heard that the legislation must provide certainty and clarity about what would be considered in project reviews and in decision-making.

The project proponent and other participants should feel confident that the decisions are evidence-based and are made in the public interest.

I am pleased that the standing committee has made a number of amendments to the bill that respond to many of the comments and concerns highlighted by stakeholders and indigenous peoples. Finding appropriate ways to address these issues is not easy, and I want to recognize the committee for its dedication and its collaborative approach.

I would now like to mention some amendments made by the committee and explain how they support our goals for a sound environment and a strong economy.

As a result of the committee's work and feedback from indigenous peoples, the bill now clearly states our government's commitment to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration would now be reflected in the preamble to both the proposed impact assessment act and the proposed Canadian energy regulator act. The government, the minister, the agency, the Canadian energy regulator, and other federal authorities would also need to exercise their powers under the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act in a manner that respects the government's commitments with respect to the rights of indigenous peoples.

The amendments also add to the existing provisions, to ensure that indigenous knowledge is taken into account along with the science when projects are being assessed. The bill will now require more transparency in how the indigenous knowledge is used and will implement strong measures to protect this knowledge.

The standing committee has strengthened the public participation and transparency provisions across the legislation. The bill now clarifies that Canadians would have opportunities for meaningful participation throughout assessments. To support meaningful participation, a broad range of project information would need to be posted online, and there would be a requirement to maintain this information so that it stays accessible over time.

Furthermore, in response to reactions from environmental organizations, amendments would establish new safeguards so that Canadians can have confidence that the process is fair. For example, the bill clarifies that the project would be based on the impact assessment report and that decisions would also have to consider the main factors of public interest, including the project's contribution to sustainability.

The committee has also responded to industry's calls for more certainty. Amendments have been made to clarify that the government's public interest decision will be based on the assessment report and the consideration of specific factors, including positive and negative consequences. Other amendments include clarifying that comments must be provided during a time period specified by the impact assessment agency of Canada so that meaningful participation is ensured and balanced with a need for timely assessments. They would also enable the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to inform companies early on if a project is likely to have negative impacts, giving proponents an earlier opportunity to decide whether to continue with an impact assessment. Finally, the committee's amendments would improve the transition provisions set out in the bill.

The committee has strengthened Bill C-69 with these changes and others. By maintaining a balanced approach, the bill will further support environmental protection and reconciliation, and will also help increase investor confidence.

I am very proud of our government's work on this bill.

Bill C-69 addresses a key commitment we made during the 2015 election campaign. Our best rules adopt a balanced approach that takes into account the interests of people across Canada.

Once again, I want to recognize the essential contributions made by the standing committee, as well as the many Canadians who participated in consultations and made their voices heard. Thanks to their passion and commitment, I am confident that this bill will support the goals that I believe all of my colleagues share: a clean environment for our children, and a strong and growing economy.

I hope that all members of the House will join me in supporting this bill.

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June 5th, 2018 / 12:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON

Mr. Speaker, I first want to address the comment made to the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke. It is not fearmongering and it is not hysteria; it is the fact that the constituents of her riding believe in her, because they know she is going to fight for what they believe in. The fact that she comes to this chamber with such passion is something we can all learn from, because she listens to her constituents and brings their voices to the chamber.

There was a comment made regarding the member for Edmonton Strathcona having a voice at the table. I adore the member for Edmonton Strathcona. Although we are from different parties, she brings so much to the House because of her background. When I sat down with her and we talked, she let me know she felt almost demoralized. That is not her word, but she felt she could not bring anything to the committee because Liberals were not listening. She had so much to bring to that committee, and those voices were not heard. People can say, “We let you sit at the table; we just told you to shut up”, and that is basically what happened here. That is very concerning.

UNDRIP is another thing, and I will allow the NDP members to talk about UNDRIP in this bill. The government says it will vote for something one week, and then the next week it does a total 180°.

I will now speak on Bill C-69, 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. I must agree that with that title, we can recognize how large this act is and how many different committees should have been looking at this bill, but instead Liberals sent it to the environment committee, where it got shut down in debate.

There are many concerns being highlighted by the Conservative caucus, informing Canadians about concerns for Canada's economy and the decreased competitiveness in Canada on a number of issues, including reduced taxes on corporations in the U.S. and the $25-a-barrel discount on our oil.

I want to discuss this issue to highlight how it impacts our constituents. I am from the riding of Elgin—Middlesex—London. I am not from a riding that is oceanside and there are not a lot of pipes going through my community, but this bill will impact my community of Elgin—Middlesex—London, so I want to discuss two key items.

In late spring, a bridge collapsed in the village of Port Bruce. This bridge connected the village of Port Bruce to the rest of Aylmer on Highway 73. The first issue was how to rebuild the bridge. We had to look at so many different things, including where we were going to get the money and what we were going to do. There are great people in the municipalities and the country working on this. When the bridge collapsed, one of the first things that came to mind, other than the money, was what the government was going to do with regard to environmental impacts and what kinds of delays the community and council were going to have to deal with.

Having worked with a former MP, I recalled some work I had done with the municipality of Thames Centre back in 2010 on species at risk. We have to understand that there are going to be obstacles, and there was about a 10-month delay in the municipality of Thames Centre because of this. I am very concerned that we will see delays like this when this new legislation proposed by the Liberal government passes. Maybe some things will work and maybe some things are better, but we will never know, because we never got the chance to debate it.

The bridge that collapsed is near the mouth of Catfish Creek and connects the waterways from Catfish Creek to the Great Lakes, specifically Lake Erie. Although I agree with the necessity of environmental assessments, I am concerned that the reconstruction of the bridge will be hampered because of increased bureaucracy, specifically with the passage of Bill C-69. This small community needs support from all levels of government, including the Government of Canada. What will these new timelines do to the government's response and what will the government's involvement be in this project?

Although the government states that what is in the bill would reduce the timelines, we have seen the government's track record and the raft of broken promises. I just do not have it in me to believe that this proposed legislation would create anything but obstacles for our economy and the people who live in Canada. The new planning phase would add an additional 180 days, followed by a 30-day assessment by the minister. There are so many opportunities for both major and minor projects to be slowed down because of this hierarchy and the ministerial and Governor in Council exemptions.

The village of Port Bruce will need a plan. I have reached out to all of the ministers of the government who could impact the reconstruction of this bridge. To date, all of the responses that I have received are basically a bunch of Liberal talking points. I am not seeing assistance. I am not seeing help. Rather, I see the government telling me what it is doing and patting itself on the back and saying that maybe we can go after the gas tax fund. Those are not the kinds of things that we need from the government. I do not really know if people in government understand how smaller municipalities need to work together with all levels of government and how they have to be part of this. They cannot just give us platitudes.

Whether the township and county decide to go with a temporary bridge or go directly toward reconstructing this bridge, I fear that the government will slow things down. The village is a tourist destination and is currently being greatly impacted by the inability of people to take a direct route. We also must be concerned over the inability of the township to adequately provide emergency services. One of the biggest challenges that this community has had is that Highway 73 does not even go there, so we have had neighbouring municipalities get on board to provide those emergency services.

However, we must move forward on our project, and I am totally concerned about what is going to happen in our next phase. Once it decides what it will do, what is the government going to be doing with new red tape approaches, both to the county and to the municipalities?

My second point also focuses on the farmers in my riding and the change to the navigational waters act. For years, I have heard from local farmers about some of the restrictions regarding ditches and things of that sort. We all have different ways of looking at it, but the fact is that we do not have a way of discussing this issue because when we are at committee, debate gets shut down.

For years farmers have been strongly speaking about the restrictions that they have been under, and when in 2012 there were some changes, they applauded the government because they felt that they were not going to be restricted as much. That is positive. When we are trying to work on the economy, we want to make sure that we are working with the stewards of our land and not always against them. I am always concerned with how we are going to make sure we are working forward. I believe in our farmers and I have watched them use responsible methods to improve their applications.

What will this legislation do to impact our local farmers, as well as reconstruction of the bridge? Well, I wish I could tell members more about that, but this bill was rammed through the committee and amendments proposed by all opposition parties were ignored. The government says it is allowing people's voices to be heard, but we know that the moment nine o'clock strikes at committee, committee members can not debate anything further.

We know that the Liberal government put in over 100 of their own recommendations when it came to amendments. Are the Liberals saying that this bill does not need amendments? By having to amend their own bill that many times, I think they have proven to the entire committee and to all Canadians that the bill is flawed.

We may not agree on everything, but the government cut debate. Although we may not agree on everything, the most important part is to listen. As the chair of the status of women committee, I have seen some co-operation when we are talking about amendments and when we are talking about recommendations. When we are all sitting at the table and really trying to do what is best for Canadians, everyone is actually listening. There are opportunities for us to merge. When we are putting in a recommendation, we may take something from the NDP or we may take something from the Liberals and the Conservative Party and merge those thoughts together so that we can all be heard, but Canadian voices have been shut down at committee and in this House when debating this bill.

How are Canadians supposed to know that their voices are being heard when time allocation is being imposed not only on their representatives in this House but also in the committees? How do we know that we are getting what is best for Canadians when the Liberals seem to be listening only to themselves and not listening to some of these amendments?

I agree that Liberals may have some good suggestions but do not think that the Conservatives, the NDP, the Green Party, and the Bloc all have good suggestions. We need to work together.

I see that part of my role as a parliamentarian is to listen. I urge the government to start to listen again. We have seen a lot of problems, but if the government can get off its talking points, maybe we can all do better. I think that is part of the issue: the questions that are being asked are taken back to government talking points. We are not talking about how it is going to impact people. We are not talking how it is going to impact the Trans Mountain pipeline. We are not talking about those things. We are talking about spending $4.5 billion without even seeing how we will get a pipeline built. We know that the government was the obstacle for Kinder Morgan, and now how is it not going to be the obstacle for itself, unless it turns 180° once again?

The government's role is to create a positive atmosphere for businesses to succeed. New taxes, government red tape, and truly poor opportunities for Canadians to speak on legislative changes that engage Canadians are here with this government. I heard the leader of the Greens say that we can do better. With discussions and amendments actually being heard, we can do better. I urge the Liberals to start consulting with all parties.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:40 p.m.


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Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Mr. Speaker, I was also on the indigenous committee that studied Bill C-262. I am a very strong supporter of UNDRIP.

I am proud to say that we are the government that for the first time has embedded UNDRIP into a bill, even before UNDRIP was put into effect in this House, by introducing it into Bill C-69 through amendments that the Liberal members of the committee had put forward. I strove to ensure that UNDRIP was included in Bill C-69 even before Bill C-262 has fully passed in this House.

I am very proud of what our government is doing in moving forward with Bill C-262 and I have tremendous respect for the member for the James Bay region and his work on that bill.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:35 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, one of the gaps in Bill C-69 is that it only requires a consideration of indigenous knowledge in going ahead with these assessments.

The member for Edmonton Strathcona has moved some report stage amendments, specifically Motions Nos. 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, and 13, which seek to bring this bill in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I checked the vote last week on May 30, and the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington did vote in support of Bill C-262, which seeks to bring Canadian laws in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Will the member be consistent with his vote last week and vote in support of these amendments when they come before the House?

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-69. With this bill, our government is meeting our commitment to rebuild public trust and help get Canada's resources to market. In developing Bill C-69, we heard from provinces, territories, indigenous peoples, businesses, environmental groups, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Overwhelmingly, they told us that they want a modern environmental and regulatory system that protects the environment, supports reconciliation with indigenous peoples, attracts investment, and ensures that good projects can go ahead. That is exactly what our government has delivered in introducing this bill.

Through better rules, Bill C-69 would support the responsible development of Canada's natural resources, create good middle-class jobs, and help grow our economy. Measures in this bill would provide more timely and predictable reviews, more certainty for businesses, and more opportunities for partnerships with indigenous peoples.

Today I would like to take a step back. I want to look more closely at the question of public trust. I am going to discuss what it means to rebuild that trust, how this bill would accomplish that, and how the hard work of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development has contributed through its careful study of the bill and its thoughtful amendments.

Where there is public trust, proponents, indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and all Canadians can have confidence that major project reviews are based on evidence, including robust science, and indigenous knowledge. It also means that when final decisions are made, Canadians can be assured that those decisions have fully considered the evidence and that they serve the public interest. That is what has been lost under the current rules, and it is what Bill C-69 would restore.

It would do that in a few ways, which I will go on to discuss in more detail. It would do so by clearly setting out in legislation which factors would be considered in reviews of major projects; by ensuring that decisions were made in the public interest, and the reasons for them were communicated; and by ensuring that panels established to conduct project reviews were balanced and included the right people with the right expertise.

I will begin with the factors that would guide major project reviews. Compared with CEAA 2012, Bill C-69 sets out a more comprehensive and complete set of factors for consideration in reviews. While it would provide strong protection for the environment, the bill would expand the scope of reviews beyond the environment alone. Assessments would take a broader view based on sustainability, taking into account a wide range of impacts on the economy, health, indigenous rights, and the community.

Crucially, Bill C-69 would require consideration of a project's impact on indigenous peoples and their rights. In the words of the Prime Minister, “No relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous Peoples.” Considering the rights of indigenous peoples in every review fully aligns with our commitment to achieve reconciliation through a renewed relationship based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership.

Finally, the bill reflects our government's commitment to effective action on climate change. It would ensure that reviews considered the effects of major projects on Canada's ability to meet our climate change commitments as well as our obligations related to environmental challenges like air quality and biodiversity. That supports our actions to fight carbon pollution, such as working with partners to put a price on pollution that will cut 80 million to 90 million tonnes of GHG emissions by 2022.

That is where we began when our government introduced Bill C-69 in this House in February. Since then, the standing committee has strengthened the bill by adding even more clarity on factors to consider in project reviews and by improving consistency across the legislation.

To highlight just a few of the changes, the committee clarified that both positive and negative impacts must be considered, recognizing that not all effects of major resource projects will be negative. It amended the proposed Canadian energy regulator act to ensure that climate change is considered when making decisions about non-designated projects, including pipelines, power lines, and offshore projects. It improved consistency by requiring that the same set of factors guide the agency's decision on what information and studies are required for a project review, the review itself, and inform the impact assessment report. All these measures would support more predictable reviews, more certainty for industry, and public trust.

Over and over we have heard that a good process means nothing if the decision at the end is opaque and is based on politics, not evidence. When that happens, there can be no public trust. Bill C-69 would do the opposite. It would set up safeguards to ensure that science, indigenous knowledge, and other evidence formed the basis for important decisions on whether major projects would go ahead.

Specifically, following amendments by the standing committee, the bill would require decisions to be based on the assessment report prepared by the impact assessment agency of Canada. Decisions would also need to consider key factors, including the project's contribution to sustainability, meaning its ability to protect the environment and contribute to the social and economic well-being of the people of Canada and preserve their health in a way that benefits present and future generations.

To provide certainty and build trust, public decision statements would need to clearly demonstrate how the assessment report formed the basis for the decision and how those factors were considered. This clarity would benefit all parties: proponents, indigenous peoples, and stakeholders. Through transparency and accountability, it would help ensure that the decisions on projects were made in the public trust.

In terms of further amendments that would improve transparency and help restore trust, the bill would now require that the minister consider any feedback provided by the proponent when deciding whether a decision statement for a project would expire or whether the timeline would be extended. The comments would have to be provided during a time period specified by the impact assessment agency of Canada so that meaningful public participation was assured and balanced with the need for timely assessments.

Last, I want to talk about the safeguards Bill C-69 would provide so that panels set up to review major projects with life-cycle regulators would strike the right balance in their membership. Our government and the standing committee heard from some groups that this is a critical step toward restoring public trust. We recognize that these regulators have long-standing specialized expertise and knowledge. Their participation is essential to ensuring that Canada's resources are developed in a way that protects the environment and grows the economy. We put forward amendments in committee to strike a balance to ensure that review panels also included other voices and perspectives. The bill would require that federal regulators not constitute a majority on the panel. At the same time, regulators would continue to serve on panels and contribute their expertise.

We cannot get Canada's resources to market without public trust. With this bill, we would rebuild that trust by introducing new, fairer processes for project reviews. Bill C-69 would define the needed safeguards so that Canadians could again have confidence that processes were fair and evidence-based, that decisions served the public interest, and that the right projects went forward. As I have described, these measures would include clearly setting out in advance the key factors that would guide major project reviews; requiring evidence-based decision-making; being transparent when final decisions were made so that Canadians would know that the process was being followed, and they could have confidence in the outcome; and ensuring balanced review panels that would bring together diverse expertise and multiple perspectives.

I would like to conclude by once again recognizing the work of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. As a result of its members' insight and dedication, the committee's work has produced an amended bill that would respond to the priorities of indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and Canadians and would further contribute to our goal of restoring the public trust.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my Conservative colleague a question specifically in the context of the vote we had last week on Bill C-262. I know that the Conservatives did not vote for it, but the important fact is that the Liberals did.

My colleague, the member for Edmonton Strathcona, moved a series of amendments at report stage that seek to bring Bill C-69 in harmony with what the Liberals supported last week on Bill C-262. Does the member have a reasonable expectation that the Liberals would at least remain consistent and support those amendments from the member for Edmonton Strathcona, or are we going to see a flip-flop, where they say one thing and do something completely opposite?

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Mr. Speaker, members will hear from this side of the House just how tragic and pathetic this piece of proposed legislation really is.

It is interesting, because the Liberals think they have found a balance. The NDP oppose it for some reasons and we oppose it for others, but typically the reason for the opposition is that it just gives way too much power to the minister, and has way too little transparency and accountability. Not only is this proposed legislation dangerous, and I use that word deliberately, but it is also going to have a very real impact on a large number of people across this country, particularly those who live in areas dependent on resource development.

The Liberals had an opportunity to smooth out the environmental assessment process with this bill, but instead they chose to do the complete opposite. I think there is an intent here to destroy the credibility of the existing EA process in Canada, because the Liberals do not actually want to see resource development carried out. Our Prime Minister will say one thing in Alberta, and as we saw earlier this spring, go to France two days later and apologize for not getting rid of the energy industry soon enough. Therefore, I believe there is an agenda here to complicate this process and to make it basically unmanageable. Then the reality will be that it will not be possible to put in place resource projects across this country. Investors are already basically laughing at Canada and walking away. We saw an article yesterday saying that investors no longer even bother considering Canada as an option to invest in. Therefore, the Liberals are getting their way. The NDP members are getting their way.

The problem with these big government initiatives and socialism, and those of us who live in Saskatchewan understand it, is that it takes a while for the pain to actually begin. It does not happen right away. It is not immediate, but it is profound and long-lasting. The bill before us will have a profoundly long-lasting and negative impact on Canada and our economy.

The bill before us, Bill C-69, is called 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. The main thing it would do is to set up a new impact assessment agency of Canada, replacing some other agencies. That agency will then be the lead on all federal reviews of major projects and would be expected, I guess, to work with other bodies on that.

However, realistically, what will happen here, because of the many things that are being thrown into this mix of what will be called an environmental assessment reality, is that these projects will just not get done. It is interesting, because the bill would add a number of things that need to be considered in an environmental assessment, and things that go far beyond the environment, but it would basically give anyone who has an objection to a project the right to claim there would be some impact on them and that they have a legitimate reason to have the project stopped.

I will talk a little about the process that would take place, because I think when Canadians see it, they will start to understand how disingenuous the government has been with this bill.

If we want to apply for a project, we need to go through an environmental assessment on most things. The Liberals have set up the proposed legislation so that, supposedly, there will be a planning phase of up to a maximum 180 days. This could then go in a couple of directions. It could go to a joint panel, or it could go back to the assessment agency, and there would be some timelines. However, there are a variety of tracks available for it to follow. It could end up at a review panel. The agency itself would oversee the smaller projects and then would have a full review of the larger projects. After a while, when that is done, the agency or panel would submit a recommendation and the minister would have 30 days to approve or reject it.

Well, that sounds pretty straightforward, until we start to look at the actual processes involved in this, and I want to go through three possible tracks. I will probably use most of my time doing this, but it would just point out to Canadians how bizarre this gets and how much interference the minister can play, as the NDP just pointed that out with their last questions.

The minister basically has authority at all levels over these things. The minister can make things go ahead or stop dead, and they can stay stopped if the minister and cabinet decide to do that.

First of all, I will talk about a decision that does not require a joint panel. It does not even require approval by cabinet. Under this proposed legislation, there would be a 180-day planning phase. This is something brand new that the government has thrown in here, which would already put a six-month delay or kind of stop on a project moving ahead. This could be extended by 90 days or it could be extended indefinitely by the minister if someone demanded that. There is no clarity around what that means.

Then there is a 300-day time limit for the impact assessment itself, almost a year, and no surprise, this can be extended by 90 days or indefinitely by cabinet. Timelines are thrown completely out. There is no certainty at all. Why would investors bother getting involved with something like this? And this is the simplest process of the few that are there.

Then there is a 30-day time limit after the minister and cabinet have already been involved at two different levels. It then comes to the minister and cabinet to make the decision. What kind of industry organization or business is going to come forward and put themselves through this when there is absolutely no certainty?

No surprise, that 30-day time limit can be extended by 90 days or it can be extended indefinitely. That is the simplest. A joint panel is not required. Approval by cabinet is not required. At all three levels of planning and working through the process, cabinet has authority to extend the deadline indefinitely or to whatever it chooses to extend it to. A joint panel is not required, and approval by cabinet is not required. Under Bill C-69 the total time should be about 570 days, almost a year and a half, but again, there are several opportunities to extend it.

It starts out again with that 180-day planning phase, which can be extended by 90 days or indefinitely by the minister or cabinet. Then there is a 300-day time limit for the impact assessment itself. The proponent has to get this all done in 300 days, considering all of the different factors that the government has thrown into Bill C-69, and this can be extended by 90 days or indefinitely by the minister or cabinet. Then there is a 90-day limit for cabinet to make a decision and again, this can be extended by 90 days or indefinitely by cabinet.

Those are two tracks.

The third one is a decision that requires a joint panel with a cabinet decision. The time frame on this one is set at 835 days, well over two years, with at least one opportunity to extend it. There are 10 days to start a 45-day screening process, once the decision has been made that this has to go through a joint panel. Then there is 60 days from notice to referring the assessment to the panel. Then there is 24 months from the referral when a decision statement must be issued. This can be extended 90 days by the minister, or indefinitely by cabinet. That actually was the case in the past under the CEAA 2012 method, but under Bill C-69 it would go from that 800 days to 915 days, and there are six opportunities in the bill to extend it.

There is a 180-day planning phase and a 45-day window for the minister to refer an assessment to a panel, and there is no timeline for establishing a panel at all. The panel has to submit a report to the minister within 600 days, another two years down the road, and this can be extended by the minister until anything the panel prescribes is completed, or by 90 days. Cabinet can extend it indefinitely again, and then there is another 90-day timeline for cabinet.

This assessment process that the government has thrown into the bill is basically a game. It is a game that cabinet can play with anybody who wants to apply for a project in Canada.

It is no surprise, as I mentioned before, that people are looking at other places to invest. They are investing in other countries. The Americans right now are making it very clear that they want to become the world's largest energy producer and exporter. They are eating our lunch right now. They are doing things: they are lowering taxes, they are easing the regulatory burden on people, and they are not imposing a massive carbon tax that will raise the price of everything. It is no surprise that money is moving out of Canada and into the United States.

The latest version of that is the Liberal government's decision to pay $5 billion to a Texas-based company to buy a used pipeline, which is going to take another $8 billion to $10 billion at least, and probably more, knowing this government is involved. That money will be given to this project when the proponent initially did not ask for any money.

It is unfortunate that the Liberals do not keep their promises. This is one more that has been broken. They have not fulfilled their commitments. This entire piece of legislation is just meant to hamper the industry's capacity to be able to do resource development in this country. I am sorry it has even come forward. I wish it were set aside. If this legislation is passed, it will not be a good thing for this country.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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NDP

Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. I will admit that I share some of the views he put forward in his speech. However, I think he overlooked the biggest snag, and that is what I would like to hear him talk about in the next few minutes.

Even though the bill allows BAPE to conduct a certain number of environmental assessments and make use of its expertise, the biggest snag in Bill C-69 is the fact that the minister ultimately gets to decide, with the stroke of a pen, whether to proceed, or not proceed, with the recommendations made to her, regardless of who made them.

Would my colleague not agree that the major snag in Bill C-69 is the enormous powers it gives to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change?

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 12:05 p.m.


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Bloc

Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC

Mr. Speaker, my intention in bringing up cell towers was to give an example of a case where the federal government is disregarding both provincial laws and municipal bylaws. Urban planning is a municipal responsibility, and cities should be able to decide where towers should be installed. There is an important question in all this with regard to urban development and landscape integration. However, that goes beyond Bill C-69. In my opinion, the important thing is for the bill to respect areas of provincial jurisdiction and comply with municipal bylaws. The example of cell towers illustrates the federal government's tendency to disregard municipal bylaws and provincial laws. If we want good collaboration and well-run projects in the future, it is essential that the federal government get in the habit of complying with these provincial laws, since they are perfectly valid, having been passed by elected officials like us. These laws were passed for the benefit of the people. Furthermore, provincial elected representatives are often closer to their constituents than their federal counterparts, since Ottawa is quite far away for many people.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.


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Bloc

Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to Bill C-69. I also thank my colleague for sharing her time with me and allowing me to have a few minutes to speak about this important bill today.

This is an important bill that will have a significant impact on Quebec. This is not just a bill about the environment; it is also a bill that creates a problem as to how it will be enforced by provincial jurisdictions. I am particularly concerned about the Quebec government's jurisdiction, and that is the main point I want to make in my speech today.

Nothing at the core of Bill C-69 says that the agency has the power to enter into agreements with the provinces to delegate environmental assessments to the provinces. In Quebec, we already have the Bureau d'audiences publiques en environnement, or BAPE, which has considerable expertise and has never been contradicted. There have never been any scandals surrounding its independence or its reports, unlike various federal institutions, such as the NEB, where there have been many problems recently,especially regarding the independence of the board members. Doubt surrounding the independence of the board members can cast doubt on the findings, if there is not a proper process is in place.

Unlike the federal process, so far the process in Quebec has virtually always been respected and considered valid and credible. I think it is important to rely on credible institutions whenever possible, especially in Quebec.

It is obvious to me that Bill C-69 should let the agency delegate its environmental assessment authority to institutions under provincial jurisdiction. These institutions are often much more knowledgeable about their territory. We know that, in Quebec, BAPE conducts such assessments. Its employees have acquired a certain expertise over the years.

This bill will create a new institution with new people and with practices that have yet to be established. A new culture and new expertise will have to be developed, even though that already exists within the Quebec government. It is important to build on a solid foundation, and to rely on the people already in place and their knowledge of the area, because they are closer to the people of Quebec.

There is a major element in C-69 that is problematic. It allows the federal government to disregard provincial jurisdictions and to make decisions about what it wants, how it wants it, and when it wants it. Provincial legislation and municipal bylaws are not important. They are not taken into consideration.

This creates some big problems. Take, for example, how technology has evolved in our ridings. That may not be directly related to the environment, but there is an interesting parallel. Cell towers are being put up in our ridings, for Internet and all kinds of data transmissions that fall under federal jurisdiction. In many municipalities, these towers are being put up anywhere, in the middle of public parks, and sometimes in front of houses. This destroys the landscape, sometimes in heritage areas, even. The federal government does not work with the communities at all. Take the much-discussed issue of mailboxes, for example. Members will recall when Montreal mayor Denis Coderre infamously destroyed a mailbox. I am not condoning his actions, but I think it was an important symbolic gesture showing the federal government's failure to listen to the provinces and municipalities. When the federal government itself does not need to comply with our laws and regulations, it is even easier to completely ignore them.

Obviously, respect for the Government of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction, including on environmental matters, should be incorporated into Bill C-69. The Government of Quebec already has jurisdiction over the environment and that must be enforced. The Government of Quebec has to be able to enforce its own laws, its own rules, and be master within its own jurisdiction. If the federal government interferes all the time, it indirectly prevents Quebec from doing its job.

Bill C-69 has a lot of room for improvement in that regard. This is such a fundamental issue that the government should act in good faith, allow these changes, and abide by them. I hope all other members of the House will support us on this. Many individuals and environmental groups in Quebec share this vision.

We have seen instances of the provinces' rights not being respected, and we are about to see it again with the government imposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline on British Columbia in violation of the province's jurisdiction and the rights of the people who live along the pipeline route. When the government does not listen to the people, they see that as an injustice. A government that inflicts such an injustice loses legitimacy in their eyes, and that makes people cynical.

A government that wants to avoid cynicism must respect our institutions. There is not just one institution that matters. The government has to listen to other legitimate governments' institutions, which are just as important. To forestall intergovernmental strife, the feds must at the very least respect those institutions, but that is something the federal government does not often do.

That is one of the reasons why we in the Bloc Québécois believe that Quebec should be a country. This habit is so ingrained in this government that it can barely even function because of its arrogance and attitude of superiority. Ottawa knows best. It is always Ottawa that decides what happens and, at the end of the day, our laws and our interests are trampled on. This has to change. By amending Bill C-69, Ottawa could reach out to the provinces and try to come up with an agreement that is a little better, despite the circumstances. In short, Ottawa must respect Quebec's laws and the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement, which is pretty important.

In addition, the bill provides no guarantee that any public hearings will be held on major projects. Public hearings are important, because they give members of the public a chance to have their say on a project. When the public does not have a chance to do so, it is much harder to adapt the project and determine what the public really wants. It is much harder to sell a project when you do not seek public opinion, even if that opinion is positive. Public consultations are fundamental to any major project and, once again, they are not even mentioned in this bill.

There are no parameters for appointing the commissioners. That is a major problem because it is the Minister of the Environment who has the power to appoint the commissioners of the future agency. We end up with the same problem that we had with the National Energy Board where the government appoints agency employees who are accountable to the person who appointed them and who sometimes have special interests.

The current bill still does not address the possibility of appointing people from industry. Obviously appointing a pipeline promoter to assess a pipeline will not work because he clearly wants the pipeline built. That is his job. Similarly, if we ask a real estate agent whether the housing market is overheated, he will always say it is not, because he wants to sell houses and get a better commission. I think this leaves room for conflicts of interest and conflicts of vision.

It is therefore important to regulate the process for appointing commissioners and appointing independent commissioners rather than having commissioners appointed by the minister who are accountable to her. We know this creates major problems with regard to perception and independence, which results in a process that does not work.

For all those reasons, we will oppose Bill C-69. It is also important to consult first nations since they too have a right of oversight and should have their say.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.


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Liberal

Kim Rudd Liberal Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON

Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question allows me to say that as we are speaking right now, the Prime Minister is in B.C. speaking to the Indigenous Advisory and Monitoring Committee, which the member may remember is the first of its kind in Canada. This is a monitoring committee for the life cycle of the TMX project, with $64 million to support it through that process. In response to the question of the member opposite, it is really important to remember that when we look at the scope of projects that are going through Bill C-69, the indigenous engagement piece and consideration of indigenous and traditional knowledge are a key element of this bill.

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:50 a.m.


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Conservative

Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON

Madam Speaker, multiple times in the member's speech she used the phrases “predictable, timely project reviews” and “provide certainty” as to how projects can proceed. However, in Bill C-69, the entire approval process could take 915 days, plus there are six opportunities to extend that. There would be a 180-day planning phase, which could be extended by 90 days by the minister or indefinitely by cabinet. There would be a 45-day window for the minister to refer assessment to a panel, and this could be suspended indefinitely. There is no timeline for establishing a panel, and the panel would have to submit a report to the minister within 600 days of the establishment of the panel. This could be extended by the minister until the prescribed activities are completed, and, again, it could be extended indefinitely by cabinet. There would also be a 90-day timeline for cabinet to make a decision, and this could be extended by 90 days by the minister or indefinitely by cabinet.

My question is simple. Multiple times the member used the terms “predictability”, “timely project reviews”, and “provides certainty”. How can that be possible with the extended timelines I just referred to?

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Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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Northumberland—Peterborough South Ontario

Liberal

Kim Rudd LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of Bill C-69.

Our government recognizes that national resource sectors are a vital part of Canada's economy. Over $500 billion in major resource projects are planned across Canada over the next decade. Those projects have the potential to create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs to support our communities and to contribute to our economy as a whole.

We have committed to regain public trust and get Canada's resources to market and to ensure those resources are developed in a responsible and sustainable way. Bill C-69 would put in place better rules that would provide predictable, timely project reviews and encourage investments. At the same time, it would ensure our environment would be protected and we could meet our commitments to reduce carbon emissions and transition to a clean growth economy.

Today, I will speak about how Bill C-69 would provide certainty for proponents and would help ensure good projects could go ahead, specifically, how it would contribute to more timely reviews and clearer requirements for companies; how it would reduce duplication and red tape by achieving our goal of one project, one review; and how it would provide a clear process and rules for transitioning to the new impact assessment system.

Throughout our extensive engagement with companies and industry groups across Canada, we heard they needed predictable, timely review processes to develop resources and get them to market. We listened, and that is exactly what the bill would provide.

Under the proposed legislation, one agency, the new impact assessment agency of Canada, will lead all major projects reviews, working closely with regulatory bodies. With one agency as the federal lead, reviews will be more consistent and indeed more predictable. A revised project list will define the types of projects that will be subject to impact assessments, providing the certainty that companies need and expect.

Our government is consulting with Canadians now to ensure the project list is robust and includes effective criteria such as environmental objectives and standards for clean air, water, and climate change. Through a new early planning and engagement phase, companies will be able to identify and address issues early in the process before an impact assessment begins. Early planning will result in tailored impact statement guidelines, a co-operation plan, an indigenous engagement and partnership plan, public participation plan, and, if required, a permitting plan.

The details of these early planning products will be further articulated in the information requirements and time management regulations. We are consulting on these now and they will come into force concurrently with the IAA. This early planning stage will define requirements and clarify expectations so companies know what is expected of them and when.

This new phase will help them design and plan their projects and more effectively engage indigenous peoples, stakeholders, and local communities. Amendments proposed by the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development will also enable the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to inform companies early on if a project is likely to have negative impacts, giving proponents an earlier opportunity to decide to continue with an impact assessment.

Bill C-69 would also put in place stricter timeline management for impact assessments, with fewer stops of the clock. Specifically, timelines for agency-led reviews would be reduced from 365 days to 300 days. Panel reviews would be shortened from 720 days to a maximum of 600 days. In addition, panel reviews for designated projects reviewed in collaboration with a federal life cycle regulator would be shortened to 300 days, with the option to allow the minister to set the timeline up to a maximum of 600 days if warranted based on the project's complexity. Timelines for non-designated projects reviewed by life cycle regulators would be shortened from 450 days to 300 days.

The regulations I mentioned earlier would also establish clear rules around when timelines could be paused. In addition, proposed amendments provide for a 45-day timeline for establishing a review panel. Together, these measures will result in more timely decisions and more certainty for proponents.

Companies will also know in advance what will be considered during reviews and what factors will guide decision-making. Reviews will take into account not just environmental impacts, but social, economic, and health effects, along with impacts on indigenous peoples and their rights.

Recognizing that not all project effects are negative, the bill would ensure that both positive and negative impacts would be considered. Amendments clarify that the government's public interest decision will be based on the assessment report and the consideration of specific factors.

The bill would also provide strong transparency measures so proponents would be informed about key decisions, as well as the reasons behind them. That includes, for example, decisions to extend the timeline for a review or to refer a final decision on a project to cabinet. Also, when final decisions are made on whether a project will go ahead, the proponent will be informed of the reasons why and will be assured that all factors were appropriately considered.

I want to note that in considering Bill C-69, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development heard testimony from a number of companies and industry groups. There were suggestions for improving the bill, and I want to recognize the committee for listening to that feedback and responding.

As reported back to the House, Bill C-69 now includes stronger transparency provisions that would benefit proponents and provide more certainty and consistency across the legislation. Amendments would improve transparency by requiring assessment reports to incorporate a broader range of information, including a summary of comments received, recommendations on mitigation measures and follow-up, and the agency's rationale and conclusions. It would also require that public comments provided during the public reviews would be made available online. That information posted online would also need to be maintained so it could be accessed over time.

I would like to talk now about how Bill C-69 would achieve our government's goal of one project, one review. By providing for joint reviews and substitution, where a process led by another jurisdiction fulfills the requirement for a federal review, it would promote co-operation with provinces and territories, reduce red tape, and prevent duplication. In addition, we would be increasing opportunities for partnership with indigenous peoples and for indigenous governing bodies to take on key responsibilities, including taking the lead on projects.

I commend the standing committee for further advancing our objective of one project, one review. As a result of its work, integrated review panels with federal regulators can now include other jurisdictions, making it possible to have just one assessment that meets all requirements. This is important for investor certainty. This change responds directly to testimony made before the committee and what our government has heard from industry stakeholders. It supports our goal of certainty and timelines in review processes.

Finally, we have also heard how important it is for Bill C-69 to support a smooth transition between the current assessment regime and the new regime. Our government recognizes that this transition needs to be clear and predictable to encourage investment and keep good projects moving forward. We have also committed that no project will have to return to the beginning of the process. This legislation fulfills that promise. Under Bill C-69, projects would continue under the current rules where the assessment would already be under way.

Thanks to the work of the standing committee, the transition process in now even clearer. Amendments would increase predictability by confirming how the transition to the new review process would work, with objective criteria to identify projects that would continue to be reviewed un CEAA 2012, giving companies the option to opt in to the new process and confirming that no one would go back to the starting line.

We know that many companies are already adopting best practices that are in line with this legislation. Should they choose to opt in, we will provide advice and support to help them transition smoothly to the new requirement.

Bill C-69 is designed to help good projects move forward, not stop them. Our government is committed to developing Canada's natural resources in a sustainable and environmentally supportive way.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:25 a.m.


See context

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, I share the initial comments of my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands. We have both been involved in trying to strengthen federal, provincial, territorial, and international environmental law for many decades.

The very reason I ran for office was because of my fear that the Harper government would do exactly what it eventually did when it got a majority government, and that was to shred all federal environmental law that I had worked with many other Canadians to strengthen during my 40 years as an environmental lawyer, both within the federal government and in a non-governmental organization. I was very instrumental in achieving the famous Supreme Court of Canada case, Friends of the Oldman, where the court ruled that the environment was shared federal-provincial jurisdiction, and as a result of that, we got strengthened enforcement of federal environmental laws through co-operation between both orders of government.

As my colleague just said, in the 2015 election, the Prime Minister campaigned repeatedly with promises that if elected, he would immediately restore a strengthened federal environmental assessment process. He made the commitment that he would not approve any projects without first enacting that strengthened assessment process to ensure that decisions were based on science, facts, and evidence, and would serve the public interest. The Liberal election platform promised robust oversight and that any involvement of political interference in approving projects would be removed. The Liberals also promised to ensure that the rights of indigenous peoples would be upheld, and to review and restore protections lost under the previous Conservative government, including clear rights of the public to fully participate in reviews.

Canadians actually believed the promises they were given that the previous strong federal environmental assessment and protection laws would be restored immediately if there was a Liberal government. Many voted based on those promises.

The government also promised an open, transparent, and participatory government. As my colleague from the Conservative Party mentioned, so much for that promise of participation in the review of this omnibus bill.

How well would Bill C-69 deliver on these Liberal promises? Well, we have two main concerns: one is over the process by which the bill has come before the government and been reviewed, and the second is in what the bill offers.

Our foremost concern has been the perverse and undemocratic process that the Liberals imposed for the review of the bill, and the delay in enacting this law. As the parliamentary secretary just reminded us, Bill C-69 was long overdue. For Canadians who had great anticipation, finally—finally—the government has delivered on its promise, almost into the third year of its mandate.

The government continues to approve resource projects by relying on the Harper-eviscerated review process. Examples include the Kinder Morgan pipeline, the Petronas LNG facility, and the Site C dam. We were advised at committee by the assessment agency that there are many projects in the hopper that will continue under the eviscerated Harper assessment law, even if and when the bill before us is passed, so that legacy will last for some time because of the delay in bringing forward this legislation.

Where are we at with the enactment of a strengthened impact assessment process and the reinvention of the National Energy Board?

The government expended millions of dollars on two expert panels on these two subjects. Despite broad efforts at consultation, many of the key findings and recommendations have been discarded by this government.

This year, the government tabled Bill C-69, an omnibus bill of over 800 clauses, encompassing changes to three critical laws: the federal assessment of projects, establishing a new energy regulator, and a revised law on navigable waters. After waiting two and a half years, the Liberals finally tabled this law. They then imposed time allocation on debate of this massive omnibus bill. They refused our very sensible request to divide the bill and send the three parts to three separate committees. As my colleague for Saanich—Gulf Islands noted, logically the bill would have been divided into three parts and gone to the appropriate committees.

The transport committee had already reviewed the navigable waters law and made a number of recommendations. My colleague provided a very wise dissenting report to in fact deliver the strengths and protections the Liberals had promised. That could have allowed a timely and focused review of each part of the bill by the three respective committees, but no—the Liberals chose to send it all to one committee, our environment committee. Then they imposed a timeline for the review of this massive bill. Of course, it is a Liberal majority committee, so it agreed to this time restriction.

The committee then refused my request to travel to at least Alberta and B.C., over a two-day period, to hear from those communities and industries that would be most impacted by this bill. The committee said it was too expensive, that committees never travel to review bills, and it rejected that idea.

The committee severely reduced the witness list. As mentioned, we had two expert panels that travelled extensively. We had a list of the people who wanted to be consulted and who all wanted to be heard on this bill. The committee said we did not have time to hear from those people and substantially reduced that list.

It then said that people could submit a brief, but guess what? We were required to submit any amendments to this bill before we even received those briefs. Over 100 briefs recommending amendments to this bill were received after the deadline to submit amendments.

I still managed to submit over 100 amendments. I could have submitted more. They were all based on what indigenous Canadians, industry, municipalities, lawyers, and the expert panels had recommended. Over 300 were submitted by the opposition. Every last one of my amendments was voted down, regardless of where they came from and regardless of the strong recommendations from even the government's expert panel.

The government itself tabled more than 100 amendments. Is that maybe an indication that the bill was drafted in haste?

Only very few of the opposition amendments were accepted. One amendment on scientific integrity that both my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands and I had tabled was accepted. The Liberals reluctantly agreed to include a change to the bill to require scientific integrity, not by the proponent, but at least by the government.

Madam Speaker, as you are aware, because you read all the amendments today in this place, we tabled additional amendments at report stage to strengthen the bill and to make it reflect what Canadians have called for. We are ever hopeful that the government will accept some of those amendments.

What about the substance of the bill? Were substantive changes made to deliver on the promises by the government to restore credibility for federal assessment? Given the way the law is drafted, it is very difficult to say. Why is that? It is because it is rife with discretion. One of the intervenors listed endless lists of discretionary triggers. We have not even seen the project list, so no one, including potential proponents, has any idea what this bill will apply to. The government could simply defer to provinces and let them do the review. There is no prescribed duty to extend rights to the public to fully participate—to table evidence, to cross-examine, and so forth. That was one of the big issues of contention on the Kinder Morgan pipeline and energy east. This bill does not extend clear rights.

A big one was that the Liberals refused to prescribe the UNDRIP, yet in this place they voted for the bill brought forward by my colleague to incorporate the UNDRIP. The Minister of Justice has promised that, going forward, every federal law will incorporate those rights accorded under the UNDRIP. However, they did not do that, so there we are: not respecting the UNDRIP, not extending clear rights to the public to participate, with no real demand for sound science, not even a specific reference to the 2030 sustainable development goals, and the problems go on and on. We just voted in this place on a bill that does not even address those measures.

In closing, I regrettably would have to say that it is impossible for me to support this bill. We had great hope. There were huge promises that the government would restore a strong environmental law assessment process. However, it failed, which is very sad.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:25 a.m.


See context

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comment. I wholeheartedly agree with him.

It is clear that this part of omnibus Bill C-69 gives more discretionary powers to the environment minister. The proposed amendments make improvements in that they seek to guide the minister's decisions, but the fact remains that this bill gives the minister more powers and does not reinstate the regulations or the transparent process that were in place before Mr. Harper's changes.

Translated

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:25 a.m.


See context

NDP

Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her remarks, which are always relevant. She summarized a lot of history in 10 minutes, and that was greatly appreciated.

I was wondering whether she saw another similarity between the previous Conservative government and the Liberals, specifically their habit of giving more and more power to ministers in their bills. That is what Liberals are doing in Bill C-69, which already proposes an inadequate solution that the environment minister can get out of when she sees fit.

Translated

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:10 a.m.


See context

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I rise this morning to speak of a really terrible tragedy, which is the destruction of environmental law in this country, how it was done in 2012, and how the current government, despite promises, has failed to repair the damage. I do not enjoy watching a government make mistakes, even if they cost them it in the next election. I do not enjoy saying that the Prime Minister made a promise and now has broken another promise.

It is tragic because we could do better and we used to do better. I will briefly cover the history of environmental assessment in this country and why this bill is not acceptable as it currently stands. It could be made acceptable by accepting a lot of the amendments, particularly those put forward by the member for Edmonton Strathcona and by me. This bill is an omnibus bill that attempts to repair the damage, but first let us look at what was damaged.

Starting back in the early 1970s, the federal Government of Canada embarked on a commitment to environmental assessment. We were late, later than the U.S. government under Richard Nixon, which brought in something called the National Environmental Policy Act, which remains to this day far superior to Canadian law on environmental review.

By fluke, I actually participated in the very first panel review of environmental assessment in Canada in 1976. When I walked into the high school gym in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, I had no idea that it was the first time there had been a public panel review of a project, but the Wreck Cove hydroelectric plant on Cape Breton Island was the first. I participated in environmental reviews thereafter as a senior policy adviser to the federal minister of environment from 1986 to 1988.

I worked with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency and its then head, the late Ray Robinson, on getting permission to take the guidelines order, which was a cabinet order for environmental review, and to strengthen it by creating an environmental law, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, which was brought in under former prime minister Brian Mulroney and received royal assent under former prime minister Jean Chrétien.

That bill made it very clear, as did the previous guidelines order from 1973 onwards, that any time federal jurisdiction was affected, the government had an obligation to do an environmental review. Since the early guidelines order of the 1970s, federal jurisdiction was described as federal money, federal land. Any time federal jurisdiction, which over time was narrowed down to decisions made by federal ministers under certain bills, or any of those triggers were set off, there had to be at least a cursory screening of the projects. That was the state of environmental law, with many improvements, from the early 1970s until 2012.

The previous government, under Stephen Harper, brought in amendments in 2010. I certainly know that the committee heard from industry witnesses, the Mining Association of Canada in particular, that it thought everything was just about perfect in 2010. There was an attempt to avoid duplication, there was one project one assessment, early screening, and comprehensive study. Everybody knew what was happening.

Then in the spring of 2012, the previous government brought in Bill C-38. It was an omnibus bill. It changed 70 different laws in over 430 pages. When the Conservatives complain of lack of consultation on this one, they are right. However, they are in a glass house, and anyone who fought Bill C-38 has a huge pile of stones, because there was no consultation. We did not have briefings and the government did not accept a single amendment between first reading and royal assent. That bill repealed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act brought in under former prime minister Brian Mulroney, and it devastated the prospect of any environmental review in this country when federal jurisdiction was impacted, unless it was a big project on a short list. That is the easiest way for me to explain what happened.

The Conservatives changed the triggers by eliminating federal land, federal money, and federal jurisdiction. They just said that if it were a big project, and this is their short list, then they would do a review, but would exclude most of the public and keep the review fast. This was a Harper invention, and it was really diabolical to say that when it were an environmental assessment of a pipeline, the Environmental Assessment Agency would not run it, but the National Energy Board; that when it were an environmental assessment of a nuclear project, it would be run by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission; and that if it were an environmental assessment of drilling on the offshore in Atlantic Canada and off Newfoundland, it would be the Canada-Newfoundland Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, and if it were off Nova Scotia, it would be the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. This collective, which I will now refer to as the “energy regulators”, had never played a role in environmental assessment before. They are part of what was broken in Bill C-38.

My hon. friend from Lakeland wants to know why the Kinder Morgan mess is such a mess. It goes back to that assessment being handed to an agency not competent to do it, and giving it very short timelines, which forced Kinder Morgan to say that it could no longer respect procedural fairness even for the few intervenors it let in the door because of the timeline. The attitude was that we have cut out cross-examination of expert witnesses; we have to move this thing fast; we are just going to barrel through and ignore most of the evidence because of the short timeline. The mess that this country is in right now over Kinder Morgan can be layed directly at the door of Bill C-38 in the spring of 2012.

This legislation should have repaired all of that damage. That was a promise in the Liberal platform and the commitment in the mandate letter to ministers. What do we have now? We have an omnibus bill that deals with the impact assessment piece, that deals with the National Energy Board, to be renamed the Canadian energy regulator, and deals with the disaster that happened in Bill C-45 in the fall of 2012 when the government of the day gutted the Navigable Waters Protection Act.

These three pieces of legislation are fundamental to environmental law in this country and to energy policy, and they all need fixing, but should not be fixed in one omnibus bill.

I completely agree with the member for Lakeland that this legislation was forced through committee, but it was forced through the wrong committee. The environmental assessment piece should have gone to the environment committee. The NEB/Canadian energy regulator piece should have gone to natural resources committee. The Navigable Waters Protection Act piece should have gone to transport committee.

The omnibus bill in front of us, Bill C-69, has been inadequately studied despite heroic efforts by the chair of the environment and sustainable development committee. She did a great job. The government committee members worked really hard to improve the bill, but no members had enough time. We had a deadline. A hammer fell at 9 o'clock at night on the last chance to look at it. By 12:30 in the morning, most of the amendments that were accepted were never debated at committee, much less adequately studied. It is a tragedy.

Here is how “Harper-think” has survived and owns Bill C-69 in terms of environmental assessment. We have not restored the triggers. Federal funding of a project no longer triggers an environmental review, full stop. Federal lands still do, but federal jurisdiction decisions made by the Minister of Fisheries on the Fisheries Act do not trigger an environmental assessment. Decisions made by the Minister of Transport under the Navigable Waters Act do not trigger an environmental assessment. It will again be on the short list of big projects that we have still not seen because it is under consultation. The triggers are inadequate.

The scope of the reviews will move from there being about 4,000 to 5,000 projects a year being at least given a cursory review in the pre-2012 period to the current situation bequeathed to us by former prime minister Stephen Harper of a couple of dozen a year.

I should mention that there were two expert panels, one on the NEB and one on environmental assessment. Huge consultations were carried out. The speeches by the Liberals will probably reference the enormous level of consultation that took place before this legislation came out. It needs to be said on the record that the advice of the expert panels was ignored in both cases.

In terms of environmental assessment, what was ignored was the call to go back to the same triggers we have had since 1974: federal land, federal money, federal jurisdiction. The Liberals did not pay attention to that recommendation. They claim to have taken into account the recommendation that it be a single agency, but the bill says that when the impact assessment agency sets out a panel review in the case of a pipeline, the members of the Canadian energy regulator, which was the NEB, have to be on that panel.

More egregiously, despite the amendments accepted in committee, the government has rejected the one that says if it is the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum, board member of the panel can also sit as chairs. Only in those two instances were the amendments accepted at committee rejected by the government, and those boards were created by statute with the mandate to expand offshore oil and gas.

This bill is so bad that after decades of fighting for environmental assessment, I have to vote against it. That is why it is tragic. I would like to break down right now and weep for the loss of decades of experience. We know better than this.

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 11:05 a.m.


See context

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, when I make an overall assessment of the bill, Bill C-69 is long overdue. It makes a lot of positive changes. The best way I could summarize this legislation, which the official opposition has put forward so many amendments for, is to say that we should be looking at what it would really do. It would protect our environment, fish, and waterways; it would rebuild public trust and respect for indigenous rights; and it would strengthen our economy.

We need to recognize that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. This is something that the former Harper government failed to do, but we are doing. The best example of that is the pipeline that will go through. For 10 years, Harper failed with that. This government is moving forward with protecting our environment, consulting with indigenous people and others, and advancing the economy with thousands of jobs. Why does the Conservative Party continue to believe that when it comes to development in Canada, it has to be one-sided?

As spoken

Motions in AmendmentImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 10:45 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

moved:

Motion No. 149

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 129.

Motion No. 150

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 130.

Motion No. 151

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 131.

Motion No. 152

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 132.

Motion No. 153

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 133.

Motion No. 154

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 134.

Motion No. 155

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 135.

Motion No. 156

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 136.

Motion No. 157

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 137.

Motion No. 158

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 138.

Motion No. 159

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 139.

Motion No. 160

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 140.

Motion No. 161

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 141.

Motion No. 162

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 142.

Motion No. 163

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 143.

Motion No. 164

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 144.

Motion No. 165

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 145.

Motion No. 166

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 146.

Motion No. 167

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 147.

Motion No. 168

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 148.

Motion No. 169

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 149.

Motion No. 170

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 150.

Motion No. 171

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 151.

Motion No. 172

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 152.

Motion No. 173

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 153.

Motion No. 174

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 154.

Motion No. 175

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 155.

Motion No. 176

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 156.

Motion No. 177

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 157.

Motion No. 178

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 158.

Motion No. 179

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 159.

Motion No. 180

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 160.

Motion No. 181

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 161.

Motion No. 182

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 162.

Motion No. 183

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 163.

Motion No. 184

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 164.

Motion No. 185

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 165.

Motion No. 186

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 166.

Motion No. 187

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 167.

Motion No. 188

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 168.

Motion No. 189

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 169.

Motion No. 190

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 170.

Motion No. 191

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 171.

Motion No. 192

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 172.

Motion No. 193

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 173.

Motion No. 194

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 174.

Motion No. 195

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 175.

Motion No. 196

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 176.

Motion No. 197

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 177.

Motion No. 198

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 178.

Motion No. 199

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 179.

Motion No. 200

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 180.

Motion No. 201

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 181.

Motion No. 202

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 182.

Motion No. 203

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 183.

Motion No. 204

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 184.

Motion No. 205

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 185.

Motion No. 206

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 186.

Motion No. 207

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 187.

Motion No. 208

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 188.

Motion No. 209

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 189.

Motion No. 210

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 190.

Motion No. 211

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 191.

Motion No. 212

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 192.

Motion No. 213

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 193.

Motion No. 214

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 194.

Motion No. 215

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 195.

Motion No. 216

That Bill C-69 be amended by deleting Clause 196.

Madam Speaker, on behalf of Lakeland and communities in every corner of Canada, I strongly oppose Bill C-69, which would radically overhaul Canada's regulatory system, and by extension, hurt Canada's responsible natural resources development.

It is rich for the Liberals to talk about transparency and for their mandate letters to instruct meaningful engagement with opposition members while they ram through legislation with this magnitude of impact on the Canadian economy. The Liberals refused to split this massive omnibus bill, which involves three big ministries; denied all but a handful of the literally hundreds of amendments proposed by members of all opposition parties; introduced 120 of their own amendments at the last minute; did not provide timely briefings or supplementary material to MPs; and ultimately ignored all the recommendations in the two expert panel reports, from months and months of consultation, rumoured to cost a million dollars each. They shut down debate in committee and are pushing the bill through the last stages with procedural tools.

Bill C-69 would make it even harder for Canada to compete globally. More than $100 billion in energy investment has already left Canada under the Liberals. Foreign capital is leaving Canada across all sectors.

The government should focus on market access, on streamlining regulations, and on cutting red tape and taxes in Canada, especially because the U.S. is Canada's biggest energy competitor and customer. However, the Liberals are layering on additional regulatory burdens and costs that make it more difficult for Canada's private sector to compete. The Liberals are damaging certainty and confidence in Canada, putting our own country at a disadvantage.

Bill C-69, without a doubt, compounds red tape and costs in natural resources development. During testimony, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said:

Unfortunately, today Canada is attracting more uncertainty, not more capital, and we will continue to lose investment and jobs if we do not have a system of clear rules and decisions that are final and can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, CAPP and the investment community today see very little in Bill C-69 that would improve that status.

CAPP went on:

We see substantial risk that all the work undertaken today could be deemed incomplete. Therefore, they may have to restart and follow an entirely different process, which would add more time and more uncertainty for our investment community.

That issue was addressed in committee by amendments giving proponents the option for reassessment. What I worry about is that the Liberals have now given anti-energy activists the opportunity to demand that all projects go back through that new process, because they have spent years denigrating Canada's regulatory reputation. It has already begun. The Liberals have created years of a regulatory vacuum, destabilizing the framework for Canada's responsible resource development, and have added hurdles during an already challenging time, the worst time, for prices, costs, and competitiveness. That has caused the biggest decline in Canadian oil and gas investment of any other two-year period since 1947, and hundreds of thousands of Canadians losing their jobs. This year alone, during three-year price highs, Canadian oil and gas investment is projected to drop 47% from 2016 levels. The Bank of Canada says that there will be zero new energy investment in Canada after next year.

In committee, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said:

In the two years leading up to this bill, you can pick your poison: policies, including a tanker moratorium...; proposed methane emission regulation reductions; clean fuel standards; provincial GHG emission regulation; B.C.'s restrictions on transporting bitumen; a lack of clarity regarding the government's position on the implementation of UNDRIP and FPIC; and the fierce competition from energy-supportive policies in the United States, etc. The cumulative effect of these policies has significantly weakened investor confidence in Canada. It is seriously challenging the energy sector's ability to be competitive.

Nancy Southern, the CEO of ATCO said “our competitive edge is slipping away from us. ...it's layer upon layer [of regulatory burden]. It's increasing regulatory requirement, it's compliance, new labour laws, it's taxes—carbon tax.”

She called it “heartbreaking”.

What is really galling is that it makes neither economic nor environmental sense to harm Canada's ability to produce oil and gas. The IEA says that 69% of the world's oil demand growth was in the Asia-Pacific in the past five years, and global demand will grow exponentially for decades to come. Therefore, the world will keep needing oil and gas, and other countries will keep producing it, but of course, to no where near the environmental or social standards of Canadian energy.

Right now, Canada has more oil supply that it does pipeline capacity, but if Canada had more pipelines, to both the United States and other international markets, Canada could capitalize on its almost limitless potential to be a global supplier of the most responsible oil to the world.

Building new pipelines makes sense, but as if the Liberals have not already done enough damage, Bill C-69 would make it even harder for new major energy infrastructure to be approved. It is based more on ideology and politics than on science, evidence, and economic analysis.

The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said:

...it is preposterous to expect that a pipeline proponent would spend upwards of a billion dollars only to be denied approval because the project must account for emissions from production of the product to consumption in another part of the world. If the goal is to curtail oil and gas production and to have no more pipelines built, this legislation has hit the mark.

Oil and gas proponents are seeing clearly that Bill C-69 would ensure that no future major energy projects will be built in Canada.

The Liberals claim that this bill would enhance indigenous participation. In fact, it actually would make no substantive changes to indigenous rights or duties in the approval process. Indigenous people and communities and all directly impacted communities must be consulted on major energy projects. That is the crown's duty. However, this bill plays right into the hands of anti-energy activists. It would allow distant, unaffected communities, even non-Canadians, to interfere in the review process by removing the standing test and would allow anti-energy groups to subvert the aspirations of indigenous communities that want energy and economic development.

A hallmark of both Canada's regulatory system and Canadian oil and gas developers has long been world-leading best practices for indigenous consultation and the incorporation of traditional knowledge. Canada's energy sector is more committed to partnerships, mutual benefit agreements, and ownership with indigenous people than anywhere else in the world, so shutting down Canadian oil and gas will hurt them, too. However, the Liberals say one thing and do another when it comes to indigenous people and energy development. The tanker ban was imposed without any meaningful consultation whatsoever with directly impacted communities, such as the Lax Kw'alaams Band, which is taking the government to court over it.

The tanker ban is also the main obstacle to the Eagle Spirit pipeline, which would run from Bruderheim in Lakeland to northern B.C., carrying oil for export. After five years of work, this $16-billion project has been called the biggest indigenous-owned endeavour in the world. Thirty-five first nations, every single one along the route, support it. The Prime Minister ordered the tanker ban less than a month after the last election, with no consultation or comprehensive economic, environmental, or safety analysis and no consultation with indigenous communities impacted by it. Just like the northern gateway pipeline, 31 first nations supported it, and indigenous partners had equity worth $2 billion. The Prime Minister could have ordered added scope and time for more consultation, but he vetoed it entirely, so both dozens of indigenous agreements and the only already-approved, new, stand-alone pipeline to export Canadian oil to the Asia-Pacific are gone.

The Prime Minister did the same thing to the Northwest Territories when he unilaterally imposed a five-year offshore drilling ban, with no notice to the territorial government, despite intergovernmental discussions. Northwest Territories Premier Bob McLeod said, “I think for a lot of people, the prime minister took away hope from ever being able to make a long-term healthy living in the North”. This bill is part of the Liberals' pattern of enabling themselves to make political decisions about energy development in Canada.

This bill is bad for investor confidence in Canada, it is bad for the energy sector, it is bad for the economy, and it is bad for the country as a whole. On top of ideologically driven political decisions, it would not establish timelines for certainty either, despite Liberal claims. There are multiple ways either ministers or the commissioner could stop and extend the process as long as they wanted, as many times as they wanted.

This bill would not harm only Canadian oil and gas. The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada said, “the Canadian mineral industry faces fierce global competition for investment. In fact, Canada is starting to fall behind its competitors in a number of areas, indicating its decline in attractiveness as a destination for mineral investment.”

That is a major problem for Canada too, as Australia and South Africa compete directly as destinations of choice for mineral investment, exploration, and mining. Like oil and gas, Canadian mining is a world leader on all measures. The sector is the biggest employer of indigenous people. It is often the only opportunity for jobs in remote and northern regions. Any additional hurdles or costs will tip the scale in favour of other countries.

The Liberals' decisions have provoked even former Liberal MP and premier of Quebec Jean Charest to say, “Canada is a country that can't get its big projects done. That's the impression that is out there in the world right now.”

Although the Liberals should put Canada first, they jeopardize Canada's ability to compete, forcing Canada into a position where natural resources development, the main driver of middle-class jobs and Canada's high standard of living, is at serious risk.

The Liberals should champion Canada's expertise, innovation, and regulatory know-how. They should be proud of Canada's track record instead of constantly attacking Canada's regulatory reputation and imposing policies and laws like Bill C-69, which would damage the future of Canada's responsible natural resources development and put very real limits on Canada's whole economy and opportunities for future generations.

As spoken

Speaker’s RulingImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

June 5th, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

There are 216 motions in amendment standing on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-69.

Motions Nos. 2, 6, 7, and 80 will not be selected by the Chair, since they could have been submitted to the committee for its consideration. Motions Nos. 14, 24, and 65 will not be selected by the Chair, since they were defeated in committee.

All remaining motions have been examined, and the Chair is satisfied that they meet the guidelines expressed in the note to Standing Order 76.1(5) regarding the selection of motions in amendment at report stage.

Motions Nos. 1, 3 to 5, 8 to 13, 15 to 23, 25 to 64, 66 to 79, and 81 to 216 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I will now put Motions Nos. 1, 3 to 5, 8 to 13, 15 to 23, 25 to 64, 66 to 79, and 81 to 216 to the House.

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Instruction to Committee on Bill C-71Routine Proceedings

June 4th, 2018 / 7:30 p.m.


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Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, this evening, we were hoping to debate Bill C-69. It is on the government's agenda. Why does my colleague and friend across believe that the Conservative Party voted for a number of hours today and then brought in a motion of this nature? It seems to me they do not want to debate Bill C-69. Do they support the bill or not?

As spoken

Opposition Motion — United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 4th, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.


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NDP

Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC

Madam Speaker, while the government breaks promises at an increasing rate of speed, the whiplash is extreme. A week ago, the government agreed with my colleague, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, and now the parliamentary secretary has said that the government is not going to support the motion.

A solemn promise was made on Vancouver Island during the election campaign that the Prime Minister was going to redo the review for the Kinder Morgan pipeline project. I heard that a lot of people voted for him on that basis. The Prime Minister did not do that, but instead he added a ministerial panel. Whenever we ask about this in question period, the minister tells us that the ministerial panel, a process that had no recorded minutes, no translation, was badly organized, and where most of the content was about how bad the NEB review was, made recommendations. The question it asked back to the Prime Minister was, “How might Cabinet square approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline with its commitment to reconciliation with First Nations and to the UNDRIP principle of “free, prior, and informed consent?”

Can the parliamentary secretary give any evidence that the advice has been taken? Why on earth, if she so believes in UNDRIP, has she not built it into Bill C-69, the Canadian energy regulator—

As spoken

Opposition Motion — United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 4th, 2018 / 12:30 p.m.


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Northumberland—Peterborough South Ontario

Liberal

Kim Rudd LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, the sanctimony of the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is quite something.

Before I begin my remarks today and speak to the motion by the hon. member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, I want to take a moment to congratulate him on the passage of his private member's bill in the House last week. Bill C-262 is a fitting tribute to, and a crowning achievement in, his lifetime of work promoting and defending the rights of indigenous peoples. It is a bill inspired in part by what he endured as a former student in the Indian residential school system, and by his determination to reconcile with those who had, as he says, put him away for 10 years. It is a bill that speaks to those without a voice, and it is a bill that reflects his own remarkable courage, perseverance, and selfless public service.

I know that the member opposite often says he was not alone in his pursuit of justice, but there is also no denying that his decades long journey exacted a heavy toll on him, not just in terms of his endless and exhausting hours of work, but in the personal sacrifices too, including precious time lost with loved ones. We are forever indebted to him for this, and all members on this side of the House are honoured to have supported his bill. In fact, our only regret about Bill C-262 is that it did not pass in the House unanimously. History will almost certainly question the bill's opponents harshly, but I will leave it to them to explain their position to Canadians.

Today, the hon. member opposite asked for our support again with a motion that builds on Bill C-262, a motion that among other things asks all members to reaffirm their support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to advance a nation-to-nation approach that respects the right of indigenous peoples to self-determination. Our government is readily willing to do both, as we have many times before. We share much in common with the hon. member, more perhaps than he may even realize, but I will get to more of that later.

Where we differ is on the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline. Our government's decision to approve the $7.4-billion project, as well as our announcement last week to secure the existing pipeline and ensure that its expansion proceeds, has never, ever been about choosing sides or putting one province ahead of another, or one indigenous community before another. Instead, it has always been about Canada's interest. That includes the rights of all Canadians and the rights of indigenous peoples. It is our responsibility and within our jurisdiction to work in close partnerships with provinces and indigenous peoples, to consult and engage as the crown, and to act in the national interest to ensure the stability and growth of the Canadians economy, and to get our resources to market sustainably and competitively.

The TMX pipeline is part of that. It is in Canada's national interest as a result of the most in-depth indigenous consultations ever done in this country on a project; as a result of a significant number of letters and submissions from the Canadian public; and also because of the thousands of good, well-paying jobs it will create, the better prices it will ensure for Canadian oil, and the increased government revenues at all levels that will follow. All the while, our government is making unprecedented investments to enhance environmental protection and support indigenous participation.

To understand all of this and how we have arrived at where we are today, it is helpful to look back at where we started. From the moment our government was sworn into office, we made it clear that there is no relationship more important to Canada than the one with indigenous peoples. We have heard the Prime Minister say that many times in the House and elsewhere. He wrote it in the mandate letters of every federal cabinet minister, and he made it a central pillar of our government's vision for this clean growth century, starting with the Speech from the Throne, which was delivered exactly two and a half years ago today.

I want to read an excerpt from the throne speech so that Canadians can appreciate how it has guided our every action over the past 30 months. It reads:

Because it is both the right thing to do and a certain path to economic growth, the Government will undertake to renew, nation-to-nation, the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, one based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership.

It is because of that perspective that we fully endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and why we are acting on the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and why the Prime Minister appointed a working group of ministers last year to review all laws, policies, and operational practices related to indigenous peoples.

In short, our government's efforts are cut from the same cloth as the hon. member's Bill C-262, and they go even further in ensuring that the crown is meeting its constitutional obligations regarding aboriginal and treaty rights. We are adhering to international human rights standards, including the UN declaration. We are supporting the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's calls to action and we are doing all of these things in collaboration with indigenous peoples.

The result is that this past February the Prime Minister announced a historic new approach for renewing the relationships between Canada and first nations, Inuit, and Métis people, one that underscores that true reconciliation must start with the recognition and implementation of indigenous rights. Our government is doing this by developing a new recognition and implementation of rights framework, a framework that is being co-developed through national engagement to rebuild indigenous governments and nations and to support a path toward self-determination.

One of our government's earliest expressions of this new approach was the introduction of Bill C-69, which transforms the way Canada reviews major new resource projects by co-developing with indigenous partners a direct and permanent role in impact assessment and regulatory process from beginning to end, which brings me back to the Trans Mountain expansion project.

One of the first things our government did in coming to office was to launch a new interim approach to environmental assessments and regulatory reviews in Canada, an approach based on five guiding principles that included more meaningful consultation with indigenous peoples and explicit inclusion of indigenous knowledge. Then, to enable even more voices to be heard, the Minister of Natural Resources appointed a special ministerial panel to travel up and down the length of the proposed pipeline's route, holding additional hearings beyond the National Energy Board's own regulatory review.

We heard through our engagements with indigenous peoples and non-indigenous Canadians in Alberta and British Columbia and across Canada that the project is in the national interest, that the jobs and revenue are needed, and that the risks can be mitigated. However, we also heard that we needed to manage the risks of the project very closely, which is another reason why we launched our country's single largest investment to protect Canada's oceans, marine life, and coastal communities, a $1.5 billion investment that will strengthen the eyes and ears of our coastlines, the longest in the world.

It will enhance our response capabilities in the unlikely event of a spill and ensure that coastal and indigenous communities are at the forefront of development and implementation of the plan.

It is also why we invested in and co-developed an indigenous advisory monitoring committee for the TMX pipeline, the first committee of its kind in Canada to help oversee the safety of a major energy project through its entire life cycle. Indigenous participation in this advisory and monitoring committee includes representatives that both support and oppose the project. This partnership and diversity of views is essential to advance our shared goals of safety and protection of the environment. As a result of these efforts, indigenous voices will be at the forefront, their counsel sought, their knowledge valued, and their rights protected. It is the beginning of a new way of managing resources.

As Chief Ernie Crey of the Cheam First Nation has said of the advisory and monitoring committee: “Indigenous people won't be on the outside looking in. We'll be at the table and on site, to protect our land and our water.” He is right.

The Prime Minister has said that the true measure of any relationship is not whether we all agree, but how we move forward when we do not agree. That is where our focus is.

When our government approved the TMX pipeline, we knew there would be Canadians who would disagree vocally and sometimes vehemently. That is the nature of a healthy and fully functioning democracy. Major energy projects can be controversial. They can divide political parties, as we have witnessed with the Alberta and British Columbia provincial governments who share the same political stripe. These projects can also divide indigenous communities that hold aboriginal and treaty rights protected under our Constitution. Look at those who support and those who oppose this project. There are Canadians who feel so deeply about these things that they will protest in the street and get themselves arrested, as two members of Parliament already have. This right to protest is a cherished Canadian liberty. We live under the rule of law.

I will now return to where I began in my remarks. I opened by commending the hon. member opposite for the passage of his bill, Bill C-262, and I suggested that he shares more common ground with our government than he may realize. There is a very good reason for believing that. It is because of something he said in February when he appeared before the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs to discuss his private member's bill. At that time, the member for Pontiac asked the hon. member opposite if he could articulate any distinction between free, prior, and informed consent, and a veto. I will quote the hon member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou at length because, as a lawyer, he displayed his great grasp of the law. The hon. member said:

I think the distinction is an important one and we need to understand that in this country. The right to free, prior, and informed consent, like all human rights, not just the human rights of indigenous peoples, is a relative right. You need to balance that right with the rights and interests of others, which veto does not do. Veto is an absolute thing, and I don't think our court system, constitutional or otherwise, would ever take that kind of view. That's not how our Canadian legal system works and that's not how the international law system works either.

The member's explanation is one of the best I have every heard. It is also consistent with one of the most frequently cited interpretations of what free, prior, and informed consent means, as developed by the former UN Special Rapporteur, James Anaya. Mr. Anaya said that consent “should not be regarded as according indigenous peoples a general 'veto power' over decisions that may affect them”. Instead, the overarching objective of free, prior, and informed consent is that all parties work together in good faith to make every effort toward mutually acceptable arrangements, thereby allowing indigenous people to “genuinely influence the decision-making process.”

This is the approach our government took in reaching its decision to approve the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline.

The member opposite is correct in noting that there are indigenous communities that oppose the project, including six indigenous groups that are exercising their rights in court. There are also 43 rights-bearing indigenous communities along the length of the proposed expansion route who have signed mutual benefit agreements that will create real opportunities in those communities, 32 of which have submitted letters of support. These signified partnership agreements reached between the company and communities go beyond the government's consultation and beyond the 157 conditions of the project that must be in place before operation.

In addition, the Minister of Finance has noted that since we announced our decision to purchase the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and proceed with its expansion, many investors have already expressed interest in the project, including indigenous groups.

Overriding the consent of those indigenous peoples who support the project or the majority of Canadians who are also in favour of its proceeding is not the solution here, but the contrary. It would go against the intent and spirit of the hon. member's motion.

The goal of free, prior, and informed consent is to ensure a holistic approach to interests through transparent processes aimed at building consensus.

It is the same goal at the heart of our current legislation to modernize Canada's environmental assessments and regulatory reviews. It highlights the importance of everyone in this House to support developing a recognition and implementation of indigenous rights framework that makes enshrining the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples real and meaningful, and that will fully support indigenous peoples in their path to self-determination.

How we manage and develop our national resources speaks to who we are as Canadians and the values that define us. Decisions like these are not always easy, popular, or indeed straightforward. I know the member opposite understands that as well as anyone. He has dedicated his life to advancing reconciliation through inclusive and sustainable resource development. We share similar visions; we have the same goals.

While I cannot support the member's motion as it is worded today, I believe we are all well begun with better rules to build a better Canada, one that our children can inherit with pride and build with confidence.

As spoken

Opposition Motion — United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

June 4th, 2018 / 12:10 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, my colleague brought forward Bill C-262, which was passed by the majority in this place. My colleague's bill would now require that the government reflect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in all federal government legislation. I would welcome my colleague's comments on this.

On two occasions, I have brought forward amendments for the government to include in new legislation coming forward, including Bill C-57, which would amend the Sustainable Development Act; and Bill C-69, which would transform our entire major project review process. The Liberal government turned down more than a dozen proposals to include the UNDRIP in that legislation. I wonder if the member could also speak to this.

The government seems to want to give the illusion that it supports all the TRC calls to action. It is giving the illusion that it now supports the UNDRIP, but in its actions, it does not seem to be delivering on that promise, also as pointed out recently by the Auditor General of Canada.

As spoken

Indigenous AffairsOral Questions

June 1st, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Madam Speaker, the Auditor General has chastised the government for failing to address matters of significance to first nations, in particular those living on reserves. In assessing well-being, he reports that the government failed to consider health, environment, language, and culture, coupled with failed meaningful engagement. These are basic rights accorded under the UNDRIP and the UN sustainable development goals that the government professes to endorse.

Why then did the Liberals oppose our amendments to Bill C-57 and Bill C-69 intended to extend those very rights and duties?

As spoken

Business of the HouseGovernment Orders

May 31st, 2018 / 3:30 p.m.


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Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount Québec

Liberal

Marc Garneau LiberalMinister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the opposition House leader to speak to the government House leader on the questions that she has just raised.

In the meantime, this afternoon we will continue with report stage of Bill C-74, the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1.

Following this debate, we will turn to Bill C-47, the arms trade treaty, also at report stage.

Tomorrow morning, we will begin third reading of Bill C-57, an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act. Monday and Wednesday shall be allotted days. Next week, priority will be given to the following bills: Bill-C-74, budget implementation act, 2018, No. 1; Bill C-69 on environmental assessments; Bill C-75 on modernizing the justice system; and Bill C-47 on the Arms Trade Treaty.

Partially translated

Federal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 30th, 2018 / 8:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB

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

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

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

As spoken

Extension of Sitting HoursGovernment Orders

May 29th, 2018 / 7:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Yes, Bill C-69. Thank you.

As we were going through all of these amendments, with each one it was funny to see the rep from the Prime Minister's Office running up behind the Liberals and telling them how they should be voting, telling them how they should be dealing with the issue. They had been told that with 100 amendments yet to be considered and debated at committee, they were going to cut off debate and vote on those amendments without any further debate. It was to be just up-and-down votes on each one, without our being able to share our views on them.

I would throw that back to the member, whom I do respect and who has had a taste of the environment committee. How can he say that there has been this tremendous reform of our committee system when nothing could be further from the truth?

As spoken

Extension of Sitting HoursGovernment Orders

May 29th, 2018 / 7:55 p.m.


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An hon. member

It was Bill C-69.

As spoken

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ActPrivate Members' Business

May 29th, 2018 / 5:45 p.m.


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NDP

Romeo Saganash NDP Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC

Mr. Speaker, on my colleague's first point, Bill C-262 would confirm that the UN declaration is a human rights instrument that has application in Canadian law. It would confirm that the declaration already applies in Canadian law. It is important to remind members of that fact. Bill C-262 only confirms its application in Canadian law already.

That being said, a lot of what we do in this place in terms of legislation must be consistent with a lot of things. It must be consistent with the Constitution, and section 35 in particular. It must be consistent with the rulings of the Supreme Court that have been handed down since 1982. Every piece of legislation needs to be consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

One of the pieces of legislation, I believe it was Bill C-69 my colleague mentioned, references the UN declaration, but only in the preamble. It belongs in the text of the legislation as well. It is important to do that.

If we claim that we have adopted and implemented the UN declaration, we need to be consistent in that claim, absolutely.

As spoken

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples ActPrivate Members' Business

May 29th, 2018 / 5:45 p.m.


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Conservative

Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC

Mr. Speaker, it was over a year ago that the current Liberal government proclaimed at the UN that it would implement the UN declaration. I have a two-part question for my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.

The fact that Bill C-262 has not passed has not constrained the government from acting. Would my colleague say that Bill C-69, the decision on excluding first nations from being part of the Columbia River Treaty negotiations, and the decision today on Kinder Morgan are consistent with what the Liberals committed to on the UN declaration a year and a half ago, or are these actions inconsistent with what they stated they would be doing?

As spoken

Motion that debate be not further adjournedExtension of Sitting HoursGovernment Orders

May 29th, 2018 / 3:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to stand up in the House again to respond to the government House leader.

Members may recall that when the Liberals were elected, their leader, the Prime Minister, promised that he was going to usher in a new era of openness and transparency. Do members remember that promise? It was one of hundreds of promises he made that he has now broken.

Now we see this playing out at committee. The government House leader tried to suggest that somehow we move motions at committee to improve legislation, to make it better for Canadians, and then, when that legislation comes to the House, we vote it down.

Here is what happens. The Liberals will cherry-pick one of our motions to improve legislation at the committee and vote in favour of it, but there are many others that are required to improve the legislation to a point where the opposition in the House can actually approve it.

What do the Liberals do? They slam the door shut. They cut down debate at committee. With over 100 amendments left to go on Bill C-69, they said, “That is it. We are simply going to vote on them without any debate or any input from government officials.” That is the way the government conducts its business.

It is a sham. It is a farce.

As spoken

Environment and Sustainable DevelopmentCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

May 29th, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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Liberal

Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 15th report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in relation to Bill C-69, 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. The committee has studied the bill and is pleased to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I want to thank the many organizations and individuals who provided information and recommendations for consideration. Many have been incorporated in the amendments adopted.

As spoken

Carbon PricingOral Questions

May 25th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, Liberal members of the environment committee rammed through Bill C-69, a badly flawed environmental law. In fact, they passed over 200 amendments without any debate. Imagine that. They did this despite over 7,000 Canadians emailing them to ask for more time to review the bill. What happened to the Prime Minister's promise of raising the bar on openness and transparency? Remember that?

Why are the Liberals shutting down debate on important bills like this one?

As spoken

Business of the HouseOral Questions

May 24th, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will begin debate on Bill C-75, the justice modernization act. This evening the House will consider, in committee of the whole, the votes in the main estimates for the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Tomorrow morning, we will debate the motion to extend the sitting hours. After question period, we will begin debate at report stage and third reading of Bill C-47 on the Arms Trade Treaty. We will resume that debate on Monday.

On Tuesday, we will resume debate at second reading of Bill C-75, the justice modernization act. On Wednesday, we will begin debate at report stage and third reading of Bill C-64, the abandoned vessels act.

Finally, should Bill C-74, the budget bill, or Bill C-69, the environmental assessment act, be reported back to the House, they shall take priority in the calendar.

Partially translated

Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 1:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Deb Schulte Liberal King—Vaughan, ON

Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting how the member was weaving work that was done at committee on Bill C-69 into what we are discussing today in the House.

I just want to make a point to answer the question that was raised. All the committee members from all sides of the House brought many amendments. That was really to try to strengthen the bill. The work of a committee is to try to strengthen a bill of the government.

I am very proud of the fact that all the members who were working on the committee, plus those outside the committee, took the time to look at the bill and bring forward recommendations to strengthen it. We did consider all of those recommendations. We voted on all of them. We did. We heard from 50 witnesses. We had over 150 briefs. We considered every single one of those amendments and voted on them.

As spoken

Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 1:35 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for King—Vaughan for her presentation today, but there are a few things that trouble me. I believe the hon. member's words were that sustainable development is not something one department can work on on its own. I would interject that I do not believe it is anything any department is going to be able to work on now because of the way Bill C-69 was pushed through the House two days ago. I believe there were about 600 pages of amendments. For the last half of those amendments, we could not even have officials in the room to advise the members that were debating the bill. In fact, we were not even able to debate the last half of those amendments.

I will say that there were over 126 amendments from the Liberal Party on their own Liberal government bill. Obviously, the bill came out half-baked, half-finished. As well, we have heard members of the resource sector and some from the energy sector saying that it is the “never do anything again” bill.

How can the hon. member say that all departments are going to have to work together, when the committee she chaired rammed through a bill that is basically going to stop any development of any significant type in Canada in the future?

As spoken

Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 1:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Montmagny—L’Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, who has done excellent work. I will be adopting his hairstyle on June 9. I will become his disciple. It suits him, but we will see what it does for me.

As my colleague mentioned, we have our doubts. We do not have the information and the government is hiding information. We do not even know what effect the carbon tax will have on greenhouse gas emissions. We cannot say how much money will be taken out of Canadian families' pockets. That is not very reassuring. Of course, we must protect the environment and take steps to introduce new technologies, but this government is not taking action. It is only trying to look good. Once again, with Bill C-69 it is making it look as though it is implementing additional controls and enhancing the regulations, but, in the end, the government has the last word. It is the minister who has the power.

If we reread Bill C-69, we see that this government does not have confidence in the people. It wants to keep the power for itself and is acting like the Liberals did in the past. Members will recall the Gomery commission.

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Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, the member who just spoke said that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. The official opposition, the Conservatives, completely agree. Contrary to popular belief, Conservatives do not wake up every morning plotting to destroy the planet. We did a lot for the environment in the past.

The principles of Bill C-57, an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act, are commendable. Nobody can argue with the bill's intentions. However, now that we know how this government operates, we have serious doubts about its intention to respect our environment, set clear benchmarks, and make Canada more attractive to foreign investors so we can grow the economy while respecting the environment. I would point out that Canada has some of the strictest environmental standards. The previous government, under Mr. Harper, did a lot for the environment.

As I was saying, the bill's principles are commendable, but we have some serious concerns. The Liberals have been kind of inconsistent and seem to have trouble keeping their promises. People are losing confidence in the government, especially when it comes to the environment. To substantiate that claim, I would refer to the commissioner of the environment, who, in her recent reports, commented that she is very disappointed in the results but congratulated the former Conservative government on its actions. That reflects well on us. People should stop saying that Conservatives wake up every morning looking for ways to destroy the planet because that is totally false.

I would like to come back to the minister's mandate letter, which reads, and I quote:

Canadians sent a clear message in this election, and our platform offered a new, ambitious plan for a strong and growing middle class. Canadians expect us to fulfill our commitments...

We can already see that the government has fallen short, just from that section of the environment minister's mandate letter. It goes on to say, and I quote:

If we are to tackle the real challenges we face as a country—from a struggling middle class to the threat of climate change—Canadians need to have faith in their government’s honesty and willingness to listen.

If members read the news and keep up with current events, they will see that Canadians are losing confidence in this government, particularly when it comes to the environment. Fine words are all well and good, but the government also needs to be clear and consistent. It needs to keep its promises. However, the government is not doing what it said it would in the environment minister's mandate letter and in the mandate letters of many other government ministers. The ministers are not keeping their promises and they are not necessarily being honest in their actions. They want to look good, but when it comes right down to it, they are not keeping their word.

The mandate letter also says, and I quote:

It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them.

The Liberals have a lot of trouble doing that and they wait a long time to own up to their mistakes. The opposition is forced to draw attention to those mistakes day after day until the government realizes that it needs to reconsider. The Liberals are not even following the instructions they gave their ministers in their mandate letters. The letter goes on to say, and I quote:

Canadians do not expect us to be perfect...

We do not pretend to be perfect, either, but it is important to aim for perfection, and that is not what the people on the other side are doing. The letter continues:

...they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.

Speaking of honesty and sincerity, let us talk about the marathon study of Bill C-69 that we just finished. I have the privilege to sit on the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, which came under pressure to hurry up. All the members of the House were pressured to hurry up, preventing us from doing our work properly. Even the Liberals presented over 100 amendments. We were inundated with more than 30 briefs a day for a month.

Let us do the math. Is it humanly possible for an MP to do their work properly under such conditions? Furthermore, all of the witnesses who appeared before the committee were also hurried along. Very few of them got selected. The number of witnesses was capped. Many witnesses were disappointed not to speak. The avalanche of briefs we got shows how important this issue is to all the witnesses from across Canada. The problem with this process is that we are being made to rush just to get it over with. My personal impression is that the Liberals are following a political agenda. They are not really trying to protect the environment with Bill C-69.

They rushed us, they bulldozed through the process, and they made an omnibus bill. It is more than 650 pages long. I do not claim to be an expert, but most, if not all, of the experts who testified before the committee said they were deeply disappointed with this bill. The committee even heard from a university professor who suggested scrapping the bill and starting fresh. That says it all. That suggestion did not come from the member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. It came from a specialist who studies the environment on a daily basis.

I come back to the mandate letter for the Minister of Environment, whom I respect greatly, but who is guided by political agendas and opportunities. Unfortunately, she has no control over what happens in her department.

In partnership with provinces and territories, establish national emissions-reduction targets, ensuring that the provinces and territories have targeted federal funding and the flexibility to design their own policies to meet these commitments, including their own carbon pricing policies.

That is not what the Liberals did. They imposed the carbon tax and then left it up to the people to figure it out and do what they wanted. They cannot even tell us how this is going to reduce greenhouse gases. Take Australia, for example. That country implemented a carbon tax, but that tax no longer exists in Australia because it was ineffective.

Let us look at British Columbia and see whether greenhouse gases are on the rise or on the decline. That province has a carbon tax.

I am committed to leading an open, honest government that is accountable to Canadians, lives up to the highest ethical standards, brings our country together, and applies the utmost care and prudence in the handling of public funds.

Considering what I said earlier, I do not think I need to comment. My colleagues can draw their own conclusions. We have serious doubts.

In her report, the environment commissioner emphasized that the Liberal government has not succeeded, I repeat, has not succeeded in reducing greenhouse gas emissions or adapting to the effects of climate change. I am not the one saying this. This is not partisanship, it is the environment commissioner who said so. I have much more respect for her than for our friends across the aisle. The commissioner clearly indicated that the Liberals have made no progress in honouring Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. She confirmed that there was a lack of leadership in adapting to the effects of climate change. We should not be surprised.

In the last Parliament, we, the Conservative members of the House, implemented important measures that enabled us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We cut them by 15%. That is something. We did such a good job that the Liberals used our targets when they went to Paris to negotiate the Paris Agreement. They submitted the targets the Conservative government set when it was in power, and they applied them. They spent their time criticizing our work, but they used our tools.

I could say considerably more, but I will allow my colleagues to ask me questions.

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Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 10:35 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Madam Speaker, the evidence shows otherwise. In fact, it was under our previous Conservative government that greenhouse gas emissions actually went down for the first time in Canadian history. We were the only government under which that happened.

My colleague suggests that somehow the Liberal government has this wonderful relationship with stakeholders and a wonderful relationship with indigenous communities, while his relationship with the provinces and territories is completely falling apart. The government is in a fight with Saskatchewan on the carbon tax and in a fight with Alberta and British Columbia on the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

When it comes to indigenous communities, at our environment committee we just finalized voting on all the amendments to Bill C-69 that were brought forward, which I referenced earlier. Members may recall that the Prime Minister promised that he was going to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, so members will be surprised to hear what happened at committee: our Liberal friends over here, every time someone brought forward an amendment to include UNDRIP within that legislation, voted against it on at least 25 occasions. They were speaking out of both sides of their mouth.

The Prime Minister is all over the country pretending he is one thing in one area and another when he is in a different region of the country. It is hypocrisy at its very worst.

As spoken

Motions in amendmentFederal Sustainable Development ActGovernment Orders

May 24th, 2018 / 10:20 a.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

moved:

That Bill C-57 be amended by deleting Clause 5.

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-57 again. This bill, effectively, would amend the current Federal Sustainable Development Act. Members may recall that in a previous Parliament, it was John Baird and the Conservative Party that strongly supported the original legislation, brought forward under a private member's bill, to establish the Federal Sustainable Development Act. That act requires that all government decision-making be reviewed through an environmental, economic, and social lens in the appropriate balance. That is the rub: “in the appropriate balance”.

The bill before us today aims to make decision-making related to sustainable development more transparent, first; more certain, second; and subject to greater accountability, third, especially within government. This bill would require more departments and agencies of government—in other words, additional departments and agencies—to contribute to the federal sustainable development strategy, bringing the total to more than 90 departments and agencies from the current 26. The bill would also require these departments and agencies to prepare specific strategies to ensure sustainability and to table progress reports on their implementation.

Bill C-57 would also increase from three to six the number of indigenous representatives sitting on the Sustainable Development Advisory Council. Government, of course, relies heavily on these advisory councils to provide it with strategic advice on the implementation of that legislation. The bill would expand the council's mandate and provide that representatives appointed to the council may be compensated for expenses. We just heard the Speaker mention that a motion was being tabled that addresses the issue of remuneration. It has been my party's position that although the members of this advisory council should be compensated and reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses such as travel and lodging, they should not be remunerated. This should not be a job they do, but their contribution to society in making sure that Canada has an effective sustainable development plan.

The act would be subject to a mandatory review every five years. It has already been studied at the environment committee, on which I sit, where the Conservative members strongly supported it, subject to the amendments that have been brought forward this morning. We strongly believe that any decision government makes should always be reviewed through the lens of sustainability and should ensure that social, environmental, and economic factors are in the appropriate balance. This act also supports a whole-of-government approach to sustainable development.

As I mentioned earlier, the challenge, the real rub, is finding the appropriate balance among those three: social, environmental, and economic considerations, especially the balance between the environment and the economy. Our friends in the Liberal Party are fond of saying that the environment and the economy go hand in hand, which is a nice platitude, but the implementation of that intent is a different matter altogether. We see major failures in the Liberal Party's efforts to implement sustainability in Canada. Despite the fact that the Liberals brought forward this legislation, which is supposed to strengthen sustainability in Canada, their performance reflects quite a different approach. It is one that pits Canadian against Canadian, province against province, and the federal government against province and territory. While in government, the Liberals have not found it as easy as it may seem to implement sustainability.

I will begin by highlighting the relationship among the provinces, the territories, and the federal government. Members may recall that the Prime Minister, when running for election in 2015, made a host of promises, most of which have been broken.

One promise the Prime Minister made, which is now broken, was to usher in a new era of co-operative federalism. Nobody understood exactly what he meant, but everybody took him at his word. They assumed he was a man of his word and had every intention of doing this. In fact, he then began to interpret sustainability as having one's cake and eating it too.

When the Prime Minister was in British Columbia, he would pretend he was the champion of the environment. He would talk about the oceans protection plan and how we have to move off fossil fuels. However, when the Prime Minister was in Alberta to appease the residents there, whose livelihoods depend on our oil and gas, our resource sector, he would claim he was the great champion of the energy sector, again wanting to have his cake and eat it too and trying to be all things to all people. Those of us who have been involved in business, who have had to pay salaries and make important decisions within our businesses, know that we cannot be all things to all people. Tough decisions have to be made that serve the greater interests of Canadians.

There was our Prime Minister travelling across the country and pretending to be all things to all people, and suddenly the Trans Mountain pipeline comes along. He tells our friends in Alberta that if they implement a massive carbon tax, Albertans will win the social licence to be able to build the Trans Mountain pipeline to get their crude oil to foreign markets, get their crude oil to tidewater, where ships can then take that oil to foreign markets where it will fetch the highest price.

Trusting the Prime Minister, the Government of Alberta moves ahead with this massive carbon tax, which is hurting Albertans right across that province. I know some of my colleagues will share the pain being suffered by Albertans.

Now the Trans Mountain pipeline wants to move forward. Kinder Morgan wants to start building that project, but British Columbia steps up and says it opposes a pipeline coming through British Columbia. Even though there is an existing one there and all we are doing is twinning it, British Columbia is opposed. Now we have a war between the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, a fight between the provinces and the federal government, and there is an appalling lack of leadership on the part of the Prime Minister, who had made a promise that if Alberta implemented this heavy-handed carbon tax, at least it would get a social licence out of it. Now it turns out there is no social licence. In fact, there never will be a social licence.

Canadians have been misled by the Prime Minister, but it gets worse. We are talking about sustainability, finding the appropriate balance for our economic prosperity as a country, using our resources wisely, getting the maximum dollar for them, getting them to markets, and then a report comes out from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. Actually, it emanates out of the Auditor General's office. In this report, dated March of 2018, we read that in Canada greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, which the government committed to reduce, are expected to be nearly 20% above target. This whole report from the commissioner is riddled with criticism of the government's performance on the environment file.

Then we have Bill C-69, which is the impact assessment act revisions, which were intended to shorten timelines and provide more predictability and certainty for approvals of resource projects and pipelines. In fact, we are now hearing from industry that these timelines are much longer than they were before and that there are many additional criteria that are going to make it even more difficult for resource projects to be approved in Canada. As a result, what we are finding is that on the economic side, we are losing out.

We have a Prime Minister who pretends he is the defender of our economy, but who in fact is completely pandering to the environmental movement and those who are on the extreme left.

I would suggest that this legislation, although it does reflect the consensus of the parties within this House, has not been implemented by the Liberals in their actions and in their legislation.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

May 1st, 2018 / 7:10 p.m.


See context

Acadie—Bathurst New Brunswick

Liberal

Serge Cormier LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Midnapore for her question.

My colleague spoke about the importance of leadership and action in her speech, and I completely agree with her on that. This is why I am proud of our government and, in particular, of the Prime Minister's leadership in making the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion a reality.

The Prime Minister has been clear, all across the country, about how urgent it is that this project move forward, since it is in the national interest and reflects our profound belief that economic prosperity and environmental protection can go hand in hand. This has not always been the case in Canada's recent history.

For instance, not a single pipeline was built along the coast in 10 years, and in fact, environmental protections were weakened considerably. Obviously, our government did not want to repeat the mistakes of the past. That is why one of the first things we did when we took office was to introduce an interim set of guiding principles for reviews of major resource development projects already in the works. This was a new approach intended to maintain investors' confidence. We also increased public consultation and the participation of indigenous peoples considerably.

Just a few months later, in June 2016, we launched a comprehensive review to come up with a permanent solution for conducting environmental assessments and regulatory reviews in Canada. The result is Bill C-69, which provides for stricter rules for carrying out major projects and getting our energy resources to global markets. It includes plans for a new Canadian energy regulator to replace the National Energy Board, which has not been modified since the National Energy Board Act came into effect in 1959.

Our objective is clear: to develop the vital infrastructure that is critical to our capacity to get Canadian resources to global markets, while also protecting our environment, which includes protecting our coastlines and combatting climate change.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is part of that. It is part of a sensible approach that includes diversifying our energy markets, improving environmental safety, and creating thousands of good jobs for the middle class, including good jobs for first nations communities. The Prime Minister has been very clear and consistent on this. He said that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is a vital strategic interest to Canada and insisted that it be built.

That is why he also asked the Minister of Finance to engage in formal financial discussions with the pipeline proponent. We are also looking at legislative options to clearly assert the Government of Canada's jurisdiction over this project in order to see it come to fruition.

That is what I call leadership. We were not just posturing. We made a commitment.

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Natural ResourcesAdjournment Proceedings

May 1st, 2018 / 7:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Stephanie Kusie Conservative Calgary Midnapore, AB

Mr. Speaker, when Kinder Morgan announced that it would stop all non-essential work on the Trans Mountain extension project until it received assurances that there would be no more government delays, I do not think anyone was surprised. They were concerned, yes; angered, sure; saddened and disappointed, of course; but not surprised. That is because the Liberal government has failed time and again to support the Canadian energy sector. It has changed the rules, vetoed projects that were already independently approved, imposed burdensome regulations, and spoken publicly about phasing out the Canadian energy sector.

I am not surprised, because I know that actions have consequences, and the consequence of the Liberal government's failure to support the energy sector is that investors no longer have confidence in our business environment. On its own, the Prime Minister's failure to show leadership to get the Trans Mountain pipeline built would be detrimental to the energy sector. However, when it is combined with the cancellation of the energy east pipeline and the veto of the northern gateway pipeline, it is clear that there is a pattern.

The Liberal government's actions are making it increasingly difficult for the natural resources industry to access any global markets whatsoever. If Bill C-69 is passed in its current form, I question whether we will ever see another major energy project approved. This raises the stakes of the Trans Mountain extension. It is essential that the Liberal government ensure that this project goes forward.

Over the last two years, we have witnessed the flight of foreign investment from the Canadian energy sector, and I fear that this will only increase as investors watch this development in the Trans Mountain project and question whether to invest in projects without dependable access to global markets, not to mention the burdensome regulations.

This phenomenon has very real implications for the families and communities that depend on the energy sector for their livelihoods. More than 110,000 energy workers have lost their jobs, thanks to the Prime Minister's policies and the resulting decline in energy investment.

While knocking on doors in my riding of Calgary Midnapore, I have spoken with countless men and women who have lost their jobs in the energy sector over the past two years and who are now struggling to make ends meet. The Liberal government needs to show that it cares about the energy sector and the hard-working Canadians whose livelihoods depend on it.

The stakes are incredibly high for this industry, and the Trans Mountain extension must be built. What concrete steps is the Liberal government taking to make sure that this happens?

As spoken

Oil Tanker Moratorium ActGovernment Orders

April 30th, 2018 / 4:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have been looking forward to the opportunity to engage in this debate.

I am going to frame this discussion in terms of Canada's competitiveness and our future, what our future will look like for the coming generations if we continue to go along the path of sending terrible signals to the global investment community. My comments will actually focus on how Bill C-48 is poorly thought out and really does not reflect the reality of Canada's resource economy.

I am a proud Canadian, but I am also a very proud British Columbian. Unlike many of my colleagues in this House, I have had the chance to hike many of the different remote wilderness areas of British Columbia. I have had the chance to hike the Chilkoot Trail, where one hikes out of the coastal rainforest in Alaska into the drier interior area of British Columbia and follow the trail the early gold miners took to the Yukon gold fields. I have had a chance to hike the Bowron Lakes. In fact, we canoed the Bowron Lakes, 12 lakes connected with portages, where one is almost guaranteed to see moose and bear along the way. I have had a chance to climb the Rockwall and Skyline trails in the Rocky Mountains. I have had a chance to hike in the Cathedral Lakes area outside of Keremeos, British Columbia. Also, in the northeast corner of British Columbia, there is the Muskwa watershed, Gathto Creek, and Pine River. British Columbia is an awesomely beautiful province, a place we as Canadians can be very proud of. It is a legacy that has been left to us.

Anything that would threaten our coastal areas, any threat to the marine life in our oceans, is something I take very seriously. We know oil tankers have been plying our coastal waters for many, many years. Over those years, how many crude oil spills have actually happened in British Columbia waters? Does anybody want to guess? Zero. There have been zero crude oil spills as far back as we want to go. Why? Because we have superior pilotage, and we have tankers today that are double-hulled as opposed to single-hulled to make sure if they strike something, that object does not penetrate the hull. We now have a world-class marine oil spill response, and we love the government for doing that. That is good. We want to protect our coastal areas.

What we do not want to do is undermine Canada's prosperity as we do this, so we have to be careful how we implement policy. We have to ask ourselves what the Prime Minister's motive is behind imposing a moratorium on tanker traffic off our west coast. By imposing a moratorium, we are preventing Canada from getting its oil and gas products to foreign markets where they fetch the best price. What is the motive? Well, we could just follow the Prime Minister around the world on his global travels from costume to costume, leader to leader. Guess what? We found him in France, where he thought he was safe and he started badmouthing Canada's resource sector. More specifically, he badmouthed Canada's oil sands and lamented the fact that he had not been able to phase out the oil sands by now.

There is the hidden agenda. We have a Liberal government that wants to phase out our oil industry. It wants to put all kinds of impediments in the way of our resource sector to make sure Canadians do not get the maximum dollar that they should for their products.

The Prime Minister goes so far as to pretend he is one thing in British Columbia, where of course he is the champion of the environment whenever he visits, but when he travels to Alberta of course he suddenly becomes the champion of the energy sector.

In fact, what he did in Alberta was to say, “If you impose a massive carbon price on your residents, you'll be able to get the social licence to get the Trans Mountain pipeline built.” What happened? Alberta followed suit. It trusted the Prime Minister, which is something I think Canadians are now very wary of. Premier Notley trusted the Prime Minister when he said, “Hey, a carbon tax and you'll get your pipeline to tidewater”. Well, do we have a pipeline to tidewater? Today we have protesters, no leadership from the Prime Minister, and court challenges. What happened to the social licence? It is bogus.

Along the way, this moratorium on tanker traffic off our Pacific coast is just one more nail in the coffin of completely undermining Canada's competitiveness within the global marketplace. Every day that goes by, Canada becomes less and less competitive, especially vis-à-vis our partner to the south, the United States. I will mention a few things that this government has already done. If imposed, a moratorium on offshore drilling in the north undermines prosperity, because we leave resources in the ground that could have fetched good dollars, but we leave them there.

On the massive carbon tax that Canadians are now being expected pay, members can imagine how that undermines our competitiveness as we layer tax upon tax. Foreign investors wonder why they would invest in Canada and not go to the United States where the corporate tax rate was dropped from 35% to 21% and it got rid of all the red tape. The Liberal government funds a Canada summer jobs grant to an organization that is actually organizing and protesting against the Trans Mountain pipeline. The Prime Minister publicly says that it is going to build, but then gives cash to oppose it. That is our Liberal government.

Then, of course, there is Bill C-69, the new regulations that the Prime Minister would impose on resource projects. The bill would add more discretionary powers to the minister to extend and suspend timelines. There would be longer time frames. There would be new criteria added, including upstream and downstream impacts. This is how crazy it gets. The government would impose criteria, conditions, upon our own oil and gas producers that we do not impose on those who ship gas from foreign jurisdictions like Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The oil that comes from those countries into Canada right now does not have to comply with any of those criteria, but our own homegrown producers of that product, which is the cleanest in the world, and is subject to the toughest conditions in the world, have to comply with those criteria. We wonder why we have lost 100,000 jobs in our economy. It is because of policies like that. Over 87 billion dollars' worth of capital has fled Canada because of the poorly thought out policies of the Liberal government.

As Conservatives, and the word “conservative” implies conservation, we believe that the highest environmental standards have to be complied with. When we extract our resources in Canada, whether it is mining, oil, or gas, Canadians expect that it be done to the highest environmental standards. Canadians also understand that those resources that lie in the ground represent huge opportunities for economic growth in our country, for jobs, for long-term prosperity, and for funding the programs that governments want to provide to Canadians. It is absolutely critical that moratoria, like the one the Prime Minister is trying to impose on our west coast, not proceed, because at the end of the day, Canadians will pay a very significant price for that. Quite frankly, if in fact the Prime Minister cannot get the job done, he should step aside and let the adults take over. Let someone else take over, someone who really understands the economy, someone who understands the environment, and the appropriate balance between the two.

As spoken

The EnvironmentOral Questions

April 27th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for his long advocacy for parks in protected areas. We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the ecological integrity of our parks is a top priority. I am looking forward to announcing soon the findings of the minister's round table, wherein this is emphasized.

In terms of Bill C-69, we understand that the environment and the economy go together and that we have to rebuild trust in environmental assessments. That is exactly what we are doing.

As spoken

The EnvironmentOral Questions

April 27th, 2018 / 11:40 a.m.


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NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Madam Speaker, even after UNESCO has threatened to add the Wood Buffalo National Park to the list of world heritage sites in danger, the government has failed to require environmental assessments for all proposed developments within our national parks. This week, Melody Lepine of the Mikisew Cree told the environment committee that even though industrial activities are putting a national park at huge risk, there may never be another federal assessment as Bill C-69 is currently drafted.

Will the government commit to ensuring environmental assessments for all developments as a part of protecting Canada's national parks in the future?

As spoken

Bill C-74—Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1Points of OrderPrivate Members' Business

April 23rd, 2018 / noon


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NDP

Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would indeed like to raise a point of order.

I am rising today to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to apply Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-74, the budget implementation act, 2018, no. 1.

In this corner of the House, we believe that this bill is an omnibus bill, as defined under Standing Order 69.1. As you know, Mr. Speaker, and have ruled in the past, Standing Order 69.1 was added to the Standing Orders last June and was supposed to be the government's answer to the abuse of omnibus legislation.

I will remind you, Mr. Speaker, though I know you are well versed in this, that Standing Order 69.1(1) says the following:

In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

Since the adoption of the Standing Order, we have seen a number of new omnibus bills tabled by the government. Bill C-63, the previous budget implementation bill, was divided for votes at second and third reading, because it contained so many different provisions. Mr. Speaker, you ruled on that.

We also had a huge environmental bill, Bill C-69, that was split for the purposes of voting. Mr. Speaker, you will recall that you ruled that the section on the Navigable Waters Protection Act was distinct enough from the rest of that environment bill to split it.

We have serious concerns, and all parliamentarians should have serious concerns, about the use of omnibus bills in this place. It becomes increasingly difficult for members of Parliament to represent their constituents when governments table these massive bills, in which so many different things are lumped together.

Bill C-74 poses a particularly problematic situation. This massive bill is over 555 pages long and affects over 40 different acts. It is clearly an omnibus bill because it deals with matters as diverse as veterans' compensation, changes to the Parliament Act with respect to maternity and parental arrangements, and the establishment of the office of the chief information officer of Canada. This is, in fact, the most massive budget bill ever.

What worries us most, however, is that this budget implementation bill enacts the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act.

Mr. Speaker, you are aware, of course, that the second paragraph, Standing Order 69.1(2), stipulates:

The present Standing Order shall not apply if the bill has as its main purpose the implementation of a budget and contains only provisions that were announced in the budget presentation or in the documents tabled during the budget presentation.

We looked through the budget speech, the budget documentation, the tax tables, and everything else that was tabled with the budget in February. The only reference to carbon pricing in the budget documents is a few short paragraphs, including the following:

The Government recently released draft legislative proposals on the federal carbon pollution pricing system, as well as a regulatory framework outlining the approach to carbon pollution pricing for large industrial facilities, and intends to introduce legislation to establish that system.

In that short paragraph, there is an acknowledgement that the government actually was working on separate legislation that should properly be put to the House separately. Of course, in terms of the spirit of Standing Order 69.1, the fact that this draft legislation was developed separately, and that the government even seemed to indicate a propensity to introduce that legislation separately, should give cause for consideration in terms of Standing Order 69.1, because it has an impact on all of us as members of Parliament being able to adequately represent our constituents.

Because of those few paragraphs, the Liberals—the government—felt justified in including the brand-new greenhouse gas pollution pricing act, a bill that takes up 215 pages of the budget bill, 215 of 556 pages.

The issue is that the government intended to introduce legislation to establish this system. This indicates that the intention was to have separate legislation on the subject. A federal carbon pollution pricing system is a big step that deserves to be properly studied, looked at, and voted on by parliamentarians.

Mr. Speaker, I will remind you of your ruling of March 1, 2018, on Bill C-69, when you said the following:

the question the Chair must ask itself is whether the purpose of the standing order was to deal only with matters that were obviously unrelated or whether it was to provide members with the opportunity to pronounce themselves on specific initiatives when a bill contains a variety of different measures.

At that time, you answered very appropriately and courageously, establishing the precedent for separating that bill out so that members of Parliament could have the opportunity to adequately represent their constituents through that separate vote.

I also want to quote the Minister of Public Safety, who said the following with respect to the issue of omnibus legislation, and I could not agree with him more:

The Liberals did in fact condemn the Conservatives' repeated use of omnibus bills as undemocratic. Now that they are in power, they are using some of the very tactics they criticized. Here is what the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said about the Conservatives' 2012 budget implementation bill when he was in the opposition:

He further stated:

On the procedural point, so-called omnibus bills obviously bundle several different measures together. Within reasonable limits, such legislation can be managed through Parliament if the bill is coherent, meaning that all the different topics are interrelated and interdependent and if the overall volume of the bill is not overwhelming. That was the case before the government came to power in 2006.

That was the Minister of Public Safety, speaking in 2012, commenting on the previous Conservative government. He went on:

When omnibus bills were previously used to implement key provisions of federal budgets, they averaged fewer than 75 pages in length and typically amended a handful of laws directly related to budgetary policy. In other words, they were coherent and not overwhelming.

However, under this regime the practice has changed. Omnibus bills since 2006 have averaged well over 300 pages, more than four times the previous norm. This latest one introduced last week had 556 sections, filled 443 pages and touched on 30 or more disconnected topics, everything from navigable waters to grain inspection, from disability plans to hazardous materials.

That was the previous record before the budget implementation act of a few weeks ago.

TheMinister of Public Safety completed his comments by stating:

It is a complete dog's breakfast, and deliberately so. It is calculated to be so humongous and so convoluted, all in a single lump, that it cannot be intelligently examined and digested by a conscientious Parliament.

I could not agree more with the current Liberal Minister of Public Safety in condemning what the impact is on parliamentarians of having these dog's breakfast omnibus bills. As members know, the current budget implementation bill is the largest we have ever seen dumped on the floor of the House of Commons, and 215 pages are on carbon pricing. This clearly violates the spirit of Standing Order 69.1.

As the Speaker, it clearly gives you the opportunity, despite the loophole I am sure the government House leader or the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader will try to use, to justify what is unjustifiable.

There is long precedence in this place that we try to make sure that our votes count and that legislation is distinct enough so that as members of Parliament, we have the ability to truly represent our constituents.

This dumping in of 215 pages around carbon pricing to make the most massive budget implementation act in Canadian history simply violates to every degree the spirit and the principles around Standing Order 69.1.

You have ruled in the past on these important measures, Mr. Speaker. You have taken the opportunity to judge whether parliamentarians, or parliament, or ultimately Canadians are well served by this dumping in of legislation. It started under the previous government. Standing Order 69.1 was designed to give you the tools to counter that abuse by governments of dumping in separate legislation. There is no doubt that the government is violating the spirit of Standing Order 69.1 by dumping in carbon pricing into this massive bill.

What I ask you to do today, Mr. Speaker, is to take the time to consider what I have said, and other members may choose to join in as well, and ultimately to rule to separate out carbon pricing so, as members of Parliament, we can truly represent our constituents.

Partially translated

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1Government Orders

April 19th, 2018 / 10:25 a.m.


See context

Conservative

Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour of serving on the environment committee, and the testimony we are hearing about Bill C-69, the new impact assessment act, is truly horrifying, and I use the word advisedly. My colleague across the way had a rosy comment about Canada's economy. That view is not shared by the resources sector. One in 10 Canadian jobs is provided by the resources sector, which is rapidly declining. Canada is losing investment. We have lost about $80 billion, and the Royal Bank says that investment is fleeing Canada in real time. Chris Bloomer, the head of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, went so far as to say that Canada has a “toxic regulatory environment”. We can let those words sink in. We see what is happening with Kinder Morgan. Again, the uncertainty is starting to increase.

With the natural resources industry being about one third of our economy, how is my colleague across the way going to deal with the investment that is fleeing the country right now? It is project after project: Petronas, energy east, and on and on. These projects are dropping by the wayside, along with thousands of jobs. Does the member even care about the workers in the energy industry?

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

April 17th, 2018 / 2:35 p.m.


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Conservative

Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has said he wants to phase out the oil sands. Well, he is doing it.

By introducing Bill C-69 and the carbon tax, the Prime Minister is driving investors out of the country. Petronas, Shell, and ConocoPhillips have all left. Gateway and energy east have been cancelled and the Trans Mountain pipeline is on life support.

The government claims to make evidence-based decisions. When will it accept the evidence that the resources approach is failing, and reverse these job-killing policies?

As spoken

Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectEmergency Debate

April 16th, 2018 / 10:15 p.m.


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Conservative

Erin O'Toole Conservative Durham, ON

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to divide my time tonight with my good friend and colleague, the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. Tonight we appear to be the central Canadian connection here in a debate that many Canadians believe is exclusive to Alberta and British Columbia, but I am here tonight, as a proud Ontario MP who has had the honour of serving and working across the country, to say that debates like this are critical to the future of our country. Pipelines are as much in the national interest of my constituents in Ontario as they are in Lakeland and Peace River, or in British Columbia, or in Louis-Saint-Laurent.

I would remind people in my riding all the time, when we are looking at regulatory reviews like the line 9 reversal and other things accomplished under the government of Stephen Harper, that the present government has to bend over backwards to hide the fact that many pipeline projects were approved under the previous government. All were reviewed appropriately, but the last government recognized and was proud to stand in the House and proud to stand on any street corner in the country and say that resource development is in Canada's national interest. The Liberal government will not do that.

Here we have a Conservative caucus from across the country. I, with my time representing Durham, and my friend from Louis-Saint-Laurent will remind people that the jobs in Ontario are due to the success and wealth of Canada as a resource country, and getting our products to market through pipelines allows us the best world price, the best royalties, and the best economic activity possible. We need to remind Ontarians of that.

I am proud that my dad worked for General Motors when I was a kid. Ontario is still known for vehicle manufacturing and auto parts. In the last decade, there have been more jobs created in Ontario as a result of the resource economy in Alberta than through automobile assembly. When I tell that to auto workers in my area or retired GM workers, they are astounded, because they do not hear that enough. As parliamentarians, it is our duty to remind Canadians that when we say something is in the national interest, it is in their interest, at their kitchen table in southern Ontario, just as much as it is around a very concerned kitchen table in Edmonton or Calgary.

These debates are important. What troubles me to no end about the Liberal government is a Minister of Natural Resources heckling my colleague from Peace Country when he was talking about personal stories. The minister from Edmonton is laughing now. We are here to tell those stories, to talk about the concerns. I have spoken to the Edmonton chamber, and it is worried.

Canada is not open for business under the present Prime Minister. We are closed for business. Capital is fleeing Canada, not because we are the safest, most prosperous, and most well-educated and well-trained country in the world, but because of the uncertainty caused by the Prime Minister from day one.

On his first trip abroad to sell Canada at Davos, the Prime Minister said that we are not just resources now; we are resourceful. He mocked the entire resource industry by suggesting that. Maybe the Prime Minister should learn a bit about steam-assisted gravity drainage, or slant drilling, or shale deposit exploration and extraction, or minimizing water usage in the resource industry in Alberta. The innovation in our resource economy has been astounding, yet on his first trip to Davos, the Prime Minister just wiped it away: “We are resourceful now. We do not need resources.” Certainly, the government's plan for pipelines means we are not going to sell our resources.

Let me tell the House how much the Liberal Party has changed. My friend from Skeena—Bulkley Valley raised the issue that the Prime Minister got elected by pretending to be a New Democrat when he was in British Columbia, and then pretending to be a Liberal when he was in Ontario or Quebec. Now it is coming home to roost. He has to pick a side. He has to defend Trans Mountain as being in our national interest, which it is. The B.C. premier has no mandate. He lost the last election in popular vote and seat count.

He is being held hostage by a couple of radical Green MLAs to cause a constitutional crisis. That is what he is allowing to happen. It is terrible, and we have heard virtual silence from the Prime Minister of Canada.

Let us see how much the Liberal Party has changed. One of the most raucous debates in this chamber took place in May 1956, when the Right Hon. C.D. Howe stood up and said this about pipelines, “The building of the trans-Canada pipe line is a great national project, comparable in importance and magnitude to the building of the St. Lawrence seaway.” He went on to say, “The action proposed today is another declaration of independence by Canada...” That was when they were rushing through a pipeline debate.

This Prime Minister has been avoiding selling pipelines and resources to Canadians and around the world. This Prime Minister waited for a constitutional crisis before he had meetings and started speaking about it being in the national interest. Why is it a crisis? Because he has already dropped the ball.

A few years ago, former Liberal premier Frank McKenna said this about energy east: “The Energy East project represents one of those rare opportunities to bring all provinces and regions of this country together to support a project that will benefit us all, and that is truly in the national interest.”

Well, certainly that aspirational national interest language by a prominent former Liberal politician was quashed when the actions of the current government led TransCanada to cancel the energy east pipeline. Previous to that, this Prime Minister had already cancelled the northern gateway pipeline that had been reviewed. What did some Canadians say about that? Chief Elmer Derrick, Dale Swampy, and Elmer Ghostkeeper, three first nation leaders, said that they were very disappointed from the unilateral cancellation of northern gateway. That was a $2-billion opportunity for first nations in British Columbia that was cancelled because of a unilateral anti-resource decision by this Prime Minister.

We now have Bill C-69. We have a track record in two and a half years of saying not just to the global capital markets that Canada is closed, but we have had the Prime Minister and members of his own caucus say that we need to prepare for closing down our resources. We need to move beyond it. Tonight, they heckled when they heard about the concern that causes at a lot of kitchen tables around our country.

Why I am so passionate as an Ontario MP is that my first job before going to college was inspecting TransCanada pipelines, the pipeline inspection crew between Belleville and Ottawa. I have seen the economic activity first-hand. I have also seen the manufacturing industry during the global recession when oil prices were still high. Contracts for the oil sands and exploration in Saskatchewan and Manitoba was the lifeline for manufacturing. It kept us afloat. That is the national interest.

The fact that we have to bring an emergency debate and the Prime Minister had to have a stopover meeting between his global jet-setting to bring a few premiers together means he has let this crisis happen. He has cancelled northern gateway, and through his actions he has cancelled energy east. The one pipeline he thought he could let go is sliding off the table, with Kinder Morgan now suggesting all this uncertainty is leading them to question their investment. They are in Hail Mary pass mode when they suggest that they will buy the line or pay for part of it. That desperation is not needed.

For a change, I would like the Prime Minister to go to Davos and talk about the importance of our resource industry. I would like him to showcase the innovation brought by these men and women who work in our oil patch, the pipeline industry, and the jobs that supply it. It is sad that we have to bring an emergency debate to remind the Liberals that jobs in the resource industry from coast to coast are in all Canadians' national interest.

As spoken

Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectEmergency Debate

April 16th, 2018 / 9:35 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC

Mr. Speaker, we are here today for one reason and one reason only, and that is we are in a crisis, a crisis of confidence. We have investors who, whether they are foreign or domestic, lack the confidence in Canada as a place to invest, as their confidence in the government to create an environment for them to invest in and protect their investment has gone sideways.

It has gone that way because if the Prime Minister's contradictory messages or comments, policies, and inaction on core projects. This has absolutely rocked the investor community. As a matter of fact, at the COFI conference which I was at just last week, as was the Minister of Transport, we heard very soundly from economists who stood on the stage and said that investor confidence in Canada is at an all-time low.

Investment is flowing out of Canada at record levels, levels that have not been seen in over 70 years. Why is that? As mentioned, it is due to legislation such as Bill C-69, Bill C-49, a tanker moratorium, and the Prime Minister killing energy east at the eleventh hour by introducing new rules. Let us not forget northern gateway, a project that was approved. It was a project that underwent rigorous environmental standards and testing, a project that had indigenous equity partners. As the Prime Minister and the government came to power, the rug was pulled out from underneath the project.

I remind this House that it was just over a year ago when the Prime Minister said that he was phasing out the oil sands. I will also remind my colleagues that one of the very first statements the Prime Minister made on the world stage after gaining power was that Canada will become known more for its resourcefulness than its resources. That is shocking.

On Trans Mountain, the reason we are here tonight, the Prime Minister has failed to deliver a clear action plan from the very beginning. Truthfully, I do not believe for a moment he ever wanted this project to go forward. He will stall while saying those words with his hand on his heart, that he and his cabinet are seized with this project and that it is their intention to have it go through. We have seen a few ministers today and over the last couple of weeks state that this project will go through, yet it has taken over a year for them to even come to the province of British Columbia, my beautiful province, to actually say those same strong words. Where have the 18 MPs from B.C. been? They have been silent on this issue.

I will go as far as saying that I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Prime Minister and his 18 Liberal MPs from the province of British Columbia for the situation we are currently in provincially. They failed to stand up for the Trans Mountain pipeline. That was a major issue in the provincial election last summer when the NDP and the Green Party campaigned that this project will never go through under their watch. The B.C. Liberals were fighting it out and doing their very best to try to win back our province. What we saw was essentially a deadlock. Then there was a coalition with the NDP and the Green Party. Premier Horgan might be in a little trouble because if he supports the pipeline, what will happen to his majority? He is going to have a bit of an issue in terms of how he can hang on to power.

Domestic and foreign investors looking at Canada and British Columbia as places to invest are comparing the ease of doing business and returns on capital that can be achieved here with those in other jurisdictions around the world.

We have to remember that investors have choices. What we do as a government or as a parliament, or what the Liberals do as government, can have a significant impact on investor confidence. That is what we are seeing currently. Under the current government, investors in Canada have been besieged by significant federal and provincial tax increases, which taken with the recent substantial tax reductions in the United States and the ever-increasing protectionist government, as well as the opportunities they are seeing south of the border, underscores that Canada's small, open trade-exposed economy is no longer competitive.

Economists are speaking out. Dave McKay, president and CEO of RBC, raised a concern about investment capital leaving Canada in real time, noting that a significant exodus of capital from Canada to the United States is well under way and that we should be worried.

These comments have been echoed by John Manley, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, who stated recently that real issues of competitiveness are absent from the federal government's thinking, noting that Canada is, “always in this difficult competition to attract investment and to retain investment — and it's not be taken lightly because investment can move quickly.”

We even have the Suncor president and CEO Steve Williams saying that his company, Canada's largest integrated oil firm, will not embark on new major projects in our country because of the burdensome regulations and uncompetitive tax rates.

Finally, late last year, the TransCanada Corporation, after spending over a billion dollars, cancelled its proposed $17-billion energy east pipeline project out of frustration with the government and the project approval process.

These and other examples across the country demonstrate that policy-makers have a definite impact on our economy. That is what we are seeing with Justin Trudeau's failure to get this job done and creating burdensome regulations on investors. We must always remember that investors have choices.

I want to touch on the indigenous partners aspect, because this has been brought up time and time again. I will relate it to a story in my own riding, the Mount Polley disaster, which I have brought up before. There are no two ways about it, it was a disaster. However, the proponent, the company, and our indigenous first nations partners within our riding, as well as our communities, banded together and got the job done with respect to mitigating the disaster.

We had protesters out there day in and day out. When a card check was done on those people, it was shocking to find that most of the protesters were not from our region, and some of them were not even from Canada. However, they were there making sure that Canadian businesses had every roadblock put in front of them. There is a lot to be said in the media about how our indigenous partners and indigenous communities are tired of being pawns for environmental groups, of being trucked out in the media and being used as pawns in this. Our indigenous communities only want an opportunity to be self-sufficient and to be partners in these programs. In the Trans Mountain pipeline, over 43 indigenous communities are equity partners in this project.

In the seconds that I have left, I want to read this. It states, “A Conference Board of Canada report has determined the combined government revenue impact for construction in the first 20 years of expanded operations is $46.7 billion, including federal and provincial taxes...for public services such as health care and education.”

It also notes that B.C. alone would receive $5.7 billion, Alberta would receive $19.4 billion, and the rest of Canada would share $21.6 billion because of this project.

If there is a project that has national interest, this is the one. Unfortunately, through delay tactics and confusing comments, the Prime Minister has shaken investor confidence, and that is unacceptable.

As spoken

Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectEmergency Debate

April 16th, 2018 / 8:10 p.m.


See context

North Vancouver B.C.

Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this emergency debate.

The Prime Minister has said repeatedly, and reaffirmed on Sunday, that the Trans Mountain pipeline will be constructed.

Interprovincial pipelines are the responsibility of the federal government, and when making decisions on interprovincial pipeline projects, it is the Government of Canada's duty to act in the national interest. That is exactly what happened when we approved the $7.4 billion Trans Mountain expansion pipeline.

It is worth reviewing the process that was undertaken in order to remind Canadians that the decision to approve the project was taken only after careful review, extensive consultations, and thoughtful deliberation based on sound science and Canada's best interests. I would like to highlight some of that tonight.

When our government took office, we committed to reviewing and reforming the way the federal government makes decisions with respect to major projects. In February of this year, we introduced Bill C-69, the impact assessment act, which would accomplish exactly that through better rules to protect our environment, fish, and waterways; rebuild public trust and respect indigenous rights; strengthen our economy; and encourage investment.

We also committed not to send projects already under review back to the starting line.

That is why we implemented an interim approach to address projects that were then in the queue, such as Trans Mountain. That interim approach was based on five guiding principles, principles such as expanding public consultations, enhancing indigenous engagement, and assessing upstream greenhouse gas emissions associated with projects.

As part of this, our government appointed a special ministerial panel of distinguished Canadians, who travelled the length of the proposed pipeline route, ensuring indigenous peoples and local communities were thoroughly canvassed and heard.

On the TMX expansion, we also completed the most in-depth consultations with rights holders ever undertaken on a major project in Canada. To date, 43 first nations have negotiated impact benefit agreements with the project, 33 of those in British Columbia. In the end, the project was approved with 157 conditions that reflected these consultations, robust scientific evidence, and the national interest.

The economic benefits of this project are clear. It would create thousands of construction jobs and countless more spinoff jobs in every part of the country. It would generate billions of dollars in new government revenues over 20 years of operation, new tax dollars to help pay for our hospitals and our schools, build new roads and safer bridges, and help fund Canada's transition to a low carbon future. The project would also open up new economic opportunities for the 43 indigenous communities that have signed more than $300 million in impact benefit agreements along the pipeline's route.

However, we should not look at the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in isolation. We also need to consider how the pipeline will fit in with our government's overall vision for Canada in this clean growth century and how this government has responded to legitimate concerns of Canadians, in particular those who live in the British Columbia Lower Mainland, those being issues relating to spill prevention and climate change.

We have signed the Paris Accord on climate change. We have worked hard with the provinces and territories to develop the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, a plan that lays out Canada's clear path to achieving our targets under the Paris Accord.

At the same time, our government is putting a price on carbon, accelerating the phase-out of coal, promoting energy efficiency, regulating methane emissions, creating a low carbon fuel standard, and making generational investments in clean technology, renewable energy, and green infrastructure.

The pan-Canadian framework incorporates all of the upstream and direct emissions associated with the Trans Mountain pipeline. Its greenhouse gases are also well within the 100-megatonne cap on oil sands that was brought in by Alberta's NDP government. It is complemented by the most ambitious oceans protection plan in our country's history, a $1.5 billion investment to protect our waters, coastline, and marine life.

The oceans protection plan builds on and maximizes every possible safeguard against an oil spill happening in the first place. Measures include air surveillance, double-hulled tankers, and double pilotage.

Kinder Morgan must provide enhanced tanker escorts using tethered and un-tethered tugboats beyond the Lions Gate Bridge into the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Canada's 12-mile nautical limit. New, larger vessels are being purchased for this purpose, as tugs of this size are not currently available on the west coast.

We have made the largest investment in the Canadian Coast Guard in years, strengthening its eyes and ears to ensure better communication with vessels and making navigation safer by putting more enforcement officers on the coast and adding new radar sites in strategic locations.

An important example of this was our decision to reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard base with new rescue boats and specialized pollution response capabilities, and we are funding more scientific research and new technologies to make cleanups even more effective.

The House should note that it was the previous Harper Conservative government that announced the immediate closure of the only Coast Guard station located in Canada's busiest harbour in Vancouver. That is their record when it comes to protecting B.C.'s coasts.

Our approach is world class, an approach that meets or exceeds the gold star standards set by places such as Norway. Our government has been very clear about the path forward regarding this project. We can and must protect our environment and communities while growing our economy. Our approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project, along with measures that will enable our oceans and coastal communities to remain healthy and safe, achieves these goals.

As we have said before, federal jurisdiction with respect to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project is very clear, and we are actively pursuing options to provide the certainty required for this project to move ahead. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we will have more to say in the coming weeks.

Some will take issue with our government's approach, and we respect that. We are lucky to live in an open society where people with different views can debate them respectfully and choose to protest peacefully and lawfully.

Our government will continue to listen and work hard on behalf of all Canadians to ensure that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is completed and that it moves forward safely and responsibly.

As spoken

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1Government Orders

April 16th, 2018 / 3:55 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place, even during difficult times such as today when it is with somewhat of a heavy heart one rises after the tributes we heard on the terrible tragedy in Saskatchewan.

It is also sometimes difficult to rise in trying times such as these when so much is at stake for the future of our country, even as we grapple with the ongoing crisis over the Trans Mountain expansion and the implications that a failure of that project would have for all future projects in Canada.

This budget implementation act necessarily brings us back to the budget that it implements. The bottom line of any budget, and really the first thing that anyone wants to know about a budget, is whether it is going to be a surplus budget or a deficit budget. Any analysis, criticism, or commentary has to take place in the context of the size and scope of any surplus or deficit. All the choices of inclusion or omission from a budget have to be viewed through that lens.

In the case of a deficit, it is customary to address the question of when the budget will return to surplus. I say this is customary because indeed it is. In fact, all 13 provincial and territorial governments either have a balanced budget or have a specific timeline or projection for when their budget will be balanced, and it is contained in their budget.

The finance minister is currently running a significant deficit, and neither the budget nor this implementation act make any mention of the means or timing of a return to balance. I raised this with the minister when he appeared before the finance committee last month. I asked him why he is the only finance minister in Canada who has no plan for a balanced budget, and why he did not even address the issue in a 400-page budget document. He said, “No matter how many times the Conservative members ask us to follow the playbook of the previous Conservative government, we won't do it.” I may disagree with the minister on the point of whether or not he should follow the Conservative playbook, but at this point I think most Canadians would settle for this government merely following its own playbook.

On page 12 of the 2015 Liberal platform, its playbook, it reads:

We will run modest short-term deficits of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years to fund historic investments in infrastructure....

After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget in 2019.

On page 72 under the fiscal plan and costing chapter it reiterates, “We will run modest deficits for three years so that we can invest in growth for the middle class and credibly offer a plan to balance the budget in 2019.” Later on in the same chapter it says, “After the next two fiscal years, the deficit will decline and our investment plan will return Canada to a balanced budget....” The Liberal playbook refers to balanced budgets, and in fact, the Liberals promised balanced budgets. They promised small deficits and a return to a balanced budget.

Given that the Liberals promised a balanced budget by 2019 in the 2015 election, given that they promised only short-term deficits of less than $10 billion, and given that they promised these short-term deficits only to fund historic investments in infrastructure, the question is why they are now implementing a structural deficit in a budget with over a $20-billion deficit. Why does the finance minister repeatedly refuse to give any timeline for a balanced budget at all? Why does he bizarrely criticize the Conservatives for even asking about a balanced budget when he ran on an election platform that contained that very promise?

In fact, the finance minister got lucky this past year. The Canadian economy benefited from a whole host of factors, for none of which the finance minister can take any credit. Commodity prices were better than forecast. The world economy has had perhaps its best year since the great recession. The American economy was positively booming with a record-setting stock market run. Real estate price inflation has continued in Canada. Interest rates have remained low. Even with all of these factors in his favour, the finance minister still ran a promise-breaking deficit in this budget following what will surely be one of the strongest economic years in this Parliament.

If the minister promised to return to balanced budgets, he has completely failed to deliver, and it is more than reasonable for opposition members to ask if not now, then when. Given that a return to balance was a huge part of the Liberals' election promise, we would not be doing our jobs as an opposition holding the government to account without asking that question and no answer has been given so far. Still, there really is nothing in the bill to address that question either.

There is, however, in the original budget a troubling item contained on page 290, and that is a recognition of the fact that Canadian oil sells at a significant discount to world prices due to a lack of pipeline capacity in general and the routing of existing pipeline capacity mostly to the oversupplied Cushing, Oklahoma hub rather than to tidewater or to other refinery areas with spare capacity. This discount from world prices, which the government commented on in the budget itself, has grown significantly worse in the past few months.

This difference between the price that our producers get and world prices has a significant impact on business profits and jobs in the industry. The discount has an enormous impact on tax revenues to both the oil-producing provinces and to the federal government itself and it dictates the viability or non-viability of future projects. Simply put, this discount means that we are actually exporting tax revenue and public services to the United States.

Using round numbers, Canadian exports are about three million barrels a day. If Canadian producers take a $20 discount, that means the industry loses $60 million a day, or roughly $22 billion per year. A significant portion of that $22 billion will be taxable income at both the federal and provincial levels. The federal government loses billions in tax revenue because of this price differential, so it cannot be ignored as a factor in the budget.

What is truly alarming today, given the debacle over the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion, is that the finance minister, in his budget, assumes that both Trans Mountain and Keystone XL will be built at a reduced price discount. We obviously know that these assumptions are being challenged right now. Both projects at best will delay projected revenue from profitable oil production, but in typical fashion, the finance minister has just assumed that the pipelines will be built even though a host of opponents are doing everything they can, including breaking the law, to prevent these pipelines from getting built.

The finance minister surely knows that he has cabinet colleagues who oppose the energy industry, that he has caucus colleagues who campaigned in the last election against the Trans Mountain expansion, and that the most senior unelected adviser to the Prime Minister is notoriously anti-pipeline. Therefore, it was a fairly bold assertion for him to simply assume the Trans Mountain and Keystone XL pipelines would be built. Both projects are behind schedule. Both continue to be opposed by extremists committed to everything from vexatious litigation to violent clashes with police while defying court orders, trespassing, and destroying private property.

Given the government's track record, what credibility does it really think it deserves on pipelines? The finance minister's budget assumes the pipelines are going to be built, and yet one of the first things the government did after it was elected was to kill the northern gateway project, which was a pipeline to tidewater approved previously. The proponent was working through the conditions and the concerns that had been raised about the project when the Liberal government used an arbitrary tanker ban to ensure that it could never be built.

Then the Prime Minister completely failed to get Barack Obama to approve Keystone XL, which added another couple of years to the delay of that project. The finance minister is counting on this project to reduce the differential that has to be taken into account in his tax revenue projections.

We know energy east was killed by the government's decision to move the goalposts on its proponent by absurdly deciding to make both upstream and downstream emissions part of the criteria. I say absurd because the emissions from fossil fuels moved through a pipe are mostly determined by the type of vehicle the fossil fuel is put into by the end consumer.

Now the government is even pushing through Bill C-69. At the environment committee, the president of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association said, “It is hard to imagine that any pipeline project proponent would be prepared to test this new process or have a reasonable expectation of a positive outcome at the end of it.” He went on to say, “If the goal is to curtail oil and gas production and to have no more pipelines built, this legislation may have hit the mark.”

What is the finance minister going to do if the capital flight that has been under way for months cannot be reversed? What is he going to do if nobody will invest and create jobs in the resource sector? What is he going to do if interest rates exceed his expectations? What is he going to do if there is a real estate price correction? What is he going to do if the NAFTA renegotiations end in trade restrictions that damage Canadian access to the American market? Even with everything going his way he cannot balance the budget. Was he going to do it if any of these eventualities happen or any of the hundred other unforeseen events should happen? Now is the time to establish a fiscal cushion to prepare for the inevitability of difficult times ahead.

The budget is not balanced. There is no plan to balance it. There is no date for the budget to be balanced. There is no plan that will get pipelines built, which has a significant impact on the finance minister's ability to balance future budgets. There is no apology by the Liberals to Canadian voters for breaking their promise on the deficit in the first place. There is nothing in the budget implementation act to address any of these issues.

What does this bill do? It makes certain changes to the Income Tax Act to implement changes announced by the Minister of Finance last summer on the taxation of Canadian-controlled private corporations, and other tax changes that we are now getting to the point where the CRA has to actually implement them.

We know that on July 17, the Minister of Finance dropped his bombshell announcing that too many wealthy Canadians were using complex corporate structures to avoid taxes. He went on to announce, following a brief summertime sham consultation, that the Liberals would ram through private corporate tax changes to severely restrict dividend payments between related shareholders, the so-called sprinkling, eliminate the dividend tax credit, which would create the double taxation of passive income with rates at about 73%, and make it virtually impossible to sell a business to a relative, among other things.

I am sure that every member of this House heard from small business owners who do not have a pension, do not have a minimum wage, do not have the protections of employment law, and cannot collect employment insurance. They have to be 100% liable for the conduct of their own employees, who they also cannot sue for gross negligence. What all of these people, these hard-working business owners, heard in the summer was the wealthy finance minister called them tax cheaters.

What happened after that announcement was remarkable. Business owners and tax experts all across Canada spontaneously rose up and with diverse voices unanimously spoke in opposition to every aspect of the minister's proposals. This grassroots opposition did cause the government to partially backpedal on some of its plans contained in this bill. The part of last summer's announcement that many found the most egregious was the double taxation of passive income. Therefore, in December, the finance minister backpedalled and said there would be a limit under which the double tax would not apply. What he did instead in the budget, was he said there would now be a tie-in between passive income and access to the small business rate, which will now be reduced or eliminated for small business owners who have passive incomes of greater than $50,000.

My suggestion to addressing the problem that he created back in the summer was simply a complete retraction of what the Liberals had announced then, and an apology to all of the hard-working small business owners across Canada who were deeply wounded by the bold assertions the finance minister made. Let us face it. The reason the finance minister and the Prime Minister believe that small businesses are really just tax dodges for the wealthy is that they themselves use private corporations to dodge taxes. All the while he was pointing his finger at shopkeepers, farmers, plumbers, realtors, accountants, doctors, lawyers, engineers, taxi drivers, and restaurant owners, the finance minister, that wealthy-born one percenter, was found to have failed to disclose the private corporation he used for tax planning purposes to shelter income and future gains on his French villa. Contrary to his past statements and all expectations of a minister of the crown, much less a finance minister, the finance minister still owned millions of dollars of Morneau Shepell shares.

How was that fact concealed from the public for almost two years? The shares were held in a private numbered company the finance minister registered in Alberta, presumably for tax-planning purposes. It was owned by him, his wife, and another Ontario numbered company. For the first time in the span of a few months, the finance minister was found not only to be personally using complex corporate structures to avoid paying tax but was using them to avoid requirements of the Conflict of Interest Act.

It is high time for this finance minister to end his war on small-business owners and to apologize for his own hypocrisy instead of proceeding with changes to the Income Tax Act contained in this bill.

If passed, this bill would also hand over to the CRA responsibility for dealing with the changes to the tax on split income and the reduction of the limit on the small-business tax rate for small businesses with over $50,000 in passive income.

As shadow minister for national revenue, I could not help but notice that 2017 was a particularly tough year for the Minister of National Revenue and her agency. Every time we turned around, it seemed the agency had a half-baked plan to raise additional tax revenue at the expense of some vulnerable group or another, such as when the minister spent the entire months of October and November insisting that the CRA had done nothing to deny the disability tax credit to type 1 diabetics, despite the fact that it was obvious to everyone except her, and perhaps her parliamentary secretary, that of course the CRA had changed its forms in May 2017 to make it harder to qualify.

The agency also changed its folio to state that after 2017, it would tax employee discounts and meals, but the minister again seemed to be the last person at the agency to be aware that this was being done, before she ordered a reversal. The agency also appeared to be targeting single parents, restaurant-server tips, and disabled Canadians, who suddenly had problems qualifying for the disability tax credit.

On top of that, tax preparers complained about an ever-increasing backlog of corrections and appeals caused by sloppy or incompetent assessments, and a scathing Auditor General's report confirmed that the agency's call centre hangs up on people 64% of the time and gives incorrect information to 30% of the rest who get through.

To an agency already struggling, and a minister who is clearly not in control of her department, this bill would now add a complex reasonableness test for dividends paid to related shareholders of private corporations. Let us think about that. An agency that hangs up on people and is wrong almost a third of the time when it speaks to taxpayers would now have to answer questions about things like the reasonableness of the payment of dividends, questions about share classes, questions about labour contributions, questions about property contributions, questions about the financial risks assumed, and a great catch-all, questions about such other factors as may be relevant.

How on earth can Canadians expect that they will get reliable answers to these questions, given the track record of both the current government and the CRA's call centre? These questions have been asked here in this House and at committee meetings and even at public meetings attended by the minister, and nobody from the government has been able to give anything but the most vague and hypothetical answers to these questions. Canadians might be forgiven if they are a bit worried that nobody knows the answers to these questions and that the legality of thousands of Canadians' tax planning is going to be at the mercy of future court decisions.

It would be very easy to go on for a lot longer about different aspects of this act, such as the implementation of the higher taxes on beer, wine, and spirits and the escalator clause; and certainly about the carbon tax, which is also part of the government's horrific mismanagement of its natural resources policy and an outrageously regressive tax on the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. However, time marches on, so I will wrap up.

I would like to conclude by urging members to vote against this bill, given that it would increase taxes; would fail to even address the very concept of a balanced budget; would do absolutely nothing to get pipelines built, the very same pipelines the budget needs for its own tax revenue; would help facilitate this minister's war on small business through the changes to the taxation of private corporations, and of course, would enable the job-destroying, poverty-inducing carbon tax. Therefore, I will be voting against this act, and I urge all other members to do so as well.

As spoken

The EnvironmentOral Questions

April 16th, 2018 / 2:45 p.m.


See context

North Vancouver B.C.

Liberal

Jonathan Wilkinson LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, our government has brought forward in Bill C-69 better rules for the review of major projects that will protect our environment, fish, and waterways; will restore public trust and respect indigenous rights; and will strengthen our economy and encourage investment. Reforms to these laws were important because of the gutting of environmental assessment procedures undertaken in 2012 under the previous Conservative government. We are committed to changing the way decisions on projects are made so that they are guided by science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge.

As spoken

Natural ResourcesOral Questions

April 16th, 2018 / 2:20 p.m.


See context

Regina—Qu'Appelle Saskatchewan

Conservative

Andrew Scheer ConservativeLeader of the Opposition

Mr. Speaker, the reason the stakes are so high for Trans Mountain is because of the government's disastrous energy policy from start to finish.

It vetoed northern gateway, something that had gone through an independent, evidence-based analysis. It killed energy east. It has driven out $87 billion worth of investment in the energy sector. It has brought in Bill C-69, which has further shaken confidence in Canada's economy.

Why is that the Trans Mountain project had to become a crisis before the Prime Minister finally took action?

As spoken

Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

March 29th, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


See context

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people, and express gratitude to them for their generosity and patience. Meegwetch.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook for sharing his time with me, and acknowledge this shows a spirit of respect toward opposition benches from the current Liberal government. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, although I still must object to the use of time allocation and reducing time for debate in this place. However, the respect shown in shortening time but still allowing a member such as me to have at least one crack in second reading to this very important legislation is appreciated. It is particularly appreciated when I stand to speak, with shared time from a Liberal member, with the intention of attacking Liberal legislation, which I have done recently with shared time.

Today is a different occasion. Bill C-68 would repair the damage done to the Fisheries Act under former budget implementation omnibus bill, Bill C-38, in the spring of 2012, as the hon. member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook was just referencing. This bill goes a long way. Within the ambit of what the Minister of Fisheries can do, it would repair the damage done by omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, in relation to the Fisheries Act. I want to speak to that, as well as the one aspect where it would not fully repair the damage.

This is definitely a historic piece of legislation. The Fisheries Act was brought in under Sir John A. Macdonald. Canada has had a fisheries act for 150 years. That act traditionally dealt with what is constitutionally enshrined as federal jurisdiction over fish, and some people may wonder where the environment landed in the Constitution of Canada and the British North America Act. Where was the environment? The fish are federal. The water is provincial if it is fresh water, and federal if it is ocean water, so there has always been a mixed jurisdiction over the environment.

Over fish, there has been no question. Fish are federal. In the early 1980s, this act received a significant improvement, which was to recognize that fish move around and they cannot be protected without protecting their habitat. The Fisheries Act was modernized with a real degree of environmental protection. It had always been a strong piece of environmental legislation, because if we protect fish then we tend to protect everything around them.

In this case, the Fisheries Act was improved in the early eighties by a former minister of fisheries, who by accident of history, happened to be the father of the current Minister of Fisheries. It was the Right. Hon. Roméo LeBlanc. We use the term “right honourable” because he went on to be our Governor General. He amended the Fisheries Act in the 1980s to include protection of fish habitat, requiring a permit from the federal Minister of Fisheries if that habitat was either temporarily or permanently harmed or damaged. This piece of legislation is the significant pillar upon which much of Canada's environmental regulation rested.

What happened in Bill C-38 in the spring of 2012 was a travesty that remains in the annals of parliamentary history as the single worst offence against environmental legislation and protection by any government ever. It was followed up with a second omnibus budget bill in the fall of 2012, Bill C-45, which took an axe to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. In the spring, Bill C-38 repealed the Environmental Assessment Act and replaced it with a bogus act, which I will return to and discuss. Bill C-38 also repealed the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, the National Roundtable on Environment and the Economy, and gutted the Fisheries Act.

Rather than go on about that, the hon. member who was just speaking referenced the changes made. I can tell people some of the changes that were made, and I was so pleased to see them repealed. When one opens a copy of Bill C-68, the first thing one sees is subclause 1(1), “The definitions commercial, Indigenous and recreational in subsection 2(1) of the Fisheries Act are repealed.” This is not a scientific thing. This is what Bill C-38 did to our Fisheries Act. Fish were no longer fish. They were only fish if they were commercial, indigenous, or recreational. That language came straight from a brief from industry. It did not come from civil servants within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. It came from the Canadian Electricity Association. That is repealed.

This bill would bring back protections for habitat. It goes back to looking at some of the foundational pieces of how the Fisheries Act is supposed to work, and then it goes farther.

I have to say I was really surprised and pleased to find in the bill, for the first time ever, that the Fisheries Act will now prohibit the taking into captivity of whales. That was a very nice surprise. It is proposed section 23.1. I asked the minister the other day in debate if he would be prepared to expand this section with amendments, because over on the Senate side, the bill that was introduced by retired Senator Wilfred Moore and is currently sponsored by Senator Murray Sinclair, and I would be the sponsor of this bill if it ever makes it to the House, Bill S-203, would not only ban the taking of whales into captivity but the keeping of whales in captivity. I am hoping when this bill gets to the fisheries committee. We might be able to expand that section and amend it so that we can move ahead with the protection of whales.

This bill is also forward-looking by introducing more biodiversity provisions and the designation of areas as ecologically sensitive, work that can continue to expand the protection of our fisheries.

I will turn to where there are gaps. Because I completely support this bill, while I do hope for a few amendments, they come down to being tweaks.

Where does this bill fail to repair the damage of Bill C-38? It is in a part that is beyond the ability of the Minister of Fisheries to fix. That is the part about why Harper aimed at the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and the Environmental Assessment Act.

There was not random violence in this vandalism; it was quite focused. It was focused on destroying the environmental assessment process so that we would no longer be reviewing 4,000 projects a year. Of those 4,000 projects a year that were reviewed under our former Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, most of them, about 95% of them, were reviewed through screenings that were paper exercises, that did not engage hearings, and so forth. However, it did mean that, at a very preliminary level, if there was a problem with a project, a red flag could go up, and it could be booted up for further study.

There is a reason that the Fisheries Act habitat provisions were repealed. They were one of the sections listed in our former Environmental Assessment Act under what was called the “law list”, where a minister giving a permit under section 35 of our former Fisheries Act automatically triggered that the decision was subject to an environmental assessment.

Similarly, why did the former government take a hatchet to the Navigable Waters Protection Act? Like the Fisheries Act, it is an act we have had around for a long time, since 1881. It was not an act that had impeded the development of Canada or we would never have had a railroad. Since 1881, we have had the Navigable Waters Protection Act. The previous government took a real axe to it. The current Minister of Transport has gone a long way toward fixing it under one portion of Bill C-69.

This is why. Navigable waters permits also were a trigger under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. Do members see where I am going here? This was synchronized action. It was not random.

The current government has pledged to fix all of the damage done by the previous government to environmental laws. Where the failure to fix things is evident is in what is called the “impact assessment act” in Bill C-69. It has abandoned the concept of a law list altogether. It has abandoned the concept of having permits and environmental assessments required whenever federal money is engaged. In other words, the Harper imprint of going from 4,000 projects reviewed a year to a couple of dozen will remain the law of the land without significant improvement to Bill C-69. In particular, the decisions the Minister of Fisheries makes should be subject to an EA, just as the decisions of the Minister of Transport should be subject.

In my last minute, I want to turn our attention to something I hope the Minister of Fisheries will take up next, because he is doing a great job. I hope he will take up looking at open-pen salmon aquaculture. It must end. It is a threat to our wild salmon fishery on the Pacific coast. It is a threat to the depleted wild Atlantic salmon stocks on the Atlantic coast, where I am originally from. There is no Atlantic salmon fishery because it has been destroyed. However, there are still Atlantic salmon, which could restore themselves if they did not have to compete with the escapement of Atlantic salmon from fish farms in Atlantic Canada, and the destruction of habitat by those farms. On the west coast, these are not even indigenous species that are escaping and threatening our wild salmon.

Let us close down open-pen fisheries, give aquaculture to the Minister of Agriculture, have fish in swimming pools on land, and let the Minister of Fisheries protect our coastal ecosystems.

As spoken

Oceans ActGovernment Orders

March 26th, 2018 / 5:20 p.m.


See context

Liberal

Terry Beech Liberal Burnaby North—Seymour, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by addressing the statement that we misrepresented the actual progress that has been made with regard to marine protected areas. Up until the last election, less than 1% of our oceans and marine ways were protected, despite the fact that we are five years into a 10-year commitment to get to a protection level of 10%. Our government has doubled down our efforts and now has reached a point of 7.75% protection, representing hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of new protection, which I know for a fact Canadians are proud of.

Also with regard to transparency, what we will see, not just in the changes to the Oceans Act in Bill C-55 but also in the changes in Bill C-68 to the Fisheries Act, and Bill C-69, is that our government is sticking to and increasing our commitment to provide transparency. In the Fisheries Act, for example, a registry is being created. This is to make sure Canadians have all the tools they need to understand what the government is doing so that they can hold us to account. It is also to make sure people who are doing projects, whether big or small, have certainty around timelines and the like. That is the kind of transparent work that our government continues to do on these important bills.

As spoken

World Water DayStatements By Members

March 22nd, 2018 / 2 p.m.


See context

NDP

Fin Donnelly NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC

Mr. Speaker, on World Water Day, I rise to speak about the importance of protecting Canada's lakes and rivers.

In 2012, the Conservative government gutted the Navigable Waters Protection Act. During the 2015 federal election, the Liberals promised they would immediately reverse stripped environmental protections and create new environmental safeguards.

Almost three years later, the Liberals finally introduced Bill C-69, the Navigation Protection Act, which falls considerably short of what the Liberals promised during the election campaign. In fact, the minor changes introduced in the bill make little or no difference for the protection of 99% of our waterways. Instead, Canadians will be forced to fight the government on a case-by-case basis to protect each lake, river, creek, or stream.

On World Water Day, I hope the government and all MPs will acknowledge the importance of water to Canadians and pledge to conserve, protect, and restore watersheds across our great country.

As spoken

Financial Statement of Minister of FinanceThe BudgetGovernment Orders

March 21st, 2018 / 4:25 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Beaches—East York for splitting his time with me. More specifically, I would like to thank the government House leader. As one can imagine, it has been a difficult thing for me over the years to obtain speaking slots on important bills. I went too quickly on my last occasion, where the Liberals offered me a speaking slot, because it was on the application of time allocation on Bill C-69, an omnibus bill. It was certainly egregious to have applied time allocation and to have made the bill omnibus in the first place. However, there is no question, and it bears repeating, that the spirit of co-operation to members on the other side such as myself, who are not likely to give a speech cheering the government on, means even more when the decision is made that a Liberal member of Parliament will split speaking time to allow me to speak to the issues before us.

In the instance of this budget speech, there is much to like in this budget. Before I get to that, let me just step back.

This is a concern I have been raising for years, going back to my election in 2011. It has been some time since we have had a budget that one could honestly describe as a budget. By this, I mean in the old days, say before 2006, when I would go to budget lock ups on behalf of Sierra Club of Canada. I would open the budget and would be able to find a budget for every department in the Government of Canada. I would be able to see what it spent last year and what it would spend next year. It would be easy to verify if there was an announcement in the budget for x hundreds of millions of dollars for thus and such, if it was new money or reprofiled old money. We no longer know any of these things. There is no budget in the budget.

It is a fundamental principle of Westminster parliamentary democracy that Parliament controls the public purse. That is now a laughable anachronism. It is anachronistic to imagine we actually control the public purse because we cannot see into it. I started describing this in the Harper era, but the budget every spring should be called the “annual, thick, spring brochure”. It is very thick and it is full of good ideas and lots of good rhetoric. However, it does not tell us the revenue coming in, the expenses going out, and the bottom line. This is something a basic budget in every household knows.

We know we have a deficit and we know the bottom line. Beyond that, we have to wait for supplementary estimates and other things that receive very cursory review in this place.

I make the plea again. I have noted things in this budget that are truly puzzling, but they are not explained. At page 324, the Government of Canada is projecting virtually no increase in spending over a five-year period. There is no explanation for it, but it is almost magical that right now there will be $95 billion in spending this year. In 2023, it will be $97 billion. There is no explanation offered for how, over a five-year period, spending stays virtually flat.

I could be wrong, and we need to dive into this as there may be more explanations, but it appears to me, from reading the charts on page 311, as if there are $20 billion found in savings to pay for some of the new programs in this budget, but it is not explained. There really is not much budget in the budget.

However, there are good things that will be funded, and I welcome those.

Let me mention the good things before I dive into the things that worry me.

The most important to the conscience of the nation is the commitment to fully implement the order of the Human Rights Tribunal in relation to the treatment of first nations children. This is fundamental, it is important, and it is stated in the budget that it is $1.4 billion in new money.

I congratulate the Minister of Indigenous Services, our former minister of health. I hope she has all our support in the task ahead. She has been very candid in laying out the challenges of providing clean drinking water, ensuring every indigenous person has access to affordable housing, that every indigenous child has the same access to health care and educational opportunities as non-indigenous children. This budget goes a long way to make that so. Money alone will not do this. We need to see this in a non-partisan light as fundamental.

Another thing I was pleased to see, after two years of Liberal administration, is this. I have been disheartened to see our commitment to overseas development assistance falling. We have a commitment, which came to us from our former prime minister, Lester B. Pearson, that every country on earth that is a donor country should contribute 0.7% of its GDP, gross domestic product, to overseas development assistance. The closest we ever got to that was under former Prime Minister Mulroney. We went to 0.45%. When the new Prime Minister came in 2015, we were at 0.26%, and we dropped to 0.24%. Therefore, I am really pleased to see in this budget the first new money to overseas development assistance, a $2 billion commitment over the next five years.

I am pleased to see changes to reverse some of the damage done by the Conservatives to those recipients of seasonal employment insurance. Many industries are seasonal, and people who have to get employment insurance more than once in their lifetime are not recidivists who need to be punished. They are people who work in the tourism or forest industries. We need to revisit that, and I would encourage the government to go further than it has.

Of course, we have seen a substantial commitment to the expansion of biodiversity protection to nature, and some money to the science of studying whales. I hope we are not studying them as they move to extinction. However, $1.3 billion over five years certainly must be noted and noted with approval.

We have seen improvements in this budget in commitments to actual science.

I will never forget the words of the 2012 budget. It is terrible that I remember verbatim the words of Harper's budgets. In 2012, it was stated that money from the federal government to science must be for projects that were “business, land, and industry-friendly”, in other words, no such thing as intellectual inquiry and basic fundamental research. Therefore, I am pleased to see that is gone by the board.

Most important, I am pleased to see a commitment, with no money, to pursue pharmacare for Canada. However, the Minister of Finance's comments immediately afterward suggests the Liberals do not understand the commitment.

Where am I disheartened, and I am fundamentally disheartened by this budget?

One thing we had been promised for small business was more clarity around the change in rules. It is true, and credit where credit is due to the Minister of Finance, that the controversial anti-small business provisions were eliminated. However, there is still a lot of uncertainty for small business about how income sprinkling will work. It said to not apply to those in the service sector, but that is not defined. Therefore, I would urge the government to consider giving the one-year delay in implementation so family businesses can sort this out, because it is not all that clear. They could be penalized a few years down the road when they are audited.

A second area where it was not quite what was promised is this. In October there had been a commitment that past savings accumulated by small business and family-held businesses would not be prejudiced by this, that there would not be retroactivity. However, when we really look at these passive investments, they are not really grandfathered, because they can boot that small business out of the small business tax rate and have a really large impact on their effective taxes. That needs to be revisited.

However, I am really horrified by the fact that in the year 2018 we have a budget with nothing new to address the climate crisis. In fact, we have some weakening of resolve. We were told initially that there would be a carbon price in place by 2018. The language we now find on page 151 of the budget is, “The Government will review each system”, referring to provincial systems, “and implement the federal system in whole or in part on January 1, 2019.” This is a very significant commitment, virtually the only one made by the Liberals in their election platform, and it is slipping into the distant horizon.

I also worry because another commitment made in the platform has not been acted on, which is to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies. We cannot keep subsidizing with tax dollars the very thing we are trying to reduce, which is the emissions of fossil fuels.

I was disappointed with respect to the budgets in 2016 and in 2017. In 2018, I am almost giving up. The Liberal government is capable of looking back to the budget of 2005, which was full of great climate programs, such as eco-energy retrofits, very popular job creators to fight greenhouse gases. We need to have an energy-efficiency revolution. I cannot find it here. We should be building the east-west electricity grid. It is not mentioned here. We are not seeing the programs to incentivize getting renewable energy for homeowners and small business, or for energy-efficient vehicles and electric vehicles. I ask the government to look again. It has to do more on climate.

As spoken

Access to Briefing on Bill C-69—Speaker's RulingPrivilegeOral Questions

March 20th, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


See context

The Speaker Geoff Regan

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on February 26 by the hon. member for Abbotsford concerning briefings held by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change in relation to Bill C-69, 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.

I would like to thank the member for Abbotsford for having raised this matter, as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the member for Berthier—Maskinongé for their comments.

In raising the matter, the member for Abbotsford explained that within an hour of having introduced Bill C-69 in the House on February 8, a briefing on the bill was offered to the media and to stakeholders. This briefing was more than five hours before members of Parliament were offered the same. With members unable to respond immediately to media and stakeholder inquiries, he contended that this was a profound act of disrespect on the part of the minister that constituted a contempt of the House.

The parliamentary secretary disagreed, saying that the minister had not deliberately tried to impede members’ access to information on the bill and would offer additional briefings, if requested. Noting that the bill was not debated in the House until days later and that departmental briefings are beyond the purview of the Chair, the parliamentary secretary said that no breach of privilege had occurred.

As I already noted, the Chair is concerned that this question of privilege was not brought up at the earliest opportunity. Members know that in determining a question of privilege prima facie, the Speaker must consider whether the two requisite conditions have been met; that is, whether the matter was raised at the earliest opportunity and whether, in the Speaker's view, it constitutes, at first view, a breach of a parliamentary privilege.

With respect to timeliness, House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states at page 145:

...the Member must satisfy the Speaker that he or she is bringing the matter to the attention of the House as soon as practicable after becoming aware of the situation. When a Member has not fulfilled this important requirement, the Speaker has ruled that the matter is not a prima facie question of privilege.

In this particular case, I note that between February 8, the date of the alleged contempt, and February 14, the date on which the member raised his complaint in the House, several sitting days had elapsed during which the member was aware of the situation that gave rise to his question of privilege. This is cause for concern for the Chair, particularly as the member did not provide an explanation as to why the condition of timeliness was not satisfied. While I am prepared to be flexible on this point this time and not dismiss his question of privilege for this reason alone, it is a condition that must be taken into account in assessing the alleged question of privilege.

Now, turning to the substantive elements of the member’s question of privilege, there have been past instances where members have raised concerns about departmental briefings. Speaker Milliken, in a ruling on November 21, 2002, stated, at page 1742 of the Debates:

It is very difficult for the Chair to intervene in a situation where a minister has chosen to have a press conference, or a briefing or a meeting and release material when the Speaker has nothing to do with the organization of that....The same thing goes for those who are invited to meetings and for the way people are notified of meetings. Whether there is one meeting, or three or four, makes no difference. In my opinion, it is impossible for me to intervene in this case.

It is equally important to understand that the House’s right to first access to legislation was respected in this instance since, as the member acknowledged, Bill C-69 was introduced in the House before either of the briefings in question took place. Thus, this situation cannot be characterized as one of premature disclosure of a bill, even if Members were excluded from the first briefing, that of the media.

The member stated that a contempt may occur if, by diminishing the respect it is due, the House’s ability to perform its functions is impeded. Speaker Sauvé, in a ruling on October 29, 1980, at page 4214 of the Debates, said:

…while our privileges are defined, contempt of the House has no limits. When new ways are found to interfere with our proceedings, so too will the House, in appropriate cases, be able to find that a contempt of the House has occurred.

This points to an essential truth that to constitute a contempt, it is necessary to demonstrate that a proceeding in the House, or the ability of members to fulfill their parliamentary duties, was in some way impeded. In response to a similar complaint, on December 4, 2014, at page 10168 of the Debates, my predecessor reminded the House:

That is not to say, however, that every proceeding or activity related to delivering or accessing information by members implicitly involves their parliamentary duties.

He also had cause to state on March 3, 2014, at pages 3429 and 3430 of Debates:

When a situation is brought to the Chair’s attention, it must be assessed within the somewhat narrow confines of parliamentary procedure and precedents. ...the Chair must assess whether the member has been obstructed in the discharge of his responsibilities in direct relation to proceedings in Parliament. ...a member who is preparing to participate in proceedings—whether through a technical briefing or some other means—is not participating in the proceedings themselves. While such preparation is no doubt important, it remains ancillary to, rather than part of, Parliament's proceedings.

That being said, as Speaker, I understand the member for Abbotsford's frustration and the sense of disrespect that he feels in not having had priority access to a briefing on such a complex piece of legislation. In fact, the Chair not only finds this matter to be unfortunate, but also entirely avoidable. While no parliamentary rules may have been broken or privileges breached, respecting members’ needs for timely and accurate information remains essential. There is no question that the work of members of Parliament is made more difficult without expeditious access to legislative information. Given this reality, there is a rightful expectation that those responsible for the information should do their utmost to ensure members’ access to it. Not respecting this expectation does a disservice to all. It is particularly disconcerting when the government gives priority to the media over the members of Parliament.

Having examined the evidence and given the limited parameters of the Chair in this matter, I cannot conclude that the House or its members were unable to fulfill their parliamentary duties. Accordingly, I cannot find that the question raised constitutes a prima facie contempt of the House, and thus there is no case of privilege.

I thank all honourable members for their attention.

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March 19th, 2018 / 7 p.m.


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Conservative

Mark Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Hope, BC

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that the member for Kildonan—St. Paul was not in the House for the previous vote on the Canada summer jobs, and came into the House well after the vote on the motion on Bill C-69 had started. I believe if you check with the member, she would indicate her vote should not count for this vote.

As spoken

The House resumed from March 2 consideration of the motion that Bill C-69, 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 be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

March 2nd, 2018 / 1:10 p.m.


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Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69 is the latest monstrosity to come out of the Liberal government, a bill that will cripple Canada's energy industry and eliminate tens of thousands of good-paying jobs across communities in Canada, particularly in my home province of Alberta. This entire process is yet another concession made by the Liberal government to radical environmental groups that will not stop until Canada's oil and gas industry is eliminated.

I reject the argument that Canada's National Energy Board was not capable of making independent decisions based upon critical public evidence and public interest. Canada's environmental assessment process is among the best in the world, because for generations, Canadians have placed a high emphasis on environmental stewardship and responsible energy development. This symbiotic relationship has allowed Canada to be innovative with environmental regulation and solutions. Our energy industry as regulated under the National Energy Board has resulted in such benefits as hundreds of billions in investments, tax revenue, jobs, and long-term prosperity in our country.

The new Liberal environmental review process threatens that foundation and our long-term prosperity. In fact, we are already seeing that happen today. Our oil prices have doubled over the past year and yet Bloomberg reports that in 2017, foreign direct investment dropped by 27%. This is primarily due to the toxic political environment that has scared away investment from Canada's energy sector.

The always shifting goalposts of the Liberals' social licence requirements are dictated by a United States funded radical environmental lobbies. They are not acting in our country's interests; they are acting in their own self-interest. While Canada appears to have been assigned to the role of a national park for the enjoyment of Americans, the United States has pushed forward with groundbreaking LNG projects and a rapidly expanding export market for shale petroleum. Canada is a hostage to American interests as our lifeblood flows down into America at a dramatic discount, only to be repackaged on American tankers at a premium market price. Canadians are doing the work and we are letting Americans get all the profits.

We live in an age of globalization and our decisions affect our neighbours. However, the Liberals have gone too far and I do not believe that other countries have the right to interfere in our energy regulation. Would the Americans, the Chinese, or the Russians entertain delegations from Canada that opposed their energy development? Never, and yet the Liberal government has eliminated the standing test, which allows only those with a direct connection to the project to have a say. Allowing foreign citizens and foreign interests to influence our energy industry policies and whether or not our regulators will allow infrastructure to be built is an attack on Canadian sovereignty.

In closing, Bill C-69 undermines our nation. It would consign us to the status of a national park for the enjoyment of people around the world, to the detriment of Canadian citizens, people who need jobs and the prosperity and stability that is created by a responsible energy sector.

It is time for the Liberals to go back to the drawing board and create policies and regulations that will actually get shovels in the ground so that our critical LNG and pipeline projects can get the support they deserve.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 1:05 p.m.


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NDP

Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I gather that my colleague analyzed Bill C-69 through the lens of her own bill, which I hope I will get a chance to speak on, because it has some interesting aspects and raises questions.

To come back to the essence of Bill C-69, at the beginning of her speech, my colleague welcomed the idea of the Liberal government putting or wanting to put more emphasis on science. However, what happened under the Conservatives and is now continuing to happen under the Liberals is that every bill gives the ministers additional powers. In this case, although we do want to put more emphasis on science, the minister will have the power to save or kill a project with a snap of her fingers.

Is there not something of a disconnect between intention and execution?

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March 2nd, 2018 / 1:05 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, during the member's speech, she alluded to the fact that the minister could, on a whim, essentially approve or veto a pipeline project. That seems to be part of the problem. In as much as Bill C-69 is a framework, what it is lacking are rules that would apply consistently to all major pipeline projects, and this creates uncertainty and a whole host of other issues.

I was wondering if the hon. member could comment on that.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


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Québec debout

Monique Pauzé Québec debout Repentigny, QC

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-69 has some interesting aspects, but it also raises questions and does not do much at all for Quebec.

For example, the government wants to put science back into decisions on the environment. That is great, especially after our experience with the Harper government, which saw science as the enemy. Obviously, this is a vast improvement. It shows there is an intention to protect the environment, but as always with the Liberals, intentions are more talking points than anything else. That does not amount to much unless it is written in black and white in legislation.

I will provide some examples. Do members remember the electoral reform promise that was dropped like a hot potato, or the promise to defend supply management at any cost?

The Liberals did not even want to renegotiate the transpacific partnership to defend our farmers. The government has not even changed its greenhouse gas reduction targets. Instead, it adopted the Conservatives' targets, which are well below those of all other countries.

I cannot get into every one of these issues in the few minutes that I have, but I will raise a few points that are important for Quebec.

In its current form, this bill is the opposite of what Quebeckers want. I firmly believe that instead of imposing these requirements on Quebec, the government should be doing the opposite, that is, it should let Quebeckers decide how to manage their province and protect their environment.

That was the reason why on February 1st I introduced Bill C-392, which goes in the opposite direction of Bill C-69. We have a very simple vision: what happens within our borders should be decided by us.

We firmly believe that citizens must have a say on projects that can negatively impact their health and their environment. I am definitely thinking of energy east.

The federal government is being pressured by companies that have interests in these projects. The government must balance the competing interests of provinces. I am thinking of the interests of Quebec as opposed to those of oil producing provinces. I am also thinking of British Columbia, which is in a dispute with Alberta over the Trans Mountain pipeline.

In both cases, one province assumes all the risks without reaping any of the benefits, while the opposite is true for the other province. It is unfair that citizens must suffer the consequences.

I will give another example. In 2016, IMTT-Quebec Inc. moved to the Port of Québec and polluted the entire neighbourhood of Limoilou with red dust. The residents of Limoilou found this dust on their balconies and clotheslines.

The Superior Court ruled that since the company was located in the Port of Québec, which is a federal jurisdiction, Quebec's environmental quality act did not apply. That was ridiculous. The air pollution was a nuisance for everyone in Limoilou and also compromised their health. We are talking about the health of parents and our children, not an administrative technicality. Not at all.

It is really quite simple, it is the provinces that have the expertise. Quebec must manage its health services. It is Quebec that pays the price for pollution and, even worse, it is the people who suffer the consequences. That is why Quebec must have the final say.

The complete opposite would be happening with Bill C-69. The federal government always has the final say. Even if a project is rejected by the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement du Québec, or BAPE, the new impact assessment agency of Canada and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change can always ignore our experts' findings and approve the project anyway, all under the guise of the national interest. I think we can all agree that this term is a little vague. It means nothing and can be invoked at any time, in any way, and for any project.

To us, national interest means the health and safety of our citizens. To others, it may mean corporate profits. The government will be able to make its decisions based on its own interests and the interests of its friends, as we have seen in other cases.

I am not the only one who is concerned about this arbitrary aspect of the bill. Greenpeace contacted me to say it is concerned about the vague assessment criteria that the government will use. The problem is that the government is creating an agency that ultimately serves no purpose, since the minister will reserve the right to override it.

The government claims that Bill C-69 will fix existing problems and help the environment, but with a little lobbying from wealthy corporations, destructive and polluting projects may still be allowed to move forward. The bill really emphasizes consulting the public, scientists, and indigenous peoples, but the minister will be able to approve a project even if the public is against it. Even if the entire province of Quebec opposes a project, the minister will still be able to move forward with it, invoking the national interest.

On another note, the bill missed the opportunity to remove a provision in the current act that makes Hydro-Québec subject to Ottawa. In the current legislation, Hydro-Québec must go through the National Energy Board to build international and interprovincial lines. Hydro-Québec must also have a permit to export electricity, and the Canadian government reserves the right to prevent Quebec from exporting its electricity surpluses.

The future Canadian energy commission will decide whether Quebec can export its surpluses after considering the impact those exports will have on the provinces, verifying whether anyone else has shown an interest in that electricity, and determining whether Hydro-Québec is making an effort to offer its electricity to Canadian buyers. Ottawa also reserves the right to refuse for other reasons. In short, Hydro-Québec is under federal control.

I have to say that the government has never abused that law in the past, but it could well decide to use the legislation to its advantage, thus harming Quebec. The minister could have taken the opportunity presented by this reform to remove all of those provisions. Unfortunately, she did not do so.

In short, this bill takes the wrong approach for Quebeckers. By giving herself the right to approve a project regardless of the results of the agency's assessment, the minister is negating any positive effects this bill might have had. The government could impose projects such as energy east on Quebeckers and they would have no way of preventing it. That is unacceptable. It is Quebec that has all the expertise and is assuming all the risks. The government needs to listen to Quebec and respect its choices. It is simple. This is simple, and I will repeat: what happens within our borders should be decided by us.

I would point out that the government did not even change its greenhouse gas reduction targets, which are the same as the Harper government's. That is why this bill is just an empty shell in our opinion, and that is why we will be voting against it. I encourage all my colleagues to vote in favour of my Bill C-392, which will give Quebec and the other provinces their say on projects that could have an impact on their environment and their people.

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March 2nd, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


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Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Mr. Speaker, a primary focus of our government has been achieving the balance between the environment and the economy going together. I wonder if the member could expand on how Bill C-69 would help us accomplish that balance.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 12:50 p.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change has stated that one of the objectives of Bill C-69 is to increase investor confidence. I would ask the hon. parliamentary secretary to square that statement with the fact that the Minister of Environment, at the planning stage, has the ability to kill a major energy project before any economic analysis is done, before any environmental analysis is done, and before any scientific analysis is done. In other words, the minister can kill a pipeline project on the basis of a purely political decision. Could the parliamentary secretary explain just how that increases investor confidence?

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

March 2nd, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.


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West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country B.C.

Liberal

Pam Goldsmith-Jones LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade

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

I am very pleased to join this important debate. Bill C-69 is a generational opportunity to realize the full promise of Canada through the resources of our land and the resourcefulness of Canadians. It is an opportunity to achieve a lasting balance. This is not easy, and this debate is most timely and most important.

We are at a pivotal moment. Climate change is the great challenge of our generation. The natural environment signals this to us, of course. It also plays a critical role in assisting us to manage climate change, and it will be the measure of the balance we achieve. The natural environment restores us in our daily lives. Our ingenuity and investment in clean technology and innovation are fundamental to the way forward as we continue to build success in the natural resources sector.

As we debate this bill, a new wave of resource development is before us, with more than 650 billion dollars' worth of projects either under construction or planned over the next 10 years. This is not insignificant. This means good, sustainable jobs and new economic opportunities for the middle class. Therefore, it is imperative we have a modern environmental and regulatory system, one that is open, transparent, and effective, a process that views public engagement as an asset, that is critical toward earning public confidence in government decision-making

This is what Bill C-69 achieves. Bill C-69 is based upon better, clearer rules in order to recognize and achieve greater protection of the environment, fish, and waterways; the centrality and importance of positive relations between Canada and indigenous peoples; collaboration between the federal government and the provinces and territories; more investment in Canada's natural resource sector; and finally, the importance of earning public trust every day.

Bill C-69 strives to integrate Canada's economic and environmental goals to advance indigenous reconciliation and to ensure that worthy projects go ahead in an environmentally sustainable manner. This cannot be accomplished on our own. We can work together better. The provinces and territories are key regulators. Indigenous peoples are central to Canada's economic development. Project proponents make key investments in our innovation economy. Bill C-69 anticipates and accommodates multiple players and multiple imperatives. It is an integrative bill that provides a strong foundation for decision-making.

Beginning with a commitment to the fundamental principle of one project, one assessment for major resource projects, Bill C-69 creates the way in which all parties are part of one process. Industry is asking for environmental processes that are timely and rooted in science, and regulatory reviews that are efficient and offer greater certainty. The general public and indigenous communities are asking for early and meaningful engagement to identify priorities. All of this would be coordinated by the new impact assessment agency.

Canadians are right to expect that impact assessments consider more than environmental impacts. This has been a long-standing criticism of the previous approach, and we should be proud of sustainability advocates from coast to coast to coast. Bill C-69 proposes that major new resource projects be viewed in the wider context of economic, social, and health impacts of ongoing development, as well as environmental impacts. The bill also expands the opportunities for Canadians to participate in the process, improving public funding for citizens to do so, and communicating our own efforts and decisions in language that is easy to understand and readily available.

Bill C-69 would help to renew and improve Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, supporting new partnerships by improving the consultation process and ensuring clear accountabilities between indigenous peoples and the crown.

Finally, Bill C-69 would enhance how science and data are weighed, and how this contributes to a decision.

We believe that Bill C-69 responds directly to the reasonable expectation on the part of the general public, that policy-making should incorporate input from thorough public consultation, expert reviews, parliamentary studies, and open deliberation.

Bill C-69 is about environmental assessments and regulatory reviews that make resource development better and more sustainable. Our proposals for modernizing the National Energy Board build on this. Under the Canadian energy regulator act, the NEB would be replaced by a new federal energy regulator that would remain headquartered in Calgary, where it belongs. The new federal regulator would be based on the principles of modern, effective governance, more inclusive public engagement, greater indigenous participation, stronger safety and environmental protections, and more timely decisions.

The modern regulator would reflect Canada's changing energy needs and desires with an expanded mandate to review traditional and renewable sources of energy, including offshore, wind, and tidal. It would have the required independence and proper accountability for our clean-growth energy future in the 21st century.

Drawing upon the best energy data and the latest trends to inform its decisions, the new regulator would operate with shorter timelines for project reviews. For major new energy projects, the proposed Canadian energy regulator would collaborate with the new impact assessment agency to provide its own recommendations in a single final report. For all other projects, the new federal energy regulator would retain its existing responsibility to review.

Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that sound resource projects are built. We believe that this calls for a modern environmental and regulatory system that promotes common values and ensures shared benefits. Canada can achieve the public good by ensuring that projects are built in a responsible, timely, and transparent way, creating good jobs and a stronger middle class. We are rising to the challenges of our times by driving economic growth, building investment certainty, advancing indigenous reconciliation, and achieving sustainable solutions. We are restoring public confidence and combatting climate change. We are creating inclusive prosperity.

I am very proud to support this legislation, and I hope all members will join our government in approving better rules to build a better Canada.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

March 2nd, 2018 / 10:45 a.m.


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Conservative

Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak after my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton in Alberta. As we will see, Quebec and Alberta can get along well. He is my seatmate and an extraordinary, thoughtful man. He works for his constituents and his province, and I take my hat off to him.

I hope my colleague has convinced the Liberal government to improve Bill C-69, 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. That is the title of the bill, and it sure looks like an omnibus bill to me. I will explain why as I try to figure it all out.

Part 1 enacts the Impact Assessment Act and repeals the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012. Among other things, the Impact Assessment Act....

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.

Part 3 amends the Navigation Protection Act....

One might say that this 360-page bill is as clear as mud. The provinces are unable to comment on the bill because it is too big and too complex. The Liberals say that they want to improve the process. They have to do better. This government wants to paint us as the big bad Conservatives. The Liberals try every day to label us as wanting to destroy the planet. No one in the official opposition gets up in the morning with the intention of destroying our planet. We want to improve it and be smart about it.

I would like to remind my colleagues from the Liberal Party, the window-dressing party, the social media party, that the previous government introduced a number of measures to combat climate change.

We created the clean air regulatory agenda. We established new standards to reduce car and light truck emissions. We established new standards to reduce emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and their engines. We proposed regulations to align ourselves with the U.S. Working Group III standards for vehicle emissions and sulphur in gasoline. We sought to limit HFCs, black carbon, and methane.

I can see my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable smiling. My Conservative colleagues from Alberta, Quebec, and every other province work well together. That is how we build a country.

I will continue with my list. We established new rules to reduce emissions from carbon-based electricity generation. We implemented measures to support the development of carbon capture technologies and alternative energy sources. We enhanced the government's annual report on the main environmental indicators, including greenhouse gases. Another thing that will likely surprise the members opposite is that we even abolished, yes abolished, tax breaks for the oil sands, so the Liberals really need to stop talking about Alberta's dirty oil.

All of these measures resulted in a good environment report card for Canada and confirmed the reduction in greenhouse gases under the previous government. Do members know that, in 2014, the last full year our government was in power, we reduced greenhouse gas emissions? Canada's share of global emissions decreased by more than 15%.

We were unable to do more after 2014 because we were no longer in office. The Liberals took power. What did they do? Under the Conservatives, our share of global emissions fell from 1.9% to 1.6%. Those results were not obtained under the Liberals. We, the Conservatives, reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

We must have done something right because the Liberal government adopted our greenhouse gas emissions targets. They say that we do not consult scientists, but they probably consulted the same scientists that we did. They took the findings of our scientists and the findings of theirs to come up with the same target. As a Conservative MP, I established a circular economy committee in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. Yes, we Conservatives are working to protect our planet in various ways in our own ridings.

When the Liberal government talks about western Canada's dirty oil, I would like to remind the group of members opposite that it was prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who created the oil sands. Yes, members heard me right. It was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It was probably to pay for Canada's deficits because it was under Pierre Elliott Trudeau that Canada's deficits were created. Who is the son of that prime minister? It is the current Prime Minister of Canada. It is the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Is this son about to do the same thing? Is he legalizing marijuana to try to address his spiralling debt? The father, at least, would not have emboldened the party's friends and organized crime.

I recently said in the House that the government was very naive to think that the Liberals' bill would stop organized crime groups from selling marijuana. I read this weekend in the papers that prices are already dropping. I hear about this every time I go out to talk to constituents in my riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. People think this is irresponsible. This is not the right way to go about it.

Let us go back to the subject at hand. This Liberal government was elected on all kinds of promises to environmental groups, and now, 28 months later, it has brought forth a mouse. There is nothing in this bill to improve effectiveness and there is nothing to provide for reasonable time constraints, so that we can proceed with smart sustainable development.

Allow me to take a sip of water. This is a natural resource. We must protect it and develop it intelligently.

Furthermore, this law to protect the process creates a sense of insecurity. Even if the scientific assessment determines that a developer's project complies with environmental standards, the project will still not be guaranteed, since the minister has discretion over whether the project will move forward and can make this decision based on her mood or on the relationship this government has with the developer.

Why not be clear and provide criteria that are properly defined and based on scientific data? Why put the power in the Liberals' hands?

We saw what they were capable of with the Liberal bagmen and the friends of the Liberal government who are investing in pot. The Minister of Finance carried out a few transactions, and once he had made his money, he changed the law on pension plans. Does anyone remember the Gomery commission?

In conclusion, this bill is nothing but window dressing. The Liberals changed the formula for calculating the duration of the process. Honestly, this is just window dressing. It is not for real. It is irresponsible. The government sets deadlines and requests scientific studies, but at the end of the day, the minister has all the decision-making power. We agree that improvements need to be made to the way things are being done. Yes, we do agree. As I said earlier, we Conservatives want to protect our planet. We need to consider new processes for protecting the environment.

Once again, the government is tabling a document with blatant disregard for the objectives we seek to achieve. Like so many departments and files, this bill is all about appearances.

Can we balance sustainable development with economic development? Why this charade? Why do we not put effective mechanisms in place to protect our resources and develop them intelligently?

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March 2nd, 2018 / 10:45 a.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comment from the hon. member for Trois-Rivières that the Liberals like to say one thing to appeal to their base and then almost always do quite another.

With respect to the Navigation Protection Act and changes that are provided for in Bill C-69, I would say that I do have concerns with those measures. Perhaps they are not necessarily the same concerns that the hon. member for Trois-Rivières has, but the bottom line is that the changes being brought forward in Bill C-69 with respect to navigable waters are going to make it more difficult, and there are going to be more roadblocks and more impediments to getting critical infrastructure built.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 10:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be splitting my time.

I rise to speak to Bill C-69, a massive 400-page omnibus bill. Canadians will remember during the last election when the Prime Minister put his hand over his heart and made the solemn declaration to Canadians that he would never ever introduce anything resembling an omnibus bill, but here we are yet again with another omnibus bill from the government.

It gets even worse because the government has seen fit to invoke time allocation after two hours of debate. The government has invoked time allocation after just two hours of debate on a massive, complex bill that is going to rewrite the environmental assessment process, and that is going to have a profound impact on jobs and the economy. I say shame on the government for doing that.

In the short time that I have to speak to the bill, I am going to be focusing on part 2 of Bill C-69, this massive omnibus bill. Part 2 establishes a new approval process for energy projects, including pipelines. It is going to have a profound impact on my province of Alberta and thousands of my constituents who live in St. Albert and northwest Edmonton whose jobs are tied directly or indirectly to the energy sector.

The Minister of Environment , in speaking to Bill C-69 in this House, said that the objectives of the bill include improving public confidence in the approval process, strengthening investor confidence, making the energy sector more competitive, growing the Canadian economy, and creating good, middle-class jobs. That is what the minister said. Who could disagree with those objectives? Those are laudable objectives.

The only problem is that Bill C-69 will achieve none of those objectives. Rather, Bill C-69 is about keeping energy in the ground. That is what Bill C-69 means. I know that for the Prime Minister's principal secretary and chief political strategist, Gerald Butts, keeping Canadian energy in the ground is something he has long fantasized about.

Bill C-69 means gutting an assessment process based on science and evidence that balance environmental and economic issues with an assessment process that is politicized from top to bottom. How is the process politicized from top to bottom?

Let us start with who gets to make submissions to the regulator. Who has standing? Presently, in order to have standing before the National Energy Board, one must be impacted directly by a project, or one must have relevant knowledge or information about a project. Bill C-69 eliminates that criteria and replaces it with any member of the general public.

This means that it is open season. It is an invitation to Gerald Butts' friends and the Minister of Environment 's friends, and for the radical anti-oil sands movement to take over the process, to control the process with their ideological and political agenda to shut down Alberta's oil sands, a movement that is funded by U.S. money, filled with activists who are in many cases nothing more than shills for foreign interests.

The Minister of Environment says that is going to restore public confidence in the assessment process. What it is really going to do is completely politicize the process and result in delays in the approval process.

The Minister of Environment says that we should not worry about delays, because Bill C-69 is going to streamline the approval process, that it is going to reduce the time to see major projects approved. When the minister makes that assertion, she is conveniently overlooking the fact that Bill C-69 would impose a planning process before the assessment process begins. The planning process would be a six-month process, 180 days. When that is taken into account, it will not reduce the time; it will add about 100 days to the time in which a project could be approved.

If all we were talking about was an additional 100 days, we probably would not be having this debate, but it gets worse. The minister, on the basis of a political whim influenced by George Soros funded activists, can extend the timeline. She can extend the delay.

It gets even worse than that. The minister can kill a project at the planning stage before any scientific analysis is done, before any environmental analysis is done, before any economic analysis is done. In other words, the minister can kill a pipeline project purely on the basis of a raw political decision.

The minister says that this is going to increase investor confidence. Is that some kind of a joke? It is not going to increase investor confidence. It is going to do the opposite. It is going to drive billions of dollars of investment south of the border and to other energy-producing jurisdictions that allow their energy sectors to grow and thrive.

Make no mistake about it. If Bill C-69 is passed, not one major energy project will be approved in this country. Before another major pipeline project is killed, it is imperative that this Parliament kill Bill C-69.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 10:30 a.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is absolutely right. To me, the question suggests its own answer, which is that had we not been put through a process that is not part of that history of environmental review that I reviewed, the National Energy Board had no expertise in doing reviews.

This allows me to mention another carry-over bad aspect of Bill C-38 into Bill C-69. The time limits that were put into Bill C-38 are how the National Energy Board determined that it would not allow people like me as an intervenor to cross-examine Kinder Morgan's witnesses, which led to an abuse of process and not really getting to the facts of the matter.

That aspect of time limits has not only been continued in Bill C-69, but the time limits have also been shortened.

As spoken

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March 2nd, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin people, and thank them for their generosity. Meegwetch.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Davenport for splitting time with me. The circumstances are not those that led me to feel particularly relieved or happy, but I am grateful for the civility of giving me 10 minutes. Otherwise, I would not be able to speak at all, because of the egregious use of time allocation on an omnibus bill. I never expected to see omnibus bills with time allocation after the change in government.

This is three bills put together: the National Energy Board Act changed, the Navigation Protection Act changed, and the Environmental Assessment Act overhauled. The fourth piece that had been running along in tandem, through the great judgment of the Minister of Fisheries, is Bill C-68. It stands on its own, and it is an excellent piece of legislation.

However, with the time available to me, I am going to be able to speak only to the impact assessment piece of this omnibus bill, which I am afraid falls below any standard of acceptability and should trouble deeply any Liberal who stood in this place and voted against Bill C-38 in the spring of 2012. We stood together with every single Liberal MP and every single New Democrat against the destruction of decades of environmental law. How that process has been captured by the same mentality, values, and principles that led to Harper destroying these acts, so we now have a repackaged version of those same principles of eroding environmental assessment, is something that the Liberal caucus should try to figure out. I hope it will lead to changes in committee.

With the time available to me, I will quickly review my background in environmental law. I happen to be an environmental lawyer. It is an even weirder fluke that when I was 22 years old and a waitress and cook, I participated in the very first environmental assessment panel hearing in Canadian history, in 1976. It was in Cape Breton. It was about the Wreck Cove hydroelectric plant. I have participated in dozens since.

Ten years after that, I was in the office of the Minister of the Environment. I was actually a senior policy adviser, the person who took the quest from Environment Canada from a wonderful senior civil servant named Ray Robinson, who headed the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in those days, and we took to the Privy Council Office the request to legislate. Up until then, we had been operating under a guidelines order that required environmental reviews, but it was a bit uncertain in its full rubric. Some people thought it was a guideline and therefore was not binding. We got permission to legislate. Subsequently, I resigned from my job with the Minister of the Environment when the minister violated the environmental assessment review process guidelines in approving dams without permits.

This is just to say that I did not only recently come upon my commitment to proper and thorough environmental assessment in Canada. It is non-partisan and goes back decades.

Now, what happened under Bill C-38 was the repeal of our environmental assessment process and its replacement with a rather bogus process. We can compare Bill C-69 to the bogus process in Bill C-38 in 2012, or we can compare it to what is needed. It is all well and good for the federal Liberals to say to us today that they did a lot of consultation. It is true. There were 21 cities with public hearings, and over 1,000 people showed up to a superb expert panel on environmental assessment. The question before us today is why their recommendations were ignored.

I am going to read, one at a time, the recommendations that were ignored. There are many. In previous debate in this place, when the bill was first put forward, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment claimed I was wrong in my assertion, which I think is fact, that the environmental assessment expert panel was ignored. It is really important to understand the point of environmental assessment. I will just go back a bit and say that this is one of the pieces of Harper-think that have survived into Liberal-think.

Environmental assessment has never been about a green light or a red light, yes or no, or whether the project goes ahead or not. It is primarily a tool for good planning. In the entire history from 1976 to 2012, when Harper repealed the act, only two projects were ever given a red light. I will say that again. From 1976 to 2012, with the thousands of environmental reviews that were done, only twice did a federal-provincial environmental review panel say that a project was so damaging that it could not be mitigated and the panel had to say no.

It has primarily been about studying a process thoroughly, studying a project thoroughly, and deciding that we can mitigate the damage if only the proponent would agree to better scrubbers or change the location slightly. In the course of the review process, many projects were improved, the damages mitigated and reduced, and in the end a much better project was accepted. This has never been primarily about how to get to yes or no faster. That is what Harper thought, and apparently that thought process has somehow infested some ongoing decision-making process within government. An environmental assessment is about good planning.

Until 2012, the Environmental Assessment Act said that the purpose was to get in and review a project “as early as is practicable in the planning stages of the project and before irrevocable decisions are made”.

Let me quote what we heard from the expert panel on what an environmental assessment should contain. It did agree that it should be called “impact assessment”. That is one piece they could claim.

Page 5 states that the impact assessment authority “should be established as a quasi-judicial tribunal empowered to undertake a full range of facilitation and dispute-resolution processes.” This has been ignored. Members have heard about the expert panel the government sent around the country, with a thousand people participating and with 800 submissions. Their recommendation was not to have ad hoc panels where people are pulled in, with different projects always having different panels, but to develop expertise through a quasi-judicial tribunal. Ironically, this was also the advice from the red book Liberal platform of 1993.

The second point is to have time limits and cost controls that reflect the specific circumstances of each project, not the current one-size-fits-all approach, which was an innovation under Bill C-38. This is a key point. Projects need to be reviewed whether they are big or small. The effect of Bill C-38, which Harper brought in, is this. The previous era had seen approximately 4,000 projects a year reviewed, most of them with paper-screening exercises that did not take much time. After Bill C-38, the number shrank from 4,000 a year to fewer than 100 a year. The Liberals have gone with perpetuating the fewer than 100 a year. This is how they have done it, by ignoring this advice.

The panel stated that there should be a review when there are federal interests, and that “federal interests include, at a minimum, federal lands, federal funding and federal government as proponent, as well as”, and then there is a list: species at risk, fish, marine plants, migratory birds, indigenous issues, and so on.

This piece of legislation ignores anything except the project list. That was an innovation of Bill C-38. There are no law list reviews requiring that if the navigable waters act or the Fisheries Act requires a permit from the minister there be a review, and no requirement that when federal money is spent there be a review. That is the advice the government got from its expert panel, which it ignored.

The expert panel also said clearly that there should be no role at all for the National Energy Board, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, or the offshore petroleum boards. It pointed out that “the federal system prior to 2012 had decades of experience with delegating final decision-making to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission...and the [NEB]” without those agencies meddling in the environmental assessment.

What is happening under Bill C-69 is like a shell game. We are told it is one independent agency, except that when it is reviewing pipelines the panel must be comprised of people who are sitting members of the NEB, now called the Canadian energy regulator. If they are reviewing offshore petroleum operations in Atlantic Canada, the panel members must come from the offshore petroleum boards, which by legislation are required to expand offshore oil. It is an embedded conflict of interest in the legislation.

The atrocities continue, with respect to indigenous rights. How is it that the Minister of Fisheries can put before us Bill C-68, which has strong language to protect indigenous rights? Bill C-68, in section 2.3, “Rights of Indigenous peoples of Canada”, makes it clear that the act cannot derogate from indigenous rights. Section 2.4 states that it is the duty of the minister when making a decision to “consider any adverse effects” on the rights of indigenous peoples.

This piece of over-discretionary political masquerading of environmental assessment in Bill C-69 merely states that “the impact that the designated project may have on any Indigenous group” is a factor to be considered. As a former litigator, I can tell members that the courts do not regard indigenous rights as a factor to be considered as protecting indigenous rights.

This bill gets an F. At committee, let us please get it to a C+.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

March 2nd, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, at the northern and aboriginal affairs committee, we had natural resources officials there. We are currently studying Bill C-262, on the implementation of UNDRIP and how all Canadian law is going to have to live within the framework of UNDRIP. We asked the natural resources officials if they had considered whether Bill C-69 lived within that framework, and they had not. That was their answer.

I am just wondering if free, prior, and informed consent is to be held at all levels, particularly legislative, but also if the member thinks that Bill C-69 meets that threshold of free, prior, and informed consent.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

March 2nd, 2018 / 10:05 a.m.


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Liberal

Julie Dzerowicz Liberal Davenport, ON

Mr. Speaker, I will be happily splitting my time with the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

It is an absolutely great honour for me to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the residents of Davenport to Bill C-69. It has quite a long name, 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.

Davenport residents deeply care about the environment. They care about how we develop projects in this country that impact our environment. They care about how the Canadian government will be adhering to our Paris accord commitments. They have been asking me to show them the plan for how Canada will be achieving its targets, and I will be showing that to them very shortly. In Davenport we are doing our own bit as well in terms of trying to find ways to model a low-carbon, urban, sustainable community.

Back to Bill C-69, I am so pleased to have this opportunity to address the House regarding a legislative initiative that is at the heart of our priorities as a government: to ensure a sustainable future for Canadians. Our guiding principle is that a strong economy and a clean environment go hand in hand. We believe that we can harness our natural resources to create good jobs while fulfilling our duty as stewards of the environment.

Bill C-69 would introduce a review process that for major projects would strike a balance between protecting our environment and ensuring that good projects can be built and can create jobs for the middle class. Essentially, Bill C-69 would create a single agency, called the impact assessment agency of Canada, that would lead all impact assessments for major projects to ensure a consistent and efficient approach. The impact assessment agency of Canada would ensure that there were better rules in place to protect our environment, our fish, and our waterways; to rebuild public trust and respect indigenous rights; and to strengthen our economy. Let me spend the next few minutes telling members how.

We have to go back a little in time. The fact is that many Canadians no longer have faith in our previous environmental review process following changes introduced by the former government. That is why we made a promise to Canadians that we would review and modernize environmental assessment and regulatory processes. I am proud to say that we are delivering on that promise by bringing in better rules that will restore environmental protections and rebuild public trust in decisions about major projects. Building on what works, we have designed an assessment system that is clearer and more predictable and that allows good projects to go ahead sustainably.

We are a government that consults broadly. The proposed impact assessment act was not arrived at in isolation. It is the result of careful examination and extensive consultations with Canadians.

More than two years ago, our government launched a comprehensive review of federal environmental assessment and regulatory processes. This comprised four separate, but complementary, reviews. We looked at ways to improve federal environmental assessments, to modernize the National Energy Board, and to restore lost protections and introduce modern safeguards under the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Protection Act.

To that end, our government set up a four-person expert panel to solicit the views of Canadians from across the country. We also established a multi-interest advisory committee to support this work. The expert panel went to 21 cities, received more than 800 online and written submissions, and welcomed over 1,000 people at engagement sessions. We had extensive consultations with indigenous peoples and heard from the provinces and territories, industry, environmental groups, and the public.

We also took into account input from three other processes led by another expert panel and two parliamentary standing committees. We then prepared a discussion paper on the government's proposed path forward and solicited feedback. What did we hear? We heard from environmental groups, indigenous leaders, provinces and territories, businesses, and Canadians from communities across our country who told us that effective assessment must not only focus on avoiding negative impacts but must foster sustainability.

Stakeholders told us that there was a need for greater transparency and that assessments must demonstrate how public input informs decision-making. Project reviews must be grounded in scientific evidence as well as in indigenous traditional knowledge. Indigenous people want to participate as partners in the economic development of their territories. We heard that Canadians want to be more involved in our processes. Businesses need clearer and more predictable timelines, and decisions should be more open and evidence-based.

Let there be no doubt that the residents of Davenport also contributed their thoughts to the consultation process. They felt that the previous assessment process was not a good one, that there was not enough consultation with communities and indigenous groups, that there was not enough being done to protect nature, and in general that we needed stronger and fairer environmental assessment laws. I am happy to say that the new legislation incorporates and reflects not only the views of Davenport residents but of all Canadians who participated in the process. What we are proposing is a system that is more transparent, effective, and efficient for all concerned.

I will now highlight some of the principles that form the basis of Bill C-69.

First, we are adopting a broader approach based on the principles of sustainability. Canada has had a law in place since 1992 to ensure that the environment is taken into account as projects are considered for design and implementation. When first introduced, environmental assessment laws and regulatory processes had a specific focus on environmental impacts. Our thinking has greatly evolved since then, and we now understand that an assessment system must consider more than just the environment. It must take into account wider concerns, including the economic, social, and health consequences associated with proposed projects. The new act would do just that, and that is why the name of the act would change from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to the impact assessment act, reflecting a much wider range of effects we would consider as we reviewed projects for implementation and aimed to foster sustainability.

Second, the new process would be more efficient and more predictable. It would allow people to know where they stood. Projects would now go through an early planning and engagement phase during which potential impacts would be identified and discussed with the public, indigenous people, and the project proponent at the outset of an initiative. Timelines would continue to be legislated. Efficiencies gained through early planning would allow timelines for other phases to be reduced, leading to more timely decisions.

Third, we want to establish a new partnership with indigenous people. They are the most affected by the impacts of the projects, and we will ensure that we respect their rights and jurisdiction in the way decisions are considered.

Fourth, we want evidence to guide and inform all our decisions, so we will consider evidence of science as well as indigenous traditional knowledge as we move forward on these projects. The value of indigenous traditional knowledge cannot be underestimated, and we are determined to include indigenous people in every single project moving forward.

Fifth, we want to increase transparency. By transparency we mean openness that translates into removing barriers to public participation in the review process and making key project information openly available.

Finally, we want to take a truly big-picture view of impacts, one that improves our understanding of the cumulative effects of all projects in a given region. The new impact assessment would take this wider view through the increased use of regional assessments. Regional assessments would examine the effects of past, present, and future activities in a region. For instance, they might examine effects on biodiversity and species at risk and identify impacts on the rights and interests of indigenous people. They would provide decision-makers with a fuller and more complete picture of the context within which a project was proposed, allowing for a better understanding of the overall impact on the environment.

These are not mere operational changes we have introduced but rather are fundamental changes in the way we actually do business. I am very proud to be in this House speaking on behalf of Bill C-69. I believe that we have a wonderful new process in place, and I have a lot of confidence in the projects moving forward. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of the residents of Davenport.

As spoken

The House resumed from February 27 consideration of the motion that Bill C-69, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-69—Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1—Speaker's RulingPoints of Order

March 1st, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


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The Speaker Geoff Regan

I am now prepared to rule on the point of order raised on February 27, 2018, by the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé concerning the second reading of Bill C-69, 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, under the provisions of Standing Order 69.1.

I would like to thank the hon. member for having raised this question, as well as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for his intervention on this point.

The hon. member argued that Bill C-69 is an omnibus bill, as she feels it contains several different initiatives which should be voted on separately. She noted that the bill would delete two existing acts, would enact new ones, and would amend over 30 other acts. The hon. member requested that the Chair divide the question at second reading to allow for a vote on each of the three main parts of the bill.

Part 1 would enact the impact assessment act and repeal the existing Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

Part 2 would enact the Canadian energy regulator act as well as repeal the National Energy Board Act. The hon. member argued that this second part deals more with natural resources than with the environment and should therefore be voted upon separately.

Part 3 consists of amendments to the Navigation Protection Act, which would be renamed the Canadian navigable waters act. As this deals with matters relating to transportation, she felt that this part should also be subject to a separate vote.

The hon. member helpfully identified which of the consequential and coordinating provisions, contained in part 4, she believed were associated with each of the other parts. I am grateful for her specificity in this regard. I would note that these consequential and coordinating amendments represent the changes to the 30 other acts referenced by the hon. member. In the vast majority of cases, the changes are to reflect updated terminology relating to the names of new agencies or statutes created by the bill. The fact that there is a large number of them is not a significant factor in determining whether or not this constitutes an omnibus bill.

The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader agreed that the bill amends several acts, but argued that there is in fact a common element to link together all of the changes. He stated that the bill represents a comprehensive review of federal environmental and regulatory processes and that to consider them separately would create unnecessary uncertainty about the overall framework.

As members will recall, Standing Order 69.1 took effect last September. It gives the Speaker the power to divide the question on the second or third reading of a bill where “there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked”. The critical question for the Chair, then, is to determine to what extent the various elements of the bill are linked.

To date, I have been asked to apply this standing order on two instances. On November 7, 2017, I declined to allow multiple votes in relation to Bill C-56, an act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and the Abolition of Early Parole Act, as I felt the two issues raised by the bill were sufficiently related and that they were essentially provided for under the same act. On November 8, I agreed to apply the standing order in relation to Bill C-63, the Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 2, as I considered that there were several issues contained in the bill that were not announced in the budget presentation. On November 20, in relation to Bill C-59, the national security act, 2017, I ruled that the standing order could not apply to a motion to refer a bill to committee before second reading, though I invited members to raise the issue again prior to third reading of the bill if necessary.

I would underscore, as I did in my ruling on Bill C-63, that the Chair does not have the power to divide a bill into different pieces of legislation to be considered separately. The Standing Order only allows me to divide the question on the motions for second and third reading for the purposes of voting.

Bill C-69 does clearly contain several different initiatives. It establishes two new agencies, the impact assessment agency and the Canadian energy regulator, and makes a series of amendments to the Navigation Protection Act. One could make the case, as did the parliamentary secretary, that there is indeed a common thread connecting these various initiatives, in that they are all related to environmental protection. However, the question the Chair must ask itself is whether the purpose of the standing order was to deal only with matters that were obviously unrelated or whether it was to provide members with the opportunity to pronounce themselves on specific initiatives when a bill contains a variety of different measures.

In presenting arguments relating to Bill C-63, the hon. member for Calgary Shepard raised an interesting concept from the practice in the Quebec National Assembly. Quoting from page 400 of Parliamentary Procedure in Québec, he stated:

The principle or principles contained in a bill must not be confused with the field it concerns. To frame the concept of principle in that way would prevent the division of most bills, because they apply to a specific field.

While their procedure for dividing bills is quite different from ours, the idea of distinguishing the principles of a bill from its field has stayed with me. While each bill is different and so too each case, I believe that Standing Order 69.1 can indeed be applied to a bill where all of the initiatives relate to a specific policy area, if those initiatives are sufficiently distinct to warrant a separate decision of the House.

In this particular instance, I have no trouble agreeing that all of the measures contained in Bill C-69 relate to environmental protection. However, I believe there are distinct initiatives that are sufficiently unrelated that they warrant multiple votes. Therefore, I am prepared to allow more than one vote on the motion for second reading of the bill.

As each of the first two parts of the bill does indeed enact a new act, I can see why the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé would like to see each one voted separately. However, my reading of the bill is that the regimes set out in part 1, the impact assessment act, and part 2, the Canadian energy regulator act, are linked in significant ways, reflected in the number of cross-references. For example, the impact assessment act provides for a process for assessing the impact of certain projects, but contains specific provisions for projects with activities regulated under the Canadian energy regulator act. There are also obligations in the Canadian energy regulator act that are subject to provisions in the impact assessment act. Given the multiple references in each of these parts to the entities and processes established by the other part, I believe it is in keeping with the standing order that these two parts be voted together.

With respect to part 3, which amends the Navigation Protection Act, I find that it is sufficiently distinct and should be subject to a separate vote. While there are some references in part 2 to changes made in part 3, I do not believe they are so deeply intertwined as to require them to be considered together. There would be an opportunity to correct these references as part of the amending process if part 3 should not be adopted by the House.

As I stated earlier, part 4 of the bill is made up of consequential and coordinating amendments arising out of the other 3 parts. In my ruling on Bill C-56, I recognized that the analysis and division of a bill into different parts can sometimes be quite complex. Based on my reading of part 4, which differs slightly from that of the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé, clauses 85, 186, 187, and 195 seem to be related to part 3 and will be voted with that part. The remaining clauses in part 4, with the exception of the coming into force clause, specifically 196, appear to relate only to parts 1 and 2 and will therefore be grouped with those parts. The schedule relates only to part 1 and will also be grouped with it.

Partially translated

Business of the House

March 1st, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Mr. Speaker, I too look forward to having our two weeks in the riding.

I can assure the hon. member and all Canadians that the Prime Minister and this government will always stay focused on the needs of Canadians.

This afternoon, we will continue to debate the Conservative opposition day motion. Tomorrow the House will debate Bill C-69, the environmental assessment legislation, at second reading.

When we return after two weeks in our ridings, we will have the last three days of budget debate on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Partially translated

Access to Briefing on Bill C-69PrivilegeRoutine Proceedings

March 1st, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Abbotsford on February 26, 2018, with respect to the briefings that were provided for Bill C-69. I contend that in fact no breach of privilege has been committed.

The crux of my hon. colleague's argument is that the minister “impeded every single member of this House”, and that someone “tried to withhold information from the House”.

Mr. Speaker, I will refer to the decision given by your predecessor on March 3, 2014, regarding a technical briefing from the minister of state for democratic institutions. In that case, the Speaker ruled with relation to the technical briefing, where deficient interpretation was considered by a member as “preventing parliamentarians from participating fully in subsequent debate on the bill”. The member went on to note that the protection of the official languages in the House is fundamental to ensuring equality among all members.

In his decision, the Speaker at the time referenced two rulings. The first, by Speaker Bosley on May 15, 1985, can be found at page 4769 of Debates, and states:

I think it has been recognized many times in the House that a complaint about the actions or inactions of government Departments cannot constitute a question of parliamentary privilege.

The second ruling, delivered February 7, 2013, which can be found on page 13869 of Debates, states:

It is beyond the purview of the Chair to intervene in departmental matters or to get involved in government processes, no matter how frustrating they may appear to be to the member.

I believe there are similarities with regard to departmental matters and these rulings are pertinent. I will also note that the bill was not debated in the House until the following Wednesday, after its introduction, which means the member for Abbotsford had plenty of time to prepare his intervention for second reading debate.

While the member may feel that he was disadvantaged in some way, I do not agree with his assertion that the minister or her staff intentionally tried to impede his ability to carry out his duties. If the member feels that he needs additional briefings, I can assure him that they will be provided, as has been the practice of our government.

The member for Abbotsford was right in acknowledging that his intervention “does not fall strictly within one of the specifically defined privileges or confines of a proceeding in the House of Commons”.

This is not a legitimate question of privilege. It is a well-established convention that the Chair's role is confined to proceedings before the House and of Parliament. Although I appreciate my hon. colleague's devotion to the respect of parliamentary privilege, I will reiterate that the situation at hand does not constitute a prima facie question of privilege.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 3:50 p.m.


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Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB

Madam Speaker, today I will be speaking to Bill C-69, 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.

The natural resource sector has brought tremendous wealth to my riding, all of Alberta, and Canada. The oil sands alone have brought $7.4 billion to the Canadian economy outside of Alberta: $3.9 billion to Ontario, $1.3 billion to British Columbia, $1.2 billion to Quebec, $330 million to Newfoundland, $143 million to Manitoba, $142 million to Saskatchewan, $96.7 million to Nova Scotia, $50.8 million to New Brunswick, $11.4 million to the Northwest Territories, $6.3 million to Prince Edward Island, and $1.6 million to Yukon. These figures include everything from specially made work gloves to satellites monitoring emissions. What the figures do not include are the equalization payments, which have long relied on collecting billions from Albertans working in the energy sector to be divided among have-not provinces.

When I was first elected, anyone across the country that was willing to work could find a job in Alberta. For those willing to work hard, often more than 40 hours a week, they could support a family, send their kids to post-secondary education, and still have money to save for the future. Small businesses across Alberta were also booming from the economic activities that the industry brought into almost every town and county in the province. That is not the case today. An oil crash later, a provincial government change, and a federal government change have all Alberta reeling.

The global price of oil is out of control, but what many Canadians do not know is we do not receive market rates for our oil. What is often reported is the North American benchmark, West Texas Intermediate. Our oil is traded as Alberta's Western Canada Select. As of yesterday, the difference between the two prices was $34.74 per barrel. Pipelines can help close those gaps in prices. The more access we have to markets other than the United States, the better the deal we can strike. Instead of supporting the building of these pipelines, the Liberal government has introduced regulation after regulation, which is crippling the industry and deterring investment.

Today, we are talking about the newest blow the Liberal government has struck against the west and our oil industry. It would rob the National Energy Board of most of its power and create the Canadian energy regulator.

The National Energy Board has served as a world-class regulator for the natural resource sector since its creation in 1959. Since then, it has reviewed and approved many major energy projects in Canada. Over the last decade, the NEB has approved pipelines that Alberta desperately needs, which has made it a target for political interference.

When the Liberals took power, the natural resources minister's mandate letter called on him to modernize the National Energy Board to ensure that its composition reflected regional views and had sufficient expertise in the field, such as environmental science, community development, and indigenous traditional knowledge.

While the government believes Bill C-69 will complete his mandate, I would like to cover how the bill will drive investment out of Canada.

One of the changes the bill would bring is the establishment of timelines. The government claims there would be timelines of 450 days for major projects and 300 days for minor projects, respectively, pursuant to proposed subsections 183(4) and 214(4). While many Conservatives are in favour of timelines for projects, the devil is in the details. The application process can be dragged out and will not be considered in the timelines. The lead commissioner will be given the ability to exclude time in the process. Last, and most important, the minister can approve or deny an application before it even gets to the assessment phase. We only have to look at the cancelled northern gateway pipeline to see that the government has no problem putting national interests on hold and dismissing a pipeline for political reasons.

I am also concerned about the changes to the NEB standing text. Currently, individuals and organizations directly affected by the projects or capable of providing valuable knowledge are heard by the National Energy Board. The new rules will allow anyone to participate and be heard. This will ensure that groups who oppose all energy projects across Canada will be given a bigger voice. Groups outside of Canada will be given a voice as well, and they do not have our best interests at heart.

I can only imagine what our global competitors think of our legislation. It gives them an opportunity to fund groups that will oppose every project that has the ability to threaten their market share. To think that this will not occur in the future is foolish and short-sighted.

This is an attempt to fix a problem that did not exist. During the review of the Enbridge line 9B reversal and line 9 capacity expansion project, only eight of the 177 applications to participate were denied. I encourage Canadians to take a look at some of the denied submissions. One individual said that a spill from a pipeline, even far away from her home, is an insult to her sense of the holy.

While this example may come up a couple of times today, I think it is important to show that our National Energy Board is not trying to silence individuals and organizations, but is just applying common sense to the process. We need more common sense in government, not less.

Over the last three years, we have seen less and less investment in our natural resources because of the Liberal government's policies. From the carbon tax to the inclusion of upstream emissions to the National Energy Board review, it appears that the government wants to repeal investment in the resource sector.

According to the Financial Post, in February, Suncor CEO Steve Williams told financial analysts that Suncor is actively discussing Canada’s lack of competitiveness with various levels of government here because “other jurisdictions are doing much more to attract business, so Canada needs to do much more to up its game”.

Members need to consider that if we keep our resources in the ground, like David Suzuki wants, we are not saving the environment; we are just moving the resource development to other countries around the world that have lower safety standards and lower environmental protection. I believe that if resources are needed, it is better that they come from here and not from a human rights abuser or a dictator or a country with very low environmental standards.

I know that many members of Parliament have voted for and will continue to vote for regulations of every type. What they need to consider before voting on the bill is that we are part of a global market. Right now we are competing with countries across the world to sell our goods and attract investment.

We only need to look across the border to see a government intent on bringing in billions of dollars of investment and the jobs that come with it. Since taking office, the Trump administration has given the energy industry a tremendous amount of confidence to invest by cutting regulations and taxes.

Future natural resources jobs in my riding, in Alberta, and across Canada are at stake if this bill passes. That is why my Conservative colleagues and I stand against this bill.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 3:25 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to try to speak really fast because it is hard in 20 minutes to talk about a 360-page bill.

Many will be delighted that after two and a half years the government has finally delivered the campaign promise to bring forward a new federal assessment process. During the 2015 election, the Prime Minister committed that if he became Prime Minister, Kinder Morgan would have to go back to the drawing board, saying the process needed to be redone. When asked if no means no if indigenous peoples opposed a pipeline, the Prime Minister responded yes. Regardless, the Kinder Morgan pipeline project, the Site C dam, and an LNG project were all approved by the government based on the Harper-eviscerated assessment process.

The Minister of Environment, in tabling Bill C-69, said, “The legislation we are introducing today aims to restore public trust in how the federal government makes decisions about major projects, like mines, pipelines, and hydro dams.” This 366-page omnibus bill includes an environmental assessment law, a revised energy regulation law, and a new law on navigation. Therefore, how well would Bill C-69 actually restore public trust by enshrining a strengthened rules-based process including clearly prescribed rights to participate, and respect for indigenous rights and title?

In most instances, the bill leaves these concerns unanswered, either because the bill is rife with discretionary powers or the fact that significant matters are left to yet-to-be-promulgated regulations or rules. Does the bill respond to the recommendations made by the government's appointed expert panel? Again, it does so only partially.

Yesterday, a motion on privilege was filed against the minister for her disdain for the rights of parliamentarians to review this bill. Now, after only two hours of debate, the Liberals have moved to impose time allocation. The parliamentary secretary has just said that his government is open to refinements. It is for these reasons that I am issuing a call for expanded opportunity for Canadians, including indigenous peoples, to directly participate in the review of this bill. This can best be met by having the standing committee conduct hearings in communities across this country. The government advised that the law and associated regulations would not be in place until the spring of 2019. This allows ample time for a process enabling Canadians to express their voices and to recommend amendments.

In the time allotted to me, it will be impossible to discuss this massive bill in its entirety. I will therefore touch only on a few key issues in the bill. Would it restore public trust and confidence? Would it create greater legal certainty? Would it prescribe expanded rights of participation by the public in project reviews and government energy policy? Would it enshrine a clear process to assess government policy consistent with the sustainable development 2030 commitments? Finally, would it respect and deliver on the rights and duties to indigenous peoples as prescribed by the UNDRIP?

First, would the bill restore public trust and confidence as the government has alleged? The expert panel struck by the minister to gauge public views on the federal environmental and energy assessment and regulatory regime made a number of recommendations to reform and strengthen the systems. These included replacing the ad hoc review panels with a new quasi-judicial agency and to disallow federal regulatory bodies from participating in the reviews. Both recommendations were ignored.

While the bill would provide for the appointment of an independent impact assessment agency, review panels would still continue to be appointed on an ad hoc basis and could still include representatives of the Canadian energy regulator and the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador offshore boards.

The bill does expand the factors to be considered by a panel if an assessment proceeds, and that is a big if, including cumulative impacts, contributions to sustainability, impacts to the federal government's obligations on climate change, alternatives, mitigation measures, and impacts to indigenous rights. However, concerns have been raised that little clarity is offered on how these factors are to be considered or weighted. It is noteworthy that the list of factors the minister must consider in deciding if a project is in the public interest is far shorter than those considered by a panel.

Does the bill introduce greater legal certainty? A vast array of duties and powers remains discretionary.

For these and other reasons, I share the views expressed by many, including CELA lawyer, Richard Lindgren, “that the new [environmental assessment] process will not restore public trust or ensure credible, participatory and science-based decision-making.” The best description one can ascribe to Bill C-69 is that it offers a framework for project assessment processes but little certainty for when a federal project is assessed or approved. This observation appears supported by a number of legal experts.

I fully concur with the views expressed by law professor Martin Olszynski from the University of Calgary, who said:

my approach to this legislation--and the basis for one of my main criticisms of it--is to consider what it actually says and requires, not what the current government says it will do as a matter of policy. In my view, environmental law should be written with a view towards potential future governments that may be hostile to environmental concerns. Better rules, in this context, means legislation that would constrain such governments, forcing them to either conform or to - yet again - try to amend the legislation, with all the potential for democratic accountability that comes with that. On this score, much of the legislation introduced last week is wholly inadequate.

A critical determinant to knowing when a project triggers a federal assessment is the project list, yet consultation on the list was only just initiated. Why was it not done over the past two years? Will it include projects excluded by the Conservatives, for example, in situ oil sands operations? Will it include dangerous rail traffic as proposed under my bill, Bill C-304?

While the bill does list some laws that may trigger effects under federal jurisdiction, the responsible ministers still get to decide if an approval or review is even needed. The minister is required only to consider if a project may impact federal lands, have transboundary or transborder impacts, or impact indigenous peoples, health, social or economic matters, not yet established by cabinet.

It should be noted that the minister can allow for the substitution of a provincial assessment regardless if federal powers or duties may be triggered. The majority of the bill extends broad and extensive discretionary powers to the minister of the environment, the new agency, and the cabinet to call for an assessment or not. The minister is not required to call an assessment, even if in her opinion the proposed activity warrants designation due to its adverse effects or due to public concerns. The power currently in place has rarely ever been utilized. It should be mandatory.

My bill, Bill C-304, to the contrary, imposes a mandatory duty on the minister to call for an assessment where, in her opinion, a project may pose significant risks to environment or health or there are public concerns.

There are far too many discretionary powers to list, but they include the following examples: discretion to decide if an impact assessment is not required even for a designated project; the discretion to decide the scope of factors to be considered; an agency discretion to delegate any part of the impact assessment to other jurisdictions; ministerial discretion to substitute equivalent provincial processes; ministerial discretion to terminate a review panel or remove conditions in an environmental impact assessment decision to revoke or amend the impact decision statement. The minister can even delegate his or her powers, duties, and functions to the agency.

The power to assess regional impacts and strategic assessments also requires greater clarity. The bill provides absolutely no clear triggers for either of those to occur, or any right to trigger them.

The much-touted planning stage sounds remarkably similar to the initial assessment process. There is concern that the new approach is solely reliant on information provided by a project proponent.

Broad concerns have been voiced that the power to approve or reject a project remains vested in the minister or the cabinet, and that while panels can identify adverse effects, they cannot reference any degree of significance. The potential remains for interjection of political considerations to override any of the determinations in the review, including sound science. The minister need only determine that the effects are in the public interest.

With regard to public participation, while the government claims that the bill provides strengthened rights to participate, it is remarkably silent in extending any specific rights, including to present evidence or to cross-examine. The agency must merely “provide an opportunity to the public to participate” in the planning stage and assessment of a project in any regional or strategic assessments. The agency is empowered to decide on participant funding, but there is no similar duty to enable funding for strategic reviews.

Regarding indigenous rights, the bill does require the addition of some indigenous participation in panels and advice. Any assessment must consider impacts on indigenous groups or adverse impacts to indigenous rights. The minister, in making a determination on public interest, must also consider adverse impacts of a project on the rights of indigenous peoples, although they are not stated to serve as a bar to approval.

The minister alleges that the bill provides indigenous peoples with “Early and inclusive opportunities for engagement and participation at every stage, in accordance with a co-developed engagement plan, with the aim of securing free, prior and informed consent..”. However, while the justice minister committed last December to ensuring that all federal laws will be made consistent with the UNDRIP, no such specific reference is found in this bill.

The second part of the bill is with respect to the Canadian energy regulator act. An expert panel was also struck to modernize the National Energy Board, whose recommendations included, among them, a new independent Canadian energy information agency, which does not exist in the bill. There was significant public concern with the decision by the Harper government to shift the decision-making power from the NEB to the cabinet, and from the CEAA to the NEB and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

How well does the proposed new regime deliver on these calls for reform? The answer is perhaps best expressed in the analysis by Calgary energy law expert Professor Nigel Bankes, entitled “Some Things Have Changed but Much Remains the Same”, adding that the tabling of a completely new Canadian energy regulation act rather than mere amendments to the NEB Act “no doubt creates the impression that the new Bill represents a wholesale replacement of the NEB rather than mere tinkering.” His analysis suggests that much of the current regime remains unchanged.

The name of the agency is changed, there are several additional requirements for indigenous appointments, and there is the addition of prescribed factors for the Canadian energy regulator to consider. However, what is noteworthy is that unlike the impact assessment panel members, the Canadian energy regulator is not required to consider climate commitments or cumulative impacts. In fact, there is zero mention of climate in the entire Canadian energy regulatory act. This is doubly concerning, as Bill C-69 allows for unlimited CER appointees to each panel. As with the Harper law, the energy regulator may only recommend.

The CER is empowered to review offshore renewable and power line projects. Concerns have been expressed with a potential conflict of interest, as the Nova Scotia and Newfoundland offshore oil boards will participate in assessments of offshore projects. Interestingly, the power to issue export and import oil and gas licences is shifted from the cabinet to the Minister of Environment. The CER may review designated interprovincial power lines, but no such project has to date ever been designated. Legal experts have raised concerns with the lack of legal certainty if the CER is authorized to deliver on the crown's aboriginal consultation duties.

Finally, on the Navigation Protection Act, while the new law counters views once expressed by the Liberals while in opposition, they do mirror recommendations of the Liberal's majority standing committee on transport to maintain much of the downgrades to the law instituted by the Harper government. Erased are the words “navigable waters protection” from the law.

In many instances, the legal protection of our lakes and rivers is even further weakened or left to be determined by yet to be promulgated regulations. The schedule of lakes and rivers is blank, shifting the onus to Canadians to even seek the meagre protections offered under the bill. Public notice and right to participate are very limited.

Gone is the once important trigger for a federal assessment where navigable waters may be impacted. I think immediately of the loss of navigation access by indigenous peoples, who practice their traditional harvests in the many lakes, rivers and marshes in northern Alberta, because the approval of dams and oil sands projects are absent consideration and respect for their treaty and aboriginal rights. The bill offers one vague opening for consideration of these rights. However, based on past experience, the likelihood of genuine consideration and respect is small.

In summation, I implore members to support extended standing committee hearings to ensure opportunities to hear Canadians on their views, including recommended amendments to this bill.

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February 27th, 2018 / 3:15 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a habit of the Liberals, I have discovered, to reference the abundant consultation that has taken place as though that directed or influenced their decisions.

I consulted on this particular piece of legislation, which is three bills in one. Bill C-69 is an omnibus bill. I submitted every time a window opened for consultation, and I have looked at the submissions of others. Overwhelmingly, the government was told to repair the environmental assessment process and not to allow it to continue as it had been destroyed under Bill C-38 back in 2012.

In my question for the parliamentary secretary, I want to reference in particular the expert panel on environmental assessment, among many important pieces of advice received by the government. When it empanelled a group of experts and paid for them to travel the country and listen to people, I do not see how anyone could doubt that their recommendations should have had some influence. We have never even seen a report or a response from the minister to the expert panel report on EA, nor the expert panel report on the NEB, both of which one would think would have some reference in this omnibus bill, which deals with both.

Specifically to the parliamentary secretary, I would say that the expert panel on environmental assessment said clearly that whenever federal money was used, there should be a federal review. The expert panel on EA said there should be no role for the National Energy Board, the offshore petroleum boards, or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

However, the legislation before us today, Bill C-69, does not include a trigger when federal money is used. Although it pretends to have one agency, the impact assessment agency, whenever projects fall under the jurisdiction, for regulatory purposes, of what used to be the National Energy Board, the offshore petroleum boards, or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, members of the panel must be selected from those agencies, which hardly takes them out of the process.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Foothills for his most inspiring, factual, and authentic speech.

Bill C-69, part 2, is the part I want to expand on a bit further. It is the part of the bill that replaces the National Energy Board and proposes a Canadian energy regulator. The entire process is supposed to increase clarity, predictability, and transparency. However, it fails on all three counts.

Of course this does not come as much of a surprise since the Liberal government has an outstanding record when it comes to breaking its campaign promises. We have seen numerous commitments, both big and small, meet untimely ends before ever achieving the goals set forth by the Liberals. Bill C-69 offers the same failing formula. The Liberal platform claims to “make environmental assessments credible again.” For one to make that promise, one has to start with the premise that the entire environmental assessment process had lost credibility somewhere along the way.

We recognize that there are always room for improvements to be made to existing processes, ways of doing things more simply and more effectively. However, when I look back over these last two years of so-called Liberal improvements, I wonder how much differently things would look if the Liberals were intentionally trying to sabotage the process. It's probably not much. I do not think it could get much worse.

Far from making the process more credible, the Liberals have mismanaged this file to such an extent that nothing can get built in this country. In particular, the Liberals have pushed the view that by building social licence, somehow all of the roadblocks to responsible resource development will disappear. In reality, attempts to improve social trust and build social licence have not increased resource or national infrastructure development.

Before I go any further, I want to turn back the clock to consider what was being said about Canada's environmental review process several years ago. Before the lack of leadership that we are witnessing today, Canada had long been recognized internationally and by experts as the most responsible and transparent producer of oil and gas. A 2014 WorleyParsons report compared the environmental assessment processes and policies around oil and gas development across the globe. When it came to environmental assessments, the report concluded:

The results of the current review re-emphasized that Canada's [Environmental Assessment] Processes are among the best in the world. Canada [has] state of the art guidelines for consultation, [traditional knowledge], and cumulative effects assessment. Canadian practitioners are among the leaders in the areas of Indigenous involvement, and social and health impact assessment. Canada has the existing frameworks, the global sharing of best practices, the government institutions and the capable people to make improvements to [environmental assessment] for the benefit of the country and for the benefit of the environment, communities and the economy.

It goes on to state:

In summary, the review found that [environmental assessment] cannot be everything to everyone. In Canada, however, it is a state of the art, global best practice, with real opportunities for public input, transparency in both process and outcomes, and appeal processes involving independent scientists, stakeholders...and courts

That was in 2014. Looking back at 2014, Canada was considered a world leader in environmental assessment. We had the most stringent standards and most rigorous review process in the world. As I said earlier, no system is perfect, and just like with any other statute or regulation, there are always sections that could be improved. The regulatory system tries to strike a balance between projects and the environment, between predictability and social factors. It is not a perfect system. However, it is far better than the regime we are going to have under the imposement of Bill C-69. Instead of making the system better, the Liberals have simply made it worse. Under the Liberal government, the environmental assessment system lacks clarity, predictability, and transparency.

Let us look at what Bill C-69 does to clarity. The changes proposed in the bill would make the regulatory process more unclear. This does not serve anyone, whether we are talking about investors looking to participate in responsible resource development or Canadians who care deeply about this process. What is proposed is a move away from science-based decision-making processes.

For example, references to sustainability, identity, and gender-based analysis are difficult to quantify in a standardized test. This is, much like a great deal of Liberal policy, more of a virtue-signalling smokescreen to give the illusion of modernization to a bill that ultimately takes Canada backwards.

Furthermore, the proposed legislation makes a point of treating major and minor projects differently, but it provides no clear list of criteria which would make a project either a minor project or a major project. Leaving so much to guesswork is just plain irresponsible.

That leads me to my next point. Predictability will suffer under this legislation. The Liberals claim that Bill C-69 creates concrete timelines for review, saying that the process will take 450 days for major projects and 300 days for minor projects. However, the timer only begins when the Governor in Council determines that the applicant has submitted a complete application, which seems to be an entirely discretionary process. According to the proposed legislation at this time, that will be the criteria to set the clock in motion. Furthermore, the process may be stopped at a number of different points to add additional studies or submissions. Finally, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change may extend the timeline indefinitely with repeat orders.

The Liberals call the system more predictable. It is not more predictable. It is more uncertain. It is a process where the outcome rests entirely in the hands of the minister, one minister, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. She will be the sole individual deciding which projects will go forward in the national interest. It seems that rather than making the process more open and democratic, the Liberals' proposed legislation has concentrated power in the minister's office. This does not lend itself to predictability in any way, shape, or form.

One of the difficulties that Canada faces is a decline in major capital investments in energy. The decline has occurred since the Liberals were elected in 2015 and it is directly related to the regulatory uncertainty created as a result of their poor leadership in this area. We are bound to see this sad trend continue as the Liberals try once again to fix a system that worked better before they took their tool box out. This again is a solution in search of a problem.

Energy investment has to be a priority. We are a natural resource country. These investments are directly and indirectly responsible for employment and revenue for all three levels of government, yet in just two short years, which actually seem very long, energy investment in Canada is lower than any other two-year period in the last 70 years. Ensuring a stable, predictable process has to be a priority in order to attract these essential investments.

Let us talk about transparency as well. Bill C-69 claims to change the framework of indigenous consultation. However, in reality, all it does is codify something that already exists. The practices are already in place which allow for indigenous consultation.

A significant change in the regulatory process would be the elimination of the standing test. This will affect the predictability of the process, as any individual would be able to challenge the process, whether or not they have a connection to the project. Under the proposed new regulations this would include non-Canadians. Bill C-69 would allow Canadian decisions made about Canadian resources in Canada to potentially be influenced by non-Canadians. That is not right.

The Liberal government talks about the importance of restoring public trust to the regulatory system, but allowing non-Canadians or foreign special interest groups to influence the outcome of Canadian energy projects does not inspire trust in the proposed new system. It will not inspire trust from potential applicants that are seeking to develop our resources further.

Bill C-69 is not clear, predictable, or transparent. It adds vague criteria to the process, more uncertainty to the process, and eliminates a standing test from the process. The Liberals are just adding more burden to the already heavily regulated energy sector, and the industry has taken notice. That is why we have seen, as I mentioned earlier, that investment in the energy sector over the last two years has been lower than any two-year period in the previous 70 years.

The Liberals took the existing Canadian system and managed to change it into a system which is discouraging capital investment in our country. Those capital dollars are now flowing into the United States, funding projects there. The United States has a competitive advantage over Canada, in terms of regulatory and tax regimes and access to markets. Investors are putting their dollars into the U.S. market, which is fast becoming a world leader in energy.

If Bill C-69 becomes law, Canada will continue its downward trend in global competitiveness rankings. Both foreign and domestic investors will find other countries for their investments.

While the bill certainly leaves much to be desired, I want to conclude on a positive note. The new process under the proposed Canadian energy regulator will not apply to projects already approved under the National Energy Board. That means the already approved energy projects which are in our national interest will go ahead. I hope that the Liberal government will make sure to follow through on its promise and build the Trans Mountain pipeline. Get it done.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree, except in this case I do not think there is any room in Bill C-69 for any science-based decision-making. It is quite clear that there would be one person making the decision moving forward on any infrastructure project when it comes to our natural resources. That is mining, LNG, oil and gas, and 7% of our economy is based on these sectors. One person only would be making the decision, not based on any science, environmental stewardship, reports, or analysis. It would be the minister who decides if a project is in the public interest or not.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has to understand the difference in terms of what was in place before. There was never a political decision made on any pipeline approval that was there. It was based strictly on the National Energy Board, which is a non-partisan, arm's length decision process. That is how those decisions were made.

However, let us understand what would be in place now with Bill C-69. At every single step of the way, there would be an opportunity for political interference from the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, where she could step in and ask for a delay, stop the clock, or even ask for an entire new study to be done. That is significantly different from the quasi-judicial system we had under the National Energy Board that ensured we had the best record in the world when it came to environmental standards for natural resource development.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:40 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, the debate continues. All the Conservatives and Liberals care about is whose bill can fast-track pipelines faster.

It is my understanding that in Bill C-69 we are supposed to be reviewing processes that are going to address climate change, protect the environment, address transboundary rivers, and the interests, concerns, and rights of indigenous peoples. Somewhere along the way I guess we have the idea of where both those parties think this bill should go.

The member is complaining that the government is leaving the ultimate decision on approval of a project to a political level, the Minister of Environment. My recollection is that the law, as it is right now, was changed by the Conservatives so that it was no longer the review panel of the National Energy Board but was at a political level. Is the member's concern simply that it is assigned to the Minister of Environment and not the Minister of Natural Resources?

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


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Conservative

John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Provencher.

I want to start by reading a couple of quotes about the response to the Liberals' new Bill C-69:

In reality, it’s unlikely that any major project would proceed under the new rules.... [It] contains a good deal of political posturing and seems to lean to the side of attempting to please the most extreme critics.... [It puts] the wants of a small number ahead of what is best for Canada’s economy as a whole.

That came from the research team at GMP FirstEnergy.

Here is a second quote:

By diminishing independent, quasi-judicial regulatory processes for expert tribunals, cabinet risks drifting further into the dangerous political shoals where science and economics are eclipsed by the darker forces of opportunism and favouritism.

This is by a former National Energy Board chair and Jack Mintz, who is president's fellow at the University of Calgary's school of public policy.

These are very esteemed people who have researched the energy sector, and they are telling us what Canada is facing when it comes to the changes the Liberals have brought forward. It strikes me how disingenuous the Liberals are about the impacts of this bill, or how much they really do not understand the impacts these changes would have on the energy sector.

There was a good example earlier today, when the Minister of Natural Resources said that the only reason energy east did not go forward was that TransCanada abandoned energy east when the price of oil dropped.

I am pretty sure that companies do not base multi-billion dollar projects on what the price of oil was on Thursday. They are going to be making a long-term, major investment into that piece of infrastructure. TransCanada walked away from energy east because of the changes and regulatory burdens the Liberals put on it, and the downstream emissions, unprecedented. No other industry in the country has to deal with those types of regulations. How can we expect a company to be putting those types of things into its decisions?

The same thing is happening with Trans Mountain. Our colleagues across the way kept talking about all the wonderful pipelines they have built that are going to tidewater. I would like to remind them that not one single inch of pipeline that they profess to have approved has been built. I suspect that Trans Mountain is a long way from getting a shovel in the ground.

I think the Liberals are waiting for Kinder Morgan to just walk away in pure frustration. Then, once again, they can say, just as they did with TransCanada and energy east, that it was not them but a business decision the company made. It was a decision based on Liberal ideology and regulations that make it literally impossible for a major piece of infrastructure to get built in this country.

That is certainly the case with Bill C-69, an omnibus bill, as many of my colleagues have shown, that has more than 400 pages. I would argue, as a Canadian, that this bill would have an incredibly profound impact on Canadians across the country.

We are no longer on the verge of being an energy superpower that develops its natural resources under the most stringent environmental stewardship in the world. We are now becoming a non-factor. Under these regulations, there is no capital investor in the world who looks at Canada as a place open to do business. In fact, investors look at Canada as a place where they are not welcome. There is no clear line to success for an infrastructure project.

What really bothers me is that Bill C-69 would open the door for non-Canadians to have an influence on Canada's natural resource sector and our future, whatever that may be under these new regulations. A portion of Bill C-69 allows non-Canadians to have an influence on Canadian infrastructure projects. Let us think about that for a minute.

Under the previous Conservative regime, we made sure that anybody who wanted to have intervenor status on a project had a very good reason to be there, and would be impacted in some way by this project. By eliminating those rules, we are now going to open wide the doors for anyone to influence these decisions.

This could include extreme anti-oil activists, who would now have a seat at the table. It could also include energy companies in the United States, which would benefit a great deal from crippling Canada's energy sector. They are also going to have a seat at the table.

Therefore, these people who are trying to negatively impact Canada's economy would have the same standing as those energy companies, pipeline companies, and first nations who want our energy sector to succeed. Who are the Liberals going to be listening to when they are making these decisions?

We have seen the impact of these activists across the country, and they have been doing this through subterfuge. However, now they could not only be blocking roads, highways, mining operations, and drilling operations, but they would be invited to the table to help the Liberals make these decisions. I find it extremely disconcerting that they would have an active role in defining who we are as Canadians when it comes to our natural resource sector.

How is it possibly going to make this process shorter or those timelines definitive, when the Minister of Environment and Climate Change could invite a countless number of witnesses to provide testimony? Also, as it is written in black and white in the bill, as much as the Liberals would like to deny it, throughout the process the minister would have the ability to stop this process multiple times at every single stage, and it stops the clock. Therefore, these comments about 45 days, 185 days, 300 days, 475 days, are a bunch of bunk. The minister could stop any process indefinitely and as many times as she wants.

Let us talk about another aspect of that. Time and again today our colleagues across the floor have said that this is going to be a science-based decision process. They would take it out of the hands of politics. How can the Liberals say that with a straight face when, again, in Bill C-69, it says, in black and white, that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change would have the sole responsibility of deciding if a project is in the public interest? She alone would decide if a project moves from the assessment stage on to the main study stage. How can the Liberals possibly say that this is science based? It is not. There is political influence at every single stage.

How can proponents or investors possibly make the decision to invest billions of dollars in a project when they know that one person would decide if their project is worthwhile? It would not matter how many studies were done. It would not matter how much support there was from communities, first nations, or businesses. It would not matter what kinds of environmental studies were done or what science was there. It would come down to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who has been extremely vocal about her position on Canada's natural resource sector. She wants the gas and oil production, mining operations, and LNG projects to absolutely cease. She does not want those things. She wants to be a non-carbon-based economy, despite the demand for oil and gas increasing over the next 50 to 100 years. The oil would be coming from somewhere, but our Minister of Environment and Climate Change is saying as long as it does not come from us, and we are paying the price.

Let us talk about the price we are paying, even before the bill makes it through to legislation. More than $50 billion in capital has left Canada. Hundreds of thousands of energy jobs have been lost. I will put it into a perspective that I think every Canadian can understand. I talked about the price of oil a few minutes ago. It is at $60 a barrel, or maybe $57 a barrel, which is for West Texas Intermediate. Canadian crude is being sold at half that, at $30 a barrel. As a result, we sell our oil to the United States because we do not have international market access, because pipelines are not being built, and they will never be built under this proposed legislation. The United States buys our oil and sells it at a premium. That is a hospital being built every week and a school being built every day in the United States instead of Canada, and we are subsidizing it because of these decisions of the Liberal government.

It is absolutely wrong. We will fight it in every single way.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:25 p.m.


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NDP

Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC

Mr. Speaker, this is a hard debate for us on the B.C. coast because we have a government that is now indicating, by repairing the legislation two years into its term, that it concedes that the legislation was completely inadequate to review the Kinder Morgan pipeline, which has serious risks for jobs that already exist on the B.C. coast. The trade-off is 50 permanent jobs offered by the pipeline for British Columbia by Kinder Morgan.

Particularly in the area of oil spill response, the previous environmental review and National Energy Board review blocked evidence about whether bitumen spilled in the marine environment would sink or float. The National Energy Board found that hearing such evidence would be prejudicial to Kinder Morgan.

Is the government now willing to redo that part of the environmental review to make sure that Bill C-69 is applied to protecting marine environment in the likely event of a bitumen spill in the Salish Sea?

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February 27th, 2018 / 1:15 p.m.


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Winnipeg South Manitoba

Liberal

Terry Duguid LiberalParliamentary Secretary for Status of Women

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on Bill C-69, 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. This important piece of legislation fulfills some of our earliest campaign promises from the 2015 election: restore credibility to environmental assessments, modernize and rebuild trust in the National Energy Board, conduct a wholesale review of the previous government's amendments to the Fisheries Act and the elimination of the Navigable Waters Protection Act with the intent to restore lost protections and incorporate more modern safeguards.

We made this commitment because we recognized that the economy and the environment go hand in hand. By putting in place better rules that protect our environment, fish, and waterways, by rebuilding public trust and respect for indigenous rights, and by strengthening our economy, these new rules will ensure good projects can go ahead and create new jobs and economic opportunities for the middle class. They provide clarity and consistency when it comes to impact assessments by creating a single agency, the impact assessment agency of Canada, which will lead all impact assessments for major projects. It will draw on the lessons learned through other agencies, such as the National Energy Board, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and offshore boards.

The Minister of Environment and cabinet will have final say over decisions. Our government prioritizes accountability on issues of national interest, and this will allow Canadians to hold our government to account on decisions of importance. The manner in which these decisions are made will be vastly improved by this legislation. Decisions will be made based on science and evidence, not politics, like the previous government's process. We will create more publicly available data to allow Canadians to be informed and involved in these decisions. We are expanding the scope of these reviews to assess their impacts on health, society, and the economy. As the Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women, I am pleased to see that we will be conducting gender-based analysis as part and parcel of these assessments as well.

We will advance Canada's commitment to reconciliation by recognizing indigenous rights and working in partnership from the start with indigenous communities across the country. We will integrate traditional knowledge into the process, and promote active participation from indigenous communities to ensure their voices are heard.

We will maintain a professional approach to these reviews by creating a predictable, streamlined process. Shorter legislated timelines for the project review phase will be rigorously managed to keep the process on track. Our goal, as the previous speaker mentioned, will be one project, one review.

The bill also seeks to amend the navigable waters act. Water is an issue of utmost importance to me. Lake Winnipeg is one of my home province's most important and treasured resources, and I am incredibly pleased to see this bill recognize and prioritize the importance of water. The Canadian navigable waters act would restore navigation protection for every navigable waterway in Canada. Changes to the Fisheries Act will add important new safeguards for our fisheries, including measures to rebuild damaged fish stocks and restore degraded habitat, ensuring that our fisheries and environment are protected for future generations.

This is not our first effort to protect water in this country. The historic investments we made with the oceans protection plan is a testament to our commitment to this essential natural resource. Canada has the longest coastline in the world. Our coasts support traditional indigenous and coastal community livelihoods, attract tourism, and enable the export and import of goods overseas. They are home to an abundance of Canadian fisheries, and play a key role in strengthening the economy and growing our middle class. That is why our government launched the oceans protection plan, the OPP. It is a historic $1.5 billion investment that will create a world-leading marine safety system, restore and protect Canada's marine ecosystems, and strengthen partnerships with indigenous communities.

Similarly, I am proud of the investment we are making in protecting and rehabilitating the water in the Great Lakes. The Government of Canada is committed to protecting fresh water through science, action, and collaboration with Canadian and American partners and, importantly, indigenous peoples. This includes the freshwater resources of the Lake Winnipeg basin. Budget 2017 allocated $70.5 million over five years to protect Canada's freshwater resources, including the Lake Winnipeg basin at $25.7 million and the Great Lakes at $44.8 million.

Through the $25.7 million allocated to protecting freshwater quality in Lake Winnipeg and its basin, Environment and Climate Change Canada will continue to support research, as well as provide financial support aimed at reducing nutrients, enhancing collaboration, and supporting enhanced engagement of indigenous peoples on freshwater issues in Lake Winnipeg and its basin.

I am extremely proud of the legislation we are debating before the House today. When we first came to office, we knew we had to act swiftly on this file, and did so by implementing the interim principles, offering a glimpse of our vision, and ensuring that projects could continue to be assessed. Now, after thorough consultation with the public and stakeholders, 14 months all told, and the parliamentary input of two committees, we are moving forward with the next steps.

Bill C-69 would ensure that the economy and the environment can both continue to thrive and that good middle-class jobs are created in our resource sector. We are providing clarity and certainty for development projects and ensuring that our natural treasures will be protected for generations to come.

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February 27th, 2018 / 1 p.m.


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Liberal

Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON

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

It is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-69, 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.

Canadians understand that protecting our environment and growing our economy is not an either/or proposition. With hundreds of major resource projects worth over $500 billion in investment planned across Canada over the next 10 years, we need to ensure that better rules are in place so good projects that balance the need for economic growth and environmental protection can go forward.

Bill C-69 would fulfill that objective. It would also fulfill our goal of one project, one review. The review process would be streamlined and would make the process more predictable, timely, and clear, while ensuring stakeholders would be engaged effectively and potential issues with project proposals would be identified up front. These better rules would increase regulatory certainty and clarity, encouraging investment in Canada's natural resources sector.

After a decade that saw the erosion of public trust in our regulatory bodies, Canadians can be assured that we are putting in place better rules to protect our environment, fish, and waterways, with the goal of rebuilding that public trust. I am proud to say that decisions will be guided by science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge. Impact assessment will also consider how projects are consistent with our environmental obligations and climate change commitments, including the Paris agreement on climate change.

A single agency, the impact assessment agency of Canada, would lead all impact assessments for major projects, with the goal of ensuring the approach would be consistent and efficient. Canadians can expect that under our new framework, projects will be held to a high standard and we will protect our environment and build healthy communities.

I am sure all members of the House would agree and recognize that building new and efficient infrastructure systems is necessary in a modern economy. We need bridges and other works to travel, to get goods to market, and to grow our economy. However, these projects need to be built in a way that allows Canadians to continue to travel and enjoy our waterways, and to be safe while doing it.

Canadians travel through our country's vast network of oceans, lakes, rivers and canals for commercial and recreational purposes.

It is important to note that navigable waters also play a critical role for indigenous peoples in the exercise of their rights. The free and unobstructed passage over navigable waters has long been recognized in law and has been one of the foundations of our country.

In 2014, the Navigation Protection Act introduced by the previous government drastically cut back navigation protections by establishing a short list of waters in a schedule to the legislation to focus protection on waterways that were heavily used near large population centres and which had a significant commercial use.

New works on waters not on the legislative schedule, including large dams, do not require any approval under the existing Navigation Protection Act, even though they may create a significant interference to navigation.

Obstructions on navigable waters outside the schedule do not receive protection under the existing legislation. The only recourse for Canadians who have navigation concerns about projects on navigable waters outside of this list is to take the matter to the courts. The Navigation Protection Act reduces transparency and makes it harder to know about proposals for works before they were constructed.

We have heard loud and clear from Canadians that this is not enough protection for their right to navigate our lakes, rivers, and canals. This is why we spent over a year consulting on changes to the Navigation Protection Act to better understand the kinds of navigation protections that Canadians and indigenous peoples were seeking.

During this comprehensive and informative consultation, we heard that Canadians wanted further navigation protections on more waterways, more information about projects that could affect navigation, more opportunities for their navigation concerns to be heard and resolved without going to court, and more clarity on the definition of “navigable water”.

We also heard from indigenous peoples that they want a greater role in protecting navigation in their territories. We heard from industry and provincial representatives, who said they want clear and predictable regulations.

We have listened to these concerns and we have acted. This is why the Canadian navigable waters act would deliver on all of this. First, it would restore navigation protection on all navigable waters in Canada by using modern safeguards. Major works, like dams, would require an approval on any navigable water. Minor works, like small cottage docks, would need to meet the requirements set out by an order in the act on any navigable water. All other work on unscheduled waters would be subject to mandatory notification and consultation requirements, and a new dispute resolution process that could require approvals where concerns remain unresolved. Canadians would no longer have to turn to the courts to resolve these types of issues.

All other works on scheduled waters would also be subject to notification and consultation requirements, but would always require an approval. Owners would not have the choice of using the dispute resolution process because they are proposing to build on waters identified as being vulnerable to impacts on navigation and of the utmost importance to Canadians.

The government is committed to open, accessible, and transparent processes. For the first time, a comprehensive definition of a navigable water would be included in the act. This new, broader definition does not return to the canoe test, which is unworkable in today's context, but actually creates a modern definition to identify the navigable waters that require the protection of the new act.

A strengthened crown-indigenous relationship is at the heart of the proposed approach. The Canadian navigable waters act would require the consideration of indigenous rights and knowledge, and create new opportunities for indigenous peoples to partner with Canada in the administration of navigation protections in their territories and jurisdictions.

Through the Canadian navigable waters act, the government is proposing modern protections for the right of Canadians to navigate on every navigable water in Canada. This protection would be stronger than ever before.

Before building any work on any navigable water, owners of works would have to satisfy the requirements of the navigation legislation. Under the new Canadian navigable waters act, these requirements would be tailored to take into account the many types of works and the many types of navigation that exist in Canada today.

The new Canadian navigable waters act and Bill C-69 is smart legislation, designed to deliver navigation protections where they are needed, to give indigenous peoples and communities a say in what is built in their territories, and to make expectations clear for owners of works. Bill C-69 and the new Canadian navigable waters act gets it right. That is why I am proud to support its passage through the House.

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February 27th, 2018 / 12:55 p.m.


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NDP

Karine Trudel NDP Jonquière, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I want to talk to him about Bill C-69. The government says it is putting this assessment process in place to rebuild public trust in environmental assessments. I would like to know what the member thinks about the consultation period being shortened. What impact will that have? He talked about small communities. The government says it wants to restore trust and transparency, but it is reducing the time spent on consultation. Reading the bill, we can plainly see that the goal is not establishing public trust.

I would like to hear the member's thoughts.

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February 27th, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.


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Conservative

David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise today to discuss Bill C-69. I would like to hold up a copy of it. This bill is so thick that the super staplers could not drill a hole through it. It had to be put into two packages to make it presentable to us.

The government has decided, after two hours of debate, that it is going to bring time allocation on this bill, that it needs to limit debate on it.

As my colleague just pointed out, it is not a simple bill. It is 400 pages. The index alone is 27 pages. The summary takes up two of them. We need to spend a little more time discussing it than the government is prepared to let us spend. This bill is going to have more impact on Canada, particularly on western Canada, my area in particular, than the budget today will have. It will take a little longer for the effects to show, but it is going to be very damaging to a large part of this country. My colleague just talked about some of the impacts that this bill will have on small communities.

I believe that as we do in small things, so we will do in large things. Therefore, I want to tell a story about the current government and the way it has approached an environmental issue in my riding. We can probably extrapolate from that how it is going to use this bill across the rest of the country.

A few years ago, our government made a decision that we were going to turn the PFRA pastures in western Canada back to the provinces, which previously had ownership of the land. The land had been turned over to the federal government in the 1930s when the provinces could not manage it, and the federal government had managed it since then. We made a decision to turn it back to either the local communities that wanted to buy it or the provincial government, and that process carried itself out.

There is a small pasture in the southwest corner of Saskatchewan called Govenlock. It has been federal land for 100 years. There was a discussion about how to handle this piece of property that was federal land. The decision was made that it was going to be transferred from Agriculture Canada to Environment Canada, and hopefully would be managed in a responsible fashion over the coming decades.

Our government made a decision that we were going to try something a bit different. We went to the local community. The minister's chief of staff went there to listen to the local community, to talk to the ranchers, and said, “You folks have been basically managing this property for the last 80 or 100 years. What would you like to see from the federal government in terms of being able to manage this pasture over the next few decades?”

The invitation was there, and she went. She sat down at a meeting with the community and talked about what they would like to see. There was an agreement that whatever happened, the community should benefit from the project. There was an agreement made, but this was not formalized at the time, unfortunately. There was an agreement that the committee would have some control over management of the pasture and the research money that was going to be spent in that pasture. They could bring people in, perhaps university students in the summertime, and assign them to do research. The community and the people living in the community would benefit from taking some of that money that was going to be spent on the project.

It was a unique pilot project, and that is probably the best way to label it. It was based around co-operation between the government and the local community. It would provide a benefit to the local community. There was going to be good long-term management. The government had decided it was going to trust the people who had managed that environment for so long that they could continue to do it in an effective way.

It has been a very different situation in the two years since the current government was elected. Basically, all elements of community control have been thrown out. It is interesting. There have been top Environment Canada officials come out to the community to tour around in a cavalcade of vehicles, yet they have refused to stop and talk to the local people. They came out, drove around, and took a look at the pasture land, but they would not stop to talk to the locals about what they might want to see or provisions for the future management of the pasture. They have basically come back to the community and said, “Here are the provisions we are laying out for you over the next few decades if you want to have access to this pasture.” They have told them the way they think the ground will be managed.

In my part of the world, every time that either an environmental organization or the government has come in to take over land that ranchers have managed, it has usually taken about 30 years to learn how to manage it. Interestingly, they typically end up managing it in the way the ranchers did in order to be successful. They removed any funding control from the local community. Basically, there is no commitment at all in any fashion to that. Certainly, any research that has taken place has been removed from the local community and will come out somewhere, maybe out of some environmental group that the government favours or a university somewhere, but the local community is not going to benefit.

The Liberals basically have set up a management system where the ranchers are the servants or slaves of government.

The only interest from Environment Canada seems to be in completely controlling the situation rather than co-operating. There has been a big loss to one small community, the small community of Consul in my riding. If that is how one small community has been approached, can we extrapolate that into how the bill will approach and deal with small communities across the country? I think we can.

Bill C-69 is 400 pages. As I mentioned, it is not so much concerned about improving the environment as it is about basically controlling the economy, controlling the environment, and trying to have the government tell people across the rest of the country how it is going to manage their affairs and the resources in their part of the world.

Now we have time allocation. That is the biggest insult in some time. We have a 400-page bill and now we are told we have two hours to debate it. The Liberals are rushing the bill through. Clearly, if people read this and see what the provisions are, the Liberals know they will get concerns. They are getting concerns from both ends of the spectrum. We know that. No one sees this as being adequate and the government, in its usual commitment to mediocrity, probably thinks that is okay.

In the past, we have had the highest standards in the world on energy development. When I drive through my riding and I see the energy development going on there, the wells that are being drilled, the environmental standards are extremely high. I would invite anybody to come out, walk onto one of those well sites and try to find any place where there has been any kind of a spill or pollution. People would have difficulty finding that because of our high standards. They have been high in the past as well. We are environmentally responsible. In the world in which I live, there is more wildlife now than there has ever been and the air is cleaner than it has ever been. We believe we did a good job of managing environmental issues around resource development, and that needs to be continued.

I want to talk specifically about the approval process around Bill C-69. I am trying to run through this quickly and it is only one part of the stream. People may get confused. If they do, it would not be the least bit surprising because it has taken a lot of people a lot of time to even try to figure out what the approval process looks like.

There is a preplanning section to the projects of 180 days. The minister would have the discretion to designate how that would proceed. We do not know how limited the minister's discretion will be because it is not in the bill. The minister can extend that process by 90 days before it goes to cabinet. The cabinet can extend that process indefinitely. Then it goes to an impact assessment of 300 days and two different streams, a short one and a long one. With both of them, we do not have any clarity right now about how that will be determined. With the short ones, the agency will handle it.

All major projects will end up in this long stream of a 450-day commitment. All life cycle regulatory projects will go through that one. That 450 days starts when a panel is appointed, not from the beginning of the application, and it will stop when the minister gets the report.

The short or long process can be extended 90 days and the cabinet can extend those timelines indefinitely. The minister will have the authority to ask for any information along this whole cycle and then the minister can come back and say that he or she needs new information, and a whole new process needs to happen. That is just one small part of one stream of the bill and the approval process that the Liberal will put in place.

As the minister pointed out to us, all of these decisions are political decisions. These decisions should be made based on science, based on whether it will impact the environment in the area. The government is clearly saying that it wants every one of those decisions to be political and it is happy to manage them. We know what will happen, and that is the economy in my part of the world, the economy in western Canada, will be severely impacted, It will do nothing to protect the environment beyond what has already been done.

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February 27th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the points raised by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé in her point of order.

Standing Order 69.1(1) is clear in outlining the procedure as it relates to omnibus legislation.

As stated by my hon. colleague, Bill C-69 seeks to amend more than one act. Where my hon. colleague and I disagree is in the claim that there lacks a common element linking the various underlying elements of this comprehensive piece of legislation.

This legislation is the result of the government's comprehensive review of federal environmental and regulatory processes that were launched in June 2016. The tabling of Bill C-69 in its current form represents the continuation of this government's commitment to address this priority. The engagement process for the bill brought together a range of stakeholders to inform our approach on interconnected and interrelated environmental assessment processes, such as the review of major projects, so as to minimize and mitigate impacts on the country's land, air, and waterways.

Its content represents the outcome of this engagement. Through this bill we seek to strengthen the existing environmental assessment and regulatory processes in a global manner to regain public trust, protect the environment, introduce modern safeguards, advance reconciliation with indigenous peoples, and help get natural resources to market. Introducing these changes via separate legislative vehicles would introduce unnecessary uncertainty and imperil the overall strategy that results from consultations with a broad range of stakeholders.

Our government remains committed to end the inappropriate use of omnibus legislation. Consequently, I respectfully submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that Bill C-69 respects both the letter and the spirit of Standing Order 69.1 in its establishment of a new single Canadian approach to impact assessments.

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February 27th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Jim Carr Liberal Winnipeg South Centre, MB

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. The three pillars of responsible energy infrastructure development are the ones he suggests, economic growth, job creation, and environmental stewardship, in partnership with indigenous communities, all of which are contained within Bill C-69.

One can certainly make an argument that it is because those three pillars were not in place for 10 years that the Conservative opposition can let us know about the pipelines that were approved during the Harper administration. However, the Conservatives cannot seem to name a single one that was built to tidewater, because those three elements were not in place.

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February 27th, 2018 / 12:25 p.m.


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Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Mr. Speaker, one of the primary goals of our government and the minister has been to achieve a balance of the environment and the economy going hand-in-hand. Could the minister please explain to the House how Bill C-69 would help to achieve that balance?

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February 27th, 2018 / 11:55 a.m.


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Winnipeg South Centre Manitoba

Liberal

Jim Carr LiberalMinister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise today to support the legislation before us.

Canada was built largely on investment and innovation in our abundant natural resources, from our oil and natural gas to our minerals, like gold, silver, copper, nickel, and zinc, to our vast and diverse forests. Canadians know that investment and innovation in all of our natural resource sectors must continue so that we can get our resources to global markets and use the revenues they generate to invest in a clean energy future, a healthier future, for those who will follow us.

Bill C-69 recognizes that the only way to achieve this success is by creating a modern environmental and regulatory review system that is truly open and inclusive and that can get good resource projects built. This proposed legislation would restore investor and public trust, invite the full participation of indigenous people, and be grounded in science, evidence, and traditional indigenous knowledge. It would also be an important piece of a larger picture and a broader plan, one that responds with the global transition to a clean energy future. Canadians know that we are in the midst of that transition.

Last April, we invited Canadians to imagine Canada's energy future and to be part of the largest and most important conversation of its kind ever held in our nation. We invited Canadians to be respondent, joining in the conversation online by the hundreds of thousands, with hundreds more descending on my home city of Winnipeg for the two-day Generation Energy Forum last fall.

People came to Winnipeg from across the country and around the globe, from Norway, France, Mexico, and the United States. They came from every sector of the energy industry, oil and gas, wind, solar, nuclear, electricity. Indigenous leaders, youth leaders, community leaders, academics were all there. Several members opposite joined us as well, from every party except the Conservative Party. That speaks volumes about how much the official opposition cares about the future of the energy industry in this country. There was not one individual in a group of 650 from every region in our country who represented the official opposition. Had any of the members opposite felt it worth their time to join us, they would have found people who may never have spoken to each other before, in the same room challenging each other and themselves.

Suddenly, the questions became ever more pressing: What happens now? What if our individual choices could add up to transformative changes? Generation Energy tapped into something unexpected and special. Years from now, Canadians may very well look back and say that Generation Energy was a turning point, that it marked our emergence as a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Our government is building a Canadian energy strategy, working with the provinces and territories to expand on what they have already done, leveraging the fossil fuel resources we have today to deliver clean energy solutions for tomorrow, leaning on shared priorities such as energy efficiency, clean technologies, and green infrastructure, and linking those provinces who have an abundance of clean electricity with those who are trying to get it.

Until this proposed legislation was introduced, we had been missing an important piece of this vision. We were missing an environmental and regulatory system that commands the confidence of Canadians, a system that ensures we can mine the minerals and metals that will go into tomorrow's clean technology, that we can tap our abundant natural gas as a transitional fuel, and that we can get our resources to market. Those resources, by the way, include Canadian oil.

One of the clear messages from Generation Energy was that Canadians want a thriving low-carbon economy, but they also know that we are not there yet. They understand that while we need to prepare for the future, we must also deal with the present, by providing energy that they can count on when they flick on a light switch, or fill up their gas tanks, or plug in their electric cars. This means we must continue to support our oil and gas industry even as we develop alternatives, including solar, biomass, wind, and tidal.

We do not share the view of those who would simply pump as much oil as we can as fast as we can, nor do we agree with those who say we should leave all of the oil in the ground and never build another pipeline. Both miss the larger goal of balancing economic prosperity and environmental protection. How do we do both?

We do it by promoting resource development while putting a hard cap on greenhouse gas emissions, including Alberta's 100-megatonne limit on the oil sands. We do it by putting a price on carbon, implementing a $1.5 billion oceans protection plan, and enforcing new environmental safeguards, such as those in the Pipeline Safety Act. We do it by recognizing that a strong and sustainable oil and gas industry represents an enormous opportunity to fund the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Here are a few quick statistics. In 2016, the oil and gas industry directly employed 190,000 Canadians, producing $75 billion in exports and accounting for almost 5% of our GDP. It also generated billions of dollars in government revenues, revenues that pay for our hospitals and schools, for the social programs that make us who we are, and for the clean energy and new technologies that represent our future.

The Harper government took the approach of ignoring indigenous rights, climate change, and the environment in favour of economic development at all costs. This resulted in Canadians losing trust in the way major resource projects were being assessed.

That is why, when we formed government, we introduced a set of interim principles to get environmental assessments and regulatory reviews moving on those projects already in the queue, principles that reflected our priorities: maintaining certainty for investors, expanding public consultations, enhancing indigenous engagement, and including greenhouse gas emissions in our project assessments.

The benefits of these interim principles were felt right away. Major projects, such as the Trans Mountain expansion and the Line 3 replacement pipelines were approved, while the northern gateway project was not. Each one was the right decision based on good jobs, sound science, and the national interest.

Our goal has always been a permanent fix to Canada's environmental assessments. Just seven months into our mandate, we launched a comprehensive review that included modernizing the National Energy Board, protecting our fish, and preserving our waterways. We appointed expert panels, enlisted parliamentarians, released a discussion paper, and at every step of the way consulted Canadians, listening more than we spoke.

What emerged from these efforts were the same messages we heard through Generation Energy. Canadians are engaged. They are well-informed. They know the economy and the environment can and must go hand in hand. They agree that Canada works best when Canadians work together.

Those are the hallmarks of Bill C-69, a new and inclusive approach to protect the environment and build a stronger economy, creating good jobs and a sustainable future. It is an approach based on restoring public trust, renewing Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, collaborating with the provinces and territories, protecting our environment, fish and waterways, and encouraging more investments in Canada's natural resource sector: better rules to build a better Canada.

It all starts with our proposal for an early engagement and planning phase that would help resource companies with new projects identify the priorities of local communities and indigenous peoples. This would create immediate benefits. First, the proponents and their investors would have a clear lay of the land before they spend a lot of money advancing their proposals. Second, by identifying the key issues early, the ensuing project reviews would be shorter and more focused. In other words, by engaging earlier, companies would be better able to plan and develop smarter, all of which would help them to attract investment, maintain competitiveness, and enhance bottom lines.

Bill C-69 also proposes to integrate project reviews within a single, consistent impact assessment, which Canadians have been calling for for years: one project, one assessment. Our legislation would do this by creating a new federal agency for impact assessments, the impact assessment agency of Canada, that would be responsible for coordinating indigenous consultations and collaborating with federal regulators who provide specialized expertise.

We are also proposing to establish a new federal energy regulator to replace the National Energy Board. Called the Canadian energy regulator, or CER, it would have the required independence and the proper accountability to oversee a strong, safe, and sustainable Canadian energy sector in the 21st century. Located in Calgary where much of the country's energy expertise is located, the CER would help restore investor confidence, renew Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, and rebuild trust through open and inclusive public participation, all while ensuring good projects go ahead and our energy resources get to markets.

This new energy regulator would be specifically designed to deal with the shifting global energy markets of the 21st century, to respond to the evolving legal landscape for indigenous rights, and to adopt new technology that can support greater transparency and broader public engagement.

Let me outline how the new Canadian energy regulator would do this in five key ways.

First, it would have a more modern and effective governance. While the National Energy Board has served Canadians well, its structure, role, and mandate have remained relatively unchanged since the National Energy Board Act was first introduced in 1959. The Canadian energy regulator act clarifies the new regulator's responsibilities and operations, while strengthening its independence and its diversity. This includes separating the regulator's adjudicative function, which demands a high degree of independence, from its daily operations where a high degree of accountability is what we need. This would be achieved through a board of directors that would provide oversight, strategic direction, and advice on operations, while the chief executive officer, separate from the board, would be responsible for day-to-day operations.

The new regulator would also include a group of independent commissioners who would be responsible for timely, inclusive, and transparent project reviews and decision-making. The act would enhance the diversity of the new regulator's board of directors and commissioners, requiring the regulator's expert panels to include expertise in traditional indigenous knowledge, as well as municipal, engineering, and environmental issues, and ensuring that at least one member of the board of directors and one commissioner are indigenous.

Second, the act proposes to strengthen investment certainty and deliver timelier decisions. The energy sector's future success depends on a predictable process and timely regulatory decisions for major new projects, without compromising on public consultations, indigenous reconciliation, or environmental stewardship. The principle of “one project, one assessment” directly addresses those concerns.

Under the legislation, the Canadian energy regulator would work closely with the new impact assessment agency for new projects requiring a full impact assessment. With smaller projects, the new regulator would conduct the reviews and have final decision-making authority for minor administrative functions, such as certain certificate and licence variances, transfers, and the suspension of certificates or licences. Under our plan, project reviews would not exceed two years for major new projects and not more than 300 days for smaller ones. The Canadian energy regulator act would also restore the regulator's pre-2012 decision-making authority to issue a certificate for major projects, subject to cabinet approval. This change is important because it removes the federal cabinet's ability to overturn a negative decision from the CER, but maintains the cabinet's right to ask commissioners to reconsider a decision.

The third key change is an emphasis on more inclusive public engagement. Our new approach would create more opportunities for Canadians to have their say on resource development. This would include more avenues outside of the traditional hearing process so that Canadians could debate pressing issues that are beyond the scope of the regulator's project reviews. The new Canadian energy regulator would also be more open and transparent, making more information public in a language that is easier to understand.

Here are a few examples. The NEB's existing “test for standing” would be eliminated to ensure every Canadian has an opportunity to express his or her views during project reviews. The new regulator would also accept comments from the public on a draft list of issues and factors. These would include explicit consideration of environmental, social, safety, health, and socioeconomic issues, as well as gender-based impacts and effects on indigenous peoples. As well, the CER's participant funding program would be expanded to support new activities.

Fourth, the new Canadian energy regulator would help advance reconciliation through greater indigenous participation. No relationship is more important to Canada than the one with indigenous peoples. Our government is committed to renewing that relationship based on recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership. Our government's new rights and recognition framework represents a historic step in that direction, replacing confrontation with collaboration, but we know we cannot do this on our own.

Canada's energy sector has been playing a key role in building indigenous partnerships through benefit agreements, indigenous advisory and monitoring committees for new pipelines, and indigenous-led assessments. Our legislation would complement those efforts by recognizing indigenous rights up front and confirming the government's duty to consult, requiring consideration of traditional indigenous knowledge, building capacity and enhanced funding for indigenous participation, and aiming to secure free, prior, and informed consent.

Fifth and finally, the new federal energy regulator would oversee stronger safety and environmental protection. The Canadian energy regulator act would strengthen the federal energy regulator's powers to protect Canadians and the environment in a number of important ways, such as assigning new powers to federal inspection officers, clarifying the regulator's role in enforcing standards related to cybersecurity, and authorizing the CER to safely cease the operation of pipelines in cases where the owner is in receivership, insolvent, or bankrupt.

In all of these ways, through modern and effective governance, enhanced certainty and timelier decisions, wider public engagement and greater indigenous participation, and strengthened safety and environmental protections, the Canadian energy regulator would help create the new environmental and regulatory system we want, one that promotes common values and ensures shared benefits. Our legislation is for the Canada we have today and the Canada we want tomorrow, a Canada that uses the resources of its land and the resourcefulness of its people to lead in this clean-growth century, a Canada that not only imagines the future but creates it for generations to come.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 11:35 a.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to continue my comments on part 2 of Bill C-69, the Canadian energy regulator act.

Last week I shared some concerns about the bill, especially in the context of the Liberals' constant denigration and undermining of confidence in the regulator and in Canada's reputation at home and internationally, especially since the 2015 election, with respect to responsible resource development.

The Liberals have imposed new hurdles, delays, rule changes, called for phasing out the oil sands, added costs and roadblocks to the oil and gas sector, which is already the most heavily-regulated industry in Canada by all levels of government. They have told the hundreds of thousands of unemployed energy workers in Canada to just hang in there.

Regulatory and fiscal policies are key factors in the economics and business decisions of multi-year, multi-billion dollar energy projects for private sector companies. Now the Liberals are adding more uncertainty with more processes and more details yet to be known. The risk is the acceleration of the already massive investment and job losses in Canada's natural resources development as a result of the Liberals' ideological and anti-energy-driven decisions.

I am concerned about the new preplanning phase in part 1 that would apply to major projects like pipelines. Put aside the fact that Canadian common best practice already is to undertake early pre-project engagement with stakeholders, indigenous communities, and scientific experts. According to Bill C-69, after the initial six-month process, the minister alone can deny projects before the assessment stage. So much for experts, transparency, objective evidence and clear measures.

The bill provides no assurances that clear and publicly-known rules will be applied consistently to all project applications or that the full rationale for a denial will be made public. This approach clearly allows for political and ideological decision-making behind closed doors. The only hope for energy developers is that if a project is politically risky, the minister might kill it at the outset, instead of forcing proponents to wade through years of expensive reviews, wasting time and billions of dollars of capital investment, risking jobs in the meantime.

I want to review the three key claims made by the Liberals.

First, the Liberals claim that public participation will increase in both volume and effectiveness because of the elimination of the standing test of the National Energy Board. That test set out the two-pronged consideration for those who can participate: first, anyone who was directly affected by the project; and, second, anyone who had sufficient expertise or relevant information may be heard. On the face of it, that is reasonable.

However, let us look at a concrete example, the Enbridge Line 9B reversal and Line 9 capacity expansion proposal, about how this test operated in practice.

After receiving 177 applications to participate, the NEB granted 158 applicants full participation rights, and asked 11 applicants to submit a letter of comment. The board only denied eight. One of them appealed, so the courts examined her application and the board's decision. Her application was aimed at the second prong of the standing test, to contribute based on her expertise.

The judicial decision stated:

She stated that she had a specified and detailed interest in the matter...based on her religious faith. In her view, a spill from a pipeline, even far away from her home, is “an insult to [her] sense of the holy.”

I think this case illustrates that the standing test worked reasonably, designed to keep the focus of the approval hearings on important issues and to weed out irrelevant information.

Now let us review the new standing provision. Section 183(3) states, “Any member of the public may, in a manner specified by the Commission, make representations with respect to an application for a certificate.”

I note this language excludes no one. Every person or organization, so long as they comply with the procedure, may submit comment and be heard. This means that a radical anti-resources activist organization from Europe or an American-funded group competing with Canadian companies for investment dollars has the same right to be heard at a hearing for a pipeline, mine, or an LNG project in Canada under Canadian regulations, in Canada's process, as local stakeholders, indigenous communities, industry representatives, experts, and concerned Canadian groups.

Therefore, the regulator will have two options. It might choose to allow everyone who asks to be heard to provide comment, which effectively eliminates any meaningful participation, because when everyone is heard in fact no one is heard. Or the regulator will establish a hierarchy where some participants have the right to give oral and written evidence, others will give written submissions, and the least helpful or relevant contributions will be relegated to some kind of participation prize category where they can contribute but no one will care.

This is fundamentally chaotic, unpredictable, and unclear. How can a proponent prepare for a hearing process where literally anyone can provide comments and questions? Why should decisions about Canadian projects in Canada be influenced by non-Canadians?

The second key claim the Liberals make is that Bill C-69 would create concrete timelines of 450 days for major projects and 300 days for minor projects, except it does not really.

First, the clock starts only when the commission says the applicant has submitted the complete application, but it is entirely discretionary. The bill gives no definition of what is “complete”. It does not prevent the regulator from continuously deciding that an application is incomplete for political reasons or otherwise.

The second problem is that the regulator may exclude any period of time from the time limit calculations, so long as reasons are provided. It is any amount of time and any number of times. Is a timeline that could have any part of it excluded from the calculation really a timeline at all?

The third problem is that the minister may extend the timeline indefinitely by issuing repeat orders granting new 300 or 450 day timeline resets. Stakeholders, like the Mining Association of Canada, are concerned that the proposed system for timelines could undermine the competitiveness and growth prospects of mining in Canada, a sector that is often the only or the major employer in northern, remote, and indigenous communities.

It is disingenuous of the Liberals to claim they have made timelines concrete when the bill clearly shows there is nothing concrete about them.

The Liberals third claim is that new factors for consideration will make the approval process more robust and produce better results for Canadians. Of course factors for consideration for a major pipeline project, for instance, are fundamental to its viability. For example, the Liberals interfered in the energy east hearings, and their appointed panel told the NEB that even though it was years and millions of dollars into the process, energy east should be reconsidered, based on upstream and, for the first time ever, downstream emissions. Making upstream and downstream emissions a condition for pipelines is a double standard to which no other major infrastructure, or any other sector or foreign oil, is held. It is already regulated provincially. The Liberals forced energy east to be abandoned.

On page 167, proposed subsection 183(1)(2), it states:

The Commission must make its recommendation taking into account...all considerations that appear to it to be relevant and directly related to the pipeline, including

(a) the environmental effects, including any cumulative environmental effects;

The term is not defined and may be designed to allow a project to be killed for political expediency.

Cumulative environmental impacts should be clearly defined here, not left broad and vague. Also, it is unfair to project proponents to account for impacts elsewhere in the value chain. For example, the approval of Trans Mountain should not hinge on Kinder Morgan accounting for emissions of planes flying out of Victoria and Vancouver. Imagine if that same standard applied to other vital infrastructure, like highways, airports, and rail.

On top of that, once a project gets through every single hurdle and even if approval is granted, the minister or the regulator can still issue a post-approval demand for further study and evaluation. This new measure almost guarantees delays after future approvals. Despite the Liberal rhetoric, that is exactly how the B.C. NDP is trying to kill Trans Mountain right now. Unfortunately, it is already clear that under the Liberals, federal approval of a national project in federal jurisdiction does not mean it still will not be stopped.

For every Liberal claim about the bill, the process is clearly designed for political influence and intervention. At any stage the minister can step in and kill the project. Even at the various stages where there is no formal ministerial approval required, the minister still could interfere, just as the Liberals did with energy east, and signal to the regulator that the project needs to be delayed or killed outright. It does not clarify or streamline an objective, evidence-based process where decisions will be made by experts.

What are the results? Suncor, the leading integrated oil and gas company in Canada, says that it will not invest in major projects in Canada in the future. Billions of investment dollars are leaving Canada for the U.S. and other energy-producing jurisdictions. The combined impact of additional regulations, higher taxes, and uncertainty makes Canada a more difficult place to invest capital.

There is another component of Bill C-69 that requires careful examination.

The government claims the bill would broadly enhance and expand consultations with indigenous communities, but the government should be more precise and accurate. Bill C-69 does not actually change the consultation rights for indigenous communities at all. Canada has developed, through laws, executive action, and court decisions, a framework within which meaningful indigenous consultation occurs. The crown has a duty, when it takes executive action, to examine if it would interfere with or infringe on a section 35-protected right of an indigenous community. If such a right is identified and the executive still intends on following that course of action, the indigenous community must be meaningfully consulted and compensated for any loss or infringement of the right.

Bill C-69 simply would not change this fundamental principle.

What I have heard from pro-energy and pro-natural resources indigenous groups is that the Liberals are interfering with their ability to responsibly manage their lands and to engage with industry in equity partnerships, which is a widespread practice. From the tanker and drilling bans to the northern gateway veto, the Liberals unilaterally destroyed immediate and future opportunities in responsible resource development for indigenous people, without consultation.

Canadian natural resource proponents have long worked with indigenous communities early to identify affected communities and establish relationships. In the case of Trans Mountain, literally any indigenous community that wanted to be involved was included in consultation. The project is supported by 40 aboriginal groups along the route and four of the six first nations in the area are equity partners.

The real question the House must consider about the legislation is this. What global oil market share should Canada own? As well, what will really be the future of natural resources development and all the jobs it provides across the country? The fact is that global demand for oil and gas is going to continue to increase. Countries that do not match Canada's environmental, human rights, labour and consultation standards, and transparency are ready to meet that demand.

If the Liberals continue to create more layers and uncertainty, it will only mean Canadian energy investment will continue to fall and energy resources will not be able to meet that increasing demand from Canada.

Energy is the number one private sector investor in the Canadian economy, and it is Canada's second biggest export. The importance of this sector cannot be understated. The responsible development and transportation of Canada's energy resources lifts that standard of living of every Canadian, reduces poverty, and funds important social programs in every community across the country.

Canada's economy needs a strong natural resources sector. It has sole ownership of 7% of GDP. It produces billions of dollars and a million jobs. It is Canada's opportunity to continue to be an environmental leader in the world.

Ramming this bill through is irresponsible. Industry is already pulling investment capital from Canada. It is warning about the impacts of this legislation. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have already been lost. If Bill C-69 passes, in one blow, the Liberals will have put at serious risk the immediate and long-term future of Canada's natural resources development.

I will oppose this bill and encourage my colleagues to do so. I hope, at the very least, the Liberals will allow us to represent the people who sent us here on their behalf to represent their interests and values, and to give this massive legislation the debate it deserves.

As spoken

The House resumed from February 14 consideration of the motion that Bill C-69, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Bill C-69—Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1Points of OrderGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 11:25 a.m.


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NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding the omnibus nature of the most recent government bill, Bill C-69, 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.

I do so somewhat reluctantly because the government has just finished passing a time allocation motion that will limit the debate on this enormous important and sensitive bill. There will be fewer than 10 hours of debate. The time is at such a premium here that I will do my best to be very brief.

I also note, Mr. Speaker, that in your ruling of November 7 of last year on a similar request, you said, “I would encourage them to raise their arguments as early as possible in the process, especially given that the length of debate at a particular stage can be unpredictable.”

I doubt even you could have foreseen the government would have shut the door on debate here after just two hours, but I trust that you will still have enough time to rule on this request before the debate wraps up this Friday.

Standing Order 69.1 states:

In the case where a government bill seeks to repeal, amend or enact more than one act, and where there is not a common element connecting the various provisions or where unrelated matters are linked, the Speaker shall have the power to divide the questions, for the purposes of voting, on the motion for second reading and reference to a committee and the motion for third reading and passage of the bill. The Speaker shall have the power to combine clauses of the bill thematically and to put the aforementioned questions on each of these groups of clauses separately, provided that there will be a single debate at each stage.

Mr. Speaker, as you can see, Bill C-69 repeals two laws, enacts three new laws, and amends 31 existing laws. In total, Bill C-69 will affect 36 statutes. Bill C-69 enacts the impact assessment act, which will replace the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. As a result, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, which were put in place by Mr. Harper in 2012, will be replaced by the new impact assessment act and the new impact assessment agency of Canada. This agency will now be responsible for any assessments requiring federal review—

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Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:40 a.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, let me be clear. Over the 14 months, we travelled across the country. We heard from Canadians. We heard from environmentalists. We heard from industry. We heard from provinces and territories. We heard from indigenous peoples.

When Bill C-69 gets to environment committee, we need to make sure it has time to hear from witnesses, to review the bill, to go clause by clause. As I said, I would be very happy to answer detailed questions at committee.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:20 a.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Madam Speaker, I must say I am astonished that the minister is so unfamiliar with the content of the bill she is attempting to rush through the House on this day. This is an omnibus bill, but it is not, as she claims, a bill that brings together four pieces of legislation. If she were aware, Bill C-68 is the Fisheries Act and it was not lumped together with Bill C-69, which is an omnibus bill and requires proper study. It is offensive. If it were good legislation, I might get behind rushing it through, but it is decidedly not good legislation and it must not be rushed. Bill C-68 is good legislation and the fisheries minister, lucky for him, does not have to wear the rest of this package of hybrid Harper-Liberal strategy that will make a mess of our environmental assessment.

Here is some gender analysis on this day that we are expecting a gender budget. For an omnibus bill including legislation that would normally be presented by the male Minister of Transport and another piece of legislation that would normally be presented by the male Minister of Natural Resources, why does she suppose they picked the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to wear the whole thing? They are eroding her political capital by having an omnibus bill where she is the only target.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:15 a.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Madam Speaker, our government knows how important it is to establish better rules for reviewing environmental processes to protect this country's environment, fish, and waterways, restore public confidence, respect indigenous rights, strengthen our economy, and attract investment.

We agree that this is very important, and that is why it is important for the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development to have enough time to complete its study, hear from witnesses, and work on Bill C-69. I hope the NDP will work with us to make sure we have good laws to protect environmental processes.

Translated

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:10 a.m.


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NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Madam Speaker, I want to stress my disappointment with this government's use of time allocation for Bill C-69. This is an incredibly important bill that is over 400 pages long and affects 36 acts.

The bill was tabled quite recently, on February 8, and was called for debate the following Wednesday, less than a week later. Bill C-69 has been debated for just two hours so far. We still have a chance to debate it today, but our discussion will be curtailed by the government's time allocation motion and the tabling of the budget. Our only other opportunity to debate this bill will be Friday. That means the mammoth Bill C-69 will be debated for less than 10 hours total in the House of Commons.

We just heard the Minister of Environment say that this is a critical bill and it is really important. I just want to ask the government why it is forcing us to have less time to look at this bill and debate this important piece of legislation. It is important to engage in this House of Commons. It is important to make sure that we have the time necessary to evaluate this bill.

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Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:10 a.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

Madam Speaker, I absolutely agree that this bill is of critical importance. It is really important that we rebuild trust for lost protections when it comes to our environment, fish, and waterways. We need to make sure that we engage with indigenous peoples. We also need to make sure that we attract investment. It is very important that the environment committee have the appropriate time to review, hear witnesses, and work through the clause-by-clause of Bill C-69. I really hope that the party opposite will join in detailed questions at committee.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Time Allocation MotionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 27th, 2018 / 10:05 a.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

moved:

That, in relation to Bill C-69, 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, not more than one further sitting day after the day on which this Order is adopted shall be allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the Bill; and

That, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day allotted to the consideration at second reading stage of the said Bill, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this Order, and, in turn, every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the Bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

As spoken

Bill C-69—Notice of time allocation motionImpact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 26th, 2018 / 5:50 p.m.


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Waterloo Ontario

Liberal

Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism

Madam Speaker, an agreement could not be reached under the provisions of Standing Order 78(1) or 78(2) with respect to the second reading stage of Bill C-69, 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.

Under the provisions of Standing Order 78(3), I give notice that a minister of the crown will propose at the next sitting a motion to allot a specific number of days or hours for the consideration and disposal of proceedings at the said stage.

As spoken

Access to Briefing on Bill C-69PrivilegeRoutine Proceedings

February 26th, 2018 / 3:30 p.m.


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NDP

Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the member for Abbotsford, made some very interesting points in his intervention today on the question of privilege concerning Bill C-69.

We have at hand a very serious matter. I would like to take the time to review it and maybe come back to the House to comment further.

As spoken

Access to Briefing on Bill C-69PrivilegeRoutine Proceedings

February 26th, 2018 / 3:20 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I bring before you today a matter of privilege that could more properly be characterized as an issue of contempt of this House. I accept that the complaint that I will present does not fall strictly within one of the specifically defined privileges or confines of a proceeding in the House of Commons, but it does constitute contempt of this House and its members by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and her staff.

At page 81 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it states:

There are...other affronts against the dignity and authority of Parliament which may not fall within one of the specifically defined privileges. Thus, the House also claims the right to punish, as a contempt, any action which, though not a breach of a specific privilege, tends to obstruct or impede the House in the performance of its functions; obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of the House in the discharge of their duties; or is an offence against the authority or dignity of the House...its Members, or its officers.

On Thursday, February 8 of this year, the Liberal government tabled in the House Bill C-69, 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. In short, these were the government's long-awaited amendments to Canada's environmental impact review process and took the form of an omnibus bill running some 370 pages long.

The Minister of Environment chose to table the bill at 10 o'clock on the morning of February 8, and 45 minutes later, proceeded to hold a formal briefing by her officials, to which only the media and select stakeholders were invited. It was only at 4 p.m., some five-plus hours later, that officials held a briefing for members of this House.

When I became aware of those proposed timelines and circumstances, my office immediately contacted the office of the minister to express my concerns and demand that I be provided access to the first briefing, which was supposed to take place at 10:45 in the morning, to which only the media and select stakeholders had been invited. My staff was told by the environment minister's office that the first briefing was for invited guests only and that neither I nor any of my staff had made the cut. We were not on that approved list.

I did attend the second briefing at four o'clock that afternoon, when I was given a brief opportunity to ask some questions of the departmental staff regarding Bill C-69. Of course, during the intervening period, between 10:45 a.m. and 4 p.m., members of the media were already filing their stories and sympathetic stakeholders were spinning theirs. Opposition MPs were left scrambling to play catch-up to understand the import and consequences of a 370-page bill. Mr. Speaker, you will have no difficulty understanding how challenging it would be for the opposition members of this House to opine intelligently and engage with the media on a bill of that length, especially in the absence of a timely briefing from the minister and/or her officials. The result was that members of Parliament could not adequately respond to inquiries from the media and the broader stakeholder community because we were kept in the dark by the minister and her officials.

There is no doubt in my mind that the briefing of media stakeholders hours before members of this House received one was done with forethought and mischief in mind, if not by the minister, then certainly by her officials. What other explanation can there be for a denial of my specific request to attend the earlier briefing? There is no other conclusion. In so doing, the minister impeded every single member of this House.

The conduct of the minister and her staff is exactly why the tone and tenor of debate in this House has declined. Someone tried to be clever and tried to withhold information from the House, even if temporarily. Someone obstructed our access to public servants who had important information to share, but granted preferential access to the media and sympathetic stakeholders as part of a plan to place a positive spin on legislation that is critically important to Canada's resource economy. Such shabby treatment of the members of this House is unworthy of the government.

Speaker Milliken explained it this way in his ruling on March 19, 2001:

To deny to members information concerning business that is about to come before the House, while at the same time providing such information to media that will likely be questioning members about that business, is a situation that the Chair cannot condone.

In the case Speaker Milliken is referring to, the government briefed the media before the bill was even introduced. In the case before us, the minister at least waited to introduce the bill, but the principle is the same.

I would argue that with a 367-page omnibus bill such as Bill C-69, the minister's responsibility to this House does not end with dumping the bill in the laps of members and running off to brief the media ahead of members. Providing the media with access to information about legislation before members of this House receive it is, as Speaker Milliken ruled, a situation that the Chair should not condone. The minister deliberately withheld information from members, while providing information to the media. As Speaker Milliken also pointed out, that same media will likely be questioning members of this House about the bill. That is exactly what happened to me, and I expect other members of this House.

On page 213 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, he states:

There are actions which, while not directly...obstructing the House of Commons or the member, nevertheless obstruct the House in the performance of its functions by diminishing the respect due it. As in the case of a court of law, the House of Commons is entitled to the utmost respect....

I could not agree more. We in opposition and the members of the Liberal backbench deserve more respect from the minister. We, not the media, are the ones tasked with reviewing and shepherding this bill through Parliament. It is not the media that does that.

Mr. Speaker, I would now like to draw your attention to the direction the Prime Minister gave to his ministers after the last election. In releasing these directions, the Prime Minister said:

The documents we are releasing today provide guidance on how we must go about our responsibilities as Ministers, and I encourage Canadians to read them and to hold us accountable for delivering these commitments.

What did the Prime Minister direct his ministers to do? In the Prime Minister's guide to ministers, which is entitled “Open and Accountable Government”, it states:

Clear ministerial accountability to Parliament is fundamental to responsible government, and requires that Ministers provide Parliament with the information it needs to fulfill its roles of legislating, approving the appropriation of funds and holding the government to account.

Did the Minister of Environment forget to read the Prime Minister's direction? Her actions clearly demonstrate that she believes that journalists take priority over members of this House. Someone should point out to her that journalists, although they play an important role in our democracy, are not the ones who will review and process her bill through Parliament. Effectively, she has failed to respect and support parliamentary process.

The Prime Minister also issued a mandate letter to the environment minister, which is public. In it he states:

We have also committed to set a higher bar for openness and transparency in government. It is time to shine more light on government to ensure it remains focused on the people it serves.... It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them.

Just over a week ago, when the minister was in the House, opening debate on Bill C-69, I had the chance to bring this breach of privilege to the minister's attention. I reminded her that she and her officials had scheduled a briefing for the media well before MPs received theirs. I asked her in the House to acknowledge that her actions were wrong and to apologize to the House for those actions. The minister refused to do so, and in fact bridged into a completely unrelated answer, compounding the disrespect she had already shown toward the House.

She clearly has not taken seriously her mandate letter which says, “It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them.” She certainly made one.

The mandate letter goes on to say:

As Minister, you will be held accountable for our commitment to bring a different style of leadership to government. This will include: close collaboration with your colleagues; meaningful engagement with Opposition Members of Parliament....and identifying ways to find solutions and avoid escalating conflicts unnecessarily.

Again, the minister and her government clearly have shown no intention of upholding the purported higher standards that the Prime Minister claimed he would uphold. Sadly, quite to the contrary, he and the Minister of the Environment have regularly flouted the higher standards that the Prime Minister had set for himself and his cabinet.

Each day it becomes more and more obvious that the Minister of the Environment has very little regard for Parliament and its members. Providing the media and select stakeholders with confidential briefings that have priority over those given to members of the House is a profound act of disrespect for this institution, in fact obstructs and impedes the work of the House, and has in fact obstructed and impeded the members of the House in the discharge of their duties, especially as it relates to Bill C-69.

To that end, I believe, Mr. Speaker, you will find the minister's actions to have been within the meaning of contempt as defined as defined on page 81 of the third edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure you will agree with Joseph Maingot that this institution, Parliament, the House of Commons “is entitled to the utmost respect.”

As I mentioned earlier, this matter could have been disposed of with a simple, heartfelt apology from the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and a commitment to treat her colleagues with greater respect. Clearly, she did not see fit to do so.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, should you find that there is a prima facie case of contempt or privilege, I am prepared to move the necessary motion to refer the matter to committee.

As spoken

Business of the HouseOral Questions

February 15th, 2018 / 3:05 p.m.


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Liberal

Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON

Upon our return following the constituency week, we will have two allotted days, the first on Monday, and the other on Thursday.

On Tuesday, we will consider Bill C-69, the environmental assessment act. As the Minister of Finance announced in the House on Tuesday, the budget speech will be held on Tuesday, February 27. Pursuant to Standing Order 83(2), I ask that an order of the day be designated for consideration of this motion at 4 p.m. We will also have the first day of debate on the budget the following Wednesday.

Partially translated

Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 14th, 2018 / 6:55 p.m.


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Conservative

Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak at second reading of Bill C-69. I will focus my comments on part 2, the Canadian energy regulator act.

Bill C-69 is about so much more than exactly how pipelines and other major energy projects are reviewed and approved. It is about what role Canada will play internationally on resource development and energy production. It is about whether Canada will continue to be a leader in producing the most environmentally and socially responsible energy under the highest standards in the world. It is about whether the federal government will fulfill its moral obligation and economic imperative to enable Canada to supply the ever-growing global demand with Canadian oil and gas. Canada must remain open for business. The world needs and wants more Canada. The world needs and wants more Canadian oil.

Every other oil-exporting country is stepping up to meet that demand and to seize its growing share of the world market, but during the two years since the last election, energy investment in Canada has declined more than in any other two-year period in 70 years. The dollar value is the equivalent of losing 75% of auto manufacturing and 100% of aerospace investment in Canada. Recent reports show that in 2017 alone, four projects worth $84 billion left Canada.

The decline in Canadian energy investment is not only due to lower energy prices, which are now rallying, but due to irresponsible anti-energy policies and a lack of leadership and political will. The real consequences have been hundreds of thousands of Canadians, one-sixth of the total oil and gas workers in Canada, out of work; bankruptcies and foreclosures; family breakdowns; and escalating crime. The economic impacts have rippled through other sectors and across Canada. Canada is falling behind.

Reuters reports that Canadian oil producers are running out of options to get through to markets as pipeline and rail capacity fill up, driving prices to four-year lows and increasing the risk of firms having to sell cheaply until at least late 2019. Canada is a captive merchant to its American market with 99% of Canadian oil exports going to the U.S. However, the result of American regulatory reform and cost-cutting with the removal of the 40-year ban on oil exports is that U.S. shale oil is being recovered and sold to new markets at an ever-increasing pace. In 2005, the U.S. imported 12.5 million barrels per day. Today, it imports only four million. Today, it exports almost two million, and this number is estimated to double in only four years. The U.S. is expected to provide over 80% of the global supply growth over the next decade.

Market diversification is critical for Canada, and Canadian energy companies are trying to find a way to reach tidewater so that they can compete for international markets and not sell at a discount to the U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. is removing red tape, ramping up exports, and rapidly pursuing its energy independence. However, the Liberal delays, uncertainty, and anti-energy agenda are threatening Canada's economy now and our position as a potential global leader.

The government's failure of leadership on the Trans Mountain expansion is the latest in a pattern of roadblocks to Canadian energy development. The same day the Liberals approved the Trans Mountain expansion, over 400 days ago now, they vetoed the federally approved northern gateway pipeline, which would have connected Alberta oil to the west coast for export to the Asia-Pacific region, where demand for oil will grow exponentially for decades.

Northern gateway had undergone the same rigorous review and consultation as Trans Mountain and Line 3, which were both approved, but despite the science and the evidence that the route was sound, despite the project being in the national interest, despite the 31 equity partnerships with indigenous communities, instead of the Prime Minister offering additional consultation or any options, he said that he did not “feel” right about the project and he vetoed it.

Recently, in October 2017, TransCanada was forced to abandon the nation-building energy east opportunity. It would have been one of the largest private sector infrastructure investments in Canadian history, and would have carried crude from the west through the heart of Canada to Atlantic ports for use in eastern Canadian markets and sale to Europe. However, the political risks and pressure were too great for the Prime Minister and after three years of delay, stops, and starts, additional review, and last-minute conditions, TransCanada finally warned and then withdrew its plans for the $15 billion project. TransCanada estimates that it lost just over $1 billion on energy east. Enbridge estimates it lost just over half a billion dollars on northern gateway, and that does not even come close to the lost opportunities for Canadians. Billions of dollars that should have been added to Canada's economy are going to other jurisdictions.

In July, Petronas cancelled the $36 billion Pacific NorthWest LNG project after regulatory delays because “headwinds were too great”, despite widespread support, including the majority of first nations. Progress Energy, Petronas's Canadian subsidiary, anticipated Canadian investment dollars moving to American projects.

Calgary-based company, Veresen, recently announced it was investing up to $10 billion on a new LNG project, proudly called “Jordan Cove”, in Oregon. The project will invest $10 billion in the American economy and provide thousands of jobs in the U.S.

Oil and gas companies are moving their assets to the U.S. because the Liberals are constantly changing the rules of the game, making it ever more difficult to invest in Canadian energy. What is especially disappointing is that Canada has a long track record of rigorous and comprehensive environmental, social, safety, and economic assessments for energy projects like pipelines.

In 2014, WorleyParsons issued an exceptionally thorough report examining the processes and policies for oil and gas in many jurisdictions around the world to evaluate Canada's situation and compare it to its international competitors. It measured Canada against other countries for performance in areas such as overall decision-making process; cumulative assessments for regions with multiple projects; implementation of early and meaningful consultation with stakeholders and indigenous people, including the real integration of traditional indigenous knowledge; and the implementation of effective social impact in health assessments.

Here are the report's conclusions:

The results of the current review re-emphasize that Canada's EA Processes are among the best in the world. Canada has state of the art guidelines for consultation, TK, and cumulative effects assessment, Canadian practitioners are among the leaders in the area of indigenous involvement, and social and health impact assessment. Canada has the existing frameworks, the global sharing of best practices, the government institutions and the capable people to make improvements to EA for the benefit of the country and for the benefit of the environment communities and the economy....

In summary, the review found that EA cannot be everything to everyone. In Canada, however, it is a state of the art, global best process, with real opportunities for public input, transparency in both process and outcomes, and appeal processes involving independent scientists, stakeholders, panels, and courts.

However, since the 2015 election, the Liberals have constantly denigrated and undermined confidence in the regulator and in Canada's reputation, and have created a regulatory vacuum for energy development in Canada by ongoing reviews.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:50 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to pursue something. Bill C-69 is an omnibus bill changing three bills. I should stress that Bill C-68 on the Fisheries Act gets it exactly right and keeps the promise to restore lost protections. Bill C-69 does not.

What we keep hearing from the government side is that there was listening and there was a great deal of consultation. There was a great deal of consultation, but there was not much listening. We had two high-powered expert panels convened by the Liberal government, one on environmental assessment and one on the National Energy Board. Both expert panels gave detailed advice for what should take place.

There was no formal response, ever, to those high-powered, and I imagine high-priced, efforts that had cross-country hearings. Their recommendations were not heeded at all in what we have here. I could detail the many ways in which they were not.

Perhaps the hon. member could explain to me why the government commissioned two expert panels to tour the country and provide advice, if it intended to give it no weight whatsoever in drafting new legislation.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this important debate on our government's proposed new impact assessment legislation, Bill C-69, 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, which was tabled in this House last week by my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada.

I have spent about two decades of my life as a community activist alongside my colleagues in the Concerned Citizens of Tyendinaga and Environs and the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, fighting a megadump expansion that threatened the health of our community's water. Ensuring our communities have strong environmental protections is one of my driving forces, so when I saw the weakening of federal environmental protections under the previous Harper government, I was compelled to act.

I was pleased to see our government launch a comprehensive review in June 2016 to restore the confidence of Canadians in federal environmental assessment processes, restore lost protections for our fisheries and waterways, and modernize the National Energy Board. Now, after more than 14 months of extensive engagement with indigenous leaders, provincial and territorial leaders, businesses, environmental groups, and Canadians, our government has introduced proposed legislation that reflects the values and priorities Canadians expressed throughout this process.

The proposed impact assessment act lays out a vision for a modern impact assessment and regulatory system that recognizes that the environment and the economy must work together to build us a sustainable future. It represents an important shift in the way major projects will be assessed in Canada.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency would now become the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. It would be the single authority mandated to lead assessments and coordinate the government's consultations with indigenous peoples on all matters related to project assessments. This new structure would bring about greater process integrity and ensure consistency in how major projects are assessed.

The new agency would work closely with life-cycle regulators on major energy transmission, transportation, nuclear, and offshore oil and gas projects. The new Canadian energy regulator, which would replace the National Energy Board, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and offshore boards, would provide expertise for assessments of projects related to their mandates, such as major energy transmission, nuclear, and offshore oil and gas projects. The regulatory requirements would be considered within an integrated impact assessment process.

The proposed changes seek to broaden project reviews from environmental assessments to impact assessments, with a focus on sustainability. This means assessments would consider a broader range of potential impacts to understand how a proposed project could affect not just the environment but also social and health aspects, indigenous peoples, jobs, and the economy over the longer term.

An impact assessment is a dynamic process. It brings together a wide range of perspectives, including different cultural and historical references, often diverging economic interests, and varying points of view on how to manage our environment, our health, and our society.

Too often in the past, indigenous peoples and the general public were invited to engage in environmental reviews very late in the process. The Concerned Citizens of Tyendinaga and Environs and other community groups across the country know all too well the battle it can take to have our voices heard. As another way to rebuild faith in environmental reviews, the proposed impact assessment act introduces a new early planning and engagement phase for assessments. This would allow Canadians to have their say right from the outset and thereby influence the design of proposed projects. This early planning would also provide the basis for co-operating with other jurisdictions and ensuring early consultation with indigenous groups.

Regulatory certainty would be achieved by making the system more efficient and predictable, giving companies the clarity and predictability they need with legislated timelines, with the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada leading all reviews in collaboration with provinces, indigenous peoples, and life cycle regulators, where applicable, to support the objective of one project, one assessment. It is one thing to streamline the federal review process, but we also recognize other jurisdictions have their own assessments. This can be confusing for proponents and the public, creating duplication and delays.

The proposed impact assessment act would introduce a new era of collaboration in the review of projects. It would advance the principle of “one project, one assessment” to reduce duplication and increase co-operation with other jurisdictions. It would also create alignment within federal departments that contribute to different steps of the assessment and regulatory phases.

Through this proposed legislation, our government has demonstrated its commitment to restoring robust, thorough reviews of major projects while working closely with provinces to avoid duplication. Another element of the proposed legislation, reconciliation with indigenous peoples, is one of the main elements of the design of the new system. The proposed changes seek to build new partnerships based on recognition of indigenous rights up front. This includes early engagement and participation at every stage.

The legislation would create new space for indigenous jurisdictions to enter into agreements with the federal government to exercise powers under the act, including the potential to conduct assessments. Going forward, it would be mandatory to consider and protect indigenous traditional knowledge alongside science and other evidence. The proposed impact assessment act would provide a practical plan that will rebuild trust, drive innovation, encourage the use of cleaner technologies, and promote a healthy and clean environment.

With these significant improvements to our assessment system, Canadians will be confident that good projects can move forward in a way that protects our environment and supports reconciliation with indigenous peoples, while creating jobs and strengthening our economy. I believe strongly that the proposed impact assessment act would achieve a unique balance. We are making sure that good projects can be built sustainably while creating jobs and economic opportunities for Canadians.

I have reached out to conservation groups in my riding about this bill, and I have heard from organizations like Quinte Conservation and Lower Trent Conservation that the proposed changes are a positive step in the environmental assessment process. This proposed legislation represents a significant milestone, but we still have a lot of work to do to advance this bill and develop supporting policies. We will do so by continuing to engage Canadians, as we have done to date. The result will be an impact assessment process that demonstrates we can bring resources to market while considering our environment, our health, and our society, and that we can do it in a sustainable way.

I have been very fortunate to be part of both the environment committee and the indigenous affairs committee, and I have to say that this bill is very much informed by the importance of both areas to ensure that we get it right. The economy and the environment can go hand in hand, but so can indigenous rights. It is so important to recognize the principles of indigenous rights throughout all of the bills that we bring forward in the House to ensure that indigenous peoples are recognized and that they can move toward self-determination. That can only be accomplished by ensuring that they participate in every aspect of our environmental and economic development. I am very proud to be part of a government that recognizes the importance of including indigenous peoples in every aspect of legislation moving forward, whether it is environmental or otherwise.

In conclusion, the proposed legislation reflects values that are important to Canadians, including early, inclusive, and meaningful public engagement; nation-to-nation, Inuit-crown, and government-to-government partnerships with indigenous peoples; timely decisions based on the best available science and indigenous traditional knowledge; and sustainability for present and future generations.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:35 p.m.


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Liberal

Arif Virani Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON

Mr. Speaker, the member is right that the changes we are proposing are fundamental, and they are fundamental for a reason. The question that was posed was about what is different in Bill C-69. The two major differences are, first, mandatory consultation and engagement with indigenous people, and second, the issue of putting the environment hand in hand with the economy.

That was not achieved under the previous process. The previous process was tilted to one side and not the other. We firmly believe that the two go hand in hand. We can achieve pipeline approvals and we can achieve energy projects by considering the environmental impacts and ensuring it is a green project that goes forward.

In terms of things getting built, I stand behind our record of job creation in the country. The unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 41 years, and 700,000 jobs have been created since October of 2015. That is a record of increased job creation.

We believe in promoting the economy, but we can do so while also promoting the environment.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:25 p.m.


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Parkdale—High Park Ontario

Liberal

Arif Virani LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage (Multiculturalism)

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington.

On this February 14, I would like to wish three loves of my life, my wife Suchita, and my sons Zakir and Nitin a very happy Valentine's Day.

I rise proudly today to speak to Bill C-69, an act to enact the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act. The bill would introduce the impact assessment agency of Canada, replace the National Energy Board with the Canadian energy regulator, and reinstate protections for waters used for travel across this country.

I will start by complimenting the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and her department for the important work done to get us to where we are today. As stated in her speech earlier this evening, this legislation is the product of 14 months of extensive consultation with provinces and territories, indigenous persons, companies, environmental groups, and communities right across Canada. We went through that consultation period because we wanted to make sure that we got this assessment package right.

We are introducing today an impact assessment system, a reinvigorated energy regulator, and restoring protections for navigable waters. These would restore public trust in the government's ability to review major energy projects. This trust is critical. It was lost with the patchwork of harmful changes that had been introduced by the previous Conservative government.

To be clear, the orientation of our government cannot be more different from that of Mr. Stephen Harper, the previous prime minister. We accept the science that the climate is changing. We have unmuzzled scientists. We have put a price on carbon pollution. We have invested unprecedented sums in shifting to a low-carbon economy. Now we turn our work to the important aspects of environmental assessments.

We wanted to ensure that we not only restored the environmental protections that were cut under the Harper government, particularly those made in 2012, but that we also created a better framework to protect the environment while at the same time encouraging investment and job creation in Canada. We took the time necessary to get the feedback from those who would be directly involved in the process after its implementation to make sure that this new system will work.

With $500 billion in energy investment that is planned for our country over the next decade, a functional, big-picture approach to energy and resource development is critical to ensure that we are protecting our environment while encouraging economic growth and job creation. The two go together.

To ensure that projects that came forward over the last two years were not held up or passed without careful review that ensured the protection of the environment, we put in place interim environmental assessment principles in January 2016. That step ensured that we had a framework to review major project proposals until we introduced this new assessment plan. This avoided leaving environmental assessment to the uneven and unbalanced system put in place by the previous government, which favoured industry to the detriment of environmental protection.

It was under those interim principles that our government approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline and rejected the northern gateway pipeline, which would have gone right through the pristine Great Bear Rainforest on the west coast of British Columbia and destroyed that vital ecosystem.

Let us be clear that in the face of widespread public opposition, the northern gateway pipeline was approved by former Prime Minister Harper to fit the political agenda set out by the previous government. The result of our 14 months of consultations is a clarified review process, which implements a robust method to protect our environment.

In addition, we are maintaining our commitment to require a gender-based analysis for every project under review. The consideration for how energy resource development impacts women and their livelihood has been neglected for far too long, which is why we are committing, through this legislation, to ensure that gender impact will always be a consideration for evaluating proposals.

Another critical aspect of this legislation is reconciliation with indigenous persons. Built into the new rules under Bill C-69 is a requirement to consider the impacts of development on indigenous rights and culture in the decision-making process, a recognition affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution. Whether or not a project moves forward is directly linked to the impacts it would have on the rights of affected indigenous communities.

Our goal across government is to renew the relationship with indigenous persons founded on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership. This was the theme of the Prime Minister's address in this very chamber earlier today. This is no longer a negotiable position. It is no longer the suggestion that it used to be under the previous government's regulations. It is now a mandatory factor to consider indigenous impact in assessing and developing energy projects in this country.

As well as making decisions based on science and evidence, we would require the incorporation of traditional indigenous and community knowledge right alongside it. We are committed to protecting indigenous traditional knowledge and using that very knowledge before making decisions on resource development.

In my riding of Parkdale—High Park, I have heard from my constituents on these very issues. At a recent town hall that I hosted on indigenous reconciliation, residents of my community voiced loudly and clearly that the rights and needs of indigenous people in this country must be taken into account when developing our energy and resource sector. A focal point of the concern expressed to me by the residents of Parkdale—High Park was that our first peoples were not involved in these processes when it came to projects such as mining, hydro, or oil and gas development, and that indigenous persons need to be partners in the assessments of projects.

I have heard these concerns of my constituents, I have relayed those concerns to our government, and our government has responded with this bill.

Under the new rules in Bill C-69, indigenous people will be engaged from the outset to the end of the process, with the aim of securing free, prior, and informed consent, implementing the principles of UNDRIP into resource development. This means that a requirement will now be built into the assessment system to engage and consult with indigenous people throughout the assessment process, including monitoring and follow-up engagement.

For example, we are investing a total of $1 billion over the next five years to ensure that we have the capacity to support essential indigenous participation and capacity development for assessing and monitoring impact, as well as for expanding public participation and the scientific capacity of federal departments and government agencies.

The residents of my riding of Parkdale-High Park have spoken to me repeatedly about the importance of indigenous reconciliation as a means of achieving another fundamental priority: protecting our environment. During meetings at my constituency office, during gatherings right here in Ottawa, and at town hall discussions, I have heard repeatedly from strong advocates from my riding, such as Green 13, Green 14, the Citizens' Climate Lobby, and Earth Day Canada, that protecting the environment is the most pressing issue of our generation and that combatting climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions must be at the heart of any actions we take as a government. Again, those concerns were expressed to me. I heard them, and so too has our government.

In response to these kinds of concerns and the voices of Canadians, not just in my riding but right around the country, we are, through this bill, overhauling the assessment process so that it prioritizes the environment, so that it compels the involvement of indigenous persons, and so that it considers the impact of project development on women. These factors are all critical to ensuring that economic growth proceeds in a manner that has the confidence of all Canadians.

With Bill C-69, we are also attentive to the needs of proponents of projects for a streamlined, transparent, and more efficient process, for better rules, and for quicker decision-making.

Putting in place a predictable process, under which proponents can be rewarded if they invest in clean innovation and demonstrate that they maintain high standards for sustainability and corporate responsibility, means that we will be able do better for Canadians across the country. Our government encourages the right type of investment and ensures that job-creating projects are carried out properly during our transition to a low-carbon economy.

Our government is committed to reducing our carbon footprint and fostering innovation. It will also establish regulations for our energy industry. This bill will also directly improve transparency and access to information. In order to ensure significant public participation in the assessment process, from the beginning of the phase of engagement, the new regulations will require that scientific and other information sources be taken into account in an impact assessment and that the reasons for decisions be made available to the public through an online registry.

Taking 14 months to consult with environmental groups, energy companies, indigenous leaders, and Canadians across the country, our government has developed a new set of rules that will restore public trust and ensure development moves forward responsibly. This bill would amend the patchwork of environmental laws and processes brought forward by the previous government, which created an impossible system that eroded trust, disregarded science, and put our communities at risk, and under which not a single major energy project was built.

With this one project, one assessment process bill, we are keeping our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, address climate change, transition to a low-carbon economy, and advance indigenous reconciliation, while encouraging vital job growth in this country.

I wholeheartedly support this bill and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:15 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am a little confused about my colleague's comments. I do not quite see how they tie in with Bill C-69. However, I can understand her comments on the weaknesses or shortcomings of other methods of electricity or energy production in the world. I think fossil fuels are the most polluting method right now. They release massive amounts of greenhouse gases. We need to be aware of that. We need to act responsibly. We need to comply with the Copenhagen and Paris targets.

If we could then have a discussion on the virtues of electric cars, solar panels, or wind turbines, I would be extremely pleased. However, I can guarantee my colleague that there are many renewable energy alternatives with a very small environmental footprint or carbon footprint. Canada could become a leader in these technologies and in new ways of using or generating energy. I think that is the way of the future and the way of the 21st century.

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February 14th, 2018 / 6:15 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I will agree if in the mind of a Liberal the national interest is not in the interest of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Basically, we have many concerns, especially about citizen participation, or public consultation. This is mentioned in the bill's preamble, but when you go through the bill clause by clause, it is gradually watered down.

What we want is for civic participation, public participation, to be enshrined in the bill, for it to be part of the mandate of the new impact assessment agency in order to guarantee that Canadians' voices are effectively heard.

There are several things either missing from the bill altogether or not strong enough. Regional strategic assessments are missing. With respect to the assessment of cumulative effects, it is all well and good to say there are a bunch of small projects, but several small projects together can have a greater regional impact and a big impact on people. As it stands, we do not see how cumulative effects could be taken into account under the current Bill C-69.

People who have been listening to the debates between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party in recent days will have noted that this has mainly been about who can approve the most pipeline projects the fastest. Personally, as a citizen, hearing that really worries me.

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February 14th, 2018 / 5:50 p.m.


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NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, if I may, instead of rehashing the 2012 debate, I am going to mainly focus on Bill C-69 and on what is happening now, in 2018. It is always interesting to revisit history, and we could do that here all day.

This is not just any bill that the Liberals tabled last week. It is a bill whose purpose is to renew and review the environmental assessment process, which is crucial for the future. It is crucial for our role and our responsibilities with regard to climate change and cutting our greenhouse gas emissions. It is also crucial for life in many indigenous communities and white communities across the country. Respect and the quality of life of people in several regions will be influenced by ending the current process and bringing in this new environmental assessment program.

Everyone will have noticed by now that the Liberal government and the Minister of the Environment are extremely skilled at using buzzwords. All the buttons that need to be pressed to make the bill look good, modern, effective and respectful, all those words are always used in speeches, presentations, press releases and sometimes in legislation.

However, with all this talk about consultation, respect, biodiversity and climate change, more often than not, when you get right down to it, it is increasingly difficult to know just what is being proposed in government legislation, and I want people to be aware of that. If we cut through the rhetoric and look below the surface, we have serious doubts about the tangible effects of implementing this new environmental assessment process, and it is not just us. As my Conservative colleague said, this substantial, 364-page bill was released and tabled less than a week ago. There are a lot of things to go through and people have a lot of questions.

Naturally, our initial response is excitement at finally being able to talk about a new environmental assessment process. Hooray! We wanted to close the book on the Harper years. We are getting there, and that in itself is a good thing. It is too bad my colleague up the row does not agree, but over here, we welcome this as a step in the right direction even though we have major concerns.

I would like to point out that it is now February 2018, which means that the Liberal government was elected 28 months ago. In that time, the Liberals have used the old environmental assessment process to review and approve major projects. That worries of lot of NDP members, progressives, and environmentalists because the Liberals dragged their feet. They bought themselves all kinds of time by spending more than two years condemning a process that they were using anyway. I do not want to impugn anyone's motives, but if the Liberal government wanted to approve a pipeline project using the Conservatives' environmental assessment process, it could, and that is what it did.

On August 20, 2015, in British Columbia, an individual asked the Prime Minister if the Kinder Morgan project would be reviewed using his proposed new environmental assessment process. The Prime Minister replied that the project would be reassessed because the Conservative government's bare-bones environmental assessment process was not to be trusted. Now that the Liberals are in power, that promise has been forgotten. They are using the old process and approving the pipeline expansion.

As a result, we have a great many questions about this government's good faith and diligence. We wonder why it took so long to come up with the proposal before us.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency will now oversee all assessments. Its name will be changed to the impact assessment agency. The National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission will carry on under new names. We would like to get more details on what their roles, duties, and responsibilities will be. A great many people question whether it is worth maintaining these organizations at all.

We would have preferred it if their roles had been scaled back in much clearer and more decisive terms, especially in regard to what the government describes as “minor projects”, because the new National Energy Board, the new energy regulator, will have a role to play in this assessment process. We would not want a repeat of the bad experiences we had over the past few years with the NEB, where minor projects did not seem to matter so much.

In our view, when the goal is to protect the environment and respect local communities, there is no such thing as a major or minor project. Air quality, water quality, and greenhouse gas emissions all have a regional and cumulative impact. I will come back to those concepts later.

This is a complex bill. It amends several laws and affects many organizations. We are concerned by the continued mandate, for example, of the assessment panels of certain organizations, such the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. They will continue to be involved in the offshore oil and gas sector.

The new environmental assessment agency will not be mandated to conduct assessments of offshore projects. This worries us because although the agency has a clear mandate and the scientific capability to conduct environmental assessments, the two boards I mentioned, by virtue of their mandates, will be obliged to rule in favour of offshore oil and gas development. An important part of oil and gas development taking place off the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland has been separated off, forgotten and discarded. This will be completely excluded from the prerogatives or the mandate of the new environmental assessment agency and we are concerned about that.

This begs the following question: which projects will be subject to this new environmental or impact assessment process? For now, it really is not clear. We do not have a new list of the projects that have been submitted. For now, the previous list that was established by the Conservative government remains an only list. There has been no change in the projects subject to a environmental assessment.

For now, we are being told that there will be a consultation process concerning the criteria for placing projects on this new list. I feel that this will take so long that, by the time the next election comes around in 2019, none of this will have been cleared up. Furthermore, the new agency will not have had the time to start its work because we will still be trying to determine which projects can be studied and assessed by the agency.

We can have an excellent impact assessment process and a very robust and competent agency with a lot of expertise. However, if that agency does not assess any projects, it will not have any impact on environmental protection, our communities, or the reduction of greenhouse gases. It is an empty gesture to create an impact assessment agency that does not conduct any studies, does not examine anything, and does not assess anything because no one knows what projects it should be examining. Such an agency is useless. It does not help to protect our environment and does not help us to fulfill our responsibility to reduce greenhouse gases.

Bill C-69 should set out the criteria for determining when an impact study or environmental assessment must be conducted. Is it when federal funding is being invested in a project, when a federal law comes into play, or when something under federal protection and jurisdiction is involved?

We think that the criteria should be logical and objective. We should be able to use them to force the agency to conduct an environmental assessment. That is not currently the case.

The bill indicates that sustainable development and climate change must always be included in the decision-making process and the agency's assessment. However, let us be clear. The current greenhouse gas reduction targets are not even part of the goals and objectives of the bill. The government has mentioned them and we have talked about them, but there are no concrete measures in place to give the process teeth and ensure that it has consequences. That is a big problem for the NDP.

For example, a project that would produce a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions should automatically result in an impact study or environmental assessment. However, the weight of carbon emissions is not currently one of the criteria for determining whether a project will be assessed simply because there are still no criteria. That is a major concern for us.

There is one detail we want to emphasize on today. According to our interpretation it would seem that the oil sands development sites that use in situ technology would not be covered under the agency's mandate. The agency would not have a mandate to study the environmental impact of certain projects that use certain types of technology.

People are starting to talk about this. We are very concerned because this technology is not perfect. We know there are major consequences even though the development sites are much smaller and less visible than they were in the past.

Earlier I asked the minister point-blank about this. She gave me a politician's answer full of buzzwords, but failed to give a clear answer as to whether a project submitted in a province that already has a GHG cap program would be excluded by virtue of the province already having a GHG cap program. The bill seems to touch on that.

We want confirmation on this because the federal government could very easily use this as an excuse to shirk its responsibilities and burden the province that might have an existing program, without any guarantee that the program is being enforced, that the objectives are met or that they are in the process of being met.

The Government of Quebec is participating in a North American carbon market. As of right now, however, there is no guarantee that it will meet its own targets.

If this pretext were used to say that environmental assessments are not needed because the Government of Quebec already has measures in place, that would be completely delusional and an attempt to shirk one's responsibilities. The federal government has absolutely no way of verifying whether the province is complying with the program and meeting its targets. We have some serious concerns about that at this time.

I will come back a little later to the heart of the consultations and what can be included in those consultations. When the Conservatives curtailed and gutted the environmental assessment process, one of the things they introduced was time limits for environmental impact studies. In their eyes, this was supposed to expedite the approval of certain projects, including potentially polluting ones.

Much to our surprise, the Liberal bill changes those provisions. Much to our surprise, it shortens the timeframe for environmental assessments. I would have thought the Liberals would have wanted to take a little longer to create a system that is transparent, public, open, and based on science, one that listens to the experts, cross-examines the experts, one in which participants are well informed, taking the time to do things right. Well, no, in another new twist, the Liberals are shortening the timeframe for assessments. Depending on the size of the project, it is dropping from 365 to 300 days, or for bigger projects, from 720 to 600 days.

We in the NDP see this is as a direct response to demands from investors and industry. It is definitely not to improve the public consultation process or to ensure that things are done properly in good time. We believe that the process should take the necessary time to reach conclusions that meet with widespread approval, that are based on science, that respect the will of local and regional communities. As it stands, that is not the case, and we are very concerned about that.

With respect to the topic of consultations, the government claims to want to restore public trust in the assessment process. The changes proposed in Bill C-69 include getting the public and indigenous communities involved at the planning stage. This is good news, if everyone is truly included at the preliminary approval stages of a project. However, the bill is short on details about who will be able to participate in the consultations, how they can be heard, how long the consultation will last, whether individuals will have access to the information held by the agency, or whether individuals will be able to question industry experts or witnesses. This is still not clear. The NDP will want to make a lot of improvements to the bill to ensure that when this bill takes effect, the process is truly open and transparent, as the Minister of Environment has claimed it will be.

I want to talk about two more points, which are very important, including the one that worries us the most: the Minister of the Environment's arbitrary power. It is rather strange for the minister to say that she is bringing back a science-based process that will restore trust, and that will take communities into account, and then in the same breath say that, no matter the outcome of the process, the minister will just do as she pleases, since at the end of the day she is the one who decides. This is almost exactly what the Minister of the Environment just said in her speech a couple of minutes ago here in the House. Ultimately, she will decide. Not only do we not know which projects will be assessed by the agency, but we also have a guarantee that no matter the recommendations or findings, one, single minister will have the final say. This is the type of political interference that the Liberals condemned during the election campaign.

We also do not know what criteria the minister will use. Clause 17 sets out the minister's power, and then clause 63 lists a series of factors that the minister must include in her consideration, but it does not state that the list is exhaustive. This means anything could be included.

When the Liberals spend days telling us they are here to protect the national interest and the public interest, yet offer up no definition of “national interest” whatsoever, that worries me. Is it in the national interest to make an oil company happy by forcing a pipeline through, or is it in the national interest to do our part to reduce greenhouse gases and respect what local, regional, and indigenous communities want?

That is not at all clear right now, and giving that much power to the minister, power that did not exist under the Harper government, really has us worried. We think ministerial power should be limited. The government claims its process is open and transparent, and we think the bill should absolutely reflect that. We need to do a lot of work on Bill C-69. We hope it can be split so that three different committees can study it. After all, it affects many different acts, and we need to be able to do our work properly and take a very good look at this in committee. We also hope that the parliamentary committees will be able to travel across the country so they can hear voices outside Ottawa, voices from all over the Canadian federation.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 14th, 2018 / 5:25 p.m.


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Conservative

Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, here we are with Bill C-69, all 370 pages of it, full of mind-numbing reading and rhetoric. Do members remember when the Liberals, during the last election, and the Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, lamented, decried the fact, actually, that the occasional omnibus bill was tabled by the previous government? They railed against omnibus bills. What do we have today from the Prime Minister, his government, and the minister? It is an omnibus bill. It covers the enactment of the impact assessment act and the Canadian energy regulator act, amending the Navigation Protection Act, and consequential amendments to other acts. Talk about omnibus. In fact, we are calling it the “ominous omnibus bill.” It is ominous because of what it means to our economy and our resource sector.

The bill is toxic to Canada's future development. It is toxic to our efforts to take the resources entrusted to us and to extract them in an environmentally sensitive way to make sure that future Canadians have a pristine environment and long-term prosperity. The omnibus bill, this ominous bill, does not do that. It does quite the opposite. It undermines our ability to have long-term prosperity.

Let me start off by talking about the bill itself. There are three main parts and a fourth one. The first three parts of the bill are effectively about a new environmental assessment process, a new Canadian energy regulator, and a new navigable waters act, which, by the way, would not be about the environment. The navigable waters act would be about navigation. Those are the three parts covered in the bill itself.

Earlier last week we also saw tabled the Fisheries Act, which contains further amendments that would make it more difficult for Canadians to realize the full value of our economy and our resource sector. It would put more hurdles and obstacles in the way of extracting our natural resources and building critical infrastructure across the country, which is so important to our national prosperity.

Effectively, what would happen is this. We have the National Energy Board. The first thing that would happen is that the board would be stripped of its impact assessment functions, the ones that are used to review resource projects that come forward. I believe that every Canadian and every member of this House understands how important it is to protect the environment for future generations. We disagree on how we go about doing that. However, the impact assessment function addresses the review process that resource projects, such as pipelines, mines, and oil and gas projects, have to go through to get an approval that proves that they are environmentally sustainable and not harmful in the long term to our environment.

The second part that would be stripped from the National Energy Board would be its regulatory functions. Once projects are built, we want to make sure that they are carried on and managed sustainably. Effectively, the regulatory function ensures, through the life cycle of the project, that we protect our environment.

The third part is the navigable waters protection piece, which is all about ensuring that on waters used for navigation, we do not impose impediments to navigation and do not undertake infrastructure projects that would impede navigation.

It is interesting. Navigable water is defined as a water body in which a canoe or a kayak can float. In fact, when our former Conservative government first undertook amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, we did so because it had not been reformed for close to 150 years. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, a piece of legislation floating around that has not been really reviewed for 150 years, and that has definitions like that of navigable water being a body of water on which a canoe or a kayak can float.

Under the Liberal amendments, the navigable waters protection piece would introduce further obstacles that are not environment-related but navigation-related, and that would impair Canada's ability to build and implement critical infrastructure that drives the prosperity of this country.

Let me focus my comments on the environmental review process, the impact assessment process. This legislation would create a whole new body, called the impact assessment agency, which would oversee reviews of resource projects such as pipelines and mines. The promise we received from the minister, with which she went public, was that the process the Liberals have introduced would shorten the timelines under which a project gets reviewed, to provide better certainty for project proponents and to make sure that these projects, if they are environmentally sustainable, can get passed more quickly. Therefore, it would reduce the timeline of the assessment piece by, say, 60, 70, or 80 days.

However, what the minister did not tell Canadians is that at the beginning of the whole process there is a whole new process, called the planning phase, and that process is 180 days, so effectively the Liberals would add another 100 days onto the total process for getting any project reviewed in Canada. This is unconscionable, as investment in our resource sector is fleeing the country. As we know, over the last two years we have had incredible investment flight to places like the United States and elsewhere around the world, where there is more predictability and a more inviting investment environment. We are seeing this play out in front of our eyes, and the minister introduced a bill that would lengthen the process even more. It is shameful.

Here is the kicker. Within that 180-day planning phase, the proponent has to undertake all kinds of activities, many of them new activities, including consultations with the public. The public has a chance to share its opinions on a project that has not even gone through a science-based review. At the end of the 180 days, if the minister feels like it, usually on political grounds, she can simply kill the project right there. Can members imagine proponents coming forward with a billion-dollar proposal to develop a resource in Canada and being told that they are going to have to go through a 180-day process where they are going to have to consult with all kinds of people?

By the way, we are not opposed to consultations. What we are opposed to is consultations that unnecessarily extend the process beyond what Canadians would consider reasonable and common sense. Can members imagine a proponent facing the 180 days and dealing with all this preplanning process, and then, before the proponent has ever had a chance to have a regulatory body, the impact assessment agency, review the application based on science and evidence, the proponent is told, “Sorry, go away. We are killing the project. We do not want your investment in Canada”? Can members imagine that? That is what this bill would do.

The minister has a veto right, at the end of the planning phase, and then, if the project gets to the impact assessment process and goes through that, through all the new criteria that the minister has established, at the end it goes back to the minister and cabinet for a decision, which invariably becomes a political decision.

Anybody looking from afar, with $1 billion to invest and wondering whether to invest in Canada, would say, “At the end of the day, the Liberals are going to make a political decision, so we have no certainty at all that our project will be assessed on its merits, on the science, on the evidence.”

This legislation would also codify the duty to consult with first nations, which is already established in our laws in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has spent decades trying to frame exactly what the duty to consult is. There is a lot of case law that provides companies with a clearer idea of the standard they have to meet in order to properly consult with first nations. Conservatives do not have a problem with that. We believe that first nations need to be partners in our prosperity and they need to be consulted, and that has been enshrined in this legislation.

The legislation would also require indigenous traditional knowledge to be considered in the review. Conservatives believe that this provision reflects what Canadians expect when a project proponent wants to move forward with a resource proposal. We believe it is in Canada's best interest to consult with indigenous Canadians and take into account, during the assessment process, the traditional knowledge they can offer to that process.

I mentioned additional criteria that proponents would now have to take into account. Historically, proponents have had to apply certain criteria to ensure that no environmental damage occurs as a result of a project being built, but now my Liberal friends across the way have inserted a requirement that the applicants have to take into account both upstream and downstream effects, and the impacts a project would have on Canada's climate change targets: new hurdles, new criteria, new discouragement for investment in Canada. We should not for a minute think that investors are not paying attention to the debate we are having in the House today and the legislation that is before us. As I mentioned earlier, this legislation is toxic to our long-term prosperity.

Another thing included in this legislation is a broad discretion for the minister to extend, and even suspend, timelines. People think they have 180 days, and then another 300 days for certain projects, and another 450 days for other projects. No, the minister can step in at any point along the timeline and say he is suspending the timelines and that other things are going to be done, removing predictability, which is what investors in the resource sector covet most.

The bottom line is that additional uncertainty has been injected into our investment environment. The resource sector in Canada is responsible for some 16% of our economy. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, 16%. Two million jobs are either directly or indirectly related to our resource sector. Two million Canadians rely on us, as legislators, to get this right, to make sure we balance the environment and the economy.

The minister often talks about the environment and the economy going hand in hand. The problem is that she has no idea what that appropriate balance is, and more and more the Liberal government is leaning to the left, toward the environment, to the detriment of our economy and long-term prosperity. Do not get me wrong, Mr. Speaker. The environment, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, is critically important because we are leaving a legacy for our children and grandchildren, for future generations. We need to ensure that we leave them a pristine environment. Quite frankly, if we try to do that in the absence of prosperity, it is never going to happen.

Why do I say that? If we look around the world, which countries have the highest environmental standards? They are also the most prosperous countries in the world. Prosperity and the environment go together.

The intentions of the Liberal government, of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Environment, may be good, but unfortunately they have it all wrong. They have not been listening to the concerns of those who make a living from our resource sector, those who know the millions of jobs generated by that sector. No one should be surprised that we completely disagree with this legislation, and some of my colleagues in the Conservative Party will continue to highlight that in future speeches.

Earlier today, the minister said her goal was to basically develop a policy and introduce legislation where there would be no surprises and no drama. Unfortunately, she missed one piece: no surprises, no drama, no development. Our prosperity is at risk here, and I encourage my colleagues on the other side who are listening to this debate to please give their heads a shake. The more barriers we place in the way of extracting our resources in a sustainable way, the more we undermine the future prosperity of our children and grandchildren, of future generations.

Let me close by saying that there is one bottom line. The legislation ensures more uncertainty, longer timelines, and less investment in our resource sector, which equals less prosperity for Canada. That really is a shame, because we are cheating future generations out of the value that has been left to us as a legacy.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 14th, 2018 / 5:15 p.m.


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Liberal

Catherine McKenna Liberal Ottawa Centre, ON

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question.

All our decisions certainly have to respect our environmental and climate change obligations. We have negotiated with the provinces and territories a made-in-Canada plan to fight climate change and we must ensure that every project falls in line with that plan. Under Bill C-69, it is clear that we will consider the impact projects will have on the climate.

We also said that we wanted to conduct a strategic environmental assessment to ensure that the projects fit with the climate change action plan. We worked very hard on our Canadian plan to fight climate change and we have international obligations that we are determined to satisfy. It is very important to our government.

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Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders

February 14th, 2018 / 4:55 p.m.


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Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change

moved that Bill C-69, 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, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I wish to acknowledge that we are all on the traditional territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe peoples. On this historic day, the Government of Canada has committed to developing a new recognition and implementation of an indigenous rights framework.

I stand here today to address this chamber in support of Bill C-69, a legislative initiative that is a key priority of our government. We are keeping our promise to Canadians. We are putting in place better rules to protect our environment and build a stronger economy. After 14 months of hearing from provinces and territories, indigenous peoples, companies, environmental groups, and Canadians from coast to coast to coast, we are making real changes.

Bill C-69 aims to restore public trust in how the federal government makes decisions about major projects, such as mines, pipelines, and hydro dams. These better rules are designed to protect our environment while improving investor confidence, strengthening our economy, and creating good middle-class jobs. They will also make the Canadian energy and resource sectors more competitive. We are working to build on Canada's strong economic growth and historic job numbers.

Today we are keeping our promise to Canadians. We are putting in place better rules to protect our environment and build a stronger economy. After 14 months of hearing from provinces and territories, indigenous peoples, companies, environmental groups, and Canadians across the country, we are making real changes. The legislation we are introducing today aims to restore public trust in how the federal government makes decisions about major projects, like mines, pipelines, and hydro dams. These better rules are designed to protect our environment while improving investor confidence, strengthening our economy and creating good middle-class jobs. They will also make the Canadian energy and resource sectors more competitive. We are working to build on Canada’s strong economic growth and historic job numbers.

Our government understands the importance of the resource sector to our economy. Over $500 billion in major resource projects are planned across Canada over the next decade. These projects would mean tens of thousands of well-paying jobs across the country and provide an economic boost for nearby communities and our economy as a whole, but we cannot get there without better rules to guide our decisions around resource development. Unfortunately, the Harper government gutted environmental protections and made changes to the environmental assessment process that eroded public trust in how decisions are made.

Unfortunately, the Harper government gutted environmental protections and made changes to the environmental assessment process that eroded public trust in how decisions are made.

Canadians became concerned that project approvals were based on politics rather than robust science. There were concerns that changes were putting our fish, waterways, and communities at risk and we are not taking into account the climate impacts of projects. They were also concerned that the views of communities and indigenous peoples were not being heard. This lack of trust resulted in polarization and paralysis. Projects stalled and resource development became a lightning rod for public opposition and court challenges. Billions of dollars of investment were put in jeopardy, raising concerns for investors and shareholders. Ironically, the Harper government's changes made it a lot more challenging for good projects to get built. Weaker rules hurt both our environment and our economy.

Since we formed government, we have worked very hard to restore public trust while providing certainty to business. In January 2016, we introduced interim principles to guide how our government would review proposed major projects until we could put better rules in place. We knew we could not keep approving projects under the Harper government's flawed rules, but we also knew that we could not put our economic development on hold for two years while we worked on the new rules.

Our recent principles were the first part of delivering on one of our high priority platform commitments: to review and fix Canada's environmental assessment process and to restore confidence in how decisions about resource development are made. Those interim principles made it clear that decisions would be based on robust science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge; that we would listen to the views of Canadians and communities that could be affected by proposed projects; that indigenous peoples would be consulted in a meaningful and respectful manner; that decisions would take into account the climate impacts of proposed projects; and that no project already under review would be sent back to the starting line.

Our government did not stop at the interim principles. In November 2016, we also announced a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan. Through that historic investment we are creating a world-class marine safety system while protecting our coastlines and clean waters for generations to come. Then in the summer of 2016, after a year of negotiations with provinces, territories, and indigenous leaders, we announced the first ever made-in-Canada climate plan. Our national climate plan builds on the actions of provinces and territories and provides a clear road map as to how we will cut carbon pollution and move together toward a cleaner future.

Using the interim principles, and building on the foundations of our oceans protection plan and climate action plan, we moved forward with approving new major projects worth billions of dollars to the Canadian economy and thousands of good middle-class jobs across the country. These projects are clearly in the national interest, and because of the steps we have taken to date, we are confident they can be built in a way that protects our environment and communities. We are committed to seeing them built.

The better rules outlined in Bill C-69 build on improvements we have already made and on the feedback that we received from Canadians over the last 14 months. We heard loud and clear that Canadians want a modern environmental and regulatory system that protects the environment, supports reconciliation with indigenous peoples, attracts investment, and ensures that good projects go ahead in a timely way to create new jobs and economic opportunities for the middle class. We heard from investors and project proponents that they want a clear, predictable, and timely process. That is what our better rules provide.

First, these better rules will rebuild trust. When it comes to resource development, we cannot get very far if people do not trust the rules and the way governments make decisions. The same goes for companies. They need to know what is expected of them from the start and that the process will be predictable, timely, and evidence-based. That is why our top priority with the changes we are proposing is increasing transparency and rebuilding trust.

To rebuild trust, we will increase public participation in project reviews so that Canadians can help shape the project design, provide input into the project plan, and assess the science used to make decisions. We will create a new early engagement phase, to ensure that indigenous peoples’ rights are recognized and respected, and that we work in partnership from the outset; and that communities will have their voices heard from the start.

We will create a single agency, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, that will lead all impact assessments for major projects, to ensure the approach is consistent and efficient.

The impact assessment agency of Canada will work with and draw expertise from other bodies, such as the Canadian energy regulator, which is currently the National Energy Board, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and offshore boards, but the final decision on major projects will rest with me or with the federal cabinet, because our government is ultimately accountable to Canadians for the decisions we make in the national interest.

Second, decisions on projects will be transparent and guided by robust science, evidence, and indigenous traditional knowledge. We will also increase Canadians' access to the science and evidence behind project proposals and make easy-to-understand summaries of decisions publicly available.

Third, we are expanding project reviews to assess what matters to Canadians. The new impact assessment will look at a project's potential impacts, not just on the environment but also its health, social, gender, and economic impacts over the long term as well as the impacts on indigenous peoples. We will also evaluate projects against our environmental obligations and national climate plan.

Fourth, we will advance Canada's commitment to reconciliation and get to better project decisions by recognizing indigenous rights and working in partnership from the start. We will make it mandatory to consider indigenous traditional knowledge alongside science and other evidence. Indigenous jurisdictions would have greater opportunities to exercise powers and duties under the new impact assessment act, and we would increase the funding available to support indigenous participation and capacity development relating to assessing and monitoring the impacts of projects.

Fifth, project reviews will be completed through a timely and predictable process. The new early planning and engagement phase would provide clarity on what is required and more certainty about the process ahead. Shorter legislated timelines for the project review phase will be rigorously managed to keep the process on track. A more efficient and predictable process will lead to more timely decisions.

Finally, we will streamline the process and coordinate with the provinces and territories to reduce red tape for companies and avoid duplicating efforts in reviewing proposed projects. Our goal is one project, one review.

We have also announced that we are seeking Canadians' feedback on how we will change the project list regulations that define the types of projects that would be subject to impact assessment. The project list aims to make it easier for everyone to understand when the new rules will apply, providing certainty that both Canadians and companies need and expect.

The Harper government's project list was a grab bag of projects developed in a non-transparent way, and based on political motives, not the public interest. The project list is meant to identify the types of projects that pose significant risks to the environment in areas that fall under federal jurisdiction. These projects will always require federal review.

We want to hear from Canadians on the criteria to revise the project list to ensure that they are more robust and effective and that they include criteria such as environmental objectives and standards for clean air, water and climate change.

The new rules outlined in Bill C-69 must undergo a thorough review in the House and the Senate until they come into effect. Existing laws and interim principles for project reviews will continue to apply to projects under review.

In terms of changes to other statutes as part of our government's regulatory review, we are also proposing changes to the Canadian Navigable Waters Act, and in Bill C-68, to the Fisheries Act, as was announced by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard last week. These changes would better protect waterways, fish, and fish habitat.

The Canadian Navigable Waters Act will restore navigation protection for every navigable waterway in Canada. Changes to the Fisheries Act will add important new safeguards for our fisheries, including measures to rebuild damaged fish stocks and restore degraded habitat, ensuring that our fisheries and environment are protected for future generations.

Of course, none of these proposed changes mean much without providing the extra capacity needed to deliver on our commitments. That is why we are investing up to $1 billion over five years to support the proposed changes to impact assessments and the Canadian energy regulator; increased scientific capacity in federal departments and agencies; changes required to protect water, fish, and navigation; and increased indigenous and public participation.

I am extremely proud today that we are delivering on one of our major campaign promises. I want to thank Canadians from coast to coast to coast for all of their valuable input which will help ensure better rules to make our environment and grow the economy.

We know that the changes we are announcing today in Bill C-69 will not satisfy everyone. People who tend to distrust business and want no project to go ahead will say we are doing too little to protect our environment. Those who want every project to go ahead whatever the environmental cost will say we are doing too little to support resource development. However, the better rules we are announcing today in Bill C-69 reflect what we have heard overwhelmingly and consistently from Canadians over the past year and a half.

Canadians want a modern environmental and regulatory system that protects the environment, supports reconciliation with indigenous peoples, attracts investment, and ensures good projects can go ahead, which creates middle-class jobs and grows our economy. Canadians understand that better rules will make us more competitive, not less. Canadians understand that the environment and the economy go together.

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Fisheries ActGovernment Orders

February 13th, 2018 / 4:30 p.m.


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NDP

Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague across the floor for her work on this, and for bringing in both Bill C-68 and Bill C-69.

My riding of Kootenay—Columbia was Conservative for 21 years. Quite frankly, it was the Conservative government's attack on environmental legislation, including the Fisheries Act, Navigable Waters Act, and the Environmental Assessment Act, that led to the change in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia.

I was a regional manager with Fish and Wildlife for southeastern B.C. from 2002 to 2009. At the time, there was a DFO office in the Kootenays that had four staff working in it. They showed me a staffing chart. They were supposed to go to 12 staff, but by the time 2015 came along, there was not one DFO staff left in the Kootenays.

Would the member support re-establishing a DFO office in Kootenay—Columbia in the southeastern part of B.C.?

As spoken

The EnvironmentOral Questions

February 13th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


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NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised to actually strengthen the environmental assessment process gutted by the Conservatives. It is still in place. They promised to remove political considerations from assessments and base decisions on project approvals on scientific evidence, yet Bill C-69 retains the government's ability to disregard scientific evidence, traditional knowledge, identification of adverse impacts, health risks, and community concerns, and still deem the project to be in the public interest.

How can the Minister of Environment defend this bill as a strengthened law?

As spoken

The EnvironmentOral Questions

February 13th, 2018 / 2:40 p.m.


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Conservative

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

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives implemented a rigorous environmental assessment process enabling Canada to meet its economic and energy needs, all while ensuring that approval decisions are based on science. With Bill C-69, the Liberals are trying to turn this process upside down, even though it works very well.

Can the minister tell us which projects approved under the former process she does not agree with? Which projects would she like to see fail?

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The EnvironmentAdjournment Proceedings

February 12th, 2018 / 7:25 p.m.


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Kanata—Carleton Ontario

Liberal

Karen McCrimmon LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her tireless commitment to environmental protection. She has made a difference.

Our government committed to restoring navigation protections, and that is what it has done. On Thursday, our government introduced Bill C-69, which contains amendments to the Navigation Protection Act and would create the new Canadian navigable waters act.

This new act is informed by a study conducted by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, as well as 14 months of listening to Canadians, including indigenous peoples, boaters, industry, other levels of government, environmental non-government organizations, and the Canadian public.

The new Canadian navigable waters act delivers on our government's mandate commitment to restore and better protect the rights of Canadians to travel on Canada's vast network of waters. It will do this by introducing navigation protections for every navigable water in Canada, increasing transparency in our processes, giving indigenous people and communities a say in projects that may affect them, and by providing opportunities for indigenous people to become partners in protecting navigation.

Indigenous peoples have a sacred relationship with waterways and use those waterways to exercise their rights. This is why the Canadian navigable waters act is an important opportunity to advance our government's commitment to reconciliation with indigenous peoples based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation, and partnership.

Indigenous people have told us they want more information about development on the navigable waters in their traditional territories. The Canadian navigable waters act proposes new notification requirements and the creation of a public registry that would make information available about new projects in all navigable waters in Canada. It also proposes a new process that would allow indigenous people and communities to raise concerns about projects with project proponents, and for the government to assist with resolving these concerns when needed.

The proposed Canadian navigable waters act is aligned with the principles and approaches of the broader environmental and regulatory system introduced by my colleague, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, on February 8. Any permitting decisions under the Canadian navigable waters act will be fully integrated into this new impact assessment system so that we can protect our environment, fish, and waterways, rebuild public trust, and create new jobs and economic activity.

Together, we are committed to implementing a new environmental and regulatory system that responds to the needs of Canadians.

As spoken

The EnvironmentAdjournment Proceedings

February 12th, 2018 / 7:20 p.m.


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Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise this evening in adjournment proceedings to return to a question I asked on October 23 of last year. Some will remember this question only for the uproarious laughter that ensued, most inappropriately, as some members in this place thought the Minister of Transport had misspoken. He referred to the kind of sense of shared commitment the opposition benches all felt in opposing the omnibus budget bills put forward by the previous government.

In the spring of 2012, the omnibus budget bill, Bill C-38, repealed our environmental assessment act and destroyed the Fisheries Act. We fought very hard against that, and then in the fall of the same year, there was another omnibus budget bill, Bill C-45, that gutted the navigable waters protection act. In referring to that, the hon. Minister of Transport referred to remembering spending the whole night with me, which of course, was in this House over 24 hours of straight voting. Very few members actually stayed in their seats voting continually on every amendment and every motion, but since most of the amendments were mine, I stayed here in my seat for 24 hours voting straight through. It certainly was not an occasion for raucous laughter, but we know sometimes people in this place do not rise to the occasion. They sink to grade two or maybe kindergarten.

In any case, I want to return to that, because now we have seen the proposed amendments to the Navigation Protection Act. In fact, they were tabled in this place just last week. I have reviewed them thoroughly. I had extreme concern, which I raised in my question, that the Minister of Transport was not likely to meet the mandate letter, in which the Prime Minister had instructed him to restore lost protections to the Navigation Protection Act. It appeared from discussion papers and from the report of the parliamentary committee on transportation that the government was going to be prepared to say that this is what the previous government did, that it took some 99% of navigable waters from our inland waterways out of the act and created a short list of about 100 named waterways that are internal to Canada, and that is that. If a waterway is on that list, it is navigable water. If it is not on the list, it is not. It appeared for quite a while that the Liberal approach would be to say that they would create a system whereby people could add waters to the list by application.

It was a real relief, in reading Bill C-69, one of the few places in reading that bill that I was actually relieved, that the definition of navigable waters has been changed such that it is not just the schedule of waterways that will be considered navigable waters but any waterway human beings are currently using. It would not be as broad as what there was in 1881, but any body of water, anywhere in Canada, in which one could put a canoe or a kayak and navigate one's way through would require a permit from the federal minister before that body of water could be obstructed. It is much broader than it was under Harper. It is not a complete restoration of lost protections, but a much bigger swath of interior waters of Canada would now be under a navigable waters act.

One of the aspects of the lost protection was that the issuance of a federal permit would trigger an environmental review. Under part 1 of Bill C-69, we would now have what would be called an impact assessment, but without any triggering to review projects where a federal minister had to give a permit. We await finding out what the designated projects would look like, but it would still fall short of what was promised.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

February 12th, 2018 / 5:20 p.m.


See context

Liberal

Kim Rudd Liberal Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON

Mr. Speaker, the oceans protection plan is historic, with a world-leading $1.5 billion to protect our beautiful coasts. In addition, in part of the bill put forward last week, Bill C-69, there is a component on transportation, fisheries, and oceans. It is important to remember that it is not about each piece individually. It is the importance of all those pieces coming together to ensure that we are able to get our resources to market, and protect our environment, and protect our coastlines.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

February 12th, 2018 / 5:10 p.m.


See context

Northumberland—Peterborough South Ontario

Liberal

Kim Rudd LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member for Lakeland understands, as do those of us on this side of the House, how important the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline is not only to her own province of Alberta but to the entire country. I am also pleased to see that the motion refers to two key points behind our government's approval of the TMX pipeline. The first is that the pipeline is in the national interest and will create good paying jobs for Canadians. Second, if we want to sell our resources to the world, we have to provide access to those markets. Our government has never wavered in standing behind its decision to approve this project.

The Prime Minister has made the case for it on many occasions, both in the House and elsewhere, including in Alberta and British Columbia. The Minister of Natural Resources has taken that same message across Canada, including just last week in Calgary and in his speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade a couple of months before that.

I do not understand how the hon. members on the other side could believe that this pipeline is anything but a priority for our government. Our position is clear. The TMX pipeline has been important to Canada since it was originally constructed in 1953, and it will be important to our future. It will be built.

This expanded pipeline will help diversify our markets. It comes with improved environmental safety, and it will create thousands of good middle-class jobs, including in indigenous communities. The TMX pipeline will also contribute to our government’s plan to make Canada a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

How? As the Minister of Natural Resources has said, by using this time of transition to Canada's advantage, building the infrastructure to get our resources to global markets, and using the revenues it generates to invest in innovative, cleaner forms of energy, in other words, leveraging the fossil fuel resources we have today and the innovation they provide to deliver clean energy solutions for tomorrow. That is the same message we heard from Canadians through Generation Energy, a historic natural discussion to imagine Canada's energy future for our children and their children.

Canadians have told us by the hundreds of thousands that they want a thriving, low-carbon economy. They want us to be a leader in clean technologies. They also want an energy system that provides equal opportunities to Canadians, without harming the environment. They also understand we are not there yet, which means continuing to support our oil and gas industry, even as we develop sources of renewable energy, such as biomass, solar, tidal, nuclear, and wind.

This is the same approach we are taking as we work with the provinces and territories to develop a Canadian energy strategy, one that seeks common ground and shared purpose, leveraging our traditional resources while promoting renewable sources of energy, enhancing energy efficiency, and investing in clean technology. TMX fits within all of this.

We are under no illusions that everyone would agree with our approval of TMX. Many Canadians, including a number in Lower Mainland, British Columbia oppose the pipeline. Our government understands and shares British Columbians' sense of responsibility for Canada's spectacular west coast, which is why we took the time to get our TMX decision right, based on the best science, and the widest possible consultation.

At a time when the government of British Columbia has announced its own intention to consult, it is important to remember the broad consultation that has already taken place. The National Energy Board concluded a thorough review of TMX, and recommended that we approve the project, subject to 157 binding conditions.

To enable even more voices to be heard, however, the Minister of Natural Resources also appointed a special ministerial panel to hold additional hearings. The panel held 44 public meetings, hearing more than 600 presentations, and received some 20,000 submissions by email.

At the same time, we made the single largest investment ever to protect Canada's oceans and coastlines, with the $1.5 billion oceans protection plan, which was needed whether the TMX was expanded or not. It is an oceans protection plan that will improve regional plans with key partners, particularly coastal and indigenous communities that have irreplaceable on-the-ground and traditional knowledge. This generational investment in ocean safety addresses concerns about spill prevention and responses and provides significant additional protections for Burrard Inlet and the Salish Sea.

In approving TMX, we have also done something unprecedented in Canada. We have co-developed an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee to help oversee the safety of a major energy project through its entire life cycle. Our approval of TMX also fits within our international commitments on climate change and will be required to operate within the hard cap on emissions set by Alberta's climate plan. In fact, TMX, the line 3 replacement pipeline, and the proposed Keystone XL pipeline together will be required to stay within the 100 megatonne limit set by Alberta.

Finally, it is worth making the point that Canada will continue to produce oil and ship it across the country, whether new pipelines are built or not. What is indisputable is that pipelines are by far the safest means. The Pipeline Safety Act strengthens this by enshrining the principle of polluter pays. It makes companies liable, regardless of fault, for $1 billion in the case of major pipelines, and requires them to have the financial resources to respond to potential incidents.

Once the TMX is up and running, it will give Canadian energy a route to world markets, providing Canadians with something they have not had before: options. For the first time, we can export our energy where we can obtain the best price. Market decisions, not a monopoly buyer, will determine our strategy.

Those who believe that stopping TMX is a win overlook what would be lost: jobs, income, investment in the energy transition, and opportunity. As the world continues to make the transition to a low-carbon future, we need sensible, sustainable approaches, ones that understand that the path to a low-carbon future may be long, but its trajectory is clear. Our responsibility is to use this time wisely by improving the environmental performance of traditional energy sources while developing new ones, by investing in both pipelines and clean technologies, and by engaging indigenous peoples as never before. That is exactly what we have been doing.

We are demonstrating that we can grow the economy significantly while protecting the environment, that the two can, and indeed must, go together. The legislation we introduced last week, Bill C-69, is the clearest proof of that. It would offer a new approach to assessing and reviewing major new resource projects, a modern way to ensure that good resource projects were built in a responsible, timely, and transparent way.

This is our plan for Canada, a plan that points us to a stronger economy and a cleaner environment. I invite the hon. members opposite and the member for Lakeland to get behind this nation-building plan, to work with us rather than using this opportunity to further ignite tensions. Let us build a brighter future for Albertans, British Columbians, and indeed, all Canadians together.

Partially translated

Opposition Motion—Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

February 12th, 2018 / 3:15 p.m.


See context

Edmonton Mill Woods Alberta

Liberal

Amarjeet Sohi LiberalMinister of Infrastructure and Communities

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Lakeland for her motion on a matter of such importance, not only to our shared province of Alberta, but to British Columbia and indeed all of Canada.

As an Albertan, I am proud that our government, after extensive consultation, approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Before I go into why we approved this pipeline, let me first remind the hon. member how her party, under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, failed to protect the interests of Alberta's resource sector. For 10 years, Harper Conservatives talked the good talk but failed to build a single pipeline to take our oil to non-U.S. markets.

I would also like to remind the hon. member that the struggles Alberta families and workers have faced in the last number of years started when her party was in power. More than 25,000 energy sector jobs were lost in the last year of the Harper government. What did it do to help those workers and families? It did absolutely nothing. It even held back infrastructure investments of nearly $1 billion that could have helped those struggling families to gain jobs. I guess that criticizing Premier Notley and the Government of Alberta was more important to the Harper government than helping struggling Alberta families.

When we took office, we immediately started looking for solutions to help Alberta workers and families. In March 2016, we provided $252 million in fiscal stabilization funding to the Government of Alberta. At the same time, we significantly extended employment insurance benefits for all Albertans who needed them. As a result, over 100,000 workers received more than $400 million for five additional weeks of EI support.

Very early in 2016, Export Development Canada provided $750 million in financing, guarantees, bonding instruments, and insurance to oil and gas companies. In July 2016, the Business Development Bank of Canada and ATB Financial partnered to provide $1 billion aimed at making more capital available for small and medium-sized businesses in Alberta. In March 2017, our government announced $30 million, which unlocked $235 million to accelerate the cleanup of orphan wells over the next three years.

My department, Infrastructure Canada, has provided support to almost 200 provincial, municipal, and indigenous infrastructure projects, leading to over $4 billion of joint investment in infrastructure over the coming years. This is on top of the $200 million that flows from the federal government to Alberta communities yearly through the federal gas tax program.

Finally, our government approved two oil and two gas pipelines, including Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion, which will help get more of our resources to the markets we already have and open up new markets so we are not so reliant on our neighbour to the south to buy our oil.

We approved Kinder Morgan because it is in the interest of Canada. It is in the interest of Canada to create thousands of jobs in virtually every part of the country. It is in the interest of Canada to create a way for our resources to get to the global markets. It is in the interest of Canada to receive a fairer price for those resources. It is in the interest of Canada to partner with indigenous communities, respect and recognize their rights, and ensure that traditional knowledge is integrated into our decisions. It is in the interest of Canada to develop its resources in a way that does not compromise the environment.

The previous government generated complete uncertainty, widespread public mistrust, and a total inability to get a major energy project built. That approach did not work, as demonstrated by the Federal Court of Appeal ruling that overturned the Harper government's approval of the northern gateway pipeline because it failed to consult with indigenous peoples.

Since coming to office, our government has been guided by a simple but profound belief: that the economy and the environment must go hand in hand. In effect, the only way to have a dynamic economy is to ensure that it is done in a sustainable environment. We also know that good projects, such as the Trans Mountain expansion, will not get built unless they carry the confidence of Canadians.

That is why, in January 2016, the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change introduced a set of interim principles to move forward on projects already under review. These principles reflect our priorities: maintaining certainty for investors, expanding public consultation, enhancing indigenous engagement, and including greenhouse gas emissions in our project approvals and assessments. The benefits of the interim principles were felt immediately.

However, our goal has always been a permanent fix to Canada's environmental assessments. That is why, just seven months into our mandate, we launched a comprehensive review that included modernizing the National Energy Board, protecting our fish, and preserving our waterways. We appointed expert panels, enlisted parliamentarians, released a discussion paper, and consulted Canadians every step of the way, listening more than we spoke.

Last week, our government revealed the fruits of those efforts with a new plan for reviewing major resource projects. Introduced last Thursday by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Bill C-69 has the potential to transform our natural resource sectors, providing project proponents with clearer rules and greater certainty while ensuring that local communities have more input and the rights of indigenous people are respected and recognized.

The Trans Mountain expansion decision was consistent with this approach. It was accompanied by a historic investment of $1.5 billion in the oceans protection plan, an unprecedented commitment to safeguard our coasts and partner with indigenous and coastal communities to ensure the health of our waters, shores, and marine life. That is how we have demonstrated our commitment to the environment. That is how we will ensure that economic growth comes because of, not at the expense of, protecting the environment.

I am delighted to see the hon. member supporting the TMX pipeline. Unfortunately, she has chosen to use this as an opportunity for wedge politics instead of nation building. She asks the government to take action. As the Minister of Natural Resources has pointed out, that advice, while welcome, is late.

The Prime Minister reached out to Premier Notley and Premier Horgan shortly after this issue arose. The Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Environment and Climate Change have been having discussions with their counterparts, and high-level officials from our government have flown out to British Columbia to seek a resolution. I have no doubt that a way forward can be found. It is in our national interest, and in the interest of the Government of Canada, to speak with some degree of moderation in encouraging a path forward to achieve the objective, which is to get this project built.

As the Minister of Natural Resources has already pointed out, our government consulted widely on the TMX. The National Energy Board conducted a thorough review and recommended approval with 157 binding conditions. The minister then extended the process and appointed a special ministerial panel to hold additional hearings, allowing even more people to participate. Our government believes in consulting with Canadians, and we are certainly not going to try to stop a provincial government from doing the same.

Let me be very clear. Any proposed regulation by the B.C. government to attempt to limit the flow of bitumen through the pipeline would be outside provincial jurisdiction. We approved the federally regulated pipeline project that will create thousands of good, well-paying jobs across Canada, and we stand by that decision.

In December, we intervened with the National Energy Board when the City of Burnaby attempted to delay the permitting process. At that time, the board created a dedicated process to resolve future permitting delays, should they arise. In that case, there was a specific action to challenge. At the moment, there is no comparable initiative by the Government of British Columbia.

This is not a time to fan the flames of division or to set parties hunkering down in one section of the Constitution Act or another. Now is the time for a measured, thoughtful, and appropriate response, one that responds to actions, not intentions. Should the Government of British Columbia attempt to impose unacceptable delays or take any other action that is not within its jurisdiction, our government will act as any other reasonable and responsible government would.

As a member of Parliament from Edmonton, Alberta, I know first-hand the importance of projects such as TMX to our communities. When our government was elected, Alberta's economy was struggling. Resource prices were down. Unemployment was up, and too many of my friends, neighbours, and fellow Albertans were suffering through a significant economic downturn. Our federal government recognized that Alberta and other resource economies needed help, and we stepped up to provide that assistance. The approval of the Kinder Morgan TMX is part of that effort to help the global economy and to create jobs for Albertans and for Canadians. That is why TMX is so important. That is why our government approved it. That is why we have criss-crossed the country supporting it, and that is why we will make sure that it is built.

As spoken

Opposition Motion—Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

February 12th, 2018 / 12:30 p.m.


See context

Winnipeg South Centre Manitoba

Liberal

Jim Carr LiberalMinister of Natural Resources

Madam Speaker, it is with disappointment that I join this debate.

Canadians look to their national Parliament for steady leadership and aspirational thinking. They look to us to unite our country and build our nation. Instead, they have seen too many examples of something quite different today. They see a motion seemingly designed to provoke anger and inflame anxiety, members who prefer to point fingers and sow division. At times, I have even wondered if the main purpose of this debate is to fan regional tensions and reopen historical grievances. We are better than that.

The world has reached a turning point. Climate change represents our generation's greatest challenge, and investing in a low-carbon future is the new norm.

Canada is uniquely positioned to rise to this occasion and to be a global leader, thanks to the resources of our country and the resourcefulness of our people. This is our government's vision for Canada in this clean growth century. It is a vision that brings all Canadians together under common cause, and one that includes using this time of transition to Canada's advantage, building the infrastructure we need to get our resources to global markets, and using the revenues they generate to invest in that future. That is what we are doing.

This is why our government is working with officials in Alberta and British Columbia to get a resolution on TMX. Prime Minister to premiers, ministers to ministers, and senior officials in each government, everyone working in good faith and without an artificial deadline, which is why the motion before us is misguided.

To suggest that the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline is not of the utmost importance to our government is the height of folly, and it flies in the face of the facts. The Prime Minister has been very clear about our government's position. As he said in Edmonton earlier this month, “That pipeline is going to get built”. He then added, “We need this pipeline and we’re going to move forward with it responsibly”. Nothing could be more certain, which means there is no need for a motion to tell our government to use all of the tools available to it, and certainly no reason for deadlines or ultimatums.

Interprovincial pipelines are the responsibility of the federal government, and a responsibility that our government takes seriously, respects, and will defend. When making decisions on interprovincial pipeline projects, it is our duty to act in the national interest, which is exactly what we did in approving the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline.

There is an indigenous proverb that says, “We do not inherit this land from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” This perspective has inspired our government throughout its first two years in office. It is the reason we believe the economy and the environment must go hand in hand, and it was the motivation behind the launch of Generation Energy, the largest national discussion about energy in Canadian history.

I want to take a moment to remind the House what happened during Generation Energy, because, years from now, Canadians may very well look back and say that Generation Energy was a turning point, that it marked our emergence as a global leader in the transition to a low-carbon economy. We invited Canadians to imagine Canada's energy future, and they responded, joining the conversation by the hundreds of thousands, with hundreds more descending on my home city of Winnipeg for a two-day discussion on Generation Energy last fall. Let us reflect on that fact for a moment.

The people who came to Winnipeg for Generation Energy came from every corner of our country and from around the world. They came from Norway, France, Mexico, and the United States. They came from every sector of the energy industry: oil and gas, wind, solar, nuclear, electricity. Respected indigenous leaders, business leaders, community leaders, youth leaders, they were all there. It was only the Conservative Party that chose to send no one. People who may never have spoken to each other before were in the same room, challenging each other and themselves.

Suddenly, the questions became even more pressing, questions such as “What happens now?” and “What if our individual choices could add to transformational change?” Generation Energy tapped into something unexpected and unstoppable. Our government is building these ideas into a Canadian energy strategy, working with the provinces and territories to expand what they have already done: leveraging the fossil fuel resources we have today to deliver clean energy solutions for tomorrow; planning our energy future to align with a global transition to a low-carbon economy; leaning on shared priorities such as energy efficient, clean technologies, and green infrastructure; and linking those provinces that have an abundance of clean electricity with those trying to get there.

We do not share the views of those who would simply pump as much oil as we can as fast as we can, nor do we agree with those who say that we should leave all the oil in the ground and never build a single pipeline. Both sides miss the point that we can and must grow the economy while protecting our environment for future generations. How do we do both? One certainly does not take the approach of the Harper government, which was to ignore indigenous rights, climate change, and the environment in the name of economic development at any cost. One does it by fully respecting indigenous rights, climate change, and the environment as essential components of economic development.

To the hon. member and her party opposite, I offer a stroll down memory lane. This is an important point. The moment Harper decided to use all tools available in the sole name of pipelines was the moment he lost the trust of Canadians. To refresh our memories, the member opposite's government was focused on exempting pipelines from environmental assessments, treating environmentalists as terrorists, removing the ability for environmental groups to speak out, stripping the ability of Canadians to participate in project reviews, and using taxpayers' money to investigate any organization that cared about the environment, and eliminating decades' worth of legislation in one fell swoop. Harper truly did use all the tools he could find to dismantle anything standing in the way of rapid and unchecked resource development. What the Harper government never understood was that ignoring something does not mean it will go away.

When our government was elected by Canadians, we knew public trust was gone. We rolled up our sleeves to fix the mess the Harper government left behind. First, we launched a new interim approach to environmental assessments in Canada. Within weeks of taking office, we launched a different approach to major project reviews that put indigenous rights, science, environmental protection, and transparent and open public consultation front and centre. The Harper government removed all these things in the name of jamming things through. It did not work. We put these principles back, maintaining certainty for investors, expanding public consultation, enhancing indigenous engagement, and including greenhouse gas emissions in our project assessments.

Second, we acted on climate change. We ensured the Paris Agreement on climate change was ambitious. The House, including the members opposite, supported that agreement. We signed it, ratified it, and launched the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, which included Alberta's hard cap on oil sands emissions. This was the first climate change plan in the history of the country that was developed hand in hand with provinces and territories, as well as with first nations, Métis, and Inuit. For the first time in the history of this country, we launched a federal plan to put a price on carbon pollution. For the record, we are nearly 30 years behind countries such as Norway in pricing carbon pollution, and it seems to be doing okay.

Third, we acted on oceans protection. We launched the single largest investment in Canada's oceans in this country's history, $1.5 billion. It is the largest investment in the Canadian Coast Guard in a generation. We looked to the world's leading ocean protectors, Alaska and Norway, and we said that we should match or beat them, and we have. Once implemented, Canada will have the best oceans protection measures in the entire world. Canada has oil, gas, and fuel being shipped through, from, or to all three of our coasts, and we have had this for over 60 years. With this comes great responsibility to protect our oceans.

Let us be clear, these three things would have happened, pipeline or no pipeline. However, these three crucial plans had to be implemented because the Harper government eliminated climate change action and oceans protections in its own efforts to use all tools humanly possible in the name of pipelines.

Fourth, we approved three pipelines, the Trans Mountain expansion, Line 3, and Nova Gas, and denied one, the northern gateway pipeline. All those decisions were made based on the national interest, sound science and evidence, full public consultation, and upholding the rights of the indigenous peoples. Most importantly, all of these decisions took into account everything we had done before: a new method of doing environmental assessments, ensuring these projects fit within Canada's climate change action plan, making sure we have the world's safest and strongest oceans protections plan, and ensuring indigenous rights were held up.

Regarding the northern gateway pipeline, the vast majority of indigenous communities were opposed to the project. The Harper government's insufficient consultations and complete lack of scientific considerations or public engagement meant that it completely missed the fact that the Great Bear Rainforest was no place for a pipeline. The Federal Court of Appeal, in its judgment that quashed northern gateway, was not critical of the proponent or the regulator but of the Harper government.

On the Trans Mountain expansion project, the majority of indigenous communities were in support. Today, 42 have impact benefit agreements, while six exercised their rights in court.

Through re-establishing transparent and open public consultations, a process the Harper government had dismantled, we heard from thousands of Canadians who told us we have a responsibility to get our resources to market, to take action to protect the environment, and to create good-paying, middle-class jobs.

We launched a special ministerial panel of distinguished Canadians. They were appointed to travel up and down the length of the proposed pipeline route, ensuring indigenous peoples and local communities were thoroughly heard. For the first time, we made the record of those decisions public on the Internet for all Canadians to see.

We also carefully considered the findings of the National Energy Board. For the first time, the Government of Canada co-developed, with first nations and Métis leaders, the indigenous advisory and monitoring committee for both Line 3 and the TMX. We are investing $64.7 million over five years in these communities, which are essential to ensure the companies live up to their promises and fully engage rights holders throughout the entire life of the projects.

We understand that our decision on the bill to expand the Trans Mountain network is not unanimous, but we are determined to work with the provinces and with indigenous peoples to keep Canada's energy infrastructure safe and secure, all while showing environmental leadership.

The project represents a $7.4 billion investment and thousands of good, middle-class jobs, a project that stands to benefit Canadians across the country, just as the existing pipeline has done since 1953, creating new access for Canadian oil to global markets and world prices.

This access and the stable reaction of government is crucial to investor confidence. This is particularly important in a time of discounted and low oil prices. The expansion of market access will feed economic growth. Those billions of dollars of investment will trickle down into public investment in schools, roads, highways, and my personal favourite, even the symphony orchestra.

There is a community cost to blocking this project. Government revenues support all Canadians, and they support investment in the transition to the low-carbon economy, all of which combine to make this a very important project to the entire country. The TMX expansion approval also came with 157 binding conditions, 98 of which relate to pre-construction requirements.

Just as important, the pipeline is required to be consistent with Canada's climate plan to 2030, as the project must operate within Alberta's 100 megatonne cap. As I described before, we are implementing the most ambitious oceans protection plan in our country's history, with the single largest investment to protect our waters, coastlines, and marine life.

Canada needed this plan with or without an expanded pipeline, because our oceans protection had eroded under the Harper government.

We understand that one of the biggest concerns on everyone's mind is the potential oil spill. We share that concern, which is why we have developed a plan that puts in place every safeguard against a spill happening in the first place.

Through the oceans protection plan, the Canadian Coast Guard now has more people, more authority, and more equipment to do its vital and necessary work. For the first time, two large tow vessels will be on call on the B.C. coast. Several Coast Guard vessels will be equipped with specialized toe kits to improve capacity to respond quickly. Primary environmental response teams, composed of specially trained personnel, will further strengthen the Coast Guard's existing on-scene operations.

We also reopened the Kitsilano Coast Guard station with new rescue boats and specialized pollution response capabilities, and there is a targeted action plan to promote recovery of the southern resident killer whale population.

Last week we introduced legislation, Bill C-69, that would restore the protections the country lost under the Harper government and would serve as a permanent fix in the way that Canada would assess and review major resource projects.

Bill C-69 is the culmination of more than a year and half of extensive consultations and thoughtful deliberations. It is informed by a comprehensive review that we launched just seven months into our mandate. The review also included modernizing the National Energy Board, protecting our fish, and preserving our waterways. We appointed expert panels, enlisted parliamentarians, released a discussion paper, and at every step of the way consulted Canadians, listening more than we spoke.

What emerged from these efforts were the same messages that we heard through Generation Energy, which is that Canadians are engaged. They are well informed. They know the economy and the environment can, and must, go hand in hand. They agree that Canada works best when Canadians work together. Those are the hallmarks of our legislation, a new and inclusive approach to protect the environment and build a stronger economy, creating good jobs and a sustainable future. It is an approach based on restoring public trust; renewing Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples; collaborating with the provinces and territories; protecting our environment, fish, and waterways; encouraging more investments in Canada's natural resources sectors; and better rules to build a better Canada.

Our approach is the exact opposite of the motion before us today, a motion that seeks to divide our country and pits the environment against the economy, province against province, and region against region. There is simply no need for a motion today that attempts to manufacture a crisis where one does not exist or that insinuates we return to the approach of the Harper Government.

All British Columbia has tangibly done at this point is to signal its intention to consult with the people of its province. That is its right. It is the right of every province to do that. However, we have clearly said that the federal government holds authority over the TMX pipeline, and we will. We will not entertain non-jurisdictional delays intended to stall or stop the project. That is simply not an option.

If that is the goal of any province, we will take the necessary action to ensure that federally-approved resource projects proceed. Until then, we will continue to work with all provinces and territories, and indigenous peoples, as we did on the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. By driving innovation, improving environmental performance, restoring public confidence, and advancing indigenous partnerships, we can create the prosperity we all want, while protecting the planet we cherish.

The motion before us today ignores all of this. It proposes a sledge-hammer solution where one is not required. There are better options, options that speak to the generosity of our nation, options that reflect our faith in Canada, and appeal to the better nature of all Canadians. That is what I will be supporting today

Partially translated

Opposition Motion—Trans Mountain Expansion ProjectBusiness of SupplyGovernment Orders

February 12th, 2018 / 12:15 p.m.


See context

Conservative

Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak today about the Trans Mountain expansion project.

Last week the Government of British Columbia announced that it would halt the flow of diluted bitumen through the Trans Mountain pipeline pending the outcome of what amounts to be an environmental review. This is in spite of the National Energy Board's 29-month review, the federal government's approval over 14 months ago, the B.C. government's requirement that 157 conditions be met, and the already issued environmental assessment certificate from the British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office.

The project, which twins the existing 1,150 kilometre Trans Mountain pipeline between Strathcona County, Alberta, and Burnaby, B.C., would create a pipeline which increases the capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day. The expansion project would assure that the Canadian oil industry could reach new markets by expanding the capacity of North America's only pipeline with access to the west coast.

The Trans Mountain project is in the national interest of Canada. The project would inject $7.4 billion into Canada's economy during the construction phase. Oil producers would see $73.5 billion in increased revenues over 20 years. All three levels of government would share $46.7 billion in additional taxes and royalties from construction and 20 years of operation.

According to the Conference Board of Canada's estimates, the project would create the equivalent of 15,000 construction jobs and the equivalent of 37,000 direct and indirect jobs over the years of operation. Direct construction workforce spending in communities along the pipeline route is estimated to be $480 million. Overall, the project would generate more than 800,000 direct and indirect person years of employment during the project development and operation.

Last week the B.C. government, an NDP coalition held thinly together by Green Party members, put the rest of Canada on notice that there would be no oil heading west to tidewater. The Prime Minister reacted to this news by telling us that this was a disagreement between provinces. It has nothing to do with the federal government, he said, and off he went to the United States, abandoning Alberta and B.C. to work it out among themselves. With tens of thousands of jobs on the line and billions of dollars in revenue, Alberta's premier put it best when she told the Prime Minister that this is not a debate between B.C. and Alberta, that this is a debate between B.C. and Canada.

The Minister of Natural Resources said that B.C. can launch further consultations but he assured Canadians that they need to be done in a timely fashion, words that no doubt are inspiring confidence throughout the oil and gas industry, and please note my sarcasm. One might think that the oil and gas industry should adopt a wait and see approach. Perhaps the opposition should simply let things work themselves out, as suggested by the Prime Minister.

One only needs to look at the track record of the government to quickly realize what is going on here. The Liberal government is not interested in supporting the oil and gas sector in Canada. The Liberals will talk a good game; I will give them that. Members on that side of the House will claim they approved the project and they support opening markets for Canadian oil. Then why did the government cave to environmental activists backed by foreign interests by banning tanker traffic on the northwest coast destroying the northern gateway project? Meanwhile, on the east coast, which is dependent on tanker shipments of oil from foreign despots, those same tankers can pull into Atlantic ports but not into Prince Rupert, B.C. It makes no sense.

Then there was energy east. Perhaps everyone will remember that project, the one that would have created 15,000 jobs and injected $55 billion into the Canadian economy. The energy east pipeline would have decreased our dependence on oil from the Middle East and countries with questionable human rights records. The Liberals claimed it was a decision by Trans Canada, that it had nothing to do with the government. It is no wonder these projects fail when we change the rules and pile on endless regulations and more red tape, all done mid-process.

The failure of energy east has nothing to do with any decision taken by Trans Canada. Instead, it was a result of the Prime Minister's mismanagement and failure to champion the Canadian energy sector.

The government is determined to keep Canada's oil, Canada's future, in the ground in northern Alberta. We can at least ship it to the United States, where Canadian producers are forced to discount their product by 30%.

If not pipelines, what is next? Today we rely on road and rail transport to move most of our oil at great risk to communities and Canadians on the road. This was made tragically apparent in Lac-Mégantic in 2013. A terrible event such as that would give us all reason to pause. The existing Trans Mountain pipeline system moves the equivalent of about 1,400 tanker truckloads, or 441 tanker railcars, daily. Expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline would result in safer, more efficient, and more economic shipment of oil between Alberta and British Columbia. Pipelines are safe. They are regulated. They are inspected.

The technology that goes into building and monitoring pipelines today is revolutionary. The Canadian men and women who build and monitor these pipelines, and who live and raise their families in the communities where the pipelines run, know what they are doing. They trust their skills and the skills of their co-workers. The government needs to stop the rhetoric and start supporting the hard-working Canadian families in the oil and gas sector.

I fear that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources have made a fatal miscalculation in the standoff between Alberta and British Columbia. The B.C. government says that the proposed ban is designed to forestall any increase in exports via the Trans Mountain pipeline until it is assured the coast is perfectly safe from a spill. The truth is that the B.C. NDP government and its Green Party coalition detest Alberta oil, even though it fuels the productivity of their province. Their obstructionist strategy is clearly designed to sabotage the pipeline through indefinite delays. By changing the rules midstream, they hope to force Kinder Morgan to abandon the project in the same way the Liberal government forced the demise of energy east.

The Prime Minister's failure to champion the actual and timely construction of this pipeline has created a void in national leadership, and there needs to be action right now. I urge the government to look at the options and begin a face-to-face dialogue with the province. It should look at invoking the use of special powers under section 92 of the Constitution to say that this is against the national interest and the roadblocks need to stop. There is no middle ground on this issue. The Prime Minister needs to pick a side. Either he is for environmentally responsible and sustainable natural resource extraction or he is not. To quote Jason Kenney, the leader of the United Conservative Party in Alberta, “Words are not enough, we need action”.

Each day of inaction by the Liberals fuels national conflict. The Alberta government has banned B.C. wine, and co-operation on interprovincial projects is in jeopardy. Alberta has suspended talks with British Columbia on the purchase of electricity from the western province. Up to $500 million annually hangs in the balance for B.C.

We cannot blame Albertans. The trade dispute between Alberta and B.C. is just a symptom of the Prime Minister's failure to lead. It is no wonder energy investment in Canada was lower in the last two years than in any other two-year period in 70 years. It is no wonder oil and gas companies are packing up and heading south, where the business climate is robust and welcoming. ExxonMobil announced a $50-billion investment in the United States over five years. This is highly irresponsible at a time when the NAFTA negotiations are in such a state of flux, when we need to open markets, not shut them down, and when we need to reassure investors and not send them packing.

In the midst of this crisis, the government introduced Bill C-69, meant, in the government's view, to speed up major resource projects and bring clarity to the approval process. Nothing, though, could be further from the truth. One only has to read the legislation to see that there are many exceptions everywhere. The 450-day and 300-day maximums for major and minor project approval, for example, can be extended indefinitely. Projects can be dismissed by the minister, even before getting to the initial assessment phase. Yet another example of increased uncertainty and unpredictability is the elimination of the standing test used by the NEB to restrict participation at hearings to only those who are directly affected or have knowledge or insight that is relevant and useful.

The Trans Mountain project is in the national interest. It would create jobs and provide provinces with access to global markets. Conservatives understand that the Trans Mountain project is important to Canadian energy workers because this project would create tens of thousands of jobs and help fund our hallmark national programs, such as health care.

This is a national crisis and the answer is not to send public servants to do this job. The Prime Minister needs to go to B.C., stand up to the premier, and stand up for hard-working Canadian families.

As spoken

The EnvironmentAdjournment Proceedings

February 8th, 2018 / 5:55 p.m.


See context

Green

Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking tonight in adjournment proceedings, and the timing is almost impossible to believe. On October 20, I attempted to warn the Minister of Environment and the Prime Minister of how very dangerous it would be to give the offshore petroleum boards in Atlantic Canada any power or role in environmental assessment. The idea that the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board or the Canada-Newfoundland & Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board should have any role in the environmental assessment of projects over which they have regulatory authority is desperately worrying. I say that because these boards were created by legislation to expand offshore oil and gas. That is their role. They have a mandate to expand offshore oil and gas.

I said to the minister on October 20 that offshore petroleum boards in Atlantic Canada have legislated mandates to expand oil and gas activity. They have never had any role in environmental assessment, and if they did, it would be a conflict of interest. Now it appears that the Liberals are following through on Stephen Harper's plan to put these boards into environmental assessments, where they should not be.

I have to say that my final question to the Minister of Environment was whether she could assure this House that she would keep these offshore boards out of environmental assessment. Her answer was not very clear on October 20. The answer is really clear today, because we now have omnibus Bill C-69, which entrenches a role for these very boards in environmental assessments, where they have no business being.

There has been a bit of fancy footwork in the Liberal talking points. Expert panels reviewed the broken laws left after the Harper era by omnibus budget bills C-38 and C-45. We had massive consultations. Very high-powered expert boards were commissioned to look at the National Energy Board and provide recommendations and to look at the environmental assessment process and provide recommendations. Both recommended that energy regulators should play no role in environmental assessment and that there should be a stand-alone environmental assessment agency.

In some ways, if we were to read the press releases and the talking points, one might think that is what was just done today in Bill C-69. There is one agency, called the impact assessment agency, except for one thing. When one reads it in detail, one finds that when there is a project that would be regulated by one of these boards—what we used to call the National Energy Board, which we will have to get used to calling the Canadian energy regulator; the offshore petroleum boards; or the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which, for the first time ever, Stephen Harper put in the frame of environmental assessment in 2012—under the Liberals, these boards would continue to play a role in environmental assessment.

This is how they did the fancy footwork. There is only one environmental assessment agency, but when a project falls into one of those jurisdictions, the people put on the panel to review the project must be taken from the boards of those agencies. They will apply their other laws at the same time as they go through environmental reviews.

Let me talk about the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. I am going to quote Dr. Lindy Weilgart, an adjunct professor at Dalhousie University and an international expert on seismic blasting. She talked about the seismic surveys, approved by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board, in the migratory habitat of the endangered right whale. Air guns are shot every 10 seconds around the clock. It is the loudest human-produced noise right after nuclear and chemical explosions. That is why she said that in 2016, 28 right whale experts declared that the additional distress of widespread seismic air gun surveys represented a tipping point for the survival of this species. The Liberals today have given these boards a role in environmental assessment.

I am horrified by this. I ask my colleague, the hon. parliamentary secretary, how she can live with what the government has just done.

As spoken

Impact Assessment ActRoutine Proceedings

February 8th, 2018 / 10 a.m.


See context

Ottawa Centre Ontario

Liberal

Catherine McKenna LiberalMinister of Environment and Climate Change