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.

Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise virtually today to join the debate on Bill C-14, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic statement.

The bill has seven parts, mostly containing items to which I do not object and aims that I support under the circumstances that Canada currently finds itself. Having said that, I have three main criticisms of the bill. First, it does not contain a plan or indeed any reason for hope for the millions of Canadians who own, work for or otherwise depend on small businesses, especially new businesses that have been ignored in aid measures that have been either adopted or proposed by the government. Second, the bill contains nothing to address the significant problems that were facing the Canadian economy before COVID. Third, the government should not be granted the unnecessary increase to the borrowing authority contained in the bill.

To my first two issues, some would say that it is not fair to criticize a bill for something it does not say. Ordinarily I would agree, but this is not an ordinary bill, nor is this an ordinary time.

The government is closing in on two years without a budget. The fall economic statement is as close as the government has come to tabling a budget, and that statement followed a period of chaos and crisis management. Here I am not referring to the COVID crisis, but to the tumultuous months during which we saw a government that should have been procuring vaccines, approving and distributing rapid at-home test kits and figuring out ways to allow the economy to function, if and when the second wave would hit. Instead, it was consumed by the scandal that saw the resignation of the former finance minister, prorogation of this Parliament and the appointment of a new finance minister. The bill is the government's missed opportunity to help small businesses that have fallen through the cracks in its aid measures and to fix its series of failures that left Canada on the brink of a recession before COVID.

As the shadow minister for small business and the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, I have spoken to many small business owners who had been left behind by the government. These small business owners are the pillars of our communities.

There are millions of owners, workers and customers who depend on small businesses and who are paying the price for the government's failures, like the owners of the Bitter Sisters Brewing Company in Calgary, whose owners live in my riding. They do not qualify for the wage subsidy or the rent subsidy, because they reopened their business in March 2020 after spending most of 2019 refurbishing it. The owners of this business exhausted their capital. They went through a lengthy period when reinventing their business, and they opened literally within days of the declaration of a global pandemic. They do not have access to government aid measures. I spoke to another constituent last week who had expanded his successful tattoo studio in early 2020. As a result, he does not qualify for either the rent subsidy or the wage subsidy. His rent is $30,000 a month and his revenue is zero.

I know that every member of the House has heard similar stories from their constituents and from other members during debate on the bill. The fall economic statement and the bill do not help these constituents.

It is easy to forget the extent to which the government's fiscal and economic mismanagement was coming to a head before COVID. This is a government that was elected in 2015 on a promise, which it immediately broke, to run modest deficits to fund infrastructure for three years, returning to surplus in the fourth. Its maximum deficit of $10 billion was to be its fiscal anchor.

That anchor was cut immediately after the Liberals took office, and the 2015 election promise was seemingly obliterated into an Orwellian memory hole never again to be acknowledged by the government. It was replaced by a new anchor: that Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio was low and would always shrink.

The finance minister clung to that anchor until it was clear, before COVID, that the deficit was going to rise as a percentage of GDP, and replaced that anchor with the last one, which was maintaining Canada's AAA credit rating. That anchor was cut loose as well, and there have been no fiscal anchors articulated by the government since then.

We saw all of this backsliding into a serious structural deficit before COVID. The Liberal government piled on nearly $100 billion in new debt at a time when it should have been running surpluses, like the one it inherited, in order to prepare for a financial disaster like COVID, but it did not. Furthermore, the government piled on job-killing laws, like Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 that devastated the western economy and will harm Canada's ability to recover from COVID.

This bill does not contain elements that would undo the damage the government did to our economy that prevent and reduce our ability to recover from COVID. It brought in a carbon tax in the last Parliament and has announced that it will almost immediately break its promise not to raise it in this Parliament.

There is nothing in this bill that will address the hostility of the government to the energy industry, which is an essential part of the federal government's tax base. It is historically Canada's largest and most valuable export. It is the creator of great high-paying jobs in every province across Canada, not just in Alberta.

The fall economic statement that this bill is to implement does not address the past economic mistakes the government made and that had Canada teetering on the brink of recession before COVID. It does not repeal the red tape that killed projects, like Teck Frontier, and scared off the private sector investors that would have built Trans Mountain without taxpayer support.

There is nothing in this bill for the thousands of Canadian workers who will lose their jobs due to the devastating Keystone decision or those already without jobs, whose hopes for returning to work are now reduced in the wake of the Keystone decision.

There is nothing in this bill to rein in the culture of wasteful corporate welfare that the government has and the ease with which it ran up significant debt, again, before COVID.

This brings me to my third criticism of this bill and that is the unprecedented increase to Canada's borrowing limit. Make no mistake, and I will say this again, that at a time when governments force businesses to close and lay off workers, governments need to support them. Governments do need to support Canadians who are being compelled not to work and to support businesses that are being compelled to close their doors.

This crisis has created a temporary necessity for extraordinary spending measures to support Canadians, but the government's proposal in this bill to increase its borrowing limit to $1.8 trillion is simply not justified. It is not justified by the government's present needs, not by its short-term needs, not by its medium- or long-term needs, and certainly not by its past enthusiasm for non-crisis deficit financing.

Parliament at its most basic function exists to authorize taxation, expenditure and borrowing by the government on behalf of the governed. As legislators, we have a responsibility to vote whether or not to grant the government these powers, and there is simply no reason to grant such an extraordinary sum for the government to borrow when its own fall statement and the estimates that have already been voted on do not require the authority for the level of borrowing that is contained in this bill.

If the Liberal government, or indeed a future government, needs to increase the national debt to $1.8 trillion, then that should be left for a future debate in this Parliament or a future Parliament. In the meantime, I urge the government to focus on establishing a coherent COVID policy, one that would result in a vaccinated population, a reopened economy and a full-employment workforce fuelled by private investment into Canada's economy, unshackled by job-killing regulations.

We must return to an employment-based economy as soon as possible. While there are items in this bill that would help some Canadians cope with the difficult circumstances of the present, I urge the government to get serious about giving Canadians more hope for the future, especially for those small businesses that have consistently fallen through the cracks of the government's aid measures.

With that, I look forward to questions from the floor.

Keystone XL Pipeline

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I can hardly believe what is coming out of the hon. member's mouth. He says that the Liberals rescued TMX. What did they rescue TMX from, exactly? It was from their own government's abysmal policies. It was his government's imposition of the carbon tax, Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and all the regulatory uncertainty that scared away the investment. They act as if it is something to be proud of. For the first time in Canadian history, the government had to buy a pipeline in order to get it built. That is a damning indictment of the government's record when it comes to the energy sector.

Why are the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister so quick to make apologies for the U.S. president? We should not be surprised. They could not stand up to Donald Trump during NAFTA and now they cannot stand up to President Biden on Keystone. They are making apologies for the fact that on day one, the U.S. president signed the executive order to kill Keystone XL, which hurts employment in both Canada and the U.S. It hurts indigenous opportunities, as well as opportunities for everyone else.

They are so quick to apologize. Why is it that the government has such a hard time standing up to American presidents? It drove away investment; it drove jobs and opportunity to the United States; it backed down on NAFTA under President Trump, and now it caves like a bad hand in poker before even trying. Why is the government constantly backing down from American presidents?

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

Mr. Speaker, the frank reality is that the hon. members' rhetoric and the government's approach on this file are fundamentally dishonest.

They talk the language of wanting a strong energy sector and addressing environmental challenges at the same time. Conservatives also believe in a strong energy sector and in addressing environmental challenges at the same time. The problem is that the rhetoric just does not sync with the government's actions. The Liberals have killed multiple pipeline projects on Canadian soil. They passed Bill C-48 and they passed Bill C-69, which prevent projects from going forward. We had the Teck Frontier project, a project that would have been carbon neutral by 2050, yet was killed through active lobbying against it by various people in the Liberal caucus.

On the one hand, Liberals profess to understand the important role that the energy sector is going to play going forward, but if we look at the reality of their record on energy, on pipelines, on Bill C-48, on Bill C-69, on Teck Frontier and so many other projects, it is clear that they are talking out of both sides of their mouths on this.

After having killed so many energy projects here in Canada, it is no surprise that the Liberals seem indifferent to the fate of Keystone.

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

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, this seems to be a final chapter of the long saga that is the Keystone XL pipeline. The Obama government punted the project around like a political football for years and years. Mr. Obama's State Department approved it twice, but he waited until the Liberal government was sworn in and then rejected the application, with very little objection from the Prime Minister.

It has become clear to many of us that the Prime Minister and the government are looking to cover up their real agenda: the destruction of the Canadian resource economy. Nothing in the last five years of the government has Albertans convinced that the Liberals have our economic best interests at heart. They vetoed the northern gateway pipeline. Energy east was shot down by ever-changing and burdensome regulations. They have stood idly by while Keystone XL was vetoed twice. Antienergy legislation like Bill C-48 banned exports off the northwest coast, and Bill C-69 altered the regulatory process to such a degree that it was labelled the “no-more-pipelines act”. The government botched the Trans Mountain expansion to such a degree that it nationalized it.

Numerous other taxes and delays are just more pileup on the government's failed policies. Unfortunately, other parties represented in the House have cheered on every delay and veto, no matter how much it hurt their fellow Canadians. This is having a very negative effect on our Confederation.

Albertans are not willing to move on. That is why it has not been a surprise to westerners that all the Prime Minister could muster was an expression of disappointment over the phone, not much else. With the government's track record, the cancellation of a crucial pipeline seems par for the course. However, let me remind the Prime Minister that first and foremost, he is Canada's Prime Minister. He has a responsibility to stand up for Canadian workers and their families. We call on the Prime Minister to show that he has not turned his back on Canadians and assertively re-engage the president to make sure the Keystone XL expansion resumes.

I have heard many times from my constituents, many of whom are either close to retirement or about 10 years to retirement. These are hard-working Canadians, the men and women who drive the rigs on the oil fields. Where else do they have to go? If we are killing this industry, we are killing their livelihood and we are killing them.

I have heard over and over again that mental health issues are on the rise. Suicides are on the rise. If we are not standing up for the industry that is providing livelihoods and providing for these families, we are contributing to those mental health issues and the rise in suicides.

I hope the Prime Minister grows some fortitude, stands up for the industry, stands up for western Canada for once and stops all of the pandering. Let us get people to work.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to rise in the House today, but once again we're going to be debating a cancelled project that has effects on people across Saskatchewan, in my riding of Regina—Lewvan, and across western Canada.

I have tried to figure out how I am going to speak about the cancellation of the Keystone XL today, and whether I will be very passionate, like the previous speaker from Lakeland. I want to congratulate her for being chosen as the best representative of her constituents, because I think that is true. She does an amazing job representing the people of Lakeland, and it is a pleasure to follow her. She is an honoured friend and colleague. I thank her very much for the passion she brings to this file.

Exactly 11 months ago to the day, we were sitting in this chamber having an emergency debate on a similar topic: Teck Frontier. Within a year, we are in an emergency debate on the cancellation of the Keystone XL expansion pipeline. That speaks volumes on how the current government has pursued an energy policy. It speaks about the lack of respect the Liberals have shown to western Canadians, and it speaks about a lack of listening to what the ongoing economic situation is in our country.

The energy sector does not just provide good-paying jobs in western Canada. It provides jobs and income throughout this country. My colleague from Battle River—Crowfoot said it very well: When the energy and oil and gas sector does well, Canadians and all of Canada do well. This is a debate that should not be divisive, but should bring parliamentarians and Canadians together when we are speaking about how to ensure there are good-paying jobs going into the future.

I am going to take a different stance on how we are going to do this debate tonight, and talk about some of the innovations companies are doing to ensure the environmental sustainability and world-class environmental innovation that has gone on already without government intervention. If one can imagine it, energy companies in western Canada are already trying to do what we are trying to legislate. They are already trying to ensure they have minimal emissions. They are already trying to capture carbon.

An example was given on the CBC. I am pretty sure we know the CBC is not a big supporter of the Conservative movement across the country, but a CBC story talked about two companies that are already storing more carbon in the ground than they are emitting. The companies are Whitecap Resources and Enhance Energy.

Through carbon capture and storage and enhanced oil recovery, by burying CO2 and using it to enhance their oil recovery, reactivating wells that have not produced as much, and producing more barrels using their stored carbon, they have stored 4,000 tonnes of carbon underground, which is the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the roads in our country.

Leave it to western Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation to already be ahead of government. I know that might come as a surprise to many members in this chamber, but many times the private sector is ahead of what the government has already tried to do. When we look at a Liberal government that continues to try to put roadblocks in front of our energy sector, whether it be Bill C-48, Bill C-69 or the ever-increasing, burdensome, job-killing carbon tax, our people in western Canada, our energy sector and our men and women are working hard to continue to overcome these hurdles and be world leaders.

Today in this chamber I have heard people talking about the decline in oil demand. I did a quick search online, and oil demand is going to increase this year by 6% and next year by 3%. A global supply document said there will be an increase in demand until 2030 by a million barrels of oil a day. We are going to have to choose, not only in this chamber but as a country, whether we are going to be the ones who supply that oil.

Are we going to champion our oil sector around the world, and say that Canadian oil should be the increase in those supplies? Eighty-one per cent of oil is going to be shipped into Asian countries by 2050.

I am here to say that should be Canadian oil. It should not be Venezuelan oil or Saudi Arabian oil. It should be Canadian oil, which is produced by the world's best innovative entrepreneurs, with the best environmental standards in the country and in the world.

I would also like to say that the way workers are treated plays an important role in how we look at our future. Workers are treated better in Canada than in other oil-producing jurisdictions. I and the MPs for Regina—Qu'Appelle and Regina—Wascana had the opportunity to sit down and talk to USW 5890 workers over Christmas. It was a pretty tough time in Regina over the Christmas holidays. Almost 600 people were given layoff notices a week before Christmas. When we sat down and met with president Mike Day, one of the first things he told us was that everyone thinks Evraz is a steel company. He said it is not. It is an oil and gas company, because if there is no oil and gas sector, there is no steel plant in Regina. There is no co-op in Regina that has 2,300 Unifor employees making good wages. These are important things to talk about in these emergency debates, such as the one 11 months ago on Teck Frontier. We can use the numbers and talk about a billion dollars and a hundred billion litres of oil a year, but we are talking about people, their livelihoods and how they support their families.

I do not want to repeat myself, and I am sure everyone does not remember what I said 11 months ago, but it comes down to the fact that times are getting tougher for the hard-working men and women in our energy sector and they are looking for someone to support them. They have been abandoned by the member for Burnaby South, the leader of the NDP. The hard-working energy workers have been abandoned by the federal NDP. It does not support building pipelines. Continuously, they have been tossed by the wayside by the Liberal government to fulfill an agenda that has “anti-oil” written all over it. We can see it in the legislation time and again, and in the fact that we are going to have to have another of these debates, at some point in time I am sure, on another cancellation of an energy project.

The cancellations are mounting up, whether Northern Gateway, Grassy Point LNG, Saguenay or Energy East. The list goes on. When it says “cancelled”, it is the cancellation of jobs that we find the most frustrating. We slam our fists on the desks and talk about the frustration, like my colleague from Lakeland did, but as frustrated as we are, imagine the families that are trying to figure out how they are going to pay their bills in the coming weeks and months, with job after job, trying to support their kids who are going to school or going to a couple of extra events when the time comes.

We have to keep in mind that our job here, as parliamentarians, is to try and ensure we are securing the future for the next generation. That means we do not pick and choose which sectors we are going to support because we have a fundamental ideological bent one way or the other. We cannot pick and choose and get people away from a paycheque economy. It is time to put some differences aside and work together.

The Prime Minister talked about a team Canada approach. I have not seen that from the man in five years. I remember on election night not one Liberal or NDP member stood up in Saskatchewan to give a speech, because there were not any.

The Prime Minister said that he heard us, that he was listening and that we would work together. It has been two years, and we have not been able to find any common ground between us and the government. Once again, in this debate this evening, 11 months from when we held the emergency debate on Teck Frontier, we are talking about tens of thousands of good-paying jobs that disappeared in the blink of an eye.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will split my time with my colleague from Regina—Lewvan.

I am grateful to participate in this emergency debate, which is of course of great national importance in general but also to the people I represent in particular.

The new U.S. president's decision to cancel the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline is not remotely surprising, but it is a short-sighted political move that ignores evidence, economics and common sense, as was the case the first time around when he was vice-president. With the stroke of a pen, thousands of people are out of work in the middle of a global crisis, and the transportation opportunities for world-class Canadian oil are set back yet again.

I am speaking as I always do: for the people who have been out of work or who are scraping by with inconsistent work, who are suddenly out of a job with few places to turn, for families and communities whose futures are precarious, all through no fault of their own.

Canadians whose livelihoods depend on the oil and gas sector are rightly anxious about their futures and are struggling with complete and utter financial despair. Entire communities are in fact at risk because of the policy- and legislative-driven historic levels of bankruptcies and the decline in investment in Canadian oil and gas. That damage ripples through other sectors, risks jobs and harms businesses right across the country.

Since 2015, more than 200,000 jobs have been lost in Canada's energy sector. The devastation is real in more ways than one. In Alberta alone, a recent University of Calgary study said that for every 1% increase in unemployment, 16 Albertans will die by suicide. Never has a Canadian industry faced such a severe triple threat: global oversupply and demand drops, a collapse of global prices and a self-imposed lack of market access, domestic policies designed to drive investment away, killing businesses and jobs.

It is bad enough when the U.S. president and other American legislators block Canadian energy infrastructure despite the economic security, political and continental ties between our countries, and that the reality is that the U.S. sits on tens of thousands of kilometres of pipeline networks and is a major oil importer from Canada.

The decision is not a surprise to anyone when we consider the domestic political considerations of the new president. Also, this decision is perfectly aligned with the best interests of the United States. The U.S. is currently a world-leading energy exporter and producer and put the policy framework in place for the private sector to enable the U.S. to become rapidly energy independent and self-sufficient, an objective that actually started under the previous Democrat administration when the current president was vice-president and was expedited and secured under the most recent administration.

What is most galling of all is how the Prime Minister of Canada and the Liberal government have done virtually nothing to fight for KXL and have put Canada in such a vulnerable and powerless position. Certainly the Liberals have turned their backs on Canadian energy workers and their families and are ignoring the disproportionate pain and damage they have caused to Albertans, but that is not new.

The reality is that the Prime Minister has never actually championed the KXL pipeline. It should chill everyone that despite close ideological ties between the Prime Minister and the U.S. president, and despite a number of aggressive measures in the pursuit of the sham of social licence that the Prime Minister has imposed on Canada, including currently pushing a legislative framework that is almost unparalleled around the world and KXL's proponent saying the pipeline will be at net zero, it was killed on arrival.

The Prime Minister's weak response to former president Obama's Keystone veto in 2015 was to simply say that he was “disappointed”. He failed to correct the repeated myth that Canadian oil is “dirty”, especially at a time when the U.S. imported record levels of Canadian oil, more than it ever had before in the history of its country at that same time. The Prime Minister did not bother to point that out either. He failed to correct the record on Canada's stronger environmental standards for oil and gas and that Canada is a long-time environmental leader in responsible energy development.

The Prime Minister failed to make the case for KXL to American decision-makers then and now, and he failed to support TransCanada in the courts, in the States or through the NAFTA dispute resolution mechanism at all times in between. Of course this is all easy and obvious to understand. The Prime Minister just does not actually want this pipeline to be built. He said himself that he wants to phase out the oil sands. He has blocked pipelines and targeted Canadian oil and gas with harmful policies repeatedly. His inaction on KXL in 2015 and now in 2021 just proves the point.

What is blindingly clear, and Conservatives have been warning about this for some time, is that Canada must urgently get new export pipelines to new markets beyond the United States.

The brutal reality is that if the Liberals had not vetoed the northern gateway pipeline, deliberately killing thousands of jobs, dozens of benefit agreements with indigenous communities and the only stand-alone option for export to the Asia-Pacific for Canada, and if the Liberals had not intervened politically to kill the only private sector west-to-east pipeline proposal that could have secured Canadian energy independence while reaching European markets with double standards, last-minute regulatory changes and hurdles, Canada would actually have two new export pipelines to markets other than the U.S. right now. However, the Liberals killed both of them, so now the Canadian Minister of Natural Resources, the very minister who should be pushing for this project the most, said that we must simply “respect the decision”, and Canada's ambassador to the U.S. says everyone should move on.

Conservatives have backed Keystone XL every single step of the way. The independent National Energy Board and the Conservative government approved Keystone XL in 2010, and in 2012 the former Conservative government launched a major multi-year lobbying effort that successfully secured the support of the majority of U.S. lawmakers. After the Liberals were in government in 2016, the Conservatives called on them to support TransCanada's NAFTA appeal of a Keystone XL veto, but the Liberals were MIA. The previous administration made a common sense, fact-based decision, put economic best interests, the Canada-U.S. partnership and the standard of living and energy security of North Americans ahead of anti-energy ideology and short-sighted activism by reversing the previous veto.

Now here we are, back where we were in 2016 because the Liberal government will not actually fight for pipelines. That should be an important point to the whole country, because the lack of capacity to bring Canadian oil and gas to more international markets is a national economic crisis. The discount on Canadian oil cost Canada hundreds of thousands of jobs in the energy and manufacturing sectors. It is decreasing the value of Canada's financial markets and depriving federal, provincial, territorial and indigenous governments of billions of dollars in lost revenue long into the future, but that is the consequence of the Liberals' decision to kill new Canadian pipelines to export markets, and the real travesty is that they did it while the U.S. ramped up its own domestic production and removed its own ban on exporting American crude oil in its own interests. The Liberals have failed completely to secure Canada's own interests. The U.S. is both Canada's biggest oil and gas competitor as an exporter and Canada's biggest customer for oil and gas, and Canada's energy remains landlocked and captive to U.S. purchasers.

The government also stalled the Trans Mountain expansion by extending the regulatory process and by failing in its own process of indigenous consultation. TMX was supposed to be operational by December 2019. Now TMX is not estimated for completion until December 2022, and at least $12.6 billion in Canadian tax dollars have been spent when the private sector proponent only really needed legal and political certainty to proceed. Unfortunately, the reality is that TMX will not even address Canada's market diversification issues, because while the marginal part of its shipments will go to the Asia-Pacific, the vast majority will go to the existing American refinery network.

The tanker ban, Bill C-48, now law, prevents the potential of pipeline infrastructure for export to the Asia-Pacific as the Liberals designed it to do, and as the private sector economist policy experts and Conservatives warned, the Liberals' no-more-pipelines bill, Bill C-69, which is now law, will guarantee that no new pipelines will get proposed or manage to get approved in Canada in the future.

Of course, another urgent concern is that Michigan's governor is considering shutting down Line 5. Since the Prime Minister does not care about what happens to Alberta, let us hope that he figures out the risk in a hurry and cares about what it would mean for Ontario, because Sarnia's mayor said the city is set to lose 5,000 jobs and cannot risk losing one single job. Six refineries in Ontario and the U.S. Midwest rely on Line 5, and it also supplies all of the fuel to the Pearson airport.

Scott Archer, the president of UA local 663 in Sarnia, said shutting down Line 5 “would entirely cripple the economy of this region.” While anti-energy activists celebrate the shutdown of these pipelines, the Americans are laughing all the way to the bank, because while our Prime Minister and the Liberals were busy blocking energy infrastructure in Canada, the U.S. was on track to become energy independent.

The U.S., of course, has rapidly become self-sufficient while also leading the world as the largest oil exporter, but that is because these decisions are not about the environment; they are based on competition and business interests. The Liberals fell for it, and all Canadians have lost as a result. Make no mistake: I do not begrudge the Americans for securing their own energy supply. I am just profoundly angry and mind-boggled that the Canadian government did not do the same in Canada's best interest.

Meanwhile, major parts of Canada remain dependent on foreign oil from countries with nowhere near the environmental social governance, regulatory or labour standards, or performance of Canada. As a result of our Prime Minister's actions and inaction, in turn Canadians everywhere lose.

If the Prime Minister cares about national unity and about securing Canada's own economic best interests in every region and every province of the country, he will reverse his destructive direction over the last five years and stand up for Canada for once.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Madam Speaker, I am privileged to be joined by my colleagues here tonight, those who we can have in the chamber. I will be dividing my time with the Conservative shadow minister for natural resources, the member of Parliament for Calgary Centre.

I am here today for thousands of Canadian oil and gas workers, thousands of Canadian families that are affected by the decision of the new U.S. administration, thousands of Canadians who work hard for their families. They are losing their jobs as a result of the first decision by the new U.S. President at a time when thousands have already lost their jobs in this pandemic.

I am here today for the five first nations in Alberta and Saskatchewan that are seeing their equity investment in the Keystone XL project evaporate because of the inaction of the government. These first nations are seeing their plans for their youth and citizens evaporate because of inaction by the government.

I am here for Canadians from coast to coast to coast who rely on our world-class energy sector to provide for their families, manufacturers, subcontractors, food providers, hard-working men and women who are being abandoned in the midst of a pandemic.

Canada has been dealt a serious blow with the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline extension. Thousands of Canadians have just been laid off. Thousands more are counting on even serious upset. Thousands of Canadians have just been laid off. They were counting on employment opportunities at a time when our country is already shaken to its foundations from an economic crisis related to COVID-19. They are now being laid off when Canada is already suffering from some of the highest rates of unemployment in the G20 as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. The province of Alberta is already suffering from other misguided policies of the government, whether Bill C-69 or others, that have already had tens of thousands of people out of work, that have empty office towers in Calgary. These are Canadians, thousands of them, being totally forgotten and left behind by the government.

The cancellation of Keystone XL means that companies are going to leave Canada, but most of all it means the loss of thousands of jobs across the country. It means that families will have trouble making ends meet. They are the ones that I am talking to in this emergency debate.

We are in the middle of the greatest economic crisis we have faced in modern times as a nation. It is essential that we get every Canadian back to work in every sector, in every corner of the country and as quickly as we can.

The government is afraid to have a budget because it does not want to show Canadians the incredible economic challenges the country has. We need to pull together, the people in the west, in the east, in Quebec and Ontario. We must value the ability for us to work together to recover from this COVID-19 crisis and, therefore, we need our energy sector to be successful. That is why Conservatives have been pushing so hard for months for the government to develop a clear plan for our economic rebuilding and our vaccine rollout.

The government spent months on a CanSino Chinese vaccine debacle when it should have been preparing the regulatory process and negotiating with companies like Pfizer, Moderna and others to manufacture in Canada or to secure a stable supply. This week, with thousands of cases daily across the country, Canada is one of the few countries in the world to receive zero vaccines.

However, if there is one area that this decision leads to a catastrophic failure of confidence, it is the disdainful way that the Prime Minister has attacked our energy industry for the past five years, beginning with his first trip abroad when the Prime Minister of Canada mocked an entire sector of our economy, a sector that has provided so much to Canadians, to our way of life, to our prosperity. He said that the last prime minister talked about resources. He said that Canada was more than resources, that we were resourceful now, with one word, swiping away tens of thousands of jobs, thousands of examples of innovation, productivity and technology that is world-leading, a prime minister who is not proud of our industries because he does not understand them.

In fact, this is the second time the Prime Minister has failed to make the case for Keystone XL under two separate U.S. administrations. Every time the Liberal government has a chance to promote Canadian energy, it sides with activists over science. It sides with foreign protesters over first nations that are invested in the project. It sides with trendy slogans over smart policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Hard-working Canadians in all corners of the country deserve better than a prime minister who does not understand them let alone one who looks down on them, as the Prime Minister has on many occasions. We need the federal government, particularly now in a crisis, to stand up for workers in every corner of the country. Jobs for Canadians are the only way we will secure our future and rebuild our economy, which has been ravaged by this pandemic. The Liberal government should have done more for our world-class energy sector than its record of indifference and incompetence.

For Canadians who are watching this debate, particularly in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Prime Minister has once again let them down.

When we have a government that attacks the natural resources industry, we have a government that is hurting all Canadians. Canadians across the country all benefit from spinoffs from the natural resources industry. Those spinoffs help us to pay for our hospitals, our universities and the protection of our environment.

The energy sector is also the biggest partner in the development of the regions of Canada when it works with first nations. Five first nations placed their hopes in the Keystone XL project. Canadians deserve better.

Canada needs a prime minister who will respect hard-working Canadian families and work hard to secure opportunities for all of them. We deserve a prime minister who understands hard work and what it means to get his or her hands dirty to provide for his or her family. We deserve a prime minister who will champion Canadian energy as the most ethical, environmentally conscious and most socially responsible in the world. The world is looking for investments with strong environmental and social governance, or ESG. Canadian resources offer ESGI, environmental and social governance with indigenous partnerships and participation. Canadians should be immensely proud of that. The Liberals' failure on Keystone will be felt in our country for years to come.

Let us add to the list: job-killing policies like Bill C-69, the carbon tax, tanker bans, illegal rail blockades and endless regulations. That has led to $160 billion of capital leaving Canada. Those investments mean jobs. How can we convince the world to invest in Canada when the government is not even proud of what we do in Canada?

Instead of reimagining the economy, as the Prime Minister wants to do in the middle of a pandemic, he should stop reimagining millions of Canadians without jobs, because that is what his policies are leading to. Indigenous communities on both sides of the border were planning their futures based on projects like this. Chief Alvin Francis said that this would “create intergenerational jobs and benefits.”

I will end as I started. Tonight the Conservatives are here for working families from coast to coast to coast that need opportunities, inspiration and hope that we can have jobs and get our country moving.

[Mark Scholz]

I think there are a lot of unknowns right now. I would just give you the example of Bill C-69. When you talk about the pipeline infrastructure that's desperately needed in Canada and will continue to be needed here, I just have to recall what Chris Bloomer, the president and CEO of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said. He and his association say that don't really see a proponent that would be willing to go through the process under Bill C-69 to actually see another pipeline get built here in Canada. I'm not a pipeline expert; I'm looking at other sources that would indicate to me that Bill C-69 in many ways is broken from an industry perspective.

I think the industry worked really hard trying to provide some amendments that would make the bill it workable. We weren't successful in that. I do think that Bill C-69 is still problematic. There are still a lot of unknowns with the clean fuel standards and how they ultimately are going to be implemented.

I think that at the end of the day, when I say that we want some certainty as to what the goalposts look like, it really means, what is the regulatory framework that we're going to be operating in? I think we need industry and government to really work hand-in-hand to ensure that when we have these emission objectives, we're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, but are actually going to work with these industries that are ultimately going to help us achieve some of those long-term, aspirational goals.

Broadcasting Act

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

Madam Speaker, to the latter point by the hon. member, we have seen that a lot of the legislation introduced in this place really has had that power consolidated through the executive branch of government. I look to some of the environmental bills that we have dealt with in the past, such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, for example, where the minister has the ultimate say. The power is not distributed among Parliament or even within the government, but within the executive branch. I am not surprised by that assertion, quite frankly, given the history of this government.

Secondly, the example in P.E.I. speaks to the insatiable appetite that people have for news, not just national or international news, but local news as well. It is not surprising to me when people push back as they did in P.E.I. They are seeking the truth as well.

[Kim Moody]

The continuation of the wage subsidy and rental subsidy will certainly help, but non-budgetary matters, such as quickly approving resource projects and accelerating permitting time for construction projects would greatly assist the acceleration of employment.

From the perspective of my home province of Alberta, it's my belief that Bills C-48 and C-69 should be repealed, which would go a long way to restoring foreign investor confidence back in our oil and gas sector.

Finally, as many presenters have told you in the past, this country needs comprehensive tax review and reform. Yes, I know, many of you are tired of hearing this. Your committee has recommended this very thing and so has the Senate. Perhaps there is something to all the smart people that have appeared before you. Perhaps certain academics, bureaucrats and parliamentarians who think that comprehensive tax review is not necessary or that Canadians are not ready for such a review are simply wrong. Just maybe....

In my view, Canadians are ready, ready for real and refreshing change for the better, ready for positive change to assist our taxing statutes to get ready for the next generation. Forget the cries for patchwork quilt fixes. In addition, ignore the calls by some who want significant change, such as the addition of a wealth tax, without comprehensive review and reform.

Any big changes should only be made after a well-represented panel of tax experts, economists, academics, public policy experts and other stakeholders conduct a thorough and well-represented review of our current system and recommend a new system for our future, a bigger and better future.

Thank you. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Natural Resources

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Madam Speaker, since I came here in 2015, the government has waged a full-fledged attack on my home province of Alberta. It began with flippant statements by the Prime Minister even before he was elected as the Prime Minister. I remember when he forgot to mention Alberta on Canada Day. There is the carbon tax, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69. These are all attacks on Alberta.

We are now seeing the new clean fuel standard, which is once again a full-fledged, frontal attack by the Liberals on what the energy sector is all about. I have some statistics: 30,000 jobs nationally and approximately 20 billion dollars' worth of capital will leave Canada if we put in the clean fuel standard.

Yesterday at committee, I had the opportunity to ask the minister about the CFS. He told me not to worry, as the government is diversifying the economy, and that Alberta should be thankful for the new standard being put in place. Nothing could be further from the truth.

About a month ago, Alberta released a brand new recycling hub idea to recycle plastics in the province. Not even 24 hours later, the government labelled plastic a toxic substance. What will that do to the energy sector and Alberta as a whole? It attacks the workers and the jobs in that sector. At the end of the day, vehicles are largely made of plastic, as are the pipes that go into the ground. This is yet another unfortunate piling on by the government.

We have seen the government add red tape and cause constant delays in approval processes. When I got here in 2015, I could not have imagined the extent to which the current government, the Prime Minister and the ministers have gone on to attack my province.

Thankfully, we were able to change the provincial government. Unfortunately, we had a Notley NDP government there for a full four years, which added more burden to the energy sector. We still have yet to get rid of the federal government.

Issues have now been going on for five years. Why does the government continually insist on implementing policies that hurt Albertans?

Employment

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

Mr. Speaker, the 591 families do not want CERB, they want jobs. Four jobs are created in Regina for every one job at Evraz. This is devastating for Regina’s local economy and is a direct result of anti-energy bills, Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, and the Liberals’ ever-increasing carbon tax.

These layoffs are not an unintended consequence. They are a desired outcome. The Prime Minister promised to phase out our energy sector, and apparently this is the one promise he intends to keep.

When will the government stop attacking western Canadian families?

Fall Economic Statement

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has proven her government has no plan. Without a plan for vaccines, there can be no long-term plan for our economy. Without rapid testing in wide distribution, we have missed out on a critical medium-term tool.

The Minister of Finance, in her speech, seems to realize she is putting the economy on hold. She will say that the economy will be rebuilt once COVID is beaten. Rapid tests could help preserve the economy and the vaccine will help us beat it. The government is late and has no plan for both. Canadians should see that off the start.

This year has been a very difficult year for Canadians. We all know that. The year 2020 will be remembered as the year a global pandemic came to our shores and took the government completely by surprise despite many departments warning of it for months. It will be remembered as a year of foreclosures, rising unemployment and uncertainty. Worse, for 12,000 Canadian families, it will be remembered as a year of grief and tragedy.

This year has been hard for everyone, for people of all ages. It will be remembered as the year of the pandemic that took this government by surprise. It has been a year of shutdowns and unemployment, but, even worse, a time of sadness for nearly 2,000 Canadian families who have lost a loved one.

However, Canadians have shown courage. They have been following the guidelines and helping small businesses. They have been there for friends and family.

Through it all, Canadians have shown courage and fortitude. They have respected directives from our health authorities. However, Canadians are hurting. Canadians want their lives back. This fall economic statement shows that they cannot rely on the Liberal government to get their lives back.

Canadians are not difficult people. They have complied, followed rules and tightened their belts. They are reassuring their worried children and taking care of aged parents. To this effect, I am really glad the Liberal government and the minister took my proposal from this spring on support for parents by boosting the Canada child benefit. There it was, on page 10 of my leadership platform. I am so glad the Liberal cabinet was reading it, just as hundreds of thousands of Conservative members were. I am glad because this was a concrete proposal to help families, especially working moms juggling it all, helping families through the toughest time in our modern history.

However, we know that Canadians need more. As I said, Canadians want their lives back. They have only asked one thing from the government, one simple thing, “What is the plan?”

What is the plan for widespread use of rapid tests? What is the plan for rolling out the vaccine? When does it arrive? Who gets it first? Do we have the freezers for the -70°C vaccine? A robust portfolio in 2023 does not help us as we enter 2021.

This fall economic statement answers the question on whether there is a plan, and it answers that no, there is not a plan. As the red ink on our balance sheet turns a dark crimson, we are facing a $399 billion deficit, not $400 billion. It is a bit like spending $19.99, not $20. It is only $399 billion. Canadians know that not even half of that went to the emergency programs.

The government is not providing a plan and it is not providing clarity. It is clear, having been late on rapid tests and on the border, that there is no clarity or competence.

What is their plan?

The Liberals have turned their backs on millions of Canadians, and all this government can think to say is that there will be more debt, more unemployment, no vaccines and no transparency.

Why has it taken months to deliver rapid tests? Why does the entire population not have access to them? When will we get the vaccines? Who will be vaccinated first?

Today's announcement just proves that the government is improvising. Canadians are fed up with the government's incompetence and chronically delayed responses.

This economic statement is another disappointment. Is that all the Liberals have to say to the thousands of unemployed workers left behind by the mismanagement of the government? Is that all they have to offer to Chris Rigas, owner of the Old Firehall restaurant in Niagara, who is struggling to get by because of restrictions? How does this statement help Rodney and Tina Grace, who have been working seven days a week to keep their Best Western open in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia? Of the businesses in Surrey, British Columbia, 30% still do not qualify for the wage subsidy because of red tape and rules from the government, but most of their staff qualify for the CERB benefit. Guess which decision businesses are faced with.

If the government spent half as much time meeting with real Canadians and small business owners than it spends on photo ops, it would know that workers and small business owners are asking for clarity. Canadians in a pandemic are not asking it to ban single-use plastics. They are asking for details on when the vaccine will get here, how it will be distributed, how it will be preserved at -70° Celsius, how they can save their aging parents from a seniors home or hospital bed. The Prime Minister needs to get his priorities straight.

It is hard to take the government seriously when we know how this all started. We should think about how much better off Canada would have been if the Liberals had not shut down the pandemic early warning system. They did that in 2019, without any consultation with scientists or opposition parties in Parliament.

For 20 years, Canada had the world's leading pandemic early warning detection unit. It helped stem the advance of H1N1 and Ebola. In other parts of the world, Canadians were helping to protect others. However, the government's incompetence led to that department not helping Canadians. The government preferred to shut that down and rely on open-source data from China rather than intelligence work gathered by Canadian experts. As a result, we had zero warning of the incoming pandemic. In many ways, the Liberal government took the batteries out of our smoke detector.

The Liberal government closed the borders two months too late. It flip-flopped on the risk of transmission between individuals and mask wearing measures.

The Conservatives were good sports. We tried to work with the government as much as possible. We tried to improve its erratic response. Above all, we were there to help workers who really needed it. We voted in favour of emergency measures and programs to help them.

The Prime Minister's idea of leadership was to tell people to apply for the CERB instead of helping workers keep their jobs. He really must live in an ivory tower if he thinks that Canadians like that solution. People want to work, not wait around for government cheques.

The truth is that the economic response by the Liberals has been erratic and confused at every step. We wonder why the Liberal government underspent on its own estimates for the wage subsidy by tens of billions of dollars, while overspending on the CERB by tens of millions of dollars. It did not have a plan to preserve the economy amid the storm of the pandemic. Millions more Canadians were put on the CERB than necessary when their jobs could have been maintained easily through an effective and swift wage subsidy.

This approach perfectly illustrates the difference between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. The Liberals believe that Ottawa has all the answers and has to give orders. We believe that the best solutions come when Ottawa works with the people on the ground. We want to work with partners, not a paternalist like the Prime Minister.

If only the Liberals had a clear plan. What we are hearing today is a government in panic mode that wants money to hide its incompetence. That is unacceptable. Canadians deserve better.

From my experience in the military and in business, I know one has to learn from setbacks and failures. We must strive for excellence in what we do and promote an approach of continuous improvement. Teams do that, businesses do that and charities do that; why does the Liberal government not do that? It has not even learned from what it got wrong or slow in the first wave of the pandemic. We were last in line on rapid tests, and now we are virtually last in line for vaccines. Countries with populations of about 2.7 billion will be seeing the vaccine before Canadians, many this year, and we cannot even get answers from the government on whether we have the logistics to receive it.

The job of government in a crisis is to provide certainty and confidence in citizens who are worried. We must provide a plan, clarity, stability and competence for those who rely on us. The upheaval we are seeing in our country lately is in large part because of the misguided measures of the government. It was late on the border, late with programs, late with rapid tests and now late with vaccines. While the Prime Minister prefers to compare himself to the worst student in the class, when it comes to the spread of COVID-19, I want Canada to strive to be the best. That is what Canadians expect. Unfortunately, we are far from that right now, after the ongoing rapid test debacle, and this week Canadians are learning. Even today, the minister, in response to her speech, will not let us know which month next year vaccines will first start arriving. The government had the duty to learn from its errors in the first wave, but, instead of that, it has failed to provide vaccines for Canadians at the same time we will be seeing vaccines roll out with all our allies.

The Prime Minister has played the victim card; he has said his government was helpless and that Canada did not have the capability to manufacture vaccines. Not only is that complete rubbish, in the words of a leading scientist at the University of Ottawa, it is complete political spin, and it also does not explain why millions of people from Indonesia to Brazil will be receiving the vaccine before Canada will be. Again, the truth is that the Liberal government was slow to respond, and it made a critical, and sadly in some cases fatal, error to put all its eggs in a basket with China. Since the CanSino deal fell apart in August, the government has been scrambling to catch up, and it does not want anyone to know that it is months behind other countries. As I said earlier, countries with 2.7 billion people will be served before Canada. This means we are near the back of the line.

While Americans are talking about mass vaccination throughout all of January, our government is only speculating about getting part of our population vaccinated by September. That means 10 extra months of health risks for Canadians, business closures and economic uncertainty. Canadians want their lives back. The Minister of Health talks a great deal about the whole of government effort and the robust portfolio, but there is only one way to describe the performance of the government when it comes to vaccines: incompetent. Canadians, in the midst of the second wave, would rather have one dose of the vaccine in the next month than the largest portfolio 18 months from now.

This Liberal government does not inspire confidence, whether because it paid $370 million for medical gowns from a company with almost no experience or because it gave its friend Frank Baylis a $237-million contract for ventilators. The WE Charity scandal showed that friends of the Liberals were trying to profit off a pandemic. At a time when public confidence is so important, the Liberals are continuing to use their donor list to select future judges. It is one scandal after another.

“Uncertainty”, “lack of focus”, “massive spending”, “special treatment for friends” and “out of touch with the reality of Canadians” are the only ways to describe this government. The damage is real. Millions of people no longer trust the Liberals and know that they have been forgotten.

This should not come as a surprise. The Canadian economy was already showing serious signs of weakness before the pandemic hit. Ignoring the Conservative warnings, the Liberals took pride in running large structural deficits and raising taxes in good economic times, and in ideological policies opposed by the entire country, like Bill C-69. Tanker bans, pipeline cancellations, bad trade deals and the inability to negotiate tariff avoidance have resulted in $160 billion leaving Canada before the pandemic.

Within two weeks of one another, a great Canadian company, Teck, cancelled a $60-billion project for our GDP out west and the world's most famous investor, Warren Buffet, pulled out billions from a project in the east. There were already signs being sent by the Prime Minister that Canada was not open to job creation or investment at a time we need it. It will take a change in government to change that sign for the world. British Columbia has seen half a dozen sawmills close and the aluminum smelter in Kitimat, one of the greenest operations of its kind in the world, were left out to dry in both NAFTA and aluminum tariffs.

Canada was already at a crossroads under the Liberals before the pandemic and they are setting this country up, for the first time in our history, to pass on to our children a country with less opportunity and more division. However, it does not have to be that way and I want to prove it.

The middle-class values that myself and many of my colleagues were raised with, mine in Bowmanville, Ontario, taught me to work hard, help my neighbours and strive to be the best I could be. I was taught to learn from setbacks, never to accept failure, to pick myself up, dust myself off and get better. This led me to serve 12 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, alongside some of the most exceptional Canadian citizens around. It also led me to respect the value of hard work and perseverance and the nobility in work itself.

My first job was as a dishwasher and a short-order cook in high school and my last job before the military was with TransCanada, inspecting pipelines back at a time before the current government when that company was still proud to have Canada in its name. I respect people, and my colleagues do, who work hard to provide for their families, whether they are uniformed and unionized plant workers or entrepreneurs, whether they work the night shift in Mississauga, Ontario, or get up at 5 a.m. to open their small businesses in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

There is a nobility in that act of discipline, perseverance and working hard for one's family. We cannot lose that in this country. Conservatives will fight hard to ensure that we never lose touch of that fundamental value upon which Canadian society has been built.

I believe it is my duty to be a partner to the provinces and the first nations. I will be a champion for small businesses and non-profit organizations. I believe in the tremendous potential of Canadian energy, softwood lumber and minerals. Canada produces the most ethical and environmentally friendly energy in the world, and we want to work more closely with the first nations to develop that energy.

Reconciliation needs to be about more than just fine words. We need to do more than just look at the mistakes of the past. We need a real plan for the future, a plan that instills pride in communities that are all too often forgotten and brings them sustainable wealth. The James Bay Cree and the Huron-Wendat in Quebec are an example to all of Canada.

We need to get this country working again. Hard work emboldens the soul and builds a nation. Hard work helps families. Those families build communities and make us proud to be Canadian.

Let us just think of Jacqueline and Barbara's 7Rooms Home Décor & Gifts in Ocean Park, British Columbia. They bought the store just before COVID. It has been extra tough for businesses like that, but Jacqueline and Barbara persevered, worked harder, rebranded and they recently reopened. Congratulations to Jacqueline and Barbara. That is the Canadian spirit. They do not want more debt saddling the next generation. They just want an opportunity. They could have packed it in, but they did not. They stayed open, they adapted, they persevered.

When I questioned the Minister of Finance in the House on behalf of energy workers in Alberta, she boasted about how many people she had put on the CERB in that province. Albertans especially, but Canadians do not want the CERB. They want the ability to get their lives back and to get back to work. They want a government that helps them build their livelihood in their communities, rather than pushing them to close shop and move away. It comes down to a clash of vision between the somewheres and the anywheres: those who love their trade, their pursuit, and are loyal to local businesses versus those whom the government wants to flock to a trendy job that is no way connected to the community or the betterment of our country.

While this Prime Minister seems to think that every Canadian can simply work on their laptop from the local café, that is not reality nor is it what Canadians want. Conservatives are here to fight for those who build things in Canada, those who get their hands dirty and take pride in doing a job well before they come home for the night. Whether they are pulling resources out of the ground, in Canada, or pulling resources out of their brain, educated in Canada, we need to applaud and help them do that. That is why we were hoping for a plan for rapid tests and for a vaccine. Unlike the finance minister, I do not want the economy to crash and be rebuilt after the pandemic; I want to save it and make sure it is stronger after the pandemic.

We are here for the manufacturers, the aluminum and steel industry, the small business owners and the first-generation Canadian who started a business and now hires and employs seven other families. We are here for the farmers and the commercial fishermen. We are here for the indigenous entrepreneur and the working moms and dads juggling child care and the ability to get on the GO train to go into work in the city. We are here for those Canadians who want their lives back, who want the ability to work hard and want the ability to pass on to their children a Canada that is limitless in its potential. They deserve a government with a vision like that, not a government that is late at every step in the worst year in our modern history.

Canadian workers deserve a government that fights for them, a government that is not obsessed with the idea of pushing our industries to make a transition in the midst of a pandemic, a government that is patriotic and is not afraid to fight on the world stage for quick access to vaccines, a government that knows that Canada has an identity and a history we can be proud of.

This crisis and the rebuilding from it will take grit. It will take determination, perseverance and bold decisions, but, most important, it will take a plan to chart our course forward. That is why it is so disappointing. After a record period without a budget, there is a stealth budget introduced today with no plan.

COVID has set us back, but COVID will not stop us with the right ideas, with principled, ethical leaders who understand the value of a job, whether it is someone's first job out of school or their last job before retirement, and with a government that will put the prosperity of all Canadians ahead of the special interests of a select few.

If we have a government like this, Canada will emerge from COVID-19 stronger, richer and more determined than ever before. That is my mission. That is the mission of my colleagues with me here today and that must be our country's mission. That is why I am so disappointed with the finance minister's update today. There is no vision. There is no expression of values, including the value inherent in working Canadians.

The lack of a plan to address the most critical issues facing our country, in one of the most challenging years in our country's history, will only fuel the fears and uncertainties facing Canadian families across this great country.

Now is not the time for experiments. Now is the time for experience. Now is not the time for building back with slogans. Now is the time we show we have our citizens' backs. We need to have a plan for the challenges we face today so that our children will have the same opportunities we did, tomorrow.

Aeronautics Act

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Bloc Québécois member. I am sure he worked hard to draft and introduce Bill C-225.

We should ask ourselves two very important things every time we look at a piece of legislation at this point in history. First, this is a time to come together as one nation. When we review legislation, we have to consider whether the legislation promotes the good of Canada. Second, and this is very important with the fall economic statement coming out later today, this is a time to build the economy.

Every time we review a piece of legislation in the House we should be asking if it brings Canada together and if it will further Canada's economy. This is not just because of the fall economic statement, but as we emerge from the pandemic and start to consider how we will do vaccine procurement and distribution, we have to think about these things.

I want to go over Bill C-225 briefly for those listening who may not be aware of what it proposes.

The bill would amend six federal acts. It would change legislation regarding land use and development and environmental protection. The Bloc is very motivated to put forward this legislation for two reasons. First, the Supreme Court sided with the federal government in numerous court cases where federal jurisdiction overrode provincial jurisdiction. The Bloc is looking for more provincial power. Second, several of these cases actually originated in the Province of Quebec. For these two reasons, Bloc members are very motivated to change this legislation.

In my observation, Conservatives are concerned because of potential jurisdictional disputes. We think that more cases would have to go before the courts. It is not good to tie up the courts because of discrepancies between two pieces of legislation or determining which one takes precedence in which situation.

As well, we are very concerned that some sections of the bill could be considered unconstitutional. It is surprising to me that the Bloc would put something forward that would be deemed unconstitutional, considering how hard the party fights for the principle of the two founding peoples of the nation and, in particular, the province of Quebec. However, I would say how good both my leader and my colleagues from Quebec have been regarding the modernization of the Official Languages Act. I had the pleasure of sitting on the official languages committee for a brief period of time. When it comes to the Constitution, I would expect the Bloc to consider it.

For those who are not aware, my leader was on Tout le monde en parle yesterday. If members did not have an opportunity to see him, I would suggest they watch it.

Going back to my main points, it is time to come together as a nation and build the economy.

There are concerns that the bill before us could have negative economic implications, as it may deter private investment and infrastructure projects because of additional red tape. Provinces could amend their legislation on land use and environmental protection to block federal projects. Also, and this is very relevant to me as a member of Parliament from Alberta, the bill could block federal economic development projects, such as the Trans Mountain pipeline or other infrastructure projects.

In a time when we are looking to come out of the pandemic united, we really need to think about legislation that will be nation-building. I would certainly count on my colleagues from Quebec to support infrastructure projects all across Canada, as I would, as a member of Parliament from Alberta, support any projects that are in the national interest of Canada. I think it is very important that we all take this into consideration as parliamentarians for Canada. We really have to think about the effects of legislation such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and the way they so negatively impacted the natural resources sector here in Alberta.

People have to put themselves in other people's shoes. If legislation such as this bill were to come across that another province could potentially have the possibility to impact an infrastructure project that would be of benefit to Quebec, I do not think that they would like to see that any more than we do, as members of Parliament from Alberta who see the potential of this happening to us. More importantly, at this time, I think we really have to question what legislation like this would do.

This is the time to build this economy. This bill would create more insecurity around investment in Canada at this time. I will hand it to the Prime Minister and his cabinet, who have done a masterful job of driving away investment from Alberta, the Prairies and the entire energy sector to the detriment of Canada. We are all suffering as we come out of this pandemic with the trillion-dollar debt that we have in front of us; the hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit that we have. We really need to come together as a nation to think about how we are economically going to respond to this. The Prime Minister and his cabinet just do not seem to get that when one part of the nation benefits, the entire nation benefits. I would ask my Bloc colleague to consider this at this time as well.

With that, I ask Canadians to really listen to the fall economic statement today. I really hope we do not see what we saw in the Speech from the Throne, which was a complete disappointment with more poor ideas based upon ideology as opposed to real, solid ideas to build the economy going forward. That is what I am expecting more of today.

When Canadians are listening to the fall economic statement today, I want them to ask themselves three questions:

Number one, will this improve the economy? Listen to what they are saying. Will it improve the economy for Canada? Goodness knows, we need that coming out of this pandemic.

Number two, will this protect my job if I have a job? Is there anything in the fall economic statement to protect my job? I am in a place where I have seen so many people lose their jobs. There is another round of layoffs coming from a major employer, Imperial, this week here in Alberta. It is terrible to hear about. Again, I completely blame the Liberal government for this, for its investment-destroying legislation. I do believe this bill will add to that.

Number three, will this fall economic statement create more jobs?

Will this improve the economy? Will this protect my job? Will this create more jobs? Those are the three things that Canadians have to be asking themselves. At the end of the day, I believe that Canadians have to ask their parliamentarian and government if they are taking actions and passing legislation to support the country and economy or taking actions and passing legislation that is destroying the economy, which is essentially destroying Canada. That is what is happening bit by bit.

This is the time to come together as a nation. This is the time to build the economy. The Liberal government has not done this and Bill C-225 does not do this either.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-225. The bill touches upon intergovernmental relations, federalism and the paramountcy principle: matters that have been debated in both Houses of Parliament on a wide range of subjects. In essence, this bill seeks to subordinate the exercise of federal power in certain areas of provincial law and to allow provincial governments to impose restrictions on environmental protection activities and land use for projects the federal government undertakes across the country.

These same topics came up when this bill was discussed in the House on June 19, 2018, when Bill C-392 proposed similar amendments during the last Parliament. At the time, Bill C-392 sought to strengthen environmental protection and scrutiny of land use. Since then, Bill C-69, introduced by this government, positively strengthened consultation mechanisms and consideration of the environmental impact of projects under federal jurisdiction.

I congratulate the hon. member for his initiative to heighten the consideration given to land use and development, as well as to environmental protection, when projects and activities under federal jurisdiction are being considered. The government is also invested in protecting Canada's environment, and in ensuring effective consultation that accounts for local concerns related to land use and development and the environment. Canadians should know that all levels of government work in the interests of their well-being.

Every day, millions of Canadians go about their lives in an orderly and predictable way. They routinely use safe roads, drink clean water, consume food free of contaminants, rely on safe transportation systems and know that their safety and security are guarded by police, fire departments, paramedics and military personnel. Even today, while the world is facing COVID-19, Canadians can count on federal, provincial and municipal governments to continue to collaborate until the end of this challenging time so they can maintain as many of their routines as possible.

Our society depends on laws and rules to function, and each level of government is responsible for those things that fall into its jurisdiction. Education, building codes and highways, for example, are primarily provincial responsibilities. Matters such as defence, aeronautics and radio communications, for example, extend beyond provincial borders and impact the country as a whole. In these areas, it falls to the federal government to implement a nationally consistent approach that serves Canada and its people.

Over the last several years, the Liberal government has sought to promote co-operative federalism as a way to face challenges concerning more than one level of government. As we all know, there are many issues that transcend municipal and provincial boundaries, and many others where the federal government may be unaware of a local concern. For this reason, taking a co-operative approach achieves the best possible outcome for Canadians. With a country as large and diverse as Canada, we must all act in good faith and work together to achieve the best possible results for our economy and our environment.

There have been, and will continue to be, times when differences arise despite our best efforts to work together. However, there are already numerous federal statutes, particularly those implicated in Bill C-225, and regulations that accommodate provincial laws concerning land use and development and environmental protection. Efforts are ongoing to encourage co-operative federalism in ways that do not restrict core federal operation.

In order to build on its desire for co-operative federalism, the Liberal government demonstrated its commitment to consulting Canadians when it introduced Bill C-69, which strengthens Canada's environmental assessments and regulatory reviews through legislative changes and amendments. This bill explicitly reflects the consideration of environmental, social, safety, health and socio-economic issues, including gender-based impacts and economics as well as impacts on indigenous peoples. Bill C-69 also includes several provisions that enhance public participation and transparency, which provides members of the public with an opportunity to express their views during the review process.

The changes we made in Bill C-69 exceed the amendments proposed in Bill C-225. As we know, the division of powers in Canada is defined by the Constitution Act, but we also know that the division presents some ambiguity.

There are many areas and many issues where interests cross jurisdictional lines. Two or even three levels of government have stakes in issues such as the environment, health, safety and employment. Our different levels of government need to work together to discuss problems, develop strategies, leverage resources and find solutions.

To reinforce the importance of collaboration, the Supreme Court of Canada encourages all levels of government to work co-operatively. In recent decisions, the Court has indicated that provincial and municipal legislation cannot impair core matters of federal jurisdiction over aeronautics or radio communication infrastructure.

In addition, where possible, it prefers to allow valid provincial laws to apply, if they are not in conflict. While these decisions quite clearly establish federal authority on matters such as aerodromes and cellphone towers, the federal government does not rely on court decisions to impose projects on Canadian communities. Instead, it chooses to use processes for consultation, and the consideration of environmental laws and land use, to ensure that local concerns are taken into consideration regarding activities and projects that fall under federal jurisdiction. A division of powers is essential to maintaining order and predictability in our society and ensures that we avoid the scenario of too many leaders in one situation, or a leadership void when no one wants to take responsibility in another. In Canada, all jurisdictions must work together on certain issues to promote and protect the interests of all Canadians. Even when we agree to work together, we must still respect jurisdictional boundaries.

I would like to provide the House with examples of three areas of federal jurisdiction in which a co-operative approach and consultations play an essential role. First, in January of 2017, following a regulatory consultation process, Transport Canada implemented a new regulation requiring proponents of certain aerodrome projects to consult with the municipalities, citizens or other concerned stakeholders before starting work, so that local concerns could be identified and mitigated. I add that many of these projects do not move forward if there are serious doubts expressed regarding the quality of the consultations carried out by their proponents, or if these projects are deemed not to be in the public interest.

Another example under the Canada Marine Act is that there currently exist provisions for the Governor in Council to make regulations situated on a port, whether a Canadian port authority or public port facility, or on use of the seaway and its property. These provisions include development, use and environmental protections that incorporate provincial legislation by reference.

My third and final example is the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which acts as a partner in delivering federal support to infrastructure projects in the public interest alongside co-investment by the private sector, institutional investors and sponsoring governments. Projects supported by the infrastructure bank must respect all applicable laws in their relevant jurisdictions, including any applicable environmental or labour laws. Project sponsors provide assurance to the bank and other investors that applicable laws in a province have been respected.

These three specific examples were chosen because these initiatives all require consultation and consideration of local issues related to land use and the environment. These would be taken away from the very acts the private member's bill seeks to amend. There are countless other examples, in the same act and elsewhere, that demonstrate the government's commitment to hearing the concerns of Canadians, and advancing the health, safety and economic well-being of our citizens and the stewardship of our natural resources, such as our forests and waters. These duties are the responsibility of all governments, whether municipal, federal or provincial. Our best successes occur when we come together, listen to one another and work together to support policy development, new programs and effective enforcement that serves all Canadians. We have every intention of continuing to listen to and work with other levels of government.

The federal government has worked effectively with provinces, territories and municipalities over many years in response to the requirements of the communities they serve and to the needs of the country as a whole. Like our provincial and municipal partners, we take that responsibility very seriously. The Liberal government will continue to prioritize co-operative federalism and consultation with its citizens. Bill C-225 would represent a major shift in federal-provincial dynamics in Canada and would undermine the co-operative federal relationship we worked so hard to establish.

It is for these reasons the government strongly opposes Bill C-225.