Bill C-69 (Historical)

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

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

Natural Resources

[Jag Sahota, Conservative, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first time standing in the House. I would like to thank my family, volunteers and constituents of Calgary Skyview who have placed their trust in me.

The Prime Minister's attack on the energy sector has hit Alberta particularly hard. He refuses to amend his no-pipeline bill, Bill C-69. The Prime Minister thinks male construction workers have a negative impact on rural areas. Yesterday, we learned that unemployment among young men in my province is at 20%.

Is this what the Prime Minister wanted when he was talking about gender impacts?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the largest private sector investment in Canadian history is now at risk due to the actions of the Liberal government. Now the disparaging comments by the environment minister toward liquefied natural gas have put the future in doubt, as we now see Chevron pulling out of the project in Kitimat.

We need a Canadian government that stands up for Canadian jobs. Changes are required to Bill C-69 to ensure that pipelines and facilities can be built.

Does the Prime Minister agree with his senior B.C. minister that belittling Canadian energy is the right thing to do?

[James Cumming, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the people of Alberta sent a message to the Liberals this fall about Bill C-69. The energy industry has rejected the bill. Foreign investment is fleeing and 175,000 jobs have been lost in the energy sector. Premiers from coast to coast agree that the bill needs to be changed.

When will the Prime Minister and his government listen to Albertans, make the changes needed and get people back to work?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the voters of Calgary Forest Lawn for electing me to this House. It is a great honour.

The Liberal attack on our energy sector has me worried for my province and my city. Canadian LNG is a world-class product that is desperately needed to help achieve global emission reductions. We need new pipelines to move that gas to the coast, but we cannot do it without changes to Bill C-69, changes that allow Alberta gas to share the opportunity.

When will the Liberals make the changes to Bill C-69 that Alberta and Canada so desperately need?

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the residents of Durham, my constituents, for giving me the honour to rise again in this House in the 43rd Parliament. It is a profound honour for me to represent my hometown in Parliament.

As someone who attended the Churchill Society award dinner honouring David Crombie last week in Toronto, and as the former director of that committee, I am very happy to start my first speech of this session with a quote by Winston Churchill.

It is self-deprecating, because Churchill once said, “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” I have read many books of quotations, not just by Churchill but also by the government and the Prime Minister.

I am going to seize upon one of the quotes from the throne speech, which I actually took away in a positive sense. The throne speech ended with a remarkable passage by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's speech at the opening of the Centennial Flame, just beside us in West Block, which read:

Tonight we begin a new chapter in our country’s story. Let the record of that chapter be one of co-operation and not conflict; of dedication and not division; of service, not self...

The irony is that the speech was kicking off our centennial year, lighting a centennial flame using natural gas from Canada. I am not sure that irony was found by the Prime Minister's Office when it chose that aspirational quote, but that was how people celebrated. The Centennial Flame has all of our provinces and territories, now including Nunavut, around it and is burning Canadian natural gas, allowing that fountain to burn throughout the coldest winters in Ottawa.

Earlier in that speech, Pearson complimented our industrial capacity and our resourcefulness as a country. Sometimes we have to ask what was said before the quote that the government used for its throne speech. In the same speech, kicking off the celebration of Canadian natural gas in many ways, Pearson said:

Economically, we have become a rich society and a great industrial power. We have built new dimensions of progress and welfare into the Canadian way of life. The boundaries of freedom and opportunity have been expanded for every Canadian.

That was Lester B. Pearson's remark, speaking about the balance that Canada had been able to have by being resourceful, tapping our natural resources and being industrial, celebrating our industrial sectors, in order to provide for the welfare of the country.

One thing people on this side of the House have been saying, both through the first term of the Prime Minister and this one, and what is missing in the throne speech, is recognizing the economic diversity of this country. There is no mention of the serious national unity issues we are facing as a result of the Prime Minister and the Liberal government's opposition to our resource sector in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and beyond. There is not one mention of it. This is unlike Pearson who actually understood that resourcefulness, industry and celebrating it, the hard work of Canadians allowing us to have new dimensions of progress for the welfare of our people.

The Premier of Alberta is in Ottawa today. Alberta has been very proud to share not just that wealth with the rest of the country as part of the resourcefulness of its industry, but at times, when the auto industry was struggling in my province, more manufacturing jobs in Ontario were attributable to our western resource industry than into auto assembly. When our national economy was struggling, the global recession, it was actually our resource economy that allowed us to lead the G7. That is allowing new dimensions of progress, embracing that.

The Prime Minister and his whole cabinet should read the entire Pearson speech, not just cherry-pick some aspirational sections. We need a Prime Minister who does not divide the country.

The disappointment and the frustration we see in many parts of the country are the direct result of the Prime Minister hindering the progress of provinces already struggling with global resource prices, a range of issues, pipeline challenges. They have seen a government that has had policy decision after policy decision holding them back. That is how the Prime Minister started.

I spoke about this in my speech four years ago, in January 2016. I spoke about how disappointed I was that the Prime Minister talked about diversity except for recognizing the economic diversity that our country had. In the Prime Minister's first speech abroad as the Canadian prime minister, at Davos in January 2016, he said, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

What was disturbing was that only a few minutes after he went to an international forum, he essentially attacked his predecessor. What made it worse was afterward the Prime Minister's Office changed the speech to take out the reference the Prime Minister made to his predecessor and to just put “Canada” in the quote in the official record. We know press releases often will say “check against delivery”. The Prime Minister delivered something that he should not have delivered. More important than the slight against the previous prime minister was the fact that he mocked the resource industry in Canada in his first remark at Davos. That is division.

I said at the outset that I was going to look to quotations for guidance much like the throne speech used in the Pearson speech. Here is a quote I used four years ago, which rings even more true today, from Robert Stanfield in March 1969. He said, “Let us be quite clear that national unity does not mean uniting most of Canada against part of it.” What wise words when the division in the country at that time was caused by a Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau, and I can say that safely in the House.

We see that in practice from the present Prime Minister from his first speech at Davos, playing off resourcefulness and the resource sector as if steam-assisted gravity drainage and the ability of our oil sands to minimize the mining operations, minimize water usage and minimize greenhouse gas, those innovations somehow did not count to the Prime Minister.

The resourcefulness of our resource sector and the capital markets that developed in Canada as a result of our resources have given us the new dimensions of welfare that Lester Pearson talked about on the eve of Canada's centennial.

What has the Prime Minister done in four years to cause this national unity crisis?

After the Davos speech, there was the cancellation, unilaterally, of northern gateway; no consultations with the one-third owners, indigenous communities; and zero consultations before taking that opportunity away from them. There was the cancellation of energy east as a result of Bill C-69, which is still being brought up in question period today. Why? Because the majority of the country opposed that legislation, including my premier. With respect to Trans Mountain, the company withdrew because of a lack of confidence in Canada. We had Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium, and the 2016 Arctic ban where unilaterally the Prime Minister took away 17% of the landmass from Inuit and northerners to develop.

In fact, previous Liberal Senator Charlie Watt said this about the Prime Minister's unilateral action in Washington:

There have never been clear consultations. As a matter of fact, when the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada made that decision, we were not too happy. Without even coming to us, they just turned around and said, “This is what's going to happen.”

That is not exactly reconciliation.

We can see why Canadians are upset. What is missing from the Throne Speech is a recognition that Canada can and must balance our economic diversity. This means getting our resources to market. It means prioritizing pipelines. It means ending the divisive Bill C-69. That is what we want to see from the Prime Minister.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House.

I want to begin by thanking my constituents for sending me back here. I received one of the strongest results in Canada. I want to thank all of them for showing me that support and for helping me out on the campaign trail. I thank my volunteers and my supporters and of course my family, without whom I would not be able to stand here in the House. This is the second term that I will be serving in the House of Commons.

I want also to take the time to thank all Calgarians and all Albertans for sending back a strong Conservative team of 33 out of 34 members of Parliament. They have chosen very wisely in this Parliament to make sure that their voice is heard on the floor of the House of Commons in the Parliament of Canada. Albertans will no longer be taken advantage of.

Before I continue, Madam Speaker, I want to say that I am splitting my time with the member for Durham. I am sure he will have many important contributions to make to this debate, and also no doubt will provide the perspective of Ontarians on what their expectations are in the Parliament of Canada.

The Speech from the Throne was a very deep disappointment, a slap in the face to Albertans. We have faced some of the hardest economic times our province has faced in multiple generations. Albertans are used to downturns in the oil and gas sector. They are used to downturns in the energy sector. That is nothing new. When I moved to Alberta in 2005, it was something that every single energy worker would tell me. I remember in the last downturn, they would say to save for the next downturn, to put aside some money to weather it. It would come and go and the boom would come back. Projects would get built. We would have new opportunities to grow the economy to create well-paying middle-class jobs in the energy sector.

We have seen a government in the past four years that has failed to do that. We have seen a government that has made it its intention to phase out the energy sector, despite the fact that oil and gas companies invest in renewable energy and invest in their people. We will find no other companies as interested in maximizing the knowledge, the abilities and the type of work that people will be doing. I always tell people back home and all those whom I visit all across Canada that we spent a generation convincing young men and women that it was worth their while to pursue a degree in science, technology, engineering and mathematics because there would be well-paying jobs waiting for them when they finished. When they went into the private sector, they had co-operative jobs and internships ready to go. Some of them did not even finish their degrees and they already had six-figure salaries in engineering jobs waiting for them in oil and gas at the Suncors of the world.

Now we have heard terrible news. Haliburton announced that it was shutting down its cement operations in Alberta. We have news from companies like Suncor Energy. Encana has renamed itself and is moving to the United States. It has already moved most of its board of directors down there. Decisions are being made there for a Canadian company. It was once what we would say in French le fleuron, the main natural gas company in Canada and now those decisions are being made in Denver. Trans Canada dumped “Canada” from its name because it no longer has faith in doing business in Canada. Now it is called TC Energy to hide the fact to American investors that it is a Canadian-based company. That is a lost opportunity. I have come here to make sure that opportunity rings out again in these hallways and that there is opportunity for Albertans within Confederation, within a united Canada.

On every single street I was on and at most of the doors I went to, people would talk about it. People are fed up with being taken advantage of. I have said on the floor of the House of Commons before that people in Alberta are tired of being treated like colonials. We are not colonials. We have made an immense contribution to Canada. Over $600 billion has been transferred out of our province. Albertans do complain about it; it is just something that we do. It is true. We want to be able to create the wealth and then we are okay to share a slice of that wealth with the rest of Canada to make a contribution to Confederation. We contribute more than our fair share right now and all we are asking is that the government listen. Premier Kenney, who is here today in Ottawa, is making five simple requests, none of which happened to be in the throne speech. The federal government has listened to none of them. These are not new things. These are things that the premier has repeatedly asked for.

One request is to remove the cap on the stabilization fund. The Government of Alberta at the moment is forced into deficit spending as it is closing its deficit, which is something the current federal government is incapable of doing. Removing the cap on the stabilization fund would allow the province to get that money back, the “over-contribution”, I would call it, into Confederation, so that we can stabilize our health care system, our education system and the social services that Albertans depend on.

These are extremely important things that must be done. The premier has asked for a major significant amendment to Bill C-69 to ensure that certain major projects will not fall under the Bill C-69 rules. The “no pipelines” bill, as it is called in Alberta, ensures that there are no new projects being proposed. When I go into downtown Calgary and I talk to managers, directors and people making the decisions on whether to pursue a project in Canada, they say that there is no thought about any new projects being suggested for the Canadian market.

Most of the well-paying jobs in the oil and gas sector are in construction. Brand new projects that come online cost tens of thousands so that people can be hired for the length of the construction season to build it. For the past four years, all the government has to show for it is that it has expropriated one pipeline company and taken over Kinder Morgan's TMX contract. After dithering for years and trying to block the pipeline from being built, suddenly, the Liberal Party had a deathbed conversion. Suddenly the government is now in favour of building a pipeline, but only one pipeline. It cancelled energy east. It cancelled Enbridge's northern gateway. It cancelled more kilometres of pipeline than it actually had built. The only one that is kind of pitter-pattering away on getting built is really the last major energy infrastructure project in Canada. The same thing happened with LNG with well-paying jobs.

For a generation we have been convincing people to go into the STEMs. We also spent a heck of a lot of time convincing people to move from other parts of Canada and from parts of the United States to Alberta and earn a living there. We do not have the advantage of beautiful provinces like British Columbia which has the mountains and the ocean. Alberta is just rolling foothills, and they are pretty flat on the east side. However, what we did have was an excellent quality of life, an excellent opportunity to work in a sector that was always trying to do its best, on the cutting edge of everything. There are wildlife biologists and people interested in environmental remediation. Those are the people I met at the doors, people who worked for oil and gas companies trying to remediate the land. They were proud of the work they were doing and the contributions they were making to ensure that with every single project that came online, at some point the land would be remediated and returned as close as possible to its original state.

Suncor was one of those great companies that managed to do that and earned an environmental certificate two provincial governments ago. Now there are wild bison on the territory, something we had not seen for an extremely long time. It is a bison population, by the way, that is healthier than in the wilds of Wood Buffalo National Park.

This throne speech has very, very little for Albertans, so we will be looking for the government to actually reach out to Albertans and make an effort, a true effort, at bridging the gap between what Albertans are feeling and seeing on the ground, the experiences they have had over the past four years, and what we expect from the minority Parliament. There is an entire province right now that is feeling neglected. We are not asking for a handout. We are asking for the federal government to get out of our way and let us create the wealth. Let us create the jobs, well-paying private sector jobs that we have been known for over the past two decades.

It has been amazing to see how fast Calgary has grown even since I moved there. I represent the deep southeast suburbs of Calgary. There are entire communities that did not exist when I moved there. There is a hospital that was built in my riding. It did not exist back in 2005. Some 30,000 to 40,000 people have moved into my area. Cranston, Mahogany, Auburn Bay, Seton, Rangeview and Copperfield are communities that did not exist before.

Tens of thousands of people chose Calgary. They chose Alberta for those well-paying jobs in the energy sector. We have diversified our economy much more than people could ever believe.

The oil and gas sector is a much smaller proportion of Alberta's economy than it was back in 1997. We have diversified our economy. We were moving in the right direction, and we have a federal government that has impeded our ability to continue to create that wealth.

This throne speech is just not good enough. There is not enough concrete action in it that would actually provide any certainty or comfort for the people back home who have lost their jobs and whose severances have run out. They are finding no opportunities to work in the sector where they have spent 20 years, between their education and their early career opportunities, to actually make something of themselves and contribute to their families.

I will be proudly voting against the throne speech, because it has nothing in it.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the reality is that for countries like Canada to transition to a low-emissions green economy, we need to have the revenue to do it. Countries with smaller GDPs have a harder time converting to green economies because they just do not have the ability to invest in sustainable technologies.

We had one of the most comprehensive environmental platforms ever tabled by a political party in the history of this country. It was not just a tax on soccer parents; it was a very comprehensive plan. It had some very good things in it. For example, it talked about the green home tax credit, which would affect millions of Canadians and incentivize them to make our homes more fuel efficient. It talked about taking the climate change globally, that a molecule of carbon does not know borders.

What I am saying is that balanced budgets, growing our economy and getting harsh bills like Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, and Bill C-48 out of the way so we can get our products to market will provide our economy with the strength it needs to make that conversion.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is my first time rising in this House ever, and I would like to congratulate you.

The hon. member mentioned how he liked that the throne speech referred to strengthening the economy. The reality is that in Canada we are actually facing a productivity challenge. Currently in the U.S., every hour of GDP generates about $60. In Switzerland it is $65, while in Canada it is $50. Wages in Switzerland are $33 on average. In the U.S. they are $23, and in Canada they are only $19.

The most affluent and highest contribution to GDP per hour is in the oil and gas sector. Bill C-69 had a huge impact on that and it is hammering our oil and gas industry. Currently, the oil and gas industry contributes $644 per hour.

What concrete steps will the member's government take to improve productivity in Canada?

Natural Resources

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, the Prime Minister said he was open to “making improvements if necessary” to his anti-energy, anti-business Bill C-69. We assure him that it is necessary, because more than 200,000 Canadians have already lost their oil and gas jobs, over $100 billion in major projects are gone and those losses hurt all sectors in all provinces.

However, last spring, the Liberals rejected 80% of amendments to fix the bill. Today, every single premier still wants major changes.

When will the Liberals finally overhaul their Bill C-69?

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

Mr. Speaker, after four years of this Liberal government, Canada has never been so divided. The problem is that the provinces have been pitted against one another and what was just local and quaint at the time, that is “Wexit”, has now become a compelling political reality.

The government is doing absolutely nothing to resolve this situation. Even worse, 200,000 Canadians have lost their jobs in the energy sector. One way to get these people back to work would be to scrap Bill C-69.

Why does the government not do that? The bill was condemned by the Government of Quebec.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, families across western Canada are hurting. People in my riding tell me their stories about losing their jobs and being forced to sell their homes. In the last two years, over $100 billion worth of investments in the energy sector have been cancelled.

Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, is going to make that even worse. Hundreds of thousands Canadians are out of work because of failed Liberal policies. Many premiers are united against Bill C-69.

When will the Liberals listen and amend their job-killing legislation?

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. I look forward to those remarks as well.

I cannot begin without thanking the constituents of Calgary Midnapore for sending me here again. I am so very overjoyed to be back in the House representing them. I am truly grateful.

My parents are my constituents, so my mom is probably watching. I promise to be extra good in the House at this time.

I am very sad for my family today. My mother is from Quebec and my father is from Saskatchewan. It is not uncommon for Canadian families to have one parent from the west and the other from the east. We heard a similar story on the other side of the House last week. Families becoming divided has become a Canadian story, and that is very sad. We are divided because the other side of the House spent the past four years playing all kinds of political games. The government split us right in half. It pit regions against one another. That is truly sad.

My region, the west, and more specifically Alberta, where the energy sector has no support, obviously comes to mind. Also coming to mind are several bills, such as Bill C-69, which makes it practically impossible to start new projects. There is Bill C-48, which makes it practically impossible to build a pipeline and transport oil. That is very sad. The carbon tax is another example. Bills that impede the energy sector have serious consequences on families and individuals. Bills like these are completely destroying families and people's lives. The government claims to want to eliminate poverty, but it is actually creating poverty with these kinds of bills.

On more than one occasion, the Prime Minister has said one thing to one part of the country and the opposite to another. The President of the United States called that behaviour “two-faced”. The President of the United States and Canadians have seen those two faces.

With the Speech from the Throne, the Prime Minister had an opportunity to put the country on a new path. Sadly, he let that opportunity pass him by. However, he had previously taken certain steps in that direction. He specifically appointed a minister of provincial relations. He held numerous meetings with various provincial premiers. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister promised to listen carefully to what the premiers had to say. The Speech from the Throne would have been the perfect opportunity to prove that they had listened. Unfortunately, the speech shows nothing of the kind. The situation is different from what it was before the election.

There were words, but not much was said. There were platitudes, like talking about the good of our community and clichés such as “no challenges are too big.” There were also false attempts to show empathy and understanding for regions. There were parts of the speech that said that as much as Canadians had instructed us to work together, they had also spoken clearly about the importance of their regions and their local needs.

What did Canadians say when they spoke? Did they say how their father had not been able to find a job in three years because the corporation he was working for left because of instability due to political regulations? Did they say how their neighbours could not get out of a deep depression because they had spent their entire retirement savings on just surviving? Did they say that they sent a suicide note to their member of Parliament because they had absolutely given up hope of ever finding a job?

We do not know, and we will never know, because it was not in the Speech from the Throne.

The speech said that regional needs and differences really mattered. Today's regional economic concerns are both justified and important. However, in what year on the planetary spacecraft will Canada's energy workers get an apology from the Prime Minister; when he sheds a tear for those who have committed suicide because they are completely destitute or for the women and children who have been beaten because, after years of not having a job, dad finally snapped? What year on this spaceship is that? Is that when we will know that regional differences really matter? For now, we do not, because the speech does not say so.

This was the opportunity to demonstrate action, and if not action, true understanding, and if not true understanding, at least respect. It would not have taken much: a timeline for the TMX pipeline or a promise to look into the national energy corridor. However, it was not there.

We can pretend that the world is simple and that the solutions to Canada's problems need not be complex or detailed, but that is not true. We can pretend that we do not need one another and that we are not dependent on one another, but that is not true either. Anyone who denies those facts will suffer for it eventually, even if they refuse to acknowledge it today.

This is not the way of Albertans.

What a great day to be in the House, the day when my predecessor and now premier, the incomparable, the Hon. Jason Kenney, is here to get a fair deal for Alberta. He brings with him my counterpart, minister of children's services and MLA for Calgary-Shaw, Rebecca Schulz. Together Minister Schulz and I will work tirelessly for the children of this nation.

We Albertans love Canada. We have always been proud to work hard and to share the fruits of our labour with the nation, to do our part for Confederation. We have never told others how to live their lives or that their way of life is not welcome in our country.

We will not let the Prime Minister divide us and we will not let the government push us out of Confederation. We will not allow that to happen. The government had an opportunity to do something profound, to say something profound and to unify, and it did not.

That is why I am sad today. I am a woman from Alberta. My mother is from Quebec and my father is from Saskatchewan. I am here for unity. I am here for Canada. Unfortunately, the throne speech is not.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for North Okanagan—Shuswap.

Though I rose briefly during Routine Proceedings last Friday, this is my first speech in the 43rd Parliament and I would like to take this occasion to give some additional words of thanks. As a temporary custodian of this seat in Parliament, I am deeply honoured to have the enormous responsibility of representing some 140,000 residents as part of a centuries-old tradition of protecting citizens by checking the otherwise unlimited power of the Crown. Parliaments exist in order to ensure that the Crown and its agent, the government, cannot impose itself on citizens without their consent. That consent is granted through votes in this incredible institution.

Once again, I thank the voters of Calgary Rocky Ridge for electing me to be their servant in the House. I also wish to thank the 270-odd volunteers who assisted my election campaign. I thank them for their support, for their commitment to their community and for their love of their country. I could not have done it without them. I would like to thank the other candidates who contested the election in Calgary Rocky Ridge for giving the voters choice, without which there is no democracy.

Finally, I wish to thank my family. My three daughters, it seems I began the last Parliament with three young girls who are now three young women. My loving wife, Kimberley, I thank for her love, her understanding, her patience, her unwavering support and for always keeping it real in the Kelly house. To my parents, Marnie and Duane Kelly, I thank them for their constant love and encouragement.

Today we are debating last Thursday's Speech from the Throne. My response to the Speech from the Throne is coloured by the recent experience of having knocked on a little under 30,000 doors with my re-election team. What I heard on the doorsteps is what informs my remarks and my impressions of the Speech from the Throne.

To be blunt, the government has virtually no support in my riding. That is simply a fact and it is supported by the election results. I knocked on doors in the communities of Calgary Rocky Ridge in every provincial and federal election over the last 30 years as an activist and in 2015 and 2019 as a candidate, and I have never experienced anything quite like it.

It was never easier. People have never been more forthright in coming forward and identifying themselves as Conservative supporters. However, at the same time, I have never had more difficult conversations on doorsteps than I did in this election with people who suggested that they intended to support me, my party and my leader.

For most candidates in most elections, conversations with our own supporters are the easy ones, but not in 2019 in Calgary Rocky Ridge. Some of the conversations I had with supporters were downright heartbreaking. I spoke with people who had not worked in years. I heard from people who told me that they were on the verge of losing their homes. I talked with people whose spouses were working in Texas and coming home for a couple of weekends a month or were working in the Middle East or other parts of the world and only coming home a few times over the course of a year.

I talked with a man who has lived in his neighbourhood for 20 years and he said that since 2015, seven previously stable families on his block had come apart in divorce. Economic stress and anxiety from unemployment and failing businesses have taken their toll on families, tearing apart the very fabric of our communities.

I spoke with people who openly and candidly expressed their despair, anger and incredulity over what they see as a failure of their country to respect their province. For decades, Alberta has welcomed Canadians from across Canada and indeed people from around the world to be a part of Alberta's economic opportunities. It has transferred much of that wealth back to other provinces and continues to do so despite a recession that has been going on for five years.

My constituents are demanding action. They cannot wait. They made it abundantly clear to me that regardless of which party was to form a government after the election, they would expect me to speak clearly and without ambiguity about just how devastating these past four years have been.

They expect me to be candid about just how upset they are with their federal government. They told me that they wanted the no-more-pipelines bill reversed. They told me they were stunned that a tanker ban on Alberta exports was brought in while tankers continued to bring in oil to eastern refineries from Saudi Arabia.

They told me that they could not understand why a government was running such large deficits at a time of economic expansion. They told me that they were appalled by the constant parade of ministers to the Ethics Commissioner, by a Prime Minister prepared to bully his own cabinet and break the law just to get his own way, and by the way the Prime Minister's personal conduct never matches his moral preening.

They told me, at door after door, that the Prime Minister is a constant source of embarrassment on the world stage, and that they do not believe that he is up to the diplomatic challenges of our times, because they believe that he is fundamentally an unserious person.

With the campaign behind us, with the country's divisions laid bare in a minority Parliament, last week the Prime Minister had an opportunity to acknowledge the failings of the last Parliament, which cost him seats and votes in every region of the country.

He had an opportunity to chart a new course to address the concerns of Canadians who rejected his government's track record. Instead, he delivered a speech full of the same flowery language and grand aspirations that we heard throughout the last Parliament with only a few inadequate words for my constituents in a partial sentence, kind of as an afterthought, where he claimed that the government would “also work just as hard to get Canadian resources to new markets and offer unwavering support to the hard-working men and women in Canada's natural resources sectors, many of whom have faced tough times recently.”

Really? “Unwavering support” and “have faced tough times recently”, is that it? Since 2015, hundreds of thousands of energy workers have lost their jobs. Over 100,000 of them are out of work in Alberta right now. There is $100 billion in energy investment that has left Canada since the Liberal government took office.

Encana, which was once Canada's largest company, and TransCanada PipeLines are changing their names to remove “Canada” from their business names and relocating to the United States because that is where the work is. However, all the Prime Minister had to say in his Speech from the Throne was “unwavering support” and “tough times recently”?

The Prime Minister has been unwavering in his stated desire to phase out the natural resources sector, and he is succeeding. One incredibly insulting sentence that contained a flagrant untruth was all the Prime Minister had to say about this in his entire speech.

If the Prime Minister meant what he said about getting Canadian resources to market, it would require him to undo much of the work of the last Parliament. It would require him to repeal Bill C-69 or implement every single one of the Senate amendments that were rejected last spring.

It would require him to repeal Bill C-48. It would require him to champion Canada as a reliable source of ethically extracted resources and to disown his own prior anti-Canadian-energy rhetoric. It would require him to actually take concrete steps to ensure Trans Mountain could be completed. It would require him to apologize for chasing its private sector proponent out of Canada and for having to send $4.5 billion to Texas so they could compete with us by building pipelines elsewhere.

The Liberals think they deserve some kind of credit for buying a pipeline that should never have been for sale in the first place. I can assure them that not one single person I met in my riding, where pipelines are a huge issue, thought that buying it was anything other than a last-ditch solution to a problem 100% of the Liberals' own making.

To sum up, the throne speech contains nothing for my constituents. I received a strong mandate from the people of Calgary Rocky Ridge, and I expect them to hold me to a high standard. My constituents expect nothing less.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my constituents in the riding Calgary Nose Hill for giving me a very clear mandate to do one thing: to stand up for them, fight for them and their voice here in this place.

I received the mandate of over 70%. I went door to door. People who I know had voted Liberal or NDP in the past looked me in the eye and we had a serious conversation at the door. They told me that they had never voted Conservative before, but they were going to vote for me because it was really bad. They needed me to fight for them. My way of thanking them is not just saying it here. It is to do that, to fight for them every day.

To the 98 new members of Parliament in this place, I want to talk about what it is like at home. I want to talk to them about what it is like to have 175,000 people who work in the primary industry of their province suddenly out of work, in a very short period of time. It is not because of commodity prices, as the Prime Minister so glibly said this morning. I will get to that. It is because of policies that were set here.

What we do here reflects on how people live in every part of the country. What happened in the last Parliament for the people in my riding meant trauma, suicide, homes lost, jobs lost and families lost. What we do here matters. I will fight for the people in my riding.

Right now in my province we are seeing some of the highest unemployment rates in the country sustained. It is happening and not because of commodity prices. If it were because of commodity prices, then why is the United States doing so well with its natural resource sector? It is because of instability and political decisions that have made it impossible for the energy sector to sustain employment. That is why. It is because of the decisions made here.

In 2017, Alberta's suicide rate was 14.9 per 100,000 people, just over three points higher than the rest of Canada. That is up really high. In 2016, there was a project by the Calgary Police Service called “Operation Northern Spotlight”. It was to help sex workers in the city. Let me read a story.

A woman who entered the sex trade in 2016, and it has gotten worse since then, said, “I never thought I would be here. I never thought I would have to hide from my family, telling them that my cleaning job runs late every night. I am here because this would have been an easy $350. I had a great job, then the jobs crisis hit and I got laid off. Two weeks later, my husband lost his job as well. The bills did not stop coming.” The problems have not stopped in my riding.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

We sit here, and yesterday's throne speech was a slap in the face. I got scrummed in the media yesterday. I heard, “It was more of a tone-setting document.” If it were a tone-setting document, it was tone-deaf for every person in my riding. It did not say anything about what the government was going to do to reverse the policies that create the instability that puts the people in my riding out of work. That needs to change.

If we are not willing to change that, then what is happening in my province is going to continue to grow. My province is saying it does not see itself in this country, our country does not have our back, and asking why it should be part of it. It will continue to fester. It is because of the decisions that are being made to put the people in my riding out of work.

People in this place say that it is a dirty industry and that the province should diversify its way out. Then they go fill up their car with Saudi oil, while they drink their kale smoothie with its component parts imported from California, while they promote their industry, like aerospace, with planes that create greenhouse gas emissions, or the auto sector, with cars that create greenhouse gas emissions, or while they go to Walmart and buy a cheap Chinese T-shirt that is created where there are the some of the highest greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

They are hypocrites. Anybody who says that the people in my riding have dirty jobs and do not have the right to work is a hypocrite, because nobody is willing to take climate action individually in this country. They are putting the entire responsibility on the people in my riding and saying that it is good, that this is what it is going to take to get this job done, and it will not.

The people in my province have a right to work. They have a right to prosper. I am sick and tired of this debate. Nothing on climate change is happening while my province and the people in it bear the entire cost and responsibility, and we do nothing. It has to stop.

I am going to tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker: It is going to stop one way or another. One way or another, it is coming to a head.

To everybody in here who thinks that what is happening in my province is just a separatist movement, just a few fringe people, I say that it is not just a fringe. People do not feel that they have a place in this country. They do not feel like they have a fair deal. Do colleagues know what they see? They see the hypocrisy that I just mentioned. They see a Prime Minister who fights for jobs with SNC-Lavalin and stands alleged of bribing Moammar Gadhafi's son with prostitutes. They see the former fisheries minister signing special deals over clam fishing that brought him ethics commission violations. They see scandal after scandal, special deal after special deal.

Then there are the people who say that people in their riding have been out of work. In Alberta, there are 175,000 people.

I do not know how many lobster fishers there are in this country, but when something happens to fisheries, we get angry. We all do here. We say that we have to fix this. They cannot stay out of work. When something happens in the auto sector, we do not say that cars create greenhouse gas emissions and we should just let that industry die. We do something about it.

When has it become acceptable to let an entire province's industry die while the rest of the country looks like a hypocrite? It has to stop. Otherwise, we will face a national unity crisis. We are in one.

I want to let the people in this House know what that looks like. The premier of my province is rightly talking about a fair deal for Alberta, and autonomy, and I support him in that.

Here is what Alberta opting out of the CPP looks like. We are the net contributor to the CPP in the country. Having higher premiums across the country means that people will not be able to retire until later ages, and that is because the Prime Minister has put them in this position.

We need to scrap Bill C-69. We need to scrap Bill C-48 and we need to understand the wealth that the energy sector creates. It creates receptor capacity for clean technology. It displaces energy from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and if we are talking about transition and climate change, Canadian energy and what my province does are at the heart of that equation. It should not be killed. Why would we kill the heart of what Canada can contribute to when it comes to this?

Enough is enough. I will stand here for however long this Parliament lasts. I will stand up for the rights of my province because that is why I am here. Colleagues stand up and give their thanks for having been sent here, but I was not sent here to just collect a salary or stand up and just seal-clap and vote. Constituents sent us here to fight.

I am going to fight for my province and the people of my riding. If that means saying we need more autonomy and we need the equalization payment formula looked at, then I will do that. If everybody here says that they will not do that, that they will not give my province a fair deal, then I am going to tell them right now that the people in my province are going to say enough is enough. The choice is for every single person in this House. It starts here and it ends here.

I implore the people in the House to realize that what was in that throne speech was not good enough. It is not going to cut it. It is not going to fix it. It is going to take smart, tough conversations; otherwise, it is over.

My colleague from Malpeque just made an appeal for unity, and I want to tell him this: I am not here and the people on this side of the House are not here to make life politically expedient for the Liberals in a minority situation. We are here to fight for the people of our provinces, and our provinces are Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, B.C., Ontario, and every part of this country that sees Alberta as a strong part of Confederation. We will not let this continue.

I ask people who are watching today to support me by signing petition e-2303 at e2303.ca, which would send a message to every person in the House to do just that. Let us talk about setting a tone. It is time for Alberta to have a fair deal.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take this opportunity to say a few words on the Speech from the Throne, but first I want to recognize your election as our new Speaker. I congratulate you and wish you well in a Parliament where I think there is a real opportunity to do great things for Canadians. There is a real opportunity to come together as members of Parliament.

I firmly believe that every party has some good ideas in its platforms. We have to draw those out and work together, because Canadians sent us a message that they want this Parliament to work. They do not want to see the kind of division that we saw during the election campaign, the personal attacks and the misinformation that seemed to filter out in the election, which was unbelievable. They want to see us work together in the interests of all Canadians. The leaders of all parties and all of us as parliamentarians need to try and achieve that in this 43rd Parliament. I wish you well, Mr. Speaker, in your endeavours trying to manage that.

I also give my thanks to the people in the riding of Malpeque, Prince Edward Island, for their support. This is my ninth term that I have been fortunate enough to be a member of Parliament and it is always an honour. No matter how often one gets up to speak here, this place is somewhat intimidating. Not many people get the right to stand here and state their remarks, challenge others in debate and be challenged themselves by others who may question them. This is what democracy should be all about, the give and take within a Parliament where there are views on all sides, but we come together and as a result make better policy.

I think that the debates in this place were more open quite a number of years ago. They were more forceful and not always written by speech writers and others. That is the kind of place I really believe this place should be, where we get up and spout our ideas, even though we may have to give up on some of them. When I first came here 26 years ago, I thought I had all the ideas and all the answers. I know today that I did not. In fact, I have fewer answers today than I thought I did then. However, we need to have that discussion and that debate, because everybody has some good ideas, and constructive criticism is what should take place in this parliamentary chamber and in committees.

For the new members here, it really is at committees where the work gets done. At committee, we travel together and get to know each other on a more personal level. Away from the partisanship and party lines, that is when the real work gets done, when ideas come out. We build friendships across the aisle, which is two sword lengths wide. We build friendships and move forward together. That is what this place should be all about. I hope in this 43rd Parliament that is what we can do in this chamber and at committee.

I will now turn to the throne speech and read a few sentences from the opening:

This fall, Canadians went to the polls. And they returned a minority Parliament to Ottawa. This is the will of the people, and you have been chosen to act on it.

And so we open this 43rd Parliament with a call for unity in the pursuit of common goals and aspirations.

As I said a moment ago, I know this will be a challenge. I have been through nine elections. I found that in my riding, on the ground, this was the most bitter and divisive election I have ever been in, as I have heard from many others. There was an awful lot of false information out there. When false information is produced enough times and never challenged, it becomes the truth in some people's minds. We faced a lot of that during this election campaign, and it was very bitter.

We have seen divisions across the country as a result of what I think is false information. There is the simple naming of a bill, Bill C-69, as the “no-more-pipelines” bill. It is not a no-more-pipelines bill. There may be some difficulty with it, but from the government's perspective it was a way to deal with environmental issues. It also gave us the opportunity to put pipelines and other natural resource measures in place without the constant challenge of going to court further down the road. That was the intent, but the simple naming of the bill put up a flag in front of many people and it became divisive. In this Parliament we have to try to get away from that kind of wording, stick to the facts and try to make this place operate better.

Let me turn to the first section of the Speech from the Throne, which talks about fighting climate change:

Canada’s children and grandchildren will judge this generation by its action—or inaction—on the defining challenge of the time: climate change.

From forest fires and floods to ocean pollution and coastal erosion, Canadians are living the impact of climate change every day. The science is clear, and it has been for decades.

I know there is a strong difference of opinion on this, but there is the scientific community and the so-called experts. We have to be careful with experts, as they are not always as expert as they think they are, but the science is that a carbon tax makes sense generally. The Prime Minister talked about it extensively today. With the carbon tax in place, which is thought to be one of the best solutions to fight climate change in the world, people on the ground will actually do better and we will protect our environment for future generations. We have to move there. The fight on the bill on carbon tax has been fought, and it is wrong for the Leader of the Opposition to stand in this place with the objective of saying he is basically going to take the government down.

We have been sent here to do a job, to work together. Let us do it. Let us deal with the environment and build on our natural resources in other ways as well.

In our platform we talked about a number of things regarding environment and climate protection and building our economy. I want to name them so that members in the opposition know what we said. I expect they all have our platform anyway, but they need to hold the government to account and make sure that we address the things we said we would as a government. I expect this from my own party.

We want to make Canada a net-zero emitter by 2050, cut taxes in half for businesses that produce clean-tech zero-emissions technology, interest-free loans up to $40,000 for homeowners and landlords who want to make their properties more efficient, increase the amount of ocean and land that is protected to 25% and plant two billion trees while creating 3,500 jobs a year in doing so. Those are some of the measures we proposed.

During the election campaign, I stopped at a constituent's place who had just built what is called a “passive house”. This is one of the things that we can do. This passive house has walls that are probably 18 inches thick, or maybe a little thicker, with heavy insulation and an inner wall and an outer wall. In Prince Edward Island, which does not exactly have kind winters like the ones in Vancouver and Victoria, my constituent and his wife will be able to heat that house for $300 a year because of the way it is built. That shows what is possible when the right things are done.

I was in another passive house that has been in place for about six years, and the owners have been heating the 2,000-square-foot house for $340 a year. The rest of us, who are using oil on the same-sized house, are probably paying about $6,000 a year and producing a lot more greenhouse gases. This shows what is possible if the government is willing to assist with infrastructure and housing, which is what Liberals proposed to do in our platform.

It also states in the throne speech that the government will help to make energy-efficient homes more affordable, introduce measures to build clean, efficient and affordable communities and make it easier for people to choose zero-emission vehicles. That is the way we have to go to make strides on the climate change issue.

Let me turn to another section of the throne speech. The reason I quote the throne speech is that we often fail to go back to these documents after they are read and really look at what the words say. We have our own agendas that we want to push, and we have our own lines that we may want to get on the cameras with and hope our constituents hear. However, let us delve into what the government is really proposing. With regard to strengthening the middle class, the throne speech states, “As its first act, the government will cut taxes for all but the wealthiest Canadians, giving more money to middle class families and those who need it most.”

What was proposed in the Liberals' platform was to raise the basic personal exemption amount to $15,000, which puts more money in everyone's pockets. Raising that basic exemption level helps a tremendous percentage of the population. I think the amount was $12,200 and it will go up to $15,000, so that takes taxes away from $2,800, which is good for all Canadians.

Liberals are proposing to cut cellphone bills by 25%, and that is outlined in the throne speech. We are going to try to save small businesses up to $7,500 by lowering small business taxes from 11% to 9%, which we started on in the last Parliament. We will make it easier for Canadians to purchase their first home, by giving them up to 10% of the purchase price with the first-time home buyer incentive. Those are some of the things we are proposing to do by taking actions to strengthen the middle class.

I could also talk about the trade agreements we have signed. I could talk about some of the things done. When I was on the campaign trail, I was amazed and shocked at how many people really did not know about the Canada child benefit, even though it was coming into their homes. In my riding alone, that amounts to over $2 million a month that goes directly to families tax-free. Those are the kinds of initiatives we were able to do in the last Parliament as a government and we need to continue to build on in the 43rd Parliament.

I will not get into this in great detail, but the throne speech goes on at length about walking the road of reconciliation. There is always controversy among people over the reconciliation file with the indigenous communities. However, and the Prime Minister mentioned this as well, we have made some strides in this regard. The indigenous community is the fastest-growing sector of our population. They are the greatest human resource we have in this country to prosper for themselves and to prosper for Canadians, to build our economy, and to build safe communities and homes. There has been serious trouble in the past caused by governments and others. We need to work with those communities and build them to be safe and prosperous communities with their own culture protected in a way that they can be proud of their history and their country, and want to work together to move Canada forward for all Canadians and others around the world.

The other aspect we talk about in the throne speech relates to pharmacare and some of the health care issues. I want to quote from the throne speech, because I think it outlines the point. It states:

Too often, Canadians who fall sick suffer twice: once from becoming ill, and again from financial hardship caused by the cost of their medications.

The NDP leader mentioned this earlier today.

The throne speech continues:

Given this reality, pharmacare is the key missing piece of universal health care in this country. The Government will take steps to introduce and implement national pharmacare so that Canadians have the drug coverage they need.

It is extremely important for us to get this done. I am sure all of us who campaigned and knocked on doors met people who could not afford the pills they needed to get well, or who had other members of their family who were suffering because they were not able to have the necessary drug care, dental care or other measures to live healthy lives for their remaining time. Therefore, we need to get that done. I know that will be a strenuous debate because, as a government, we have to look at it from the cost side. Governments also have to look at what the federal and provincial responsibilities are and how to bring those two together, and how far they can go with that pharmacare program, whether it will fill in the gaps or go all the way to a full-out system. That will be a very important debate.

I see I am nearly out of time so l will close by saying this. In a former time, I was president of the National Farmers Union. In that capacity, I was given the opportunity to travel to every region of this country and live in farmhouses for quite a number of years, whether in Peace River, B.C., or Ontario. I spent a lot of time in Saskatchewan and Alberta, some time in Quebec and a lot of time in the Maritimes. There was one thing we always said within that movement, which was that when we see the country and understand the different resources and characters of each region, we have to be careful not to allow regionalism to set in, as that would divide us against ourselves. There is always the ability to make this country stronger than the sum of its parts and that is where we need to go.

Given the makeup of this Parliament, that nobody has a majority, if we all work together we can make this country stronger than the sum of its parts. All of us will benefit as a result and, more importantly, so will Canadians.