Bill C-69 (Historical)

An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

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

Strengthening Environmental Protection for a Healthier Canada Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Change

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question and remind him that we have one of the most rigorous environmental assessment processes. It is a process, by the way, that the Conservatives opposed with Bill C-69.

We are also committed to supplying clean, renewable energy to European countries. That is why the German chancellor came to Canada to sign an agreement on hydrogen that will be produced with wind power. This is exactly what we are doing in Canada: supporting Canadians and Canadian businesses and fighting climate change.

Opposition Motion—Moratorium on New Taxes

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

Mr. Speaker, my father has worked very hard ever since he immigrated to this country. He has worked in sawmills and in coal mines in Alberta and B.C., and to this day he continues to drive a taxi, because he just cannot stay at home, so he would rather go out and work. He has always said that in Canada, if people work, they can pay their bills and provide for their families, and if they work hard, they can buy really nice things, too. That is the reason so many people, like my father and many others, have come to this country. They came to Canada for the opportunities and to be able to provide for their families.

However, the Liberal government has created a Canada that many Canadians struggle to recognize now, where working hard no longer means people will be able to pay for fuel, heat their homes or even own a home at all. Affordability is a top concern for Canadians across the country. When asked in a recent survey what issues we should focus on during this parliamentary session, almost every response listed the cost of living as a top concern.

Now in Canada we have college students living in homeless shelters, single mothers who cannot afford to buy nutritious food for their children, and seniors turning to food banks as a last resort. Even in recent reports, those same food banks are saying that they are struggling to even stay open, that they do not have enough food to provide to those who show up for help and support.

We have a generation of young Canadians living in their parents' basements without the hope of ever moving out. Young families who were once saving up for a down payment are now having to use that down payment to buy groceries and pay for gas. Grandparents watch as their adult children struggle to provide for their own children, despite having jobs. There is much pain and struggle among Canadians. They did everything we asked them to do, yet the government is failing them.

When the Prime Minister took office, Canadians were paying 32% of their income, on average, to maintain a mid-size house. Now the average family has to pay 50% of its income just to keep that house. Canadians are putting themselves in debt to cover their basic expenses and repaying this borrowed money at an unpredictable and growing interest rate. The government told Canadians that rates would remain low for a long time, but now we can see interest rates rising every few months and Canadians just cannot keep up. Instead of providing relief to Canadians, the government is increasing taxes on those who are already struggling.

I have heard from many people across my riding, single mothers, small business owners and families in Edmonton Mill Woods, who cannot afford the government's spending agenda, a spending agenda that the government itself cannot afford. As one constituent said to me, we need a government that works for Canadians, not the other way around. I could not agree more.

My riding of Edmonton Mill Woods is very much a multicultural community. Many immigrants have come to this beautiful place to make their lives here. I know many hard-working immigrant families that work long hours, trying to provide a good life for their children, but still fall short of meeting the inflationary demands created by the government.

A constituent of mine, Abdul, is a local business owner and a new immigrant from Nigeria. Like most small business owners, he works a lot more than the usual eight hours per day. This is a person who is driven, hard-working and passionate about his business, yet he struggles to make ends meet. He confided in me that he cannot afford to put his children in hockey or put his daughter in dance. Unlike the government, he cannot spend money he does not have.

Kim, another constituent, is a single mother and the sole provider for her children. She continues to struggle to afford to put gas in her car in order just to get to her job. Unlike the government, she has to save up money in order to spend it on her children. She had to save up just to buy school supplies this year, which, of course, cost more because of the government-created inflation crisis right now. I believe single mothers like Kim and many other Canadians have something to teach the government. It must find a dollar to spend a dollar. It must have the money to spend the money.

Now the government is making things worse for Canadians. The government must scrap its planned tax hikes on Canadian families and Canadian businesses. Canadians cannot keep up with this out-of-control spending, which is driving interest rates and inflation. Instead of just printing more money, we need to produce more things we can buy. We need to produce affordable food, energy and natural resources right here in Canada.

Our farmers are the best in the world. By removing the barriers the government has placed on them, we would increase our food production and make food more affordable. We must scrap these taxes on farmers, scrap the government's plan to reduce the use of fertilizer, and eliminate even the red tape that makes it more expensive for farmers. Let our farmers do what they do best, which is to grow our food.

In fact, if the government would just get out of way, farmers would not only be able to provide more food for Canadians, but could also help in this looming food shortage crisis around the world.

I would also suggest the government go out and speak to Canadians and hear from them. I suggest the government speak to my constituents and other constituents across the country about what is actually happening to them, their families and their businesses. I recently sat down with a group of truckers, and I was astonished to hear that some trucking companies are actually finding it cheaper and saving money by parking their trucks. Diesel and the cost of paying for and finding a driver have become so expensive that they are saving money by not working.

We must ensure Canadians keep more of their paycheques in their pockets and that energy, gas, heating and other costs become more affordable. Instead of importing foreign energy, we must get rid of laws like the ones arising out of Bill C-69 and allow energy to be produced here in Canada. Bill C-69 itself was a major roadblock for bringing new investments and projects into Canada.

Canada currently imports over 130,000 barrels of overseas oil daily, mostly from dictator countries. This is despite the fact we have the third-largest supply of energy right here in Canada, with much of it in Alberta. That is all because the government prefers dirty dictator oil to responsible Canadian energy.

We will repeal the government's anti-energy laws and replace them with laws that protect our environment, consult our first nations and actually get projects done. That will mean more jobs for Canadians and more ethical Canadian energy for the world. This will also help the value of our dollar.

It is never the right time to raise taxes on working Canadians, yet that is exactly what the government is doing. We continue to call on the government to cancel all planned tax hikes, including payroll taxes planned for January 1 and tax hikes on gas, groceries and home heating on April 1. I hope the government and all other members of the House will support our motion today.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Madam Speaker, in my 18 years in politics, I have never seen Canadians suffer as much as they are suffering now. I just criss-crossed the country and met a lot of people. In fact, 93,000 people registered for my events. I make a point of listening to all their stories, and I never leave the room until I have spoken to everyone who wants to meet me. I heard some heartbreaking stories.

We are talking about young people, 35-year-olds, who have done everything they were supposed to do. They earned a degree and they are working hard, yet they are still living in their parents' basement or in a small, 400-square-foot apartment because the price of housing has doubled since this Prime Minister took office. Our housing bubble is the second largest in the world. Yesterday we learned that the percentage of Canadians who own their own home is at its lowest level in over 30 years.

When the Prime Minister took office, Canadians were paying 32% of their income on average to maintain a mid-size house. Now, the average family has to pay 50% of their income just to keep their house. This increase is due to higher costs, but also to an increase in interest rates, which this government had promised Canadians would not happen for a long time. It told Canadians not to worry, to go ahead and take out big loans, since interest rates would remain low for a long time, and there would never be any negative consequences. Now we are seeing interest rates rises 300 basis points, or 3% in simple terms.

This phenomenon is not only affecting the housing sector, it is also affecting the price of food. I will take this opportunity to read out some headlines, because even the media is starting to notice a problem. “Rents are so high in Toronto that students are living in homeless shelters.” “Inflation: Child hunger a major concern in Canada amid skyrocketing food prices.” “GTA food banks say they're facing the highest demand in their history.” “Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says.” People can no longer pay for food. Some single mothers are even watering down their children's milk because they cannot afford food.

As for gas prices, I met a young man who works in the mines in northern Ontario, and he told me that he could not go see his dying parents in Thunder Bay because diesel was over $2 a litre. He was not able to say goodbye to his own parents.

What is the Prime Minister doing to respond to this crisis? First, he is trying to divide people by attacking them because he thinks that if Canadians are afraid of one another, then they will forget that they cannot pay their bills. The Prime Minister is keeping in place vaccine mandates that every other country has lifted. He is still insisting on the use of the ArriveCAN app, which really does not work. He is trying to divert people's attention away from the cost of living by dividing Canadians and creating problems and division.

The next part of his plan involves increasing income taxes and taxes on gas, heating and food. The first thing the official opposition has called for since I became leader is for the government to do away with the tax hikes so that Canadians can keep more of their paycheques in their pockets and so that energy, gas, heating and other costs become more affordable.

That is our role, here in Parliament, to turn pain into hope. Canadians need hope. The comment I heard most from the people who attended my events was “Thank you for giving us hope”. For the first time, people believe that things can improve, and they will. We can change things.

The first thing we need to do is axe all the tax hikes, but we also need to control spending. Today's inflation is the result of a spendthrift government. The government's spending is increasing the cost of living. The $500-billion inflationary deficit increased the cost of what we buy and the interest that we pay. Inflationary taxes are increasing costs related to our businesses and our workers who provide products and services. The more the government spends, the more things cost. That is “Justinflation”.

We can reverse this trend by introducing legislation to limit government spending. This will subject politicians to the same economic rules that families have to follow. When a family increases spending in one column of their budget, they have to cut spending elsewhere. They have to find a dollar to spend a dollar. The same principle should apply to governments. During the Clinton years, the United States passed a law that helped Americans balance their budget and pay down $400 billion in debt. It was, at the time, the largest debt repayment in the United States. As soon as the law was struck down, Americans were plunged back into a deficit. This is proof that we need to put legal limits on politicians' spending and that politicians should have to follow the same spending rules as single mothers and small business owners.

Furthermore, instead of just printing more money, we need to produce more of the things that money buys, produce affordable food, energy and natural resources here in Canada, and we need to build more houses. We need to remove the barriers that the Prime Minister has put in place.

Let us start with food. The Prime Minister increased farmers' taxes. That increases the cost of fertilizer and of the energy needed to produce food. Now he wants to limit the use of fertilizer. That will require farming more land to produce the same quantity of food. Tractors and other equipment will have to cover a larger area, burning more diesel and other fuels. More food will have to be imported. Bringing this food from other countries to Canada will again require using more energy.

Did we not learn during the COVID-19 crisis that it is irresponsible to rely on other countries for what we need?

We should be able to grow our own food here, in Canada. Our farmers are the best in the world. We should remove the barriers that the government has put in place. We will cancel these taxes on farmers, scrap the government's plans to reduce the use of fertilizer and eliminate the paperwork that is so expensive for our farmers.

Second, we will provide incentives to our municipalities to cut their red tape. At present, Canada has the lowest housing units per capita in the G7, even though we have the largest land area. That is ridiculous. That is why housing prices in Canada are the second highest in the world relative to household income. With regard to home ownership, Vancouver is the third most expensive market in the world, and Toronto is the sixth. A Conservative government will tie the dollar amount for infrastructure in big cities where housing prices are too high to the number of houses built.

This will encourage them to cut red tape and reduce the cost of building permits so that more housing can be built. Every time a federal government funds a public transit station, we will make sure there is intensive densification in the surrounding areas so that young people can live in homes and apartments next to public transit.

Third, we will sell 15% of the 37,000 federal buildings so that they can be converted into housing and create millions of homes that our young people could buy in order to start a family.

Instead of importing foreign energy, we will get rid of laws like the ones arising from Bill C‑69 and others to allow energy to be produced here in Canada. This will create jobs and make the cost of energy more affordable. It will increase Canadians' purchasing power by raising the value of our dollar. When our energy sector is strong, our dollar goes up. The value of the dollar is tied to our purchasing power. When the dollar is low, it costs more to buy anything on international markets. Let us strengthen our dollar, produce our own energy and end oil imports.

By the way, where are the Liberal and NDP environmentalists to protest the foreign oil we are importing? Why are we funding dictators? We should be funding Canadians' paycheques here at home.

Finally, we want to give Canadians back control of their lives, in the freest country in the world, where the dollar keeps its value so that Canadians can have the life they work so hard to build. We should be a country that rewards hard work, a country where people can keep more of their money. We need to reform the tax system so that hard-working Canadians who contribute to the economy can keep their hard-earned money and provide better for their families. We should be a country that encourages and supports those who work hard, take risks and help build our country.

It is good to be back in the House, but would it not be nice if our young people could have a home? That is what we should be working towards. Unfortunately, yesterday we learned that the rates of home ownership are at their lowest levels in a generation. House prices have doubled under this Prime Minister. In fact, when this Prime Minister took office, the average family could afford their monthly housing costs with 32% of their paycheque. That has rocketed up to almost 50%. Vancouver is the third-most overpriced housing market on planet Earth. Toronto is the sixth. We have the second-worst housing bubble on planet Earth. No wonder nine in 10 young Canadians say that they cannot even dream of affording a house.

Now, from housing to food, we see the headlines. Even the media has noticed: “Rents are so high in Toronto that students are living in homeless shelters”; “Child hunger a major concern in Canada amid skyrocketing food prices”; “GTA food banks say they're facing the highest demand in their history”; and “Nearly 6 million people in Canada experienced food insecurity in 2021, U of T study says”.

Then there is energy. I met a young man in northern Ontario who said that he could not afford to put the diesel in his car to go and see his dying relatives one last time, who are hundreds of miles away in Thunder Bay. I met a working man, an energy worker ironically, in St. John's, Newfoundland, who said that the rising cost of gas meant he could not afford to replace his boots so he was taping them up with duct tape.

Canadians are suffering, and why is this happening? The cost of government is driving up the cost of living. Half a trillion dollars of inflationary deficits means more dollars chasing fewer goods, leading to higher prices, bidding up the cost of the goods we buy and the interest we pay. Inflationary taxes drive up the cost of businesses and workers to make our goods. The more Liberals spend, the more things cost. It is just inflation, and Canadians are paying the price for it.

What has been the Prime Minister's response? His first response was to attack the people who were suffering, to call them horrible and disparaging names, to divide and distract. His strategy is simple. He thinks if people are afraid of their neighbours, they will forget that they cannot pay their bills, so he keeps in place divisive and unscientific vaccine mandates to shut truckers out of their ability to transport goods across the border and soldiers, who have served our country bravely and loyally, out of their jobs. He does this all to stigmatize and attack so a single mother who is putting water in her kid's milk might forget, he hopes, how badly she is suffering under his watch because she will be afraid of her fellow citizens. It is time to replace fear with freedom. It is time for us all to unite.

The Prime Minister's second approach has been ever predictable. He wants to raise taxes with a new tax hike on paycheques that will take effect on January 1, meaning that Canadians will take home less of what they earn. Small businesses will have to pay a higher cost for every single person they keep on the payroll, forcing many to make the painful choice of laying people off. A few months later, on April 1, April Fool's Day, he will continue to carry out his plan to triple the carbon tax. He wants to increase gas taxes, home heating taxes and, indirectly, food taxes because, of course, food requires energy. This is going to make things worse. The Conservatives have made the demand that the government must cancel all its tax increases on our workers and our seniors so that their paycheques go further and their energy becomes affordable.

We in this House have a duty to transform the hurt into hope. That is what Conservatives will do, because things can get better. There is nothing wrong with Canada, with our country, that cannot be cured by what is right with this country. We have the answers that will counter this inflation and reinforce the purchasing power of Canadians.

We will call for a cap on taxes so that Canadians pay no more to the government and can keep more for themselves. We will call for the government to cap its own spending, and it can do this by simply following the same rules that everyday families follow. If a family decides it wants to build a porch in front of their house, they cancel their vacation or, better yet, they go out and find a deal on lumber and look for a way to keep their vacation costs down so that they can do both but for the same budget. This is how small businesses function as well, but not government.

The great Thomas Sowell said that the number one law of economics is scarcity, that people always want more than there is to have and that the number one rule of politics is to ignore the number one rule of economics, because politicians are the only creatures in the universe who do not have to live with scarcity. The birds in the trees, the fish in the seas, all must make maximum use of limited resources, but the politician just passes the cost on to someone else in higher inflation, debt and taxes. A “pay-as-you-go” law would force politicians to make the same either-or trade-offs that everyday Canadians make in their lives.

The principle is very simple. If the government brings in a new dollar of spending, it should find a dollar of savings to pay for it. All of the existing spending that is in the budget goes ahead into the future, but when the government steps into this House to introduce a new measure, it should accompany it with savings to pay for it. The government did this in the United States during the 1990s and that allowed the American government to balance its budget, pay off $400 billion of debt, have booming job growth, record-low unemployment and a massive increase in prosperity, but as soon as it let the law lapse, it went right back into deficit, proving that politicians need the same legal limits on their spending that families follow every single day. Our families have been pinching their pennies long enough. It is time for government to pinch its pennies, too.

Instead of just creating more cash, why not create more of what cash buys? Why do we not grow more food, build more house and produce more Canadian resources right here in our country instead?

Let us start with houses. As I have said, we have the fewest houses per capita of any country in the entire G7, even though we have the most land on which to build. Why? Local government gatekeepers stand in the way.

In Vancouver, the cost of government gatekeepers, that is permitting, delays, consultants and taxes, is $600,000 for one unit of housing. It is about $350,000 in Toronto. This prevents people from owning a home.

I propose is this. The government should link the number of dollars big overpriced cities get for infrastructure to the number of houses that actually get built, so we have an incentive for them to remove the gatekeepers, lower the costs and increase the speed of building permits so we can get more houses.

Let us require every federally funded transit station be pre-approved for high-density housing around it, so our young people do not even need to own a car. They can live right next to transit. Let us sell off 15% of the underutilized and overpriced 37,000 federal buildings, so we can convert that into housing. Let us create millions of new homes, so our newcomers, immigrants, young people and working-class people can re-establish the dream of home ownership.

Let us put an end to importing overseas oil into this country. Where are the protesters? Where are the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberal protesters standing in Saint John, New Brunswick to greet all those big tankers coming from overseas? They say that they are against oil, but they have no problem if that oil comes from foreign dictatorships. There are 130,000 barrels of overseas oil every single day arriving at our shores and taking our money back to their countries at the same time.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister violates his own sanctions against Putin by sending back a turbine so the Russians can continue to pump gas into Germany, so the Germans can fund the Russian war against Ukraine. It is incredible. Those members are against pipelines in Canada, but in favour of maintaining the turbines for Russian pipelines that fund foreign wars.

Meanwhile, we have 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that could be used to free Europe from its dependency on Putin, meanwhile bringing back paycheques to this country. We have the ability to produce it cleaner than anywhere else on planet earth. In fact, the shortest shipping distances to both Asia and Europe from North America are right here in Canada.

What else do we have in Canada that allows us to liquify natural gas so it fits on a ship? Cold weather, which is our most abundant natural resource. That actually lowers the cost of liquefying natural gas by 25%. With Quebec, Newfoundland and British Columbia hydro, we can do it emissions-free. Why do we not ship our clean Canadian natural gas to Asia to shut down coal-fired plants there and ship it to Europe to break European dependence on Putin? Let us turn dollars for dictators into paycheques for Canadians.

Let us make work pay again in our country. Let us stop punishing people for the crime of getting up early in the morning and putting in a hard day's work. According to a Finance Canada document, if a single mother with three kids who earns $55,000 a year goes out and earns another dollar, she loses 80¢ of that dollar to government clawbacks and taxes. If she makes $25 an hour, she takes home $5 of that. No one should work for $5 an hour. That is below minimum wage, and yet our tax and benefits system punishes her for trying to work a little harder so maybe her kids can go to camp in the summer or maybe they can join the little league team.

We should reward hard work in our country. We should set out to reform our benefit and tax systems, so that every time someone works harder, takes another shift, earns a bonus and gets up a little earlier they keep more of what they earn.

My parents raised me to believe that it did not matter where I came from; it mattered where I was going. It did not matter who I knew, but what I could do. That is the country I want my kids to inherit. I want this to be a country again where it does not matter where people start off. If they work hard, if they take risks, if they study, if they learn, if they build and if they contribute, they can achieve anything they want. Right now, people do not feel that way, but hope is on the way.

We are going to bring change to our country. We are going to put change back in your pocket and we are going to make this the freest country on earth.

Opposition Motion—Subsidies for the Oil and Gas Sector

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I have some questions about the member's figures, but I am going to get to something that I think is more important.

We are talking about 53,000 families in Alberta that were suffering during the oil and gas downturn. It is no longer in a downturn, I will point out. The Court of Appeal of Alberta came out last week and indicated very clearly that Bill C-69 was ultra vires of the federal government. That being the case, the NDP leader in Alberta indicated that the main cause of the layoffs in Alberta was a punitive regulatory regime as a result of Bill C-69.

Would the member agree with her party leader in Alberta that it is the Alberta Court of Appeal's decision on Bill C-69 that led to those 53,000 families being laid off in Alberta?

Finance

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil for putting this motion forward and the discussion on splitting up the budget implementation act. There are so many pieces in that bill that really should be separated and discussed, debated and considered at committee separately, not pushed through the way the government has pushed legislation through in the past.

I recall Bill C-69, when there were literally hundreds of amendments proposed that could not even be debated. Does the member for Barrie—Innisfil expect the same is going to happen with the budget implementation act?

Natural Resources

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, for 10 years, Stephen Harper tried to create large projects in this country to solve problems by ramming them through by gutting environmental protections, and big surprise, nothing got done because Canadians know that the environment and the economy need to go together. We brought forward Bill C-69, which actually protects the environment and gives clarity to companies.

We have been able to move forward on large projects since. Canadians know the environment and the economy go together. Why do Conservative politicians not know this?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister can learn that we can have both. If we did not have the unconstitutional Bill C-69 limiting our Canadian oil and gas exports, then Canadians would actually be able to afford to fill up their tanks so they could go to work and take their kids to school. When will the Prime Minister take responsibility for his role in this cost-of-living crisis and finally stop making life harder for the average Canadian?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the truth is zero pipelines have been proposed or built under the Liberals, and they have killed billions in projects and hundreds of thousands of jobs. The PM ignored experts, workers, indigenous leaders and investors in every province and territory on Bill C-69. The court said it is a “profound invasion” that places a chokehold on provinces. It called it a “wrecking ball” that “smacks of paternalism” and overrides indigenous agreements. It is uncertain, unpredictable, unquantifiable and unreliable, just like Conservatives warned. Therefore, instead of wasting more time and tax dollars to appeal, will he just repeal Bill C-69?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in a strong and clear decision, Alberta's highest court ruled that the job-killing Bill C-69 is an ugly power grab. In her ruling, Alberta's justice stated, “History teaches that government by central command rarely works...[and] Canada...by deliberate choice, is a federation, not a unitary state.”

The Prime Minister was very quick yesterday to say that his government would appeal this decision. His tactics are well entrenched: my way or the highway. With all the bright lights around this Prime Minister, how did they not see that this overreach would not withstand a constitutional challenge?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Environment

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

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