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.

Opposition Motion—The Economy

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this great House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Kingsway.

It is important that we discuss the economy in the House. Jobs and our economic vision are fundamental obligations. That said, I have to say that this opposition motion by the Conservatives kind of looks like a dog's breakfast. I can tell we are almost at the time of the House's rising, because this is where they stuff as many things into the hopper as possible, hoping that one of them will stick. It is kind of like a Black Friday sale for backbenchers and right-wing privatizers and privateers, hoping for a flat earth and demanding government intervention in the economy. They get to jump and up and down on carbon tax for the afternoon and then they will go home feeling that they have done their job.

That said, there are some important things in here and I am going to try to go through them so we can actually have a conversation. This is very long. If I read the whole thing, I might not get to make comments.

The motion states, “the House...recognize[s] the severity of the looming job crisis in Canada caused by the failed economic policies of the Liberal government”. That is an interesting point because we are certainly seeing across Canada the rising levels of precarious work, with workers on perpetual contract and suffering from massive levels of student debt. We have a finance minister who is the finance minister of the 1%, along with his former company, Morneau Shepell, which has privatized pensions across the country. With the minister saying in his position as finance minister, his company has taken over files as pensions have been failing, and the government has refused to step in. Therefore, the issue of the crisis facing workers is important.

In my region, we are seeing a very interesting time in the economic development of the resource sector. I will point to Kirkland Lake Gold, which has made a more than $300 million shaft investment in the community, which will pay dividends for decades to come. However, we are also seeing many issues concerning our need for immigration, new families and job training. I would like to see all that in here.

As I read on, none of that stuff is here. What is the issue? Oh wait, it is the, “workers in the energy sector impacted by the Liberal carbon tax”. It is fascinating that the Conservatives raise this today when Rachel Notley stood up and finally said what everyone should have known all along, that the resources of this country belong to the people of this country. Rachel Notley stood up and started to call for a cut in oil production because Albertans were not getting their best share. The Conservatives' response is always to throw more money at the industry, but we have seen that if that industry had invested in upgraders and refineries over the years, it would be in a much better position, like Imperial and Husky and Suncor who did that work. The Conservatives are always wanting a handout without saying that we need to get more efficient. I want to compliment Rachel Notley for saying that we have to take action now in this crisis. It is a much more coherent response than the Conservatives' one of saying, “carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax”.

The Conservatives want a “ban on offshore oil tankers”. For the workers on the B.C. coast, where the coastline is worth billions of dollars in economic power, the Conservatives believe that if we just allow tankers up the coastline, it is going to resolve the crisis in the energy sector. It is kind of like this “flat earth” mentality, where two plus two equals one. It just does not make sense.

Let us carry on with the motion, where it refers to “workers in the auto and manufacturing sector”. Certainly that is a good issue to raise after GM walked away. What is the cause of this problem according to the Conservatives? Oh, it is the carbon tax. I find this fascinating, because we have sort of capitalist socialism here, where the Conservatives gave $14 billion to GM and Chrysler with no strings attached and then allowed them to walk away from even paying that back. We saw that when GM walked away from paying its debts, it was threatening its workers at the plants. The CAMI plant is the most efficient plant in North America and GM was still threatening to ship the jobs to Mexico because it knew that the current government and Prime Minister would never stand up for Canadian workers. It does not matter how productive and profitable they are because, as long as GM executives can find a third-world jurisdiction to go to and can pay lower wages, the know they have a government that has their back.

If we are going to spend $14 billion on the auto sector, why was there no auto strategy and commitment, so that when GM said it was going to develop electric cars, which I think is a very positive move, it would benefit Canada? It is just as we saw in the oil sector, when we bought ourselves a $4.5-billion, 65-year-old pipeline because a bunch of Texas investors threatened to leave the country. I would say goodbye, move on.

That $4.5 billion spent for that pipeline could have done amazing work in either upgrading our energy sector or starting us on the transition. However, it is not just that. There are going to be $350 million in capital costs and $2.6 billion in operating costs for three years to buy the locomotives and railcars to help industry move product.

There are other incentives of $2.1 billion to upgrade the petrochemical sector and another $1 billion investment in the feedstock infrastructure program.

Meanwhile, there have been no commitments by the federal government at all to work with Alberta on diversifying the energy economy. The number one place in the world to have green energy is Alberta. Indeed, after talking to workers in the oil patch, where many people from my region work, they are already training and getting ready for a new solar economy. It is happening in Alberta. The federal government is not there.

In Ontario, there are the new, great economic theorists for the right-wing Doug Ford. The first thing he did was cancel a whole bunch of energy projects and then say the province was open for business while watching the massively growing green sector move to other jurisdictions.

I am not finished. There is a whole bunch of other stuff the Conservatives have thrown into this motion. There is the issue of workers in the steel and aluminum sector being impacted by the Liberals' failure in the NAFTA negotiations to have the tariffs removed on those products. That is a good issue to discuss in the House: why upward of half a billion dollars has been collected by the finance minister and there have been no efforts to stand up for workers affected by the countervailing duties on steel and aluminum. It is not just the small business manufacturers across southern Ontario. In my region, both are being hit relentlessly. They are paying the finance minister and no money is coming back. That is something we could certainly talk about. How the heck did the government think it was a good idea to sign this agreement with the United States without standing up for the steel and aluminum workers? That alone was a good thing for us to be discussing.

I will support the Conservatives on their next point, the softwood lumber dispute and the absolute failure of the government to talk about workers in that industry. In my region, the EACOM mills in Elk Lake and Timmins survive because they are incredibly competitive. They are having to be extremely competitive because they are going up against the unfair duties being imposed on them, and the government has shown no interest in the sector. There has been no talk by the Prime Minister on the crisis facing workers in the forestry industry.

I will certainly support those elements in this Conservative dog's breakfast of a motion, but then they refer to all workers impacted by the toxic medley of carbon taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. What do they say we should do? We should call on the Liberals to repeal the carbon tax and Bill C-69. That bill, for the folks back home who do not know, was the result of the Supreme Court's tossing of the plan for pipeline development by Stephen Harper and the Conservative government because they failed to consult indigenous people. They figure that if there is a motion in the House that says we can ignore indigenous people and constitutional obligations, suddenly the economy is going to move ahead. That is not how it is going to work. However, I certainly support the Conservatives' push on the softwood lumber dispute.

On carbon taxes, the problem with the Liberal government is that it seems to be establishing carbon taxes based on favours and friends. We learned that a coal plant in New Brunswick is only going to pay 92¢ a tonne for pollution. That is not any kind of credible weight to bear when ordinary people are going to be paying a carbon tax. Why are we talking about a price on carbon? The Conservatives believe that if they say it long enough, climate change will go away, but Canadians pay the cost. For example, the $47 billion in abandoned wells in Alberta have been downloaded to the ranchers, farmers and citizens because industry did not pay its share. We have to start addressing the price of pollution, particularly since the latest report shows that the three great outliers in the world right now are Russia, China and Canada. To anyone who thinks that the Liberals just saying nice things will get us there, I say that it will not. We need to invest in a green energy economy and work with the workers in the sectors being affected so we can start the transition. Talk alone will not do it.

When I look at the motion overall, I see a real opportunity to talk about jobs, but a complete failure, because the Conservatives are playing to the Conservative base without providing a credible response.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

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

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

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I want to review the Liberal record.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

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

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

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

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

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

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

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

Today, three years later, here we sit.

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

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

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

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

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

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

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

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

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

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

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

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

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West, ON]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

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

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

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

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