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.

Infrastructure

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we know the Prime Minister loves to kill projects in western Canada. The Alaska to Alberta railway project is a $17-billion private-sector initiative that will connect western Canadian resources to international markets. However, the Prime Minister has already hinted that he will use his old friend, Bill C-69, to kill this project.

For the sake of the west, for the sake of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, for the sake of all Canadians, will the Prime Minister put aside his own selfish ideology and say yes to this project?

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I dispute the member's finding that 22 billion in federal dollars went toward our energy industry, which has been a huge net contributor to our nation's economy. He will notice that, earlier in my speech, I said that we are not asking for a bailout in the energy sector. We are asking the Liberal government to get out of the way. With bills like Bill C-69 and the new mega carbon tax clean fuel standard, it is threatening to shut down industries that already exist, let alone bringing new industries to this country.

The west is very distinct from Quebec. Quebec is blessed with ample hydro resources, low-carbon hydro resources, and those are wonderful resources to have, but in Alberta we are dependent on natural gas to fuel our electricity. I hope the member would agree our economy is distinct, just like his province is distinct, and we need to have different approaches to our economic growth.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to once again rise in this House to represent the good people of Sturgeon River—Parkland.

The past six months have been a time of tremendous trial for my constituents and all Canadians. Loved ones have been lost, families have been separated, businesses have shut down permanently and our government has failed to provide a clear plan for a way forward for this country.

Alberta and the other western provinces were hurting before this pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost, including in my constituency. The Liberals have refused to sign off on new resource projects, costing thousands of jobs and billions in investments. Their infrastructure bank and infrastructure minister have failed to deliver billions of dollars in investments, costing our communities and many more thousands of jobs. Just the other day, Alberta was hurt again with the announcement that Suncor will be laying off thousands of workers, along with TC Energy.

Canadians pulled together to get us through the first wave of COVID-19. We endured lockdowns in the spring that cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and closed tens of thousands of businesses. Yes, we saved lives, but what did the Liberal government do with the sacrifice of Canadians? It dithered.

While our government could have spent the summer procuring rapid testing or planning for an economic recovery, it focused all its energy on shutting down an investigation into its own ethical failures. We have yet to receive the full details of the WE Charity scandal created by the Liberal Prime Minister, and if the Liberals had it their way, Canadians would never know the full truth. That is why we are here today, not even a year since the last Speech from the Throne: Instead of governing the nation through this crisis, the Liberals chose to play political games, prorogue Parliament and shut down any committee investigations into their wrongdoing.

Our Conservative team will not relent. We will hold the Liberal government accountable for its ethical failures. I know that on this side of the House, we are looking forward to sunny ways and sunny days indeed. While many Canadians may be dealing with a COVID pandemic, the government is dealing with an ethical sickness. The Prime Minister has been fond of telling the opposition that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we have heard him loud and clear. We will be taking his advice and prescribing a full dosage.

There is a pandemic, and everyone out west is talking about it, but it is not COVID-19; it is the joblessness pandemic. It is a disease that has been with us for years before COVID-19 hit us. Unfortunately, rather than working tirelessly to save our struggling energy industry and the western economies, the Liberals looked eager to dance on our graves and declare our economy bust.

Why else would nearly every decision since their election in 2015 appear to be targeted toward undermining our jobs and energy industry, whether it be the pipeline-killing Bill C-69, their carbon tax or now their mega carbon tax that is masquerading as a clean fuel standard? Why is it that whenever western MPs stand up for their constituents, they are accused of only playing to regional interests? Whenever our auto sector or aerospace sector is threatened, all Canadian MPs are called together to stand up to save jobs, yet we hear nothing when our energy sector is suffering.

Alberta was proud to support fellow Canadians in the 2008 financial crisis. We carried this country's economy when the federal government had to bail out an American auto company. We were proud to support our brothers and sisters in Newfoundland and Labrador when their offshore industry was suffering. When the Atlantic economy was struggling, it was the cheques sent home by Atlantic workers working in the Alberta oil patch that kept families going.

Today, Albertans are struggling and Saskatchewan is struggling. The west is struggling. The engine of Canada's economy is facing record unemployment. Where is our federal government to lend us a hand? We have shovel-ready projects that will create tens of thousands of jobs. We do not even need a bailout from taxpayers; we just need the Liberal government to get out of the way.

The Nova Gas Transmission line, which has been waiting for nearly a year for federal approval, would create 5,500 jobs. It is the next generation of polypropylene production in the Alberta industrial heartland. At least 2,500 jobs are on the line, yet the Liberals are pushing forward with their antiplastic manufacturing agenda. With the Liberal mega carbon tax at an estimated $350 a tonne, major players that produce fertilizer to feed our farms and produce fuel to heat our homes are at risk of packing up and moving south of the border. Western Canadians do not need a minister of the middle class and those working hard to join it; we need a minister of the middle class and those working hard just to survive and stay middle class.

The Liberals are promising Canadians a lot of goodies in the throne speech, but nothing that has been promised has not been promised before by the Liberal government. The Liberals will say that this time is different, that they are working with the NDP, which holds the balance of power. We have heard this story before. I have a word of caution to my colleagues in the NDP. They can learn a lot from the B.C. Green Party or the Liberal Democrats in the U.K.: Things never really work out for the junior partner.

The throne speech should be praised for its commitment to recycling. By that I mean recycling old Liberal talking points. The Liberals have promised universal pharmacare and a universal day care system. They have promised universal broadband as well. Yet, they have been in power for five years and have failed to deliver for rural communities.

All of this is happening while the Liberals continue to plow forward with the greatest expansion of government spending and debt financing in modern Canadian history. This is over $400 billion in federal deficit, not counting the hundreds of billions taken out by arm's-length Crown corporations such as the Bank of Canada, BDC, EDC and the CMHC. This is hundreds of billions off the government's books, but hundreds of billions that Canadian taxpayers will still have to pay for if things go bust.

How exactly are the Liberals going to finance this new pandemic debt, while also launching the most radical expansion of the Canadian welfare state in a generation? It is with low interest rates, cries the Prime Minister. We can afford everything, as if we can sustain low interest rates for decades on end without the consequences of massive inflation: inflation that will erode the savings of our vulnerable seniors, inflation that will risk the opportunity for millennials and those in generation Z to buy their first home and inflation that will devalue the hard-earned wages of the working class for the benefit of big business and debt holders.

If the government chooses not to go down that disastrous path, we are left with two alternatives: They will increase taxes to finance this new spending or they will cut spending in other areas to reallocate to these new promises.

Will the Liberals be cutting the child care benefit and child care expenses tax deduction for families so they can pay for their new national day care system? Will families be denied the choice of whether to stay home with their young children or send them to day care? When the Liberals remove the Canada child benefit and tax deductions, that is exactly what they are doing. They are removing choice from parents who want to raise their children at home.

How will the government pay for this new universal pharmacare system? Will they cut health transfers like the Liberals did back in the 1990s? Will they refuse to allow new life-saving drugs like Trikafta, which miraculously saved the lives of those with cystic fibrosis?

If they do not cut spending, they will have to raise taxes. The throne speech talks a bit about this. It talks about raising taxes on digital giants and closing stock loopholes. This is not necessarily something I disagree with, but will these new taxes generate the tens of billions in new dollars that will finance universal day care and universal pharmacare? The fact is that they will not.

We are left with few alternatives. Will the Liberals raise the GST that the Conservatives lowered from 7% to 5%? Will they raise personal income taxes or capital gains taxes? Are they going to raise corporation taxes and risk capital and investment being taken to our neighbour to the south, a low-tax jurisdiction?

It is time for the Liberals to be honest with Canadians about their fiscal plan. Canadians deserve that honesty. Will the Liberals allow mass inflation to destroy the middle class? Will they raise taxes on Canadian families? Will they cut spending and benefits? Will it be a combination of all three? Canadians deserve a real answer.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government have framed the Speech from the Throne as a necessary and updated vision for the country. Before I address the speech directly, it is important for Canadians to remember that we are debating a new Speech from the Throne because the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament for six weeks to avoid accountability. All of the committees that are investing his WE scandal were shut down, and that was the point.

With a new session of Parliament, the Prime Minister is hoping that all 7,000 of his fluffy but empty words in the throne speech will distract Canadians from his corruption and the WE scandal. I believe that Canadians are a lot smarter than the Liberals give them credit for. This necessary reset, as the government prefers to frame it, was supposedly required to respond to new realities exposed by the pandemic. In actuality, Parliament was perfectly capable of responding to the pandemic prior to prorogation and the Liberals only wasted valuable time.

The Conservatives will continue to hold the Prime Minister and the government accountable, and we will keep fighting for the answers that Canadians deserve.

To respond to the details of the throne speech, I note the government has tried to sell the throne speech as a bold and ambitious vision for Canada. However, the speech has completely missed the mark and is only more proof of the government's reckless economic policy and poor grasp of Canada's economic strengths.

The government has signalled that it will be taking on more debt but has yet to provide a fiscal framework. We have no idea of how the Liberals plan to pay it all back. The government does not seem to understand that debt incurred by the government is debt incurred by everyday taxpaying Canadians. These are people like our grocery store clerks, our nurses, our teachers and so on. Without a fiscal framework, how can we be assured that our children and the future generations of Canadians are not going to be overwhelmed by the government's debt?

The throne speech claims that the government is “guided by values of sustainability and [fiscal] prudence”, but the absence of a fiscal framework thus far proves otherwise. We have a government spending recklessly without a fiscal plan as Canadians navigate the challenges of a global pandemic. The Liberals are racking up a credit card without telling Canadians how or when it will all be paid back.

At the same time, the throne speech reveals a flawed plan for economic recovery. Canada is at a major crossroads in its development. There are some very clear choices that confront us right now. These choices are even more important in light of the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 shutdown. The government has chosen to effectively shut down our economy by restricting resource development and exports, with economic policies like carbon taxes, Bill C-69, which restricts new pipelines from being built, and Bill C-48, which is preventing exports of crude off the west coast, and generally discouraging investment in Canada's resources.

Exports are the lifeblood of the Canadian economy. In 2018, 56% of Canada's exported goods were directly from our resource industries. The government seems to think that it can replace these core industries with pixie dust. Despite expressing a commitment to economic recovery, the government has continued to neglect and even hinder resource development in this country during a time when we need these resources the most.

It has been akin to a hockey team benching its all-star players while trying to come back from being down six goals. These industries drive our economy, provide the jobs that Canadians depend on and provide the government revenues that keep our health care and education systems alive. These industries have made Canada the great nation that it is today, yet there was zero mention of supporting struggling resource workers. There was just a continued promise to sacrifice their lives by killing their industries with more taxes and regulations, an added double carbon tax hiding as the Canadian fuel standard and more. Do members know what the worst part is? It is that the government is taking the tax dollars paid by hard-working Alberta oil and gas workers and giving those dollars away to subsidized competitive industries that aim to end their existence. That sounds fair, does it not?

There was also a very large issue that the Prime Minister completely skipped in the Liberals' reset: western alienation. These Liberals stand up in the House day after day and completely deny that anyone in western Canada, in particular anyone in Alberta, feels alienated from Ottawa and the central government. I am here to say, as many of my colleagues have previously, that it is real and it is growing. The Liberals stand to say they are giving more money to Alberta than former prime minister Harper did. They accuse us of making up this crisis. We could not create this even if we tried. The alienation of Alberta is caused by the current government's antienergy, antiwest, anti-Alberta far-left policies that are causing this divide.

Albertans have never wanted a handout or to be bought. They just want the government to get out of the way. We want to be allowed to get back to work doing what we do best: extracting minerals and other resources from the ground, adding incredible value to them and selling them to the world. We have amazing resources and opportunities in this country, but the government wants to ignore them until they go away, because resource development does not fit into its ideological framework.

So many people have said this before me, but let me add my voice. Canada's oil and gas producers, miners, farmers and, in fact, everyone who participates in this economy care about the environment. Canada is leading the world when it comes to environmental sustainability. The investment in innovation and clean technology is incredible. I am fortunate enough to live among those who are leading this incredible innovation, which is taking place not just in the oil sands but in all of our extractive industries.

The Prime Minister likes to talk about balance, but he has achieved none of it. When hundreds of thousands are out of work and suicides are skyrocketing, that is an indication that the Liberals do not care about the economy side of this equation. We do not need to pit one region of this beautiful country against the others when we share common goals. A strong economy and environmental protection can go hand in hand, and we have already seen this happening in Canada. I wish that the government would stop listening to the far-left voices that are opposed to all resource development and seek that balance, even though these voices are also at the government's own cabinet table.

We are so blessed to live in a region flush with resources that Canada and the world require to maintain our high standard of living. Hundreds of thousands of people are employed in resource development. These same industries employ a significant number of first nations Canadians, as high as 6% of the oil and gas workforce. More and more first nations are taking ownership positions in large projects. All Canadians have a mutual desire to see these succeed.

Unfortunately, all we have heard from the government is its desire to ban single-use plastics. Where would we be during this pandemic without plastics? In literally every room in a hospital they are crucial. Masks are single-use, as are the gloves that so many people are wearing when they go out.

If the Liberals are truly interested in a team Canada approach in responding to the global pandemic, the government must provide a fiscal plan that ensures fiscal stability for future generations and an economic recovery that does not ignore our country's core strength of resource development. However, it seems the Prime Minister is only interested in racking up the credit card—

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

Mr. Speaker, I invite the member to come to my riding and tell that to the parents who are trying to put food in the tummies of their children. They are just trying to get ahead. That is all they are trying to do.

He could tell that to the farmers who have to supplement their egg income because of the crappy policies the government has put forward, such as Bill C-69, the carbon tax and Bill C-48, whatever it is. The government is making it more difficult to get their products to market and is taking more money out of their pockets. Farmers have to subsidize their egg income by working in oil and gas because they cannot put food on their tables with what they are receiving in egg income as it is.

Before there are suggestions about allowing investment to free this country, when all our energy investment is leaving and leaving people without work, I invite the member to come and make his comments to my constituents in Battlefords—Lloydminster.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a real honour to rise on behalf of the people of Barrie—Innisfil to speak in reply to the throne speech.

Before I begin, I would very much like to thank all first responders, not just in Barrie—Innisfil but right across the country, those who have been on the front line, health care workers. As a former firefighter in 2003, I recall the SARS crisis and the anxiety that was felt by myself and others who I worked with in the paramedic and police services in dealing with that crisis. That anxiety was heightened by the fact that we did not know if we would get the virus and take it home.

I really appreciate the first responders and front-line health care workers. They deserve our greatest respect.

I also want to thank the administration staff in the House. I know Gaétan is keeping all our desks clean so we do not take the virus back to our ridings.

Six weeks ago, the government prorogued Parliament. At the time, we were at the height of a scandal that was becoming more emboldened as new information became available. The Prime Minister said that the reason why he would prorogue Parliament was to come up with a bold and ambitious new course for the country. I would suggest that the ambition was on the part of the Prime Minister to save his political skin at that time.

Members will recall that the government was becoming more embroiled in the scandal. More information was becoming available. There were more indictments of individuals who were involved. Therefore, the Prime Minister and the government simply decided to prorogue Parliament so they could make it go away. It is not going away.

Let us look at the Prime Minister's bold and ambitious plan. If any of us looked back to the 2015 election platform of the Liberal Party, “Real Change”, we would see that much of what was promised back then was recycled or rehashed in this throne speech. Many of us will recall that at the beginning of the current government, in 2015, Liberals were big on “deliverology”, but we have seen very little in that regard, except for this rehashing and recycling of promises.

At the beginning of this crisis, all of us were working together in a team Canada approach. I said this the other night when I spoke to Bill C-4. Many MPs were on the front lines. We became the front-line voice of the government, because in many cases Service Canada offices were closing. People were calling our offices because they were anxious. The level of anxiety was heightened as a result of the fear, the unknown and the uncertainty of what was going to happen next.

All of us worked together. Many programs that were announced initially became woefully inadequate, and were found to be that. The Canada emergency wage subsidy, for example, started off at 10%. If it was not for the opposition, all opposition parties, and I am sure the government heard about it as well from business, then that wage subsidy would not have been brought up to the level it was.

There were problems with the CERB. People were falling through the gaps. Maternity benefits is an example of where people were falling through the gaps on CERB. It was the same with the CEBA, the Canada emergency business account. A lot of businesses did not qualify for that benefit.

We all parliamentarians worked together to ensure that these programs were in place. Of course, they were meant to be temporary.

Now as we enter into a new wave of COVID-19, clearly we as parliamentarians and the government need to be there to help Canadians. However, we need to be there in recovery as well, not so much as an issue of dependence on the government but to create a recovery plan. What I fail to see in the throne speech is that recovery plan.

What does recovery look like?

We have to ensure the government gets out of the way of recovery and allow the power of the free market, allow the power of Canadian businesses, the people they employ and the products they produce to do that. It comes in every sector of our economy.

The other thing we did not see in the throne speech was any sense of investor confidence in those sectors of our economy that have been decimated as a result of government policy, legislation and regulation.

Clearly the natural resources sector has been impacted as a result of the government. We hear many stories of Alberta being on its knees as a result of the legislation, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, regulation and taxation policies that have been imposed on the sector. We want to ensure we move from dependence to recovery, and there was very little in the throne speech that spoke to this.

With respect to recovery, the other area we really need to focus on is the issue of rapid testing. I find it curious that just yesterday the government approved a rapid test for which an application had been filed with Health Canada just 24 hours before. It is amazing how rapidly the government and Health Canada will move when there is a tremendous amount of anxiety on the part of Canadians who are standing in line for COVID-19 testing. The fact is that rapid testing has been around in other countries. Twelve countries around the world have approved rapid testing, many of them our allies. We have trade pacts and trade agreements with them. Many rapid tests have been put in front of Health Canada, so why the delay? Why the delay that further causes problems for Canadian families that have to wait in line for testing and then for the results?

Rapid testing is going to become critical for us in our recovery. I was glad to see the rapid test approved, but the government needs to do more to ensure that it is there.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that the longer the spending plan goes on it will become unsustainable: $343 billion in deficits, approaching $1.2 trillion in debt. That is on the expenditure side of the ledger. We will need to ensure that we create revenue to pay for these types of programs. We have to allow the power, as I said earlier, of the Canadian economy to do that through less legislation, less regulation, fewer policies, less taxation and create investor confidence that will provide us with the revenue we need to pay for those programs.

October 1 is a troubling day for many businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises. Rents are due today, yet the commercial emergency rent assistance program that business owners have relied on, though not many of them because it is a deeply flawed program, will cause those business owners problems.

The last thing I want to talk about are veterans. In its boldness and ambitiousness, the one thing that was neglected in the throne speech were veterans. Not one word of veteran was in the throne speech. Earlier this week, we heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer about case loads approaching 50,000 that had to be adjudicated and they had yet to be processed. That means 50,000 veterans and their families are living with additional anxiety. I would hope the government would announce a plan to help fix that.

Two years ago the NDP suggested a plan to help alleviate some of those backlogs, and we supported it. The government needs to ensure that is fixed. As shadow minister for Veterans Affairs, I will do everything I can to hold the government to account to have those backlogs fixed.

Proceedings on the Bill Entitled an Act Relating to Certain Measures in Response to COVID-19

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address this House on C-2. I also want to begin by letting the Speaker know I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Midnapore.

As the parliamentary secretary just mentioned, the Prime Minister shut down Parliament for six weeks. He did so because pressure was starting to mount from the WE scandal. Every day new details started to emerge on the Prime Minister's intimate involvement with that $900-million scandal. Canadians, no matter where they are, want to know more details about that scandal. We say that because the Prime Minister has already been found guilty in accepting a paid vacation to a luxury island. He was also found guilty in his involvement of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

Now, as the parliamentary secretary said a few moments ago, it was the Prime Minister's decision to prorogue Parliament. He just did not shut down debate in this chamber, which was limited to begin with, he shut down the important work of several committees, including our ability to study the COVID-19 recovery.

Just a few weeks ago, the new leader of the official opposition raised that need to quickly restart the committees. That was done on a call to the Prime Minister, but unfortunately, those calls for the committees to be reinstated were rejected. The Standing Committee on Health could be studying the Liberals' ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its members should be talking about the need for more rapid testing and why other countries, including many of our G7 partners, have rapid testing available to their constituents.

The Standing Committee on Finance could be preparing a report on the COVID-19 recovery. The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities could be looking at legislation that transitions Canadians from the CERB to the new employment insurance programs.

We all know a fully functioning Parliament is necessary for Canadian democracy, especially during a crisis like the pandemic, and the Conservative Party of Canada was the only party in this House consistently calling for the full recall of Parliament during that pandemic.

We heard in the parliamentary secretary's remarks that Liberals claim to have the backs of Canadians. Conservatives are the ones consistently calling for Liberals to improve their slew of programs. It was us, as the official opposition, who consistently called for the recall of the House of Commons, not the fake Parliament the Liberals agreed to, which gave opposition members very little time to critique the programs that were being laid out. We all know there was a whole slew of problems with some of those programs, including with the wage subsidy, which started at 10% while countries like Germany were upwards of 70%. It was calls by the opposition that helped move the government to where it was able to better help those small businesses needing help because they were told to shut down and people all across this country were told to stay home.

We have a lot of serious work to do, and I will quickly touch on child care because it falls under my portfolio as the critic. The Minister of Families, Children and Social Development just last week talked about the Liberals' desire to create accessible and inclusive child care spaces right across this country. For anyone in this House, or anyone watching on CPAC or any program, I do not think too many Canadians would put the two together, that the government is very accessible or flexible, for that matter. We all know a large number of Canadians who do not have access to these child care spaces, and in my community there is a waiting list, but there are a lot of people who do not want access and want flexibility in the programs.

This is where the Conservatives' plan comes in. We are talking about giving Canadians more money in their pockets to help lower the cost of those child care spaces or, if a family so chooses, they could then move their child to maybe a parent or grandparent. Maybe someone has set up a small business in their neighbourhood, following all provincial rules and guidelines to make it a safe space for those children to go. This is what we are talking about. We are talking about flexibility.

The government rarely has flexibility in anything it offers. We also know child care is in provincial jurisdiction and we want the provinces, if they so choose to move in that direction, to include flexibility in their programs.

We want to ensure competition within the provinces so that if one province is doing something extremely well, another province that is having trouble could probably take best practices from those jurisdictions and implement them within their own system, which I think allows better quality of care all around, rather than the federal government implementing its own system or imposing rules and regulations on the provinces and territories in exchange for those tax dollars to come back, which takes time too. Coming to these agreements with the provinces takes time. There are people who need the flexibility now to help them. We talked about shift workers. A lot of shift workers are excluded from government child care because the flexibility is not there. However, if they had more money in their pockets and were able to make choices in their lives with a wide variety of options, they might be able to help their case and get back into the workforce quicker.

It seems when we talk about economic recovery, no matter how many restrictions the government imposes on an industry, the solution is always another government program. Let us take the oil and gas industry as an example. It has been unfairly punished by the government, with rules and regulations one after another. One piece of legislation, Bill C-69, the tanker ban bill, comes to mind. Then, in order to make up for its careless decisions, it decided to purchase a pipeline to ensure that project was completed, and a number of other pipelines were scrapped because of the Liberal decisions, including northern gateway, energy east and many others.

We could talk about the expansion of the Billy Bishop airport in downtown Toronto, where an expansion of runway would allow business people the ability to get to their destination a lot quicker, rather than going from downtown to Mississauga, the neighbouring community, to access a plane for a short trip. When the Liberals decided to scrap that plan, Billy Bishop airport was not able to expand. Therefore, Porter Airlines was not able to buy a number of C Series jets, which then caused Bombardier to come into financial hardship. What did the government do? It brought in another government program and decided to bail out Bombardier, yet the dollars that were available for this expansion and the decision to buy these planes came from private dollars. Therefore, we have more government intervention in the marketplace.

We will go back to child care here for a quick second. Spaces are needed now and we talk about what the government had in 1993. It talked about the Red Book and that it was going to come up with a national day care program. That took well over a decade to negotiate. The deal was signed in 2005-06, so people who had a child nearing 1993 had already passed the care age needed. In many cases, depending on where the child was born, he or she might be finished high school. Therefore, the parents who need help immediately have to wait until the government figures out its plan. That is one thing it always asks for, more time and more money. Whether it works or not, whether it wants it or not, it does not really matter, it just needs more time and money. When those plans fail, it comes up with another plan.

When we talk about Parliament being shut down over the pandemic, despite calls from the Conservative Party to reinstate Parliament, we are here dealing with Bill C-2, an act we all know needed to be dealt with immediately. Parliament did not need to be prorogued. We all know why that happened. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, it was because the WE documents were coming out. The Prime Minister was going to be implicated in this scandal worth $900 million.

Let us go on to what Bill C-2 is talking about. I know I am running out of time.

Let us talk about a person from my riding, Katherine. She previously ran a home day care as a small business owner. A year ago her family decided to start planning for one more child, and she signed up—

Bill C-4—Proposal to Apply Standing Order 69.1

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Banff—Airdrie, AB]

Mr. Speaker, to restate the first part, it is my argument that part 3 of Bill C-4, clauses 10 to 14 in the schedule, is sufficiently different from the remainder of the bill so as to warrant the question at second reading being divided for a separate decision. Again, that is under Standing Order 69.1. While it is true that the state of the whole bill's content is associated with the response to COVID-19, that alone does not qualify as a common element for the purposes of the standing order.

The National Assembly of Quebec has similar procedures regarding omnibus bills, which are instructive. I refer the Chair to Parliamentary Procedure in Québec, third edition, which says at page 400, “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 each apply to a specific field.”

This statement of the National Assembly's practice was endorsed by your immediate predecessor, the hon. member for Halifax West, when he ruled on March 1, 2018, at page 17574 of the Debates:

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.

The importance of distinguishing between principles and a field was articulated by former National Assembly vice-president Fatima Houda-Pepin, on December 11, 2007, at page 2513 of the Journal des débats:

In this case, the bill contains more than one principle. Although the bill deals with road safety, the Chair cannot consider that to be the principle of Bill 42. The principle or principles of a bill should not be confused with the topic to which it pertains. Coming up with a different concept of the notion of principle would disqualify most bills from being subject to a division motion because they deal with a specific topic. In this case, the various means of ensuring road safety included in this bill could constitute distinct principles.

The 2018 ruling in our own House concerned the former Bill C-69, which was an omnibus bill with disastrous consequences for the natural resources sector in Canada. The government had argued that all of its provisions hung together on the principle of environmental protection, but the Chair ruled that the argument was not good enough to avoid dividing the question. In that case, he found there were sufficient distinctions to warrant separate votes.

A similar argument was put forward by the government for the former Bill C-59. It claimed that everything was unified by the principle of national security. As the deputy speaker ruled on June 18, 2018, at page 21196 of the Debates, “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.”

Turning to Bill C-4, parts 1 and 2 concern the establishment of assorted pandemic income replacement benefits for Canadians impacted by COVID-19, together with associated labour law amendments. Part 3, meanwhile, is the government's request to spend over $17 billion on a wide array of measures, bypassing the normal estimates and appropriations procedures of Parliament. One of the considerations the Chair employed in 2018 was to look at how integrated the different provisions of the impugned bill were. In the case of Bill C-69, for example, two parts that were extensively linked with many cross-references were held to have a sufficiently common element between them. However, another part was, despite the presence of some cross-references, found to be not so deeply intertwined as to make a division impossible.

In the present case, part 3 of Bill C-4 appears to have absolutely no cross-references or drafting links to the remainder of the bill. It was simply grafted on. The various components of the bill that are part of the response to COVID-19 are really about the only thing which could even link them together. In fact, I would argue that the long title of the bill itself gives away the fact that the link is tenuous: “An Act relating to certain measures in response to COVID-19”. If there were any stronger connection among these assorted provisions, a more descriptive long title would have been possible.

Before concluding, I will offer a couple of comments of the circumstances particular to the present case.

First, I recognize that time is of the essence in reaching a ruling, because the House is currently seized with government Motion No. 1, which would ram Bill C-4 through the House with barely any debate at all. In fact, it is possible that members are on track to be called upon to vote on the bill late tomorrow night. As noted by the Speaker's immediate predecessor's ruling of November 7, 2017, at page 15116 of the Debates, points of order calling for the exercise of Standing Order 69.1 must be raised promptly. I am rising on this matter on the same afternoon the bill was introduced. To do so earlier would, frankly, have been impossible.

Second, should the House adopt government Motion No. 1, there is nothing in the motion that, in my view, would change the application of Standing Order 69.1 to Bill C-4. The wording of paragraph (b) of the motion refers to voting on “all questions necessary to dispose of the second reading stage of the bill”. This language certainly contemplates multiple votes at the second reading stage and, of course, would be undisturbed by the amendment proposed by the hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition. Moreover, the chapeau of the motion does not make any provision for it to operate notwithstanding any standing order, let alone that it would operate notwithstanding Standing Order 69.1.

In conclusion, it is my respectful submission that Bill C-4 is an omnibus bill and that under the provisions of the standing order, its part 3 should be separated out for a separate vote at the second reading stage.

Natural Resources

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, the government's throne speech rehashed old Liberal promises without even mentioning oil and gas workers or pipelines.

The natural resource sector lost 43,000 jobs in the last quarter alone. Western Canadians have been hard hit by the economic calamity that began under the government long before the pandemic, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. The Prime Minister is divisive, just like his father.

Why will the government not show it cares about national unity and a real economic recovery by supporting our oil and gas workers?

Government Business No. 10

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it has become clear that the Liberals are using the pandemic to shut down accountability and transparency, potentially to usher in big government dependency, while targeted support is not actually getting to Canadians who desperately need it.

In over five years, no province has borne the brunt of the Liberals' divisive, anti-business, anti-energy, anti-resource policies more than Alberta. The Liberals outright campaigned against Albertans and the oil and gas in 2019. Now the government is using COVID-19 to finish what it started, the destruction of Canadian oil and gas. What is crazy is that the finance minister and the natural resources minister keep acknowledging how bad it is for Canadian oil and gas now that the OPEC cartel has dropped prices, disproportionately harming Canadian energy. While demand has declined due to the pandemic, with no plan to go forward for Canadian energy, and the programs they have promised to help are complete failures, Albertans can be forgiven for concluding that the lack of support is by design or intentional.

Eighty-five days after the finance minister promised help in “hours or days”, the specific help for small and medium-sized oil and gas companies has never actually happened, but just got merged into a generic mid-sized loan program. However, a medium-sized company needs $100 million in annual revenue to qualify for the program. I guess the Liberals have a different definition of a medium-sized business than the rest of us do, or are completely oblivious to the damage in the sector so far. Even if a company does qualify, the interest rate is higher than that of the banks.

The large employer program has interest rates that rise to 15% by year five, which are payday loan rates, not emergency assistance. Furthermore, the small business loan amounts are too small for oil and gas suppliers, and when drillers face one or two years of zero revenue, short-term and fixed loans are really of no use.

The $1.7 billion for orphaned wells is a drop in the bucket meant to create 5,000 jobs for a sector that has lost more than 200,000 jobs since 2015 and 20,000 since the pandemic started, with no end in sight. Orphaned wells have increased by 300% since 2015, precisely because of Liberal policies that have bankrupted operators.

The Liberals put the big banks in charge of applying for most of the BDC and EDC COVID programs, but banks are refusing because of the risk-sharing provisions, or to avoid doing work with a program from which they will not profit.

The reality is that Liberal ministers have been told all of this directly, repeatedly, privately and publicly, so their lack of action seems intentional and malicious. These Liberals are either oblivious or do not care about the damage they are doing to the fabric of our country, giving billions of Canadian tax dollars to their elite cronies and entitled, connected buddies, or benefiting Liberal friends or families, while everyday Canadians are struggling.

On a personal note, let me say that it is incredibly sad that as their federal representative, often the first thing I hear my constituents say to me these days is that it is time for Alberta to leave Canada. It is not just that of a vocal minority, but a growing view in Lakeland, and I believe it is my duty to express the scale and scope of that frustration and anger. People are not just talking about the concept, but about the mechanics, which should be particularly troubling given the unprecedented health, fiscal and economic crisis Alberta faces now. I guess it does not make the news because we are from a rural area or the Prairies, which is easy to ignore in Ottawa, but these Liberals have destroyed the faith of many Albertans in the federal government to the extent they have given up on the idea of Canada. That should shake every person in this chamber and everyone listening. It did not happen overnight, but it accumulated after five years of targeted attacks on Lakeland and Alberta, on federal jobs in my riding, on the oil and gas sector, on rural communities, on farmers and farm families. Cutting so many Albertans out of COVID-19 emergency supports is only the latest example.

From day one, the Liberals have gone out of their way to destroy livelihoods in Lakeland and Alberta, ignoring hundreds of thousands of job losses, spikes in bankruptcies, suicides and family breakdowns. They are sacrificing families and the future of their children for ideology and partisan gain.

There is a serious agricultural emergency in Lakeland after an early snow trapped crops in the field last fall. This year's spring harvest was followed by excessive rains that flooded fields, prevented seeding or drowned crops, wiping out farm incomes for a third straight year. Liberal-caused uncertainty in export markets and the pandemic made things even more complicated for all producers. To make matters worse, the Liberals hiked their carbon tax by 50% on April 1, right in the middle of the pandemic, increasing costs for farmers who did manage to get their crops off the field and making literally everything more expensive in every sector of agriculture.

Of course, no industry has endured the single-minded sabotage and vilification of the Liberal government like oil and gas. The Prime Minister tells the world he wants to phase out Canada's most valuable export and largest private sector investor in the economy. The Liberals blocked, delayed and cancelled infrastructure for Canadian oil and gas, not for the benefit of the planet, because Canadian oil and gas is the most socially and environmentally responsible in the world, but in order to burnish the Prime Minister's celebrity status in the global jet-setting United Nations crowd. It makes no sense.

Developing all of Canada's resources and exporting Canadian natural gas will do far more to address global environmental challenges than anything the Liberals have imposed on Canada, and in particular on the prairies.

After the 2019 election, Liberal campaigners admitted they vilified the oil and gas sector. They put their electoral gain ahead of the country. Clearly, the Prime Minister has learned from his father's campaign tactics. As Pierre Trudeau's strategist said when justifying the pillaging of Alberta's earnings, “Screw the West, we'll take the rest.”

Liberal cabinet ministers and Liberal MPs actively campaign against opportunities for Albertans that would benefit all of Canada, such as the Teck Frontier project, and have supported funding pipeline protesters and petitioned against oil and gas projects that would benefit Alberta and all of Canada. It has created an inherent animosity that goes even beyond changing this Prime Minister and this government.

The Liberals and the establishment's ambivalence to the thousands of mom-and-pop oil and gas suppliers shutting down in western Canada in real time, the lack of long-term assistance measures, the domino effect for financial support for producers to get drilling started again have been heard loud and clear in Lakeland, make no mistake.

For the first time since 1965, Alberta will receive more money from the federal government in 2020 than it sends. For 55 continuous years, wealth generated by Alberta strengthened the rest of Canada. The NEP in the 1980s under Pierre Trudeau took the most, at over $30 billion a year, which has since declined, but since 2005, Alberta contributed more than $20 billion a year than it received, which is more than any other province. Structural changes are needed to make Canada work for Alberta and to level the playing field. It would be good for all of Canada to value all of the regions in our country.

The Liberals are using COVID-19 as a so-called opportunity to re-engineer Canada's economy in ways that will further alienate and impoverish the west, and they are supported by their allies on the left.

Alberta punches above its weight in Canada. It is not an accident of geography or natural resources or demographics. It is not a coincidence. It is because generations of Albertans and Albertans by choice created an advantage by combining hard work, innovation, personal responsibility and free-market principles and policies to create private sector opportunities and a growing economy that attracted the best, the brightest and the youngest from all across Canada and the world to work and raise their families. It is free markets and free enterprise policies that propelled Alberta's economy to create nine out of every 10 new full-time jobs in Canada as recently as 2014 and to be a net contributor to Canada continuously for more than half a century.

The worst damage has always been done by federal intrusions into Alberta's natural resources policy, such as the NEP and now the dismantling of oil and gas through bills like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, the blocking of pipelines, other regulations and roadblocks, barriers to exploration and to drilling, the carbon tax and now the failure of COVID support programs. Other provinces and regions have similar natural resource assets and opportunities, but they have not taken the same approach. It was the private sector and Alberta's entrepreneurial risk-taking innovation, combined with positive federal and provincial fiscal policies, that unlocked remarkable opportunities in Alberta for all of Canada.

After the 2015 election, in my first words in the House of Commons, I said, “A strong Alberta means a strong Canada.” It is really a tragedy for my riding and for our country that the Liberals have done everything they can to undermine that reality. On election night, the Prime Minister said he heard Alberta and that he would do better. He has not. My constituents are watching everything they built for generations collapse in front of them, and the federal government keeps asking them to sacrifice more by accepting one more review, one more regulation and one more tax. It is suffocating Lakeland, and because of Alberta's outside contribution to Canada, it will suffocate Canada's economic recovery.

The perspective that Canada does not work for Alberta is unfortunately pervasive in Lakeland. As elected representatives, we owe a duty of more than platitudes about our positions on industries, laws and taxes, more than politics for personal and partisan gain. This is obvious to freedom-loving Albertans and Albertans by choice. In Lakeland, it is a self-evident truth that the status quo is neither acceptable nor sustainable.

If anything I have said in the chamber today makes colleagues angry or uncomfortable, I hope it weighs on them. I hope it keeps them up at night, like it does me. I hope they stop enabling and helping the most corrupt, entitled and out-of-touch Prime Minister, who is doing all this damage to our country.

Proceedings of the House and Committees

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your giving me that extra six and a half minutes, because I was mentally prepared for 16 and a half minutes, and I appreciate your clarifying that time.

I was listening to an online conference of Alltech, a large agriculture company, this week. One of the presenters said, “A crisis does not build character; a crisis reveals the character of you and your team.” I think that is very apropos right now, because Canadians are looking to us not only as parliamentarians, as elected officials, but certainly as their beacon of democracy, of what Canada stands for. They are looking to us for inspiration and to be leaders. In a time of crisis, we are the ones who should be at the forefront, taking the leadership role. I think that leadership role includes going to work.

I want to give those in the House who were not here yesterday a bit of a review.

Yesterday, my colleague from Ottawa West—Nepean said in her speech that the House does not matter and that being in Parliament should not matter. I think that is wrong. I know for us there is no greater honour than being elected by our constituents and representing them here in Parliament, in the House of Commons. I believe that this is the foundation of our democracy.

Somebody told me once that there have been fewer members of Parliament than there have been hockey players in the National Hockey League. I am sure most of us had our parents tell us we would never make it in professional hockey, but I do not know if they would have ever said we would never be members of Parliament. Here I am, and that is thanks to my constituents.

When I was elected by the constituents of Foothills, I believed it was my job to be here to represent them, to be their voice in the House of Commons, and to be in Parliament. I would hope that my colleagues from all parties would understand that being here is an integral part of the job of being a member of Parliament. If they do not want to be here, I think they have to look internally to what they want to accomplish in their career as elected politicians and elected officials. If being here in the House of Commons, in Parliament, is not something they see as an essential service or a priority, they should really be taking a hard look at whether this is something they want to do, because being here is a large part of that job. It should be an honour. It is something we should all take a great deal of pride in, no matter what party we represent, and certainly our constituents are expecting us to be here.

Last night, I went through some of my emails from my constituents. We have certainly had a number of them. I know we all have. My constituents in Foothills are asking me to come back to work, not just to be in a virtual committee meeting, but to have Parliament up and running. I would like to read some of the comments that I have from some of my constituents.

Missy in Twin Butte, Alberta wrote:

Keep the pressure up for our government to get back to work! Is it not an essential service? There needs to be some opposition feedback and some questions allowed to [the Prime Minister]. At the moment there are no checks and balances....scary!

Pat in High River wrote:

I would like to know what, if anything you are doing to get the liberals back into the house so you can all do what we are paying you to do.... Letting this virus hold you back is total crap, the people that work in grocery stores and other stores are working. [Why aren't you?] I don't see any reason why you and [parliamentarians] shouldn't be working as well. If the liberals won't go back [to] parliament [it should be] dissolved and an election called.

Karen wrote:

I’m extremely disappointed that the Federal government feels that Parliament is not an essential part of the running of Canada. The justification [for this] is a slap in the face to those [of us] who work every day.... [It is] time for Canadians to be allowed to get back to work.

Rick wrote:

Parliament needs to reconvene, even in a condensed version. I watched the sitting last week and there was some great issues/ideas put forward by the opposition. this inadequate [version of] government cannot continue on its own.

Ellen in High River wrote:

We MUST get parliament back in session !!!!! [That is an] understatement. There must be some way to make [the Prime Minister] recall parliament, short of a million people descending on Ottawa [and demanding so].

Those are just a few of my constituents' comments about where they feel the critical role of Parliament is.

Yesterday, we had the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development saying that we are in a virtual Parliament. We are not in a virtual Parliament; we are in a virtual committee meeting, a committee of the whole. That is very different from Parliament.

It is disingenuous and misleading by the government to say that we are in a virtual Parliament, because we are not having opposition day motions, we are not dealing with legislation outside of COVID-19, and we are not dealing with having the majority of committees up and running. There is no question that dealing with COVID-19 is a priority for all of us. I do not think any of us would disagree with that. However, to say that there are no other issues that are almost as important is simply not true.

The leader of the official opposition yesterday talked about energy projects that are languishing at the cabinet table, 85 billion dollars' worth of energy projects. One of those projects is the Riversdale coal mine in Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, in my riding. This is metallurgical coal, which shows the lack of knowledge of the Liberals, who are now chirping at me about shutting down the coal industry. This is a metallurgical coal mine that mines coal for steel, just in case members want to do some homework.

It is interesting that she is already yelling to shut down that industry, not understanding that thousands of people in that community rely on that industry. Having the Riversdale mine would be a game-changer for that community, a community that is not doing well. This is an opportunity for more than 1,000 jobs during construction and hundreds more during operation.

It is not just about the mine and the fact that it is waiting in limbo to be approved or not. It has gone through every process. It has one permit left to go and the approval of cabinet, but imagine what that does for that community. Imagine what that does for Blair's hardware store, Dawn's bed and breakfast and restaurant, Lisa's newspaper, or events operations, or other businesses in that community.

That community is waiting with bated breath on the decision for that mine but sees it languishing at the cabinet table or within government because of COVID-19. I hope the government can walk and chew gum at the same time, so that we can deal with COVID-19 but also have Parliament back to deal with other issues that are just as important.

When we come out of COVID-19, we are going to be in a deep financial hole. We have seen from the Parliamentary Budget Officer that the deficit right now is about $252 billion. I would suspect that, with the extension of the CERB and the wage subsidy, it could double and we will see a trillion-dollar debt for Canada. To come out of that, we are going to be relying on a few industries to help carry or dig Canada out of that financial hole.

There are only a couple of industries with the landscape out there right now that Canadians can look to and government should be looking to, to ensure that they are on a strong footing. Examples are energy and agriculture. No matter what happens coming out of COVID, people are still going to heat their homes. They are still going to put fuel in their cars, buy groceries and feed their families. As part of that, there is very real discussion of having a global food shortage. Countries around the world are going to be looking to Canada to try to address that problem because of our farmers here. Would it not make sense to have those two industries as strong as possible coming out of COVID-19?

Those are two of the industries that the Liberal government is neglecting, when it should be looking at those two as pillars of our economy, pillars of our recovery. It does not make a lot of sense that they are not. If we have Parliament back, we can have those discussions here.

For example, in the energy sector, the Standing Committee on Natural Resources is not sitting. Why? It is one of the most important industries we have in this country, with more than $60 billion in royalty revenue alone going to the federal government. That does not count the hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes that go to provincial, municipal and federal governments through income tax. That is an essential revenue source for this country coming out of COVID-19, but we cannot have those discussions, because we are just having what is essentially a committee meeting and we cannot talk about issues outside of that committee meeting.

There are projects like the Riversdale mine, which are essential to communities like Crowsnest Pass in my riding. That is just one project of dozens in constituencies and regions across this country. If I am hearing from my constituents about a project of that magnitude and the impact that it could be having on their economy, I am sure others among my colleagues are having the same conversations with their constituents.

As we go through this pandemic and we start looking forward to reopening our economy, in whatever manner that happens, as provinces will have a lot of say in how that happens and we want to ensure we do that as safely as possible, we can imagine where we would be as a country and an economy if we had a strong energy sector and a strong agriculture sector. We would be in a very different position, because we were coming into COVID-19 on very weak financial footing as a result of out-of-control spending by the Liberal government.

I recall the election in 2015, when the current Prime Minister said that we were going to have deficits of $10 billion for four years and in 2019 we would have a balanced budget. That obviously did not happen. We have now seen deficits as high as $28 billion. That was even before the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw detrimental legislation like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, which have devastated the energy sector. We have seen illegal blockades, carbon taxes and rail backlogs that have devastated the agriculture sector, not to mention more than $5 billion in lost foreign markets as a result of political blunders by the Prime Minister.

Members can imagine where we would be if those two industries were doing well coming into COVID. It would put us in a decent position to come out of this pandemic, but unfortunately that is not where we are. That is unfortunate, because those people would be working. Certainly for us in Alberta, with close to 200,000 energy workers out of work well before COVID-19, that is certainly not getting any better as a result of what we are going through right now.

When I am speaking to my constituents, they understand the position this country is in with the pandemic. We all want to ensure that our families and our friends are safe, but they also want to be back to work. I find it difficult. My wife and I leave home now and again to get groceries, and on the weekend we went to a garden centre and bought some trees and flowers for the yard, and there are 15-year-old teenagers working there. They are helping serve their community in their way, and I find it tough that we cannot do the same thing and serve our community right here in the House of Commons.

What are my Liberal colleagues and those in the Bloc and the NDP trying to hide? Why do they not want to be here? What is holding them back? We are here all this week as 60 members of Parliament, but just in a committee meeting. Why can we not go that extra couple of steps and get ourselves back to normal? I think that is what Canadians are asking us to do. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we are supposed to be the leaders, so why are we languishing behind everybody else? Why are we asking Canadians of every walk of life to start going back to work, except we are the ones who are saying “but not us”? We are saying, “It is good enough for you, but it is not what we should be doing.” I think that is wrong. It sends a horrible message to Canadians. They are looking to us every single day, as their elected representatives. They chose us. They elected us to come here and be their voice, and for the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc and the Greens to be muffling that voice is wrong.

I do not know how they can go back to their constituents, look them in the face and tell them they need to go to work in that grocery story, in that hospital, in that pharmacy and in that hardware store, but the members of Parliament are not going to go back to work. If that is truly their attitude, they need to look at their constituents and ask themselves why they ran in the first place to be a member of Parliament if they are not willing to be out in front, be that leader, be that inspiration to the rest of Canada, be the one who shows that everything is going to be okay. We are going to be here to make the tough decisions on behalf of our constituents.

What it really comes down to is holding the government to account. We cannot have an ongoing process of doing government by press conference. Our democracy is not about that.

I know my constituents are sick and tired of the Prime Minister coming out of the cottage every morning, making his announcements, going back in and then that is it. They want some accountability. In many cases, they agree with the programs that have been put forward, and they certainly appreciate the improvements that the official opposition has forced the government to do. However, they are looking to us to be leaders, not followers. They are looking to us to get back to work, and the government should follow that lead.

Opposition Motion—Pharmacare

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute pleasure to split my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, my seatmate and a well-informed member on this topic.

I think members from all parties can agree that we want Canadians to receive the best possible health care. However, universal or national pharmacare would have serious implications for all Canadians, without changing the status quo for most. According to a 2017 report by The Conference Board of Canada, 98% of Canadians either have or are eligible for private or public drug coverage, so we know that the vast majority of Canadians can access the medications they need without financial burden.

If we implemented a universal pharmacare program, this would not be the case. To pay for a universal system, taxes would have to be raised for all Canadians. We do not know how much that could cost, but estimates are around $15 billion annually. Under a universal system, the most vulnerable Canadians would see their cost of living go up due to higher taxes.

Canadians who currently have the coverage they need would give up some of their disposable income to fund the new system, while seeing no change to their quality of life or access to prescription medication. One thing I consistently hear from my constituents is that they cannot afford more taxes. They cannot afford higher living costs. Things are stretched tight as it is.

The government needs to be mindful of the economic times we are in. Oil prices are in free fall, COVID-19 is predicted to have significant impacts on our economy, rail blockades caused millions of dollars in lost economic development and companies are rethinking investing in Canada because of our “political climate”. Just yesterday, the TSX fell by almost 700 points, and we are now in what is called a bear market.

We are in uncertain times. Some have even called it uncharted territory. Right now, many Canadians are worried about their jobs and livelihoods. Now is not the time to implement a pharmacare program that would come at a massive cost on the backs of taxpayers. I am especially worried because of the huge deficit we already have, which is close to $30 billion. In December of last year, finance department documents showed it was at $26.6 billion and expected to keep rising. We will find out more when the finance minister releases his budget on March 30, the date we finally learned just yesterday.

We have this huge deficit, and I am still scratching my head and wondering why. We have been in relatively good economic times for the past few years. Canada was in good shape until 2015 thanks to the previous Conservative government that had the restraint to save and make tough decisions. The government has squandered that good fortune. Instead, it has gone on a spending spree and racked up unsustainable levels of debt and will leave the bill to our children and grandchildren.

Most economists know that one saves money in the good times and puts money away for a rainy day, as the saying goes. That did not happen, and now we are heading into a series of stormy days. The government cannot give any sort of clear answer on how it is going to respond to a recession. My guess is that it has no idea.

This is a crucial time for Canada. Companies no longer see Canada as a place to make a safe investment. The government has actively worked to shut down the energy industry with legislation like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. Thousands of hard-working men and women are finding themselves out of work in my home province of Alberta, and this has had a ripple effect on the entire economy. What does all this have to do with pharmacare? As I said earlier, Canadians cannot afford higher taxes, especially in these uncertain economic times.

In last year's budget, the government pledged to work with provinces, territories and stakeholders to create the Canadian drug agency and to spend $35 million to establish a Canadian drug agency transition office. The government's advisory group was headed by a former provincial Liberal, Dr. Eric Hoskins, a man who is no stranger to endless deficits and debt. It is no surprise that the report he authored recommended the creation of a universal system. It is always buy now, pay later.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has warned the government of the impact on workers should pharmacare be implemented. Its chief economist, Trevin Stratton, said millions of Canadians would lose access to medications they have under the current plans. He said the government needs to “carefully reflect” on how millions of Canadians who already have access to prescription drug coverage would be impacted.

Some families experienced this recently when the Ontario government implemented free prescription medication for people under the age of 25. This program, OHIP+, cost roughly $500 million a year when it was implemented in 2017. Private insurance for those under the age of 25 became obsolete. Many parents complained that medications for rare diseases were not on the list of approved medications under OHIP+. These medications had been covered under private insurance.

I worry that the same thing will happen with this government when it implements a universal pharmacare system across the country. The prescription medication that many people are currently using and covering the cost of through their private insurance may become unavailable if not approved.

Not only will a universal system put more strain on Canadians through higher taxes and deficit, but access to much-needed prescription drugs may be threatened. The Liberals have been promising a pharmacare plan for decades and have done absolutely nothing about it. It was in their 1997 election platform and was promised again in 2004. Any promises to implement pharmacare are purely for political posturing. In fact, their 2019 budget contained almost no health care money until 2022, well after the election.

We on this side of the House know that one of the best things we can do to help Canadians is keep taxes and the cost of living low. Fiscal restraint is required to ensure the prosperity of our future generations. We need to make good decisions now, and I do not believe adopting a universal pharmacare program is a smart decision. As I stated, it would have serious financial impacts through higher taxes and bigger deficits. It would threaten access to medications currently covered through private drug plans. Research shows that about 98% of Canadians already have or are eligible for private or public drug coverage.

While we know that some Canadians legitimately struggle to pay for access to prescription medications, this is not the case for the majority of our population. We already have one of the best health care systems in the world, and we should be proud of the system in place.

Instead of focusing on big-ticket items like national pharmacare, the government needs to focus on the unfolding economic crisis. We need urgent action to unleash our economy. Budget 2020 must include cuts for workers and entrepreneurs to reward investment and work, a reasonable plan to phase out the deficit and reassure investors, a rule to eliminate red tape and liberate businesses, an end to corporate welfare for favoured companies and an end to the wasteful Liberal spending that we have seen over the past four years.

We are all in the House to help our constituents and all Canadians. We want to see them be successful and get ahead. Implementing an expensive pharmacare system will not achieve this. It will put more tax burdens on hard-working Canadians and it is not needed by the vast majority of our population. These uncertain economic times are not suitable for introducing a $15-billion pharmacare plan.

Opposition Motion—Documents on Economic Downturns

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to speak today on our opposition motion. We have a government across the way that for the last four and a half years has governed as if the good times would never come to an end. It appears that the government's luck has run out in the face of a slowing economy, soaring deficits and debt, and economic uncertainties arising from the coronavirus, the illegal blockades and today the collapse in the price of oil.

Therefore, we have put forward a very straightforward motion, a motion in the name of transparency, calling on the government to do something it should be quite enthusiastic to do, which is to release all documents whereby it may have been provided advice or input about the possibility of an economic downturn. Canadians deserve to see those documents to know whether the government heeded those warnings, whether the government took precautionary measures or whether the government did what it appears to have done, which is to ignore those warnings altogether.

I say that the government should be quite enthusiastic because it is what is in the mandate letter from the Prime Minister to the Minister of Finance wherein the Prime Minister states, “I also expect us to continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency in government. This means a government that is open by default.” Surely consistent with the finance minister's mandate letter would be a government that would be welcoming our timely motion here today.

When the Liberals came to office in 2015, they inherited a strong economy from the previous Conservative government. They also benefited, in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, a period of strong global economic growth, from low interest rates and a return in terms of commodity prices from a low at the earlier part of the decade.

When I got here in 2015, I know that my Conservative colleagues and I provided advice to the Liberals in terms of encouraging them in the face of a relatively strong economy to take a responsible approach, to pay down debt and prepare for a rainy day. That is precisely the approach that Prime Minister Stephen Harper took when the times were good in 2006 and 2007. Between 2006 and 2008, the Harper government paid down $38 billion of debt, which constituted the largest debt repayment of any government in Canadian history.

Why did the Harper government do that? It was because it recognized that the good times would not last forever. As it turned out, they did not, because in 2008-09, we saw the largest global economic recession since the Great Depression. However, because of Stephen Harper's foresight, Canada had the fiscal capacity to respond to that global economic downturn, later resulting in a recovery that was faster and stronger than that of any other G7 country.

That was the Conservatives' approach. That was the approach that we encouraged the government to take, but it had different ideas. The Liberals' approach, contrary to ours, was to spend, spend, spend and spend some more. One could say that the Liberals spent like drunken sailors. However, as Ronald Reagan used to say, that would be an insult to drunken sailors.

The Liberal government has added $75 billion of new debt in just four years. By the end of this fiscal year, Canada will be on track to adding $100 billion of new debt.

The finance minister said that we should not worry, that the good times would continue. It is not so, as dark clouds are on the horizon for Canada's economy.

We have seen a significant slowdown in the Canadian economy. Indeed, in the fourth quarter of 2019, Canada experienced just 0.3% GDP growth. That constitutes negative per capita GDP growth. In fact, in November we actually saw a decline in the Canadian economy, and 71,000 jobs were lost.

While Canada grew at only 0.3% in the last quarter of 2019, our biggest trading partner, our biggest economic competitor, the United States, saw a GDP growth of 2.1%. There is quite a contrast between the growth in the United and the dismal performance of the Canadian economy.

That pattern of lagging behind the United States is projected to continue into this year. Indeed, the Canadian economy is expected to grow at only half the rate of the United States'. Meanwhile, unemployment is 30% higher in Canada than in the United States. Indeed, under the Liberal government's watch, Canada has the unenviable position of having the highest unemployment rate of any G7 country, save for Italy and France. These are hardly jurisdictions we should be seeking to emulate in terms of economic performance, yet that is precisely the approach the government seems to want to take.

The over four and a half years of spending and more spending, without any plan for a rainy day, has left the Canadian economy weak and vulnerable.

In the face of that, Canadians deserve to know the government's plan. What is the government's plan to get beyond per capita negative GDP growth of a pathetic 0.3%? What is the government's plan to stimulate the economy and restore some level of fiscal responsibility? We know that today's $30-billion deficit could very easily translate into $50-billion or $60-billion deficits if there is a further slowdown.

I know that unlike the Liberals, we on this side of the House do have a plan. It involves unleashing the Canadian economy by cutting taxes for workers and small businesses, repealing the anti-development bills, Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and reducing red tape with a two-for-one rule that builds on the legislated one-for-one rule and is consistent with what has been undertaken by the Province of Manitoba and our largest competitor, the United States.

The Conservatives have a plan to, in a reasonable way, get spending under control by eliminating waste, reducing red tape and reducing the burden of government to eventually get to what the Liberal government inherited from our previous Conservative government: a balanced budget.

In closing, where is the government's plan? It has no plan beyond spending and spending some more. In the face of that plan versus our plan to unleash the Canadian economy, I will take our plan any day.

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the motion put forward by my colleague, the member for Carleton. I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

It is a very important debate that we are having today, particularly given the circumstances we find ourselves in with the coronavirus, the blockades and a general slowdown in the economy. One thing of note is that the Liberal government has always prided itself on its fiscal anchors. Let us talk a bit about those fiscal anchors that have now put us in a situation where we have limited flexibility to react to crises like these.

The first fiscal anchor the Liberals claimed was that they would balance the budget within five years. They said they would have very small deficits and then they would balance the budget. Of course, that anchor has now fallen off. Next they said they would try to find a balance with debt-to-GDP ratios and continue to see a decline. That fiscal anchor has fallen off the boat as well.

The one anchor they have left is when they talk about employment numbers. I would suggest there is a weakening in the employment numbers and, when we compare ourselves against some of the other G7 countries, Canada's unemployment rate does not look as favourable. Here is a government priding itself on fiscal anchors. I would say the anchor has fallen through the boat, the boat has a big hole, the boat is sinking and the Liberals do not even see it happening.

The Minister of Finance keeps saying that we are in good shape and we have this great reserve built up so that we can weather these storms. I am wondering if we will ever find out what that reserve is because, from the numbers Conservatives are looking at, we do not see that being the case.

The leadership of the government and the regulations that are stopping the growth of business have resulted in over 200,000 job losses in my province of Saskatchewan. There is $150 billion in capital that has gone elsewhere.

I always hear that it is because the commodity price is low. The fact is that the money went somewhere. Norway has now opened up another field and says it will pump oil for as long as it is needed. It put that investment in. The Russians have just put a big capital investment into the resource sector, and we know the Americans have been very successful growing their resource business and market share, which is something the Liberal government has not been able to recognize.

There is also the tax structure that has been put in place, burdening small businesses with increases in CPP, EI and particularly the carbon tax. The carbon tax is a tax on everything. These hard-working small businesses are trying to produce products, trying to be competitive in the global market and are restrained by the government continuing to increase taxes. By throwing in the TOSI rules and limiting the ability of husbands and wives to split income through those corporations, it strikes me that we are doing everything we can to try to slow down these hard-working individuals and great businesses that are the strength of Canada.

Under the Liberal government's weak leadership, the energy sector alone has lost over $150 billion in investment. I can name off the projects: $20 billion for Teck, $8 billion for northern gateway, $16 billion for energy east, $36 billion for Pacific NorthWest, $28 billion for Aurora and $25 billion for WCC LNG. The list goes on and on.

I can give the government a little help. There is a quick fix to send the right message that it supports resource development, that it supports these great Canadian companies getting to market. The government can support my bill, which would take away the tanker ban and allow companies to export their products through a deepwater port, be competitive and export our clean energy to other countries.

Last week, I was in Toronto at the mining conference. There again I heard great concern about the regulatory process in this country. Project after project talked about how the current government does not understand the importance of investments. I hope it is listening to the extraction sector, whether it be the oil and gas or mining businesses. If it wants to get this economy going, it is time it recognizes these businesses are its lifeblood. They are the ones that produce the revenue, can help this economy and will pay for all these programs I continually hear about. At the finance committee, submission after submission was about spending. At some point, we have to have an economy that is growing at a rate to be able to pay for all that spending.

While I am on spending, there is spending that can work toward growing the economy and then there is outright waste. The government seems to be the expert on waste. We can talk about the $50 million to Mastercard, the $12 million to Loblaws or the $40 million to BlackBerry. It goes on and on. Those types of investments are not what we need; we need the government to invest in less regulation, to empower the private sector and let these people get back to work.

We have an infrastructure program. I will acknowledge that the Conservatives also had an infrastructure program. Here is the difference. When the Liberals put out their infrastructure program, they talked about the three anchors they wanted to have within that program: investments in productivity; a reduction in greenhouse gases; and an increase in GDP. When we had a discussion with the PBO about this program, we asked if they were hitting the mark on any of those measures. There is no evidence they are hitting the mark on the measures, particularly in the area of productivity, which is the way we can get this economy going. Putting an infrastructure program together that has a lack of accountability, focus and measurables makes it really difficult to see if it is working. I hope the government will reverse its course on the infrastructure program and recognize that it should be focusing on allowing companies to be more productive, giving them better access to markets and making sure we have the most competitive regime of any country out there.

This program is full of flaws. Now is the time to push the reset button and start to deliver on programs that would be effective, allow us to grow the economy and help industry grow, rather than grow the government's budget.

With respect to the future outlook, beyond anything else we need to see a plan that gets us back to a balanced budget. It is not unreasonable to ask government when it will finally get back to balance, and I think there is an opportunity for it to do that. We need the government to get out of the way of the private sector. The private sector offered to build the pipeline and government ended up having to buy the pipeline because of the regulatory burden the government put on that company. The private sector wants to invest in Canada and believes in Canada, but it needs the government to send the right message to say we are open for business again.

Our energy sector and the province I come from are proud of what they do. They do it well, they do it clean and they have an opportunity to gain market share if we let them. We need to expand our ability to ship. I ask the government to seriously consider making revisions to Bill C-69 to make sure there is confidence in the markets here, as well as eliminate the tanker ban off the west coast. It is certainly not there.

A pay-as-we-go principle would bring some discipline back to government. If government is going to add something new, it has to be able to pay for it, so it should be able to balance those things, which would ensure discipline in the government and make sure it gets back on a path of balancing the budget.

On the tax front for small businesses, we have to eliminate the input taxes, lower the burdens on these businesses and allow them to succeed.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, as was said by someone earlier, the Liberals are living in some kind of alternate universe in terms of the way that things work fiscally.

The member for Kitchener South—Hespeler talked about how the government is spending this money, calling it investing. Does he not realize that those forestry workers that are unemployed are not paying into their tax bucket? Does he not realize that oil workers in Alberta are not paying? Does he not realize that as the stock market crashes around us, people are not paying tax on the dividends? Does he not realize that the government is driving investment out of this country with its poorly planned policies, whether it is Bill C-69 or Bill C-48? Does the member not see what is happening today?

Liberal members are standing up and saying that everything is fine, that we should not worry and that they are going to spend more money. They do not have more money to spend.