Bill C-69 (Historical)

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

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

Natural Resources

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak this evening. I will be speaking in English so please forgive me if I make a few mistakes.

The great philosopher Yogi Berra once said, “It's like déjà vu all over again.” He could have been talking about this debate, because it seems we are just going around in circles here, with many of us saying the same thing in different ways.

Our government has already endorsed the House committee's report on the future of Canada's oil and gas sector. Why? It is because the committee was right when it concluded that the future of the industry is tied to innovation, sustainable solutions and new economic opportunities. Who would disagree with that?

However, the critics in the House say, “Yes, but what about the upstream greenhouse gas emissions? Why are we including them in the review of oil and gas projects? What about the uncertainty facing the industry with respect to environmental assessments? What about recognizing that Canada has a world-leading regulatory regime and an internationally renowned track record? What about the United States' transformation from being our main customer to our biggest competitor?”

On each count we say, that is what we have been addressing over the course of our mandate. We have been addressing existing problems and tackling the challenges that continue to emerge. One key way we have been doing that is by bringing forward legislation, Bill C-69, to make environmental assessments and regulatory reviews timelier, more transparent and more predictable. We get it. Investment certainty is critical to the energy sector's future, and Bill C-69 would provide that, with better rules for a better Canada.

However, again, the critics argue, “Yes, but why are you singling out the oil and gas industry by including upstream greenhouse gas emissions for pipeline projects?” We are not. It is just the opposite. Everything we have been doing, from Bill C-69 to the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, is aimed at strengthening Canada's economy and creating jobs for the low-carbon future. That includes our oil and gas industry and all the other resource sectors that are the backbone of the Canadian economy.

Here is a fact that is not widely known. Natural resources account for 47% of Canada's merchandise exports. That is almost half our total merchandise exports. There is no getting around it. Our natural resource industries are not just the historic foundation of our economy, they are helping to drive our future prosperity, and in a world increasingly looking for sustainably produced products, Canada is unmatched. We have a huge natural advantage, and our government is determined to build on that competitive edge by making sure that Canada can take on the world in this clean-growth century and win.

However, again, the critics argue, “That is all well and good, but you have to realize that our oil and gas industry is now competing with the United States. You have to do something about that.” Again, we say that they are right, and we are doing something about it. It is right there in the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the Minister of Natural Resources. The Prime Minister asked the minister to identify opportunities to support workers and businesses in the natural resource sectors that are seeking to export their goods to global markets.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is part of that, part of our plan to diversify markets, improve environmental safety and create thousands of good middle-class jobs, including jobs in indigenous communities. That is why the Minister of Natural Resources just announced the first step in our efforts to make sure that any expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline proceeds in the right way. When 99% of Canada's oil exports are destined for the United States, it just makes sense for us to seek other buyers for our resources. The problem is that there was not a single pipeline built to tidewater in the decade before we formed government. We have to address that, and we are.

Before anyone watching thinks we are doing all of this alone, let me make this clear. Canada's oil and gas industry is working hard investing in innovation, improving its environmental performance, building new partnerships and creating new opportunities. The oil sands are a great example. They are one huge innovation project. Nobody figured out how to get oil out of sand until Canadians created the technology, and that ingenuity continues today through Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance. It is a partnership of Canada's thirteen largest producers, all of them working together to ensure the industry's sensible growth and to accelerate its environmental performance. To date, those 13 companies have invested more than $1.3 billion to develop more than a thousand distinct new technologies and innovations, such as using the latest in artificial intelligence to pinpoint where to inject steam, and how much, to maximize the return of oil, or developing technology that could reduce CO₂ emissions from the steam generation process to almost zero within five years.

Our government is working with them, supporting their efforts through our CanmetEnergy lab in Devon, Alberta, through our oil and gas clean-tech program and through our clean energy innovation program. We do that because our job is to make sure that Canada is developing its resources in the most environmentally responsible ways possible and using them in the most sustainable ways possible. That is exactly what we are doing. We are investing, for example, in the latest carbon capture technologies and are supporting centres of excellence in Alberta and B.C. and coming up with innovative ways to turn carbon dioxide into commercial products, everything from concrete and plastic to fish food and even toothpaste. Members may have recently read about the promising pilot project just north of Vancouver, where they are actually grabbing carbon dioxide out of the air and turning it into a replacement for gasoline.

The bottom line is that the low-carbon economy is not just the challenge of our generation, it is the opportunity of a lifetime. We are seizing this opportunity and making Canada a global leader.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise this evening to speak to the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, a report on the future of and innovation in Canada's oil and gas sector. I will not comment on the arcane procedures and strategies in this place that see us debating a committee report a full two years after it was tabled in the House, but I am pleased to be able to take it off the shelf, dust it off and see what is in there, especially in light of more recent events.

The New Democrats submitted a supplementary opinion on the report when it was tabled, so I will be referencing that when I discuss some of our concerns. Our first concern was with the scope of the study and the subsequent report. We had hoped that there would have been a good discussion on the opportunities in other parts of the energy sector, a discussion about innovation, job opportunities, investments and particularly the emerging renewable energy industry. Renewable energy offers significant opportunities for the creation of good jobs in every community across Canada and much of what is happening there is the very definition of “innovation”, but, unfortunately, that topic was not included in the study.

During the study, committee members heard a lot about innovation in the oil and gas industry and some of it was truly encouraging. We heard from Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, COSIA. In the model that COSIA put forward, a group of private companies put aside the usual proprietary nature of research and information to create a true alliance in which all members have access to successful innovations that could result in oil extraction methods that are both more economical and better for the environment. That is really exciting to witness. Unfortunately, we heard that many of these innovations would only be implemented in new projects, projects that are waiting for higher oil prices before they will proceed. I truly hope that the COSIA model will be extended to other industry sectors because of the way it amplifies innovation through quick adoption throughout the sector.

I would also like to echo the sentiments of Gil McGowan, the president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, in that we have to be more than hewers of wood and drawers of water, that we need to develop value-added industries within the oil and gas and other resource sectors. He testified, “we should prioritize value-added development, because these kinds of investments not only create jobs directly in upgrading, refining, and petrochemicals but also create other jobs.” I would add that these investments create jobs that are not as subject to the volatility of global oil prices and create products that will be needed during our transition to a low-carbon economy.

We not only need to be innovative in how we extract and use resources, we need to be innovative in how we regulate the extraction of those resources. I think everyone here would agree that we now have a complete lack of public confidence in our energy regulation process. Nanos Research has published data showing that only 2% of Canadians think we are doing a good job in that regard.

Professor Monica Gattinger of the University of Ottawa testified before committee about her positive energy program, a research group dedicated to studying ways to depolarize the public debate around the oil and gas sector, particularly with regard to pipelines. The supplementary report states:

We believe it is essential that the lack of public confidence in the current environmental assessment process be addressed by permanent, meaningful changes to the National Energy Board process as soon as possible. New Democrats believe that the proposed interim measures introduced by the government are inadequate to address the results of a decade of Conservative dismantling of our environmental protection regime. We share the concern expressed by witness Professor Monica Gattinger that if the process goes ahead without the existing gaps being meaningfully addressed, the end result will further erode public confidence in the entire assessment regime.

The supplementary report goes on to say:

We are disappointed that the majority report fails to recommend a speedy review of the NEB process as this had been a clear electoral commitment of the new government. We are disappointed that the newly announced review panel process contains no timeline for actual legislative changes leaving the Conservatives inadequate process in place and creating uncertainty for all stakeholders. We recommend that the government move faster to make the necessary permanent changes to the NEB assessment process to restore public confidence and ensure that it is fair, neutral, science based and designed to meaningfully engage communities.

Where are we now? Shortly after this report was tabled in the House, the government granted permission for the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline to proceed, and a few weeks ago, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed those approvals. The court cited two significant failures: the government failed to consider the environmental impact of the project on coastal marine environment, and the consultations with first nations were completely inadequate. The government officials who met with first nations groups were mere note-takers who mistakenly believed that neither they nor cabinet had the authority to change the findings of the National Energy Board in the consultation process.

What did they think consultation was about? If they thought it was about noting the concerns of first nations and telling the first nations they had no power to change anything with regard to the pipeline, that is not consultation. Consultation is listening and then acting on concerns, trying to make accommodations.

Here is what our first supplementary report had to say about first nations consultation:

The Government must also act quickly to honour its obligations to a Nation to Nation relationship with Indigenous peoples including proper consultation and accommodation on all energy projects and the protection of Indigenous rights. During testimony, industry representatives were clear about the importance of fixing the consultation process sooner rather than later. The Government of Canada, as representative of the Crown, is responsible for these duties and while proponents of projects should be a part of this process, we believe these responsibilities should not be devolved to proponents to fulfill, as was too often the case under the former Conservative government. The Government must take a much larger, hands-on role in creating the environment in which meaningful consultation can take place.

The supplementary report goes on to support Bill C-262, which would ensure that federal legislation is consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This bill was brought forward by our colleague in the NDP caucus, the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou. While we are happy to report that Bill C-262 has passed through the House of Commons, we were disappointed to see that its spirit was not included in Bill C-69, legislation that would implement changes to environmental assessment and energy regulation in Canada.

Here we are two years after this report was tabled. The NDP was criticized back then for its call to redo the Trans Mountain expansion process under a proper system. Critics said it would take too long, maybe another year or two. Here we are two years later back at square one. The decision of the Federal Court of Appeal is a reminder that we have to put in the effort at the start. There are no shortcuts.

I mentioned Nanos Research earlier that noted the pitifully poor state of Canadians' confidence in our energy regulation system, but it did point out there was a way forward. The polling data demonstrated that if the Canadian government could show it was consulting properly with indigenous communities by asking local communities about these decisions and developing a meaningful consultation process, Canadians would have more confidence in the procedure. There is a way forward.

I just want to read out some of the testimony from a witness representing the Indigenous Health Alliance who criticized the National Energy Board in particular for not engaging indigenous peoples early enough in its regulatory approval processes. He recommended the following measures to improve indigenous community engagement, which come right out of the main body of the report we are discussing tonight:

Early engagement of indigenous communities in the NEB process—by involving indigenous communities in “the problems, solutions and implementation strategies of any resource development project at the earliest reasonable opportunity”;

Acknowledging the multidimensional nature of resource development issues—by recognizing that resource development projects involve broader considerations related to education, health, economic development, the environment, etc. He stated that a consultation process that does not acknowledge and address these issues clearly will ultimately fail to address the real problems;

Including community leadership, namely elders, in the decisionmaking process—by recognizing elders as a stakeholder group that should be directly involved in setting the project agenda;

Acknowledging that indigenous peoples are reasonable and pragmatic about resource development—they are likely to support approval processes that respect their community-based needs;

Involving communication and consultation experts—ones that could accurately interpret and convey community concerns to governments and project developers; and

Recognizing indigenous peoples as a “third level of government” in Canada—which is how they are functionally recognized by the court system.

We have significant natural resources in Canada and they have always been central to our country's wealth. However, we must ensure that these shared resources are managed in the best interests of all Canadians, with a focus on protecting the environment, ensuring meaningful consultation with affected communities and indigenous peoples and maximizing economic benefits.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the discussions that were just presented, just reading through the footnotes we recognize that it was in early 2016 that these discussions took place. Recognizing that this report is two years old, there is a lot that has changed in the last two years. We thought we would be working with the U.S. and that carbon taxes would be in place. Keystone had not been approved. These are the kinds of things that are taking place. It is as though the member believes that this is a snapshot of today. What we are talking about is what set the stage for all of the discussions and the concerns, and especially the disastrous Bill C-69 that is being presented. I wonder if the member can bring us back to the mindset there was two years ago, and why some of these thoughts need to be updated.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking in today's debate in my new role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.

I am honoured by the trust that the Prime Minister has put in me. I am well aware that I have been entrusted with a critical portfolio. The member for Northumberland—Peterborough South set the bar very high.

I have learned some valuable lessons in my years representing the people of Sudbury. Thanks to them, I have a better understanding of the importance of natural resource development, the importance of doing things right, and the importance of making sure that everyone wins, including proponents, local communities and indigenous peoples, in the spirit of creating jobs while protecting the environment. The House committee came to the same conclusion two years ago in its report entitled “The Future of Canada's Oil and Gas Sector: Innovation, Sustainable Solutions and Economic Opportunities”.

I have always suspected that some people were a bit slow to grasp the importance of harmonizing environmental protection and economic prosperity. All the same, it is astonishing that we are only now debating a report that was released by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources a full two years ago.

I want to take a moment to refresh the memories of those who may have forgotten what that report said and remind them of what our government has achieved.

The committee explored the future of Canada's oil and gas sectors by focusing on innovation, sustainable solutions and economic opportunities. After holding seven days of meetings and hearing from 33 witnesses, the committee produced its report, which contained a number of recommendations. Among other things, the report recommended that our government continue to support the viability and competitiveness of Canada's oil and gas sectors, foster investment and trade opportunities, promote a new era of indigenous engagement and public trust, establish a carbon pricing system, invest in technological innovation and establish the right policy framework.

Our government approved that report and we are responding to each of its recommendations.

Through Natural Resources Canada, we are investing in research and the demonstration of innovative technologies, including those aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Two specific initiatives are worth noting: first, the $50-million oil and gas clean tech program, which is helping to reduce the sector's greenhouse gas emissions; and second, the $25-million clean energy innovation program, which seeks to reduce emissions in a number of areas, including methane and volatile organic compounds in the oil and gas industry. Future work will focus on enhancing the environmental and economic performance by significantly reducing methane emissions.

Through mission innovation, our government has committed to doubling our investment in energy technology research and development. More broadly, NRCan is working with Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance and other partners to maximize the innovative potential for the oil and gas sector.

As I mentioned, the committee report also calls on the government to rebuild public trust in resource development. Our government has done just that, including by restoring many lost environmental protections and introducing modern safeguards to the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Protection Act.

We announced a $1.5-billion oceans protection plan, the largest investment in Canada's coasts and oceans in our history.

We have introduced Bill C-69, the most comprehensive overhaul of the environmental review process in a generation.

The Prime Minister has said many times that no relationship is more important to our government than the one with indigenous peoples. In particular, we recognize that consultation with indigenous communities affected by resource projects is critical to renewing a nation-to-nation relationship. That is why, with respect to the Trans Mountain expansion project, we extended the timeline to allow for deeper, more meaningful engagement.

When concerns were expressed, we responded by committing nearly $65 million to establish an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee that would oversee environmental aspects through the entire life of that project. This was unprecedented. As Chief Ernie Crey of the Cheam First Nation said, “Indigenous people won't be on the outside looking in. We'll be at the table and on site to protect our lands and water.”

That said, we know that when it comes to indigenous engagement, a higher bar must still be met. Our government will be announcing how we intend to meet that bar in the coming days.

Finally, the committee recommended that we establish the right policy framework to ensure a competitive oil and gas industry. We agree, which is why we are continuing to work towards a Canadian energy strategy together with our indigenous, provincial and territorial colleagues. It is why, through the Vancouver declaration, Canada's first ministers committed to working on carbon sinks and other measures under the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.

That is why we have done what 42 other countries and 25 subnational jurisdictions have done: put a price on pollution. It is something the United Nations has called a necessary and effective measure to tackle the climate change challenge.

Taken together, our actions constitute an unprecedented level of support for the oil and gas industry, all while demonstrating that economic development and environmental prosperity can indeed go hand in hand.

The opposition issued a dissenting report and I will address it directly.

The report calls, among other things, for clear timelines for assessments. I suggest that members opposite read Bill C-69, which provides predictable timelines and clear expectations. This would allow proponents to better plan and engage earlier, leading to stronger proposals and greater certainty. The opposition's report also recommends that we encourage our national regulators to “make evidence-based decisions independent of government politicization”.

This concern for evidence-based decision-making is a welcome change of pace in Canada.

I can guarantee my opposition colleagues that we truly value science, facts and evidence. I am also pleased to mention that the dissenting report calls on the government “to publicly and unequivocally support strategic energy infrastructure approved by the national regulators”. Of course, that is exactly what we did by approving the Line 3 replacement project.

Finally, the report calls on the government to promote Canada's regulatory framework by instilling “public confidence in our national regulators”. We agree, which is why we built on the work of the National Energy Board to create a modern, world-class regulatory body for the 21st century, an organization that has the independence and accountability needed to oversee a solid, safe and viable energy sector, an organization that includes new public engagement and indigenous reconciliation processes, all while ensuring that good projects get the green light.

I will conclude by saying that I am always happy to talk about everything our government is doing for the oil and gas industry. We know that it is a vital contributor to our economy and an important part of our future. The fact is that the recommendations in this report are already being implemented. Our government will continue to look forward, towards a very bright future for our oil and gas industry and towards the prosperity it will help ensure for all Canadians.

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to add my comments to this very important debate on S-245. I would like to note the comments of my colleague for Lakeland as she kicked off the debate. She very articulately laid out this project, the time frames and some of the history. I will not redo what she said but I hope to add some new comments to the debate which should be reflected upon.

Even though the landscape has changed since this initial private member's motion in the Senate was introduced, passed and moved to us, it still remains a very important bill for us to pass in the House. Again, the landscape has changed considerably, but we must and should pass it.

I know that in an ideal world we would not have any dependence on fossil fuels. However, we continue to have that dependence. It is not just the gasoline for our car or the jet fuel for the planes that fly us to Ottawa and back home. Over 6,000 products require the use of oil.

In the short and medium term, the world, not just Canada, will continue to rely on oil and its products. I do have a belief that there will be technological advances that will create some solutions.

Dave McKay, the president of RBC, said, “Canadians are polarized about oil and gas when we should be focused on how cleanly we can produce it, how safely we can transport it and how wisely we can consume it.” Those are very important words.

Alberta is working very hard on how to cleanly produce. The discussion we are having today is how we can safely transport and then it is up to every individual to look at how wisely to consume it.

The government has decided to put all its eggs into one basket. The tanker moratorium simply means that people from Lac du Ronge and Eagle Spirit have been cut off, with no consultation on the opportunities they thought might be there for their communities. Of course, that would be a northern route. This bill is currently in the Senate. Again, it cuts off opportunity to get oil to the sea water.

Bill C-69 has been called the “never build another pipeline again” bill. I tend to agree. Changes proposed in Bill C-69 mean that another pipeline will never be built in Canada again. That is a huge problem. We can look at what is happening in the States and across the world. We basically have landlocked resources. In the short and medium term, we will be uncompetitive.

Having a “no pipeline” bill is important. However, what people do not realize is this. Look at the rail traffic. I live on a rail line. I was at a ceremony this week for a change of command for the Rocky Mountain Rangers. Fifteen metres from us was a rail line, which goes straight through Kamloops. Tanker car after tanker car travel right through town and along the Fraser River. It had already come down the Thompson River while salmon were spawning.

When we talk about transportation safety, it is relatively safe. However, it is more safe to transport oil through a pipeline than by tanker cars, which travel right through the middle of town and along the spawning channels. We have had wildfires. We have seen the instability of slopes when rains come. We are having washouts. There is big concern about the enormous increase in the tanker cars that go through our communities.

This does not even address the issue that we hear all the time from our grain farmers and mining folks about the bottleneck on the rail lines. As the rail capacity increases for tanker cars to transport oil, we bottleneck our supply system, our supply chain. This is a huge problem.

Northern gateway and the TMX is really a tale of two pipelines, because it has been largely decision-making by the current government.

Northern gateway went through its process and it was approved by the former government. A court decision came out and it was very clear. The Liberal government received that court decision. It said that some things needed to be done to improve consultation with first nations.

The decision was received by the current Liberal government. Every time those members suggest that they inherited a flawed process, it is quite clear that it was not the process but it was the execution of the process with northern gateway. It became much clearer that they did not learn any lessons after reading that report, in spite of the fact that they said they had. The Liberals completely botched their execution with respect to the duty to consult on the Trans Mountain pipeline.

The first decision said they could not simply be a note-taker. The Liberals had that information. What did they do? They sent someone to take notes. How is that looking at a decision and implementing it?

The minister stood up time after time and said that there was no relationship more important than the government's relationship with first nations. He said they were engaged, that they have had the best process ever, and yet his government did the exact same thing. Someone was sent to take notes and the government did nothing in terms of dealing with the issues at hand.

The Liberals failed. They failed as plaintiffs. Six communities took them to court with respect to the duty to consult. More important, they also failed 43 communities that had benefit agreements and were looking forward to the opportunities that would come with the construction of this pipeline going through their territory.

About one-third of the pipeline goes through the riding that I represent, which includes many communities as well as many first nations communities, the majority of which had signed benefit agreements.

After the decision came down I met with a number of first nations and other communities. One group had to completely redo its budget. It had counted on the benefits from this agreement. This group had to wonder what it could slice and dice out of its budget because it was faced with brand-new circumstances.

I met with another group called Simpcw Resource Group. As construction happened, and in the past, this company had been responsible for returning the disrupted land from the construction of a pipeline back to its natural vegetative state.

Companies are planting trees as we speak, planning on the economic opportunities. Construction camps are being planned. Cooks were looking forward to opportunities. These are real people. These are real jobs.

The fact that the Liberal government could not look at a court decision that came to them in 2016 and do the job properly is absolutely shameful. It failed to execute. When the government says it had a flawed process given to it, it is absolute nonsense. The government was told what it needed to do in order to do it properly. Please, do not ever let them say they were provided with a flawed process. The court decision was absolutely clear that the process was appropriate, it was the execution that was flawed.

This are real consequences to real people. This matters. I hope that when people look at this they will look at it as a benefit for Canada, not for the benefit of a small area only. This would benefit all of Canada.

I encourage all members of the House not to just look at their concerns and interests but to look at the big picture, look at it for the benefit of Canada.

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill S-245 at second reading and to do so as a proud Alberta MP. I am very proud of my home province and my city of Edmonton. It is a place that values hard work and entrepreneurship. In fact, if people come to my riding of Edmonton Centre, they will see on one of the buildings there a huge mural that says, “Take a risk”. There is nothing more Edmontonian that anyone could possibly do. It is a place that celebrates inclusion, a place that believes everyone should have the opportunity to succeed. The Edmonton Metropolitan Region has brought innovation and resource development to new levels, once thought impossible.

Members may know that I grew up in Morinviille. Close members of my family and dear friends work and have worked in the oil sands, and I know first-hand the importance of resource development to people's lives and livelihoods. I agree categorically with what I hear at doors every week, the keen and deep interest in getting our resources to market and ending the $15-billion-a-year haircut that our resource products get because we have only one customer, the United States.

These are the same reasons that our government approved the Trans Mountain expansion project in the first place. We know that this project holds the potential to create thousands of good middle-class jobs, to strengthen the Canadian economy and generate billions of dollars in new revenues for all orders of government, and to ensure that we get a fair price for one of our country's most valuable resources. It would also open up new opportunities in indigenous communities across B.C. and Alberta, which support the project. There are also 43 indigenous communities that have signed mutual benefit agreements.

It is for all of these reasons and many more that we believe that the TMX project is in Canada's national interest and why we purchased its assets as a sound investment in Canada's future. The existing line will generate $300 million in earnings every year regardless of the expansion. Therefore, when legislation comes before us suggesting that, “the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project and related works [are declared] to be for the general advantage of Canada”, it is hard to disagree. We have said as much repeatedly in every part of the country, and yet it is not enough that the pipeline project expansion proceed. It must proceed in the right way, and that includes fulfilling our government's commitments to protecting the environment and renewing Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is in the situation it is in today because of the failures of the previous Conservative government. We promised legislation that would move Canada forward and brings more, not less, environmental protection and respect for indigenous rights. Have the Conservatives learned that lesson? No. Despite court ruling after court ruling, they still fail to understand the importance of having strong and meaningful frameworks for pipeline approval in place. Ten years of Conservative failure to get our energy to other markets does not serve the Canadian people and does not serve the energy industry.

With Bill C-69, our government will move Canada's projects forward based on doing things the right way, and without cutting corners the way Conservatives did for a decade. When will the Conservatives learn that Canada cannot legislate its way out of its constitutional obligation to consult indigenous peoples and to protect the environment? Only they know the answer to that. On this side, we know that cutting corners has not worked in the past and will not work now or in the future.

The Federal Court of Appeal found that the government's assessment of the project left room for improvement. Potential environmental effects of marine shipping were not properly considered by the NEB, which was a result of a flawed process created by the Conservatives. It also found that while we had an acceptable framework for indigenous consultation, one that we brought forward in our interim approach to environmental assessments, the Crown did not properly execute that phase of the process.

That is why today the Minister of Natural Resources announced an important step in our path forward. He said that the government has instructed the National Energy Board to reconsider its recommendation, taking into account the effects of marine shipping related to the project. We will be directing the NEB to report within 22 weeks. During this time, the NEB will hear from Canadians and provide participant funding for indigenous and non-indigenous groups. We will present to the NEB recent government actions to protect the southern resident killer whales and to implement the oceans protection plan. We are committed to ensuring that the National Energy Board has the expertise and capacity to deliver the best advice to the government. To that end, we intend to appoint a special marine technical advisor to the National Energy Board.

Our government has been clear about its vision for resource development, a vision built on three key tenets: creating good, middle-class jobs; protecting the environment; and indigenous partnerships.

We see the Trans Mountain expansion project as part of this vision, but the vision is much bigger than that. We are committed to building a long-term energy vision for Canadians, one that transitions Canada to a clean growth economy. Canada is now a global leader in clean tech and we are poised to be a clean energy leader as well.

We have worked across sectors and across the country to build Bill C-69, with industry and environmental groups. The bill moves past the Conservative way of ignoring indigenous peoples and the environment, and proposes a modern, new way to review major resource projects and a new framework to recognize and implement indigenous rights in a spirit of respect, co-operation and collaboration.

Our vision is of more than a single pipeline. It is about creating jobs for Canadians and charting a path for Canada's long-term future, a new course that recognizes that the economy and the environment must go hand in hand.

The Federal Court of Appeal confirmed that we had made a solid start with the interim principles we introduced back in January 2016, but it said there was more work to be done. We understand that. That has been our focus since we formed government in November 2015.

That is why we not only signed the Paris Agreement on climate change, but also helped shape it as an ambitious and balanced plan for ensuring that the environment and economy are equal components of a single engine that will drive enduring prosperity.

That is why we also sat down with the provinces, territories, and indigenous peoples to draft the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change, a blueprint for reducing emissions, spurring innovation, adapting to climate change and creating good middle-class jobs across the country.

That is why we are making long-term investments in clean technology and green infrastructure. That is why we are providing unprecedented levels of support for science and basic research. That is also why we are making a historic investment to protect Canada's oceans, marine life and coastal communities.

The $1.5-billion oceans protection plan will strengthen the eyes and ears of the Canadian Coast Guard, enhance our response capabilities in the unlikely event of a spill and support innovative marine research. It will also reinforce new important partnerships with indigenous peoples. That includes the joint creation of an indigenous advisory and oversight committee to assess the safety of the TMX project throughout its life cycle.

This is in addition to our efforts to improve indigenous peoples's access to financing for economic development, professional training and business opportunities arising from the pipeline expansion. We recognize the importance of Canada's energy sector and its impact on both Canada's economy and the environment.

The Trans Mountain expansion project is a key element, part of a common-sense approach that includes the diversification of our energy markets, the improvement of environmental safety and the creation of thousands of good jobs for the middle class, including good jobs for indigenous communities.

However, we have to do this properly, by keeping our commitments to reconciliation with indigenous peoples and to environmental protection, and as part of our plan to build a better future and a better Canada for everyone. That is what I am proud to support today.

The Conservative Party can continue to attempt to mystify Canadians with bafflegab, blather and blarney. Our government will do the right thing and be respectful, rigorous and get this done in the right way.

National Defence Act

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

Mr. Speaker, some people are saying he did not. They should talk to their Prime Minister, because he is wrong and the minister is wrong. If they feel that ministers cannot ensure their own policies are being followed then they are abdicating their leadership for our country and they should resign. This is an affront to Canadians.

Constable Campbell wore two uniforms of service. She was a police officer in Nova Scotia and she volunteered as a firefighter. Christopher Garnier did not wear a uniform. He was is an adult and committed a horrendous crime: murder and desecration of the remains.

Having been minister and having spent my entire adult life either in uniform or supporting our troops through a variety of charities, some of which I was helpful in starting, there is no program in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island for which this person would qualify. Someone pressured the system. Someone made a mistake, and the minister is allowing that to continue. At the same time, we are receiving reports from the department that waiting times are back up. We have a situation.

I would like the member who is heckling me to reflect on this. Their government is having wait times go up for veterans to access PTSD treatment while they are funding, inappropriately and immorally, the treatment of someone who killed someone in uniform.

I hope some of the media are watching this. There are none in the gallery. Had that happened under the last government there would have been 24-hour coverage. The PSAC public sector union would have been outraged and would have been having press conferences. This level of disrespect and incompetence appears to be accepted.

This is from a minister, whom I have tried to work with. I have said good things about him in the House. However, time after time we are disappointed. They are shelving a report on how well service dogs would help our veterans. Then when the minister takes meetings with advocates or talks to the media about it he admits he has not even read the report. He is mailing it in. That is not what our veterans deserve. That is not what we expect when a member of the House is given the honour to join the government as either a parliamentary secretary or a minister. They read the reports. They understand the file. They are not just a TV host trying to make people feel good. They have to understand what they are doing, and I have seen nothing but failure from the minister.

We are talking about the military. These people are recruited out of high school generally, or out of training or college. They serve our country for a number of years, or for a career, and then retire as a veteran. Our country has an obligation from the first time we speak to them about serving until the end of their lives. What I hear from veterans and Veterans Affairs employees in Prince Edward Island, who find this Garnier decision horrendous, is the government will not even acknowledge the profound absurdity of making veterans who are hurt wait behind someone who has PTSD because he killed someone. He has never been in uniform. He is an adult.

I know all the programs at Veterans Affairs and outside. This was a mistake, and it is morally reprehensible. We are going to be here every day talking about this until they do the right thing. The heckling shows just how disconnected the Liberal MPs are from Canadians, from veterans and from Canadians who many not have served but want to make sure they are helping our vets.

There were times when I was minister I said we fell short. We must own it when we have to do better. We must tell them we are listening.

We cannot suggest that privacy concerns means we cannot talk about why we are funding treatment for a murderer. That is an absence of leadership. It is an admission that they do not understand the programs and benefits available. We are speaking about military justice. If someone had been in uniform and committed that crime, that person would not get this treatment.

There are about 10 different ways to show how absurd this is, yet there is an inability to act. The same talking points get pulled out. The Liberals mention Harper a couple of times and think they can move on.

I have never seen such an incompetent government. After three years the only true accomplishment of the Liberal government under the present Prime Minister is marijuana. He made promises about electoral reform and about finances in terms of the budget, deficits and taxation. The only one, and I know it is a personal favourite for him, is marijuana.

The minister in charge of marijuana, when he was police chief in Toronto, spoke to the Scarborough Mirror and suggested even decriminalization was wrong. Now an hon. member, someone I like a great deal, is being forced to come out when doctors, physicians and everyone is upset, and cover that we are going to stumble through the legalization of something that we know causes harm.

Rather than heckling, those members should speak up. We know one who tried to speak up, the hon. member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. She became tired of being ignored, of being one of the 32 sheep from Atlantic Canada. She made a principled decision to come over to a side where we can talk about these things, where we can talk about ways to move the country forward, where we can talk about issues we think are important. We do not have to wait for Mr. Butts to issue us talking points from the Prime Minister's Office.

Many of those members should go home this weekend and go into a coffee shop in their ridings and ask someone sitting there about the Garnier case, ask them if it is right to make veterans wait while inappropriately and immorally serving someone who killed a woman from Nova Scotia who wore the uniform.

Many of those members need to get out of their bubbles and talk to some real people. If next week they put the talking points away and do the right thing, once the minister reads the briefings on what programs are available in this context, they will realize there is no program for a non-dependent adult who has committed a horrendous crime, who has never served a day in uniform.

A mistake was made or inappropriate pressure was applied. If they root that out, correct it, I will stand in the House and thank them for finally doing the right thing.

Perhaps it is appropriate that the heckles from the Liberals took me into this subject. It is justice-related and it is military-related. More important than that, it is government confidence-related. Canadians see that waning.

Canadians see a government approaching the final year of its mandate, a government that is lurching from crisis to crisis, whether it is NAFTA on the rocks largely due to the government's own doing, or whether it is Trans Mountain, where, because of Bill C-69 we lost energy east because the Prime Minister cancelled northern gateway. He breached the duty to consult aboriginal owners of that line, one-third equity ownership with several first nations bands. I have spoken before in the House about several chiefs who were not consulted.

The Prime Minister violated his duty to consult first nations just like he did when he violated his duty to consult the Inuit when in Washington he made changes with respect to land and water in those areas without speaking to first nations leaders and by giving a courtesy call to the premier half an hour before the announcement.

It was crisis to crisis on veterans. The crisis really began in Belleville, Ontario, when the parliamentary secretary on U.S. relations, the Minister of National Defence and the member for Kelowna—Lake Country were standing behind the Prime Minister, wearing their medals, flown in from all over the country. I was veterans minister at the time. I was trying to fix things. I was being honest that we had work to do, but we were making progress.

He flew them in and made two key promises to our veterans, the people who serve and are governed by the National Defence Act and then retire, some with injury, some without. He told them two things at that event. First, that there was going to be a return to lifetime pensions. That was a return to the Pension Act. Why do I know that? Because when I was on the edge of settling the Equitas lawsuit with veterans, the settlement had to be turned into an abeyance agreement. Why? Because they were told the Liberals were going to return to the pension.

I had developed friendships with those veterans by that time, Mark Campbell, Aaron Bedard and many others. They remain friends and always will be. They felt bad when they called me and said that they would not be able to settle, but they wanted to work with me and put the lawsuit on hold.

In that promise made to Equitas veterans was the promise to return to the Pension Act. The pension for life announcement was made a couple of days before Christmas last year. That should have been a sign that Liberals were hiding bad news, announcing it literally on Christmas eve. It was essentially a slightly tweaked version of what I had already announced. There was no return to the Pension Act. The new veterans charter is still in place.

The other promise was to never see veterans in court fighting their government. What upsets me about that is the promise the Liberals made to the Equitas veterans, that they were going to return to the Pension Act, led to an abeyance agreement. However, that abeyance agreement expired when the Liberals were in power. What did they do? They did not renew that abeyance agreement; they let it lapse. Therefore, the court case was back on and they made military veterans go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Again, the Liberals broke their central promises.

I like the minister. I know he has served honourably. I know people from his regiment. I know people who went to staff college with him. He is likeable. He has to start stepping up. I am calling that group of veterans behind him in those photos “the broken promises battalion”. They were called out from across the country for a media event when the Prime Minister had no intention of following through or he did not know the costing and ramifications of his promise, either one of those options, saying something one has no intention of following through on or not understanding the file enough to know the cost or ramifications of implementing a return to the Pension Act. Members should remember that the Pension Act was changed by a Liberal government. Honourable Canadians running for office, none of whom were actually members of Parliament at the time but they were all veterans, and I respect their service, all flanked the Prime Minister, medals on, while the Prime Minister said those two things: a return to lifetime pensions and veterans will never have to face their government in court.

Within two years, both of those promises were broken. Now the minister is not reading reports before meeting with veterans, who are juggling a lot of issues, sometimes injuries, and serious ones. Now we see the waning confidence in the minister fade even more when, as wait times increase. Miraculously to the front of the line for PTSD treatment comes someone who is in a correctional institution for murdering someone who wore not just one but two uniforms for her community and her province.

I want all of those Liberal members to go back to their ridings, speak to veterans, go to the legions, ask them what they think, come back next week and do the right thing.

Natural Resources

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in response to a question, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources said that the energy east pipeline could rise from the ashes if TransCanada wanted it to.

Worse yet, he said that the government would use exactly the same decision-making process that the Conservatives did. Never mind BAPE, Quebec's environmental protection agency, or Quebec's approval, and there will be no environmental assessment as provided for under Bill C-69.

I will give the government another chance. Can the parliamentary secretary confirm that he will use the same process the Conservatives used and that he has no intention of respecting Quebec's environmental laws?

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith for her important and timely question.

It is timely because we know that the Federal Court of Appeal recently ruled that the National Energy Board should have included marine transportation in its assessment of the Trans Mountain expansion proposal.

It is important because the issues she raised reflect what we on this side of the House have been saying from the outset: the economy and the environment must go hand in hand, and no relationship is more important to Canada than its relationship with indigenous peoples.

Those core values go to the heart of our government's vision for this clean-growth century. The good news is that our government is committed to ensuring that those values are respected in everything we do, including expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. That is why we introduced Bill C-69 to improve the way we review major resource projects.

That is why we are making the single-largest investment ever to protect Canada's oceans, marine life and coastal communities. The $1.5 billion oceans protection plan has been a cornerstone of our agenda and our efforts. The oceans protection plan strengthens the eyes and ears of the Canadian Coast Guard to ensure better communication to vessels, adds new radar sites in strategic locations, puts more enforcement officers on the coast and establishes the national aerial surveillance program to keep a watchful eye on ships and waters under our jurisdiction.

At the same time, the oceans protection plan strengthens our capacity to respond in the unlikely event of a spill, by adding more primary environmental response teams to bolster Coast Guard capacity, investing in new technologies and conducting scientific research to make cleanups more effective, including $80 million for groundbreaking research on the behaviour of diluted bitumen in marine settings. We are using every tool at our government's disposal to remain vigilant in protecting our coasts and marine life. That includes a $170 million action plan to protect the south resident killer whales.

The oceans protection plan is also building meaningful new partnerships with indigenous people in other coastal communities. This includes a Canadian first with the creation of an indigenous advisory and monitoring committee to oversee the safety of the TMX project through its entire life cycle. In addition, we have enhanced indigenous access to federal funding for economic development, job training and other business opportunities that will flow from the pipeline's possible expansion.

Our position is clear: We are committed to creating the prosperity we all want while protecting the planet we all cherish.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

But not for middle-class oil and gas workers, Mr. Speaker. Some 1.2 million barrels a day are flowing through new pipelines approved and built under Conservatives, which will rise to 2 million when Keystone XL is done, with no tax dollars needed. As of today, the Liberals have added zero after three years in government, and they blew $4.5 billion in tax dollars that will go into the U.S.

Every time the Prime Minister points to the past and blames others, he admits that he failed, and the Liberals still have no plan for the future. Their summer of failure is becoming their legacy of failure and it is hurting the whole country. When will he pull his ban-on-pipelines Bill C-69 and give a plan for Trans Mountain?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals bought it without building it. We will build it without having to buy it. That is the difference between us.

If the Liberals really wanted to develop Canada's energy sector and get our resources to market, they would invite energy east back to the table. They would scrap the carbon tax. They would scrap their plans for Bill C-69, the ban on pipelines bill.

Will the Prime Minister do any of those things to get our men and women in the country back to work?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, whenever he fails, he just blames others. However, former Toronto Liberal MP and two-time Liberal leadership candidate Martha Hall-Findlay agrees the Liberals are failing. She said that Bill C-69 was “deeply flawed” and “Now is not the time to pass legislation that could make our investment climate even worse.”

The Liberals killed three private sector pipelines. Their failure stole Trans Mountain. One hundred thousand energy workers lost their jobs and hundreds of thousands more are at risk. Billions in investment is leaving Canada.

Will the Prime Minister scrap his no new pipeline Bill C-69 before he completely obliterates the Canadian energy sector?

Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in the Chamber today after a lovely summer being back with the good people of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, all the way out on the west coast, and beautiful Vancouver Island. It was a fantastic summer spent in all of my various communities, really getting some great feedback on what they see as their priorities.

It is interesting that the first item on the government's agenda today is the debate on Bill C-79, the bill that is going to implement the CPTPP, which stands for the comprehensive and progressive agreement for the trans-Pacific partnership.

Right off the bat, I really want to acknowledge the incredible work that has been done by my colleague, the member for Essex, who stands as our international trade critic, and is one of the vice-chairs on the Standing Committee on International Trade. She and I are both from the class of 2015, and for her to take on such a complex and difficult file and deliver on it with such amazing grace and knowledge, she has served our caucus and, indeed, so many Canadians, very well on this file. I want to acknowledge the work that she is doing.

When we look at this, it is just a revision of the old trans-Pacific partnership, but the Liberals have decided to add two words, or have managed to get a lot of people to add the two words. In the course of the debate in support of this agreement, Liberals are relying heavily on the power of adjectives for this agreement to look good for Canadians.

Let us look at the first word “comprehensive”, which we can define as including nearly all elements of the aspects of something. If we really dig down, I do not think the agreement is quite as comprehensive as the Liberals would like to make it out to be. There are significant shortfalls in labour agreements and in environmental protection. There is no mention whatsoever of indigenous rights. There are significant gaps, despite the Liberals' attempts to paint this as a comprehensive agreement.

The second word is “progressive”. As I will lay out in the course of my speech, this agreement is really going to make a mockery of that word and the Liberals' attempts to really hoodwink us with that particular word.

New Democrats have long been concerned about the secrecy that surrounds both the TPP and the CPTPP negotiations. Despite the promises by the Liberal government to be transparent on trade deals, we have continued to get vague updates and mixed messages. In fact, it was during the 2015 federal election that the Prime Minister stated:

The government has an obligation to be open and honest about the negotiation process, and immediately share all the details of any agreement. Canadians deserve to know what impacts this agreement will have on different industries across our country. The federal government must keep its word and defend Canadian interests during the TPP’s ratification process – which includes defending supply management, our auto sector, and Canadian manufacturers across the country.

As I am going to lay out, it is precisely those sectors that are going to be negatively impacted by this agreement. We see this time and again in this place. As the Liberals come out with their words, their actions always, and sometimes very consistently, fail to meet up with those words.

Just for the benefit of my constituents back home, the CPTPP is a new agreement. It is slightly newer than the older version. It is an agreement between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

The negotiations for this agreement began in 2005 and concluded in October 2015. Countries did come in at various stages. Canada, unfortunately, was pretty late to the game, which the member for Essex has correctly identified as something that sort of eroded our ability to be a key player and to get some key provisions into the agreement.

I hear a lot of talk in this chamber about how important free trade is. It is important to note that we already have free trade agreements in place with South Korea, Chile, and Peru, and course with Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement. Some of the major players within this agreement are already covered by bilateral free trade agreements with Canada. Those are moot points right there.

The agreement was officially signed by the minister on February 4, 2016. The plans for it were disrupted with the election of United States President Donald Trump, who withdrew the United States from the agreement in January 2017. In January of this year, the 11 remaining countries agreed upon a revised TPP and renamed it with the two adjectives I mentioned.

The government has always made much about consultations. The consultations really were kind of downloaded on the Standing Committee on International Trade. That committee held dozens of sessions. It heard from more than 400 witnesses and received written comments from more than 60,000 Canadians, and I should note that 95% of those were against the agreement. The Liberals had promised that they would consult with the public, but again, those consultations were downloaded on the Standing Committee on International Trade, a body, like all committees, that has very limited resources to hold the kinds of meaningful consultations that we expect in an agreement of this size.

When the committee travelled to a few different locations, translation services were not really up to par and the testimony was not transcribed for the record, which is problematic when a committee needs to look at witness testimony, because it has to rely on written notes. However, it is important to note that in cities like Montreal, 19 out of 19 public presenters were opposed and in Quebec City, there were three out of three. Receiving 8,000 written submissions and struggling to translate them does not add up to meaningful consultation. It would have been better if the executive branch of the government had launched the consultations and used the resources available to its various ministries for meaningful consultations with all of the affected sectors.

The most interesting statistic to me is that with the submissions that were received by Global Affairs Canada, 18,000 Canadians wrote in and only 0.01%, two people out of those 18,000 submissions, were in support of the TPP. That is a pretty abysmal rate of success if we go by these things.

The member for Essex has gone over this, but it is really important to reiterate what New Democrats' major concerns are with this agreement, because it is not simply about trade. These agreements cover so many different areas and chief among them are our concerns with labour standards and human rights. I will start with labour.

If we hold up the provisions that protect labour and help investors, they are really not equal at all. If someone has a complaint with labour practices, the CPTPP obliges the complainant to basically prove that a member country has not enforced its own labour laws, but then it also has to show that the violation has had an impact on trade. Therefore, the burden of proof is so ridiculously unattainable that there has actually not even been one successful labour complaint. This is very troubling, because if we look at some of the member countries that are involved in this, we see that there are labour standards in Vietnam, which we have some serious concerns with and Mexico has been implicated in a number of human rights violations. There are countries with very differing standards compared to what we in Canada or in Australia, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand are used to, and yet we are bringing these countries into an agreement. We are essentially rewarding them with trade with Canada, but not asking them to bring their standards up.

The language on the labour standards is essentially unchanged from the old TPP, which, as I pointed out in my introduction, does make a mockery of the word “progressive”. One case I want to cite is the decision that was made with respect to a dispute between the United States and Guatemala. A panel of arbitrators found that no documented labour violations in Guatemala, including the murder of a union organizer, had occurred in a manner affecting trade. If a union organizer in some of these countries is murdered or tries to implement a strike to get better working conditions for their families, the arbitration most likely will find that it did not have an impact on trade and, therefore, is not covered under this kind of agreement.

As I mentioned there are some serious and systematic violations of labour and human rights that have occurred in Mexico and Vietnam and in some other countries. I just want to point out that in Vietnam in 2011, Human Rights Watch released a pretty shocking report on how drug addicts in that country were basically forced to do labour as a part of their sentences. In some cases, we have had multinational companies who have been soliciting their products from this forced labour. If that kind of a condition were to exist in Canada, we would absolutely be up in arms. It is a practice that rightfully belongs in history, and I believe that most Canadians, if they were to hear of it, would be rightly incensed.

We know of documented testimonies by people in these forced labour camps. When they refused to do the work, they were subject to beatings and all kinds of abuse. These are the kinds of things that Canadians are concerned about. We want to know how other countries practice human and labour rights when we sign free trade deals. They are important to us. They are important to our values and we want to see them reflected in our foreign policy.

The other country I really want to highlight is Brunei, because prior to 2014, homosexuality was illegal and punishable there by up to 10 years of imprisonment. However, the law was changed in that year and homosexuality can now be punishable to death by stoning. Brunei is one of the signatory countries of this agreement and yet we like to stand up here and talk about how progressive the agreement is. However, one of the member countries that we are granting access to our economy, Brunei, still has such a terrible way of dealing with a right that we cherish in this country and that we, as parliamentarians, have stood in this place time and time again to defend.

Canadians want to know if these are the types of countries we want to reward with trade with Canada. I think if another country is going to trade with one like ours and to get access to our economy and the amazing workforce and products that we have, if they want to sell their products here, they have to demonstrate a certain commitment to basic fundamental human values. I think that should be a starting point.

Yes, we in the NDP do have problems with this agreement because it is not just about trade. It is about the behaviours that exist in the countries that we are seeking to build partnerships with.

Let me move on to the other rights, to the indigenous and environmental rights. Climate change is arguably the biggest issue of the 21st century and we do not see a single mention of it in this. It is going to have ramifications for everyone on this earth. We all share the same planet. How are we going to lead our lives? The way we meet the challenge is going to chart the course of the 21st century. For countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico, which have pretty huge impacts on climate change by virtue of their emissions, this would have been a perfect opportunity to hammer that out.

As well, for a government that likes to proclaim time and time again that no relationship is more important to it than first nations, why is there no mention of indigenous rights in this? Each of the member countries has significant indigenous populations. If we are serious about implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, this should be a starting point for our international relations. This is something we should be promoting, something we should take seriously, because I can tell my colleagues that first nations, Métis and Inuit across this country are watching the government. Yes, the words are welcome, the commitments are welcome, but these have to be followed up with meaningful action. We are seeing time and time again that they are failing.

Let us look no further than when we were here in the spring. It was fantastic to see the Liberal government join our NDP members to ensure the passage of Bill C-262. However, when it came to the moment when the rubber met the road and we were, via the member for Edmonton Strathcona, to insert language in Bill C-69 that would live up to the aspirations of that bill, the Liberals rejected every single one of those amendments. Again, words are fine, commitments are fine, but at some point Canadians are going to ask, where are the actions that have met up with your commitments?

The Liberals will say a lot about the side letters that covered some of those things, but as the member for Essex rightly pointed out, the side letters are not enforceable unless they are specifically referenced in the text. Furthermore, if the content of the side letters were so important and meaningful, why did we not make the effort to get them included in the main agreement?

I also want to talk about the investor-state dispute settlement process, because it is one of the most egregious things that has remained in this agreement and something we have major problems with. Giving rights to corporations to basically come after rightfully and democratically elected local governments, as well as provincial governments and even the federal government, basically makes this an instrument to rein-in democracy. We believe that our ability to make public health laws and laws on how we want to protect our local environment should not be superceded or challenged by international corporate interests, full stop. I think most Canadians would agree with that statement. It is basically a tool for big businesses to make governments pay when they regulate.

If we look at all of the federal statutes that exist on the books, at all of the areas where the minister is given powers to regulate, regulations that are changed from time to time and put in the Canada Gazette for consultation periods, what is going on behind those closed-door meetings between industry stakeholders, international industry stakeholders and ministers? Are threats being made that if we go ahead with a certain regulation, they are going to sue us? I think there is a lot of evidence on that. We know that with the investor-state dispute mechanisms, we have seen claims against states explode. In the mid-1990s there were a few dozen. Nowadays, we are up to almost 600 known cases. It is one of those graphs that is going to continue to go up, and the more we put this kind of provision into our trade agreements, the more multinational companies will use it and challenge the democratic and sovereign rights of local governments to make laws for their citizens.

I will conclude by talking about agriculture, and specifically supply management. I want to acknowledge that the Grain Growers of Canada, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the Canola Council of Canada are going to benefit from this agreement. I am very happy they are. If we survey the votes in this place, we know that the Liberals and Conservatives are going to pass this agreement. However, the problem I have is with the repeated times Liberal ministers stand in this place to talk about defending supply management. I have in my hands quotes from the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Chicken Farmers of Canada, and the Egg Farmers of Canada that unanimously condemn the government for the concessions it is making in the supply-managed sectors.

These sectors have good-paying, family farms that are often the cornerstone of small communities like mine in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. The supply-managed system has enabled them to weather the shocks of international pricing or domestic pricing. One of the key components of that system is our import controls. However, when we start carving away these little niches, especially when Canadians have expressed the desire to have local dairy products, eggs, and chicken, we are undermining the basic unit of what goes on in many parts of rural Canada. I take issue with the Liberal government standing up time and time again saying it supports supply management but not following through with actions.

Canadians expect better when their governments are signing these kinds of trade deals. They expect that our values will inform how the government negotiates these agreements, and when the government actually talks about labour standards, human rights, environmental standards, and indigenous rights that it is actually going to follow through, and that it has some kind of an enforcement mechanism. These are all very sadly lacking in this agreement. It makes a mockery of the word “progressive”, and that is why I will stand united with my NDP caucus to voice our concerns and vote against this agreement.

Natural Resources

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has chased away billions of dollars of investment in our energy sector. He used a variety of ways to do it.

He cancelled energy east, which would have seen western Canadian oil brought to eastern markets, displacing foreign oil. He has brought in a ban on pipelines in Bill C-69. His carbon tax is chasing away investment from all around the world.

When it comes to Trans Mountain, the court was very clear. The judge ruled that the government's “efforts fell well short of the mark” and that he did not adequately discharge his duties.

How could the Prime Minister fail so badly on this?

Aeronautics Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I always welcome the opportunity to comment on private members' bills. As members opposite will know, I am somewhat opinionated on issues that I believe are of national importance. It is not often that I agree with so many comments of my friend from across the way in the Conservative Party. Maybe we can find some commonality among parties inside the chamber, with the possible exception of some Quebec members of Parliament associated with the Bloc. That is why when I posed the question earlier, I made reference to my own heritage.

I am very much a proud Canadian. I think that we live in the best country in the world. I really believe in Canada's diversity and the rich heritage that can be witnessed in all provinces across our country. I am very proud, for example, of the St. Boniface area, with its very large francophone community that is quite possibly the largest in western Canada, as well as St-Pierre-Jolys where my grandparents came from, prior to coming from la belle province of Quebec. I understand the importance of the many different regions and the beauty from within that diversity.

Having said all that, I am very much a nationalist. I believe that we need strong national leadership on a wide number of fronts. It is in all the regions' best interests to have a government that is prepared to demonstrate leadership issues on those important files. That is ultimately, I would suggest, in the nation's best interest. We have witnessed that very recently.

If this bill were to become law, think of the impact it would have on what has been an incredible issue that has been debated and discussed in this chamber for a number of years. It has been fairly well debated even in the last number of days and weeks. That is in regard to the extension of the pipeline, the Trans Mountain expansion, which was deemed to be in Canada's national interest. As a result, we have the national government playing a fairly proactive role in ensuring that the extension takes place. It is sound policy.

My friend across the way talked about the importance of communities and working with communities, provinces, and municipalities. This government takes that very seriously. A good example of that is the Trans Mountain expansion. We have worked closely with not only provinces and municipalities, but as well with indigenous peoples to resolve a very important debate.

When I talked about the Trans Mountain expansion as one of the areas that is in the national interest, I made reference to my home province of Manitoba. I said that Manitoba has been a have-not province in terms of equalization. It is a beautiful province and I am very proud of it. However, in terms of equalization, we have received literally hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars on an annual basis.

That is important to note when we take a look at Alberta and the wealth that it has generated, with its contributions to equalization, and the positive impact that it has had on provinces like Quebec, Manitoba, and many others that have received significant amounts of funds through the development of the beautiful resources that we have. In particular, this one here happens to be oil. It has provided for things such as better quality health care, better quality education, and even investments in many environmentally friendly energy or high-tech companies.

I would argue that this legislation, if it were to pass, would prevent the national government from being able to take the actions necessary once it was deemed that this was in the nation's best interests.

In good part, for that reason I cannot support this legislation. I differ from members opposite. There are many federal areas of responsibility. We could talk about airports, parks, and other lands owned and run by the national government and I believe the national government needs to play that leading role. Quite often, leading means working with the different stakeholders.

This is not to take anything away from provincial jurisdiction or municipal responsibilities they carry out. I am very much aware of that. However, I believe Canadians in every region of our country will recognize there is a responsibility of strong leadership coming from Ottawa to protect those ideas and developments in the national interest. An example is transportation corridors, and we can factor into those transportation corridors our airline industries. Check with the municipalities or the City of Montreal on just how economically important, not to mention socially important, the Montreal airport is to the city and the province. This is also the case with other airports throughout our country, even our more rural airports, in terms of the lands and their operations and what sort of impact this legislation could have on them. The federal government has a responsibility to the population as a whole for such issues.

When I look at the national government and the types of things we have seen developed over the years, I see that it does have a role to play in the environment. We have seen very progressive policies, legislation, and commitments through national budgets in the last couple of years. For example, members made reference to Bill C-69.

We have a government that recognizes it has a role to play. Shortly after the Prime Minister was elected, he went to Paris and invited other stakeholders. I do not know if it is the case, but the Premier of Quebec might have been there. However, I believe other stakeholders such as provinces were represented in Paris. Often we find there is a high sense of co-operation between the different levels of government on those important issues, upon their return. Working with Ottawa and provinces, they can come up with good, sound environmental policies. We can learn from provincial jurisdictions. Some provinces are more progressive than others in different areas of development. The federal government has a role to encourage best practices where it can, and to ultimately have that holistic approach in the overall promotion and development of standards across Canada. As well, where necessary, it needs to be more directly involved, as with Trans Mountain.

When we look at the legislation coming before us, what the member is proposing is that Ottawa ultimately transfer its responsibilities to the provinces. Often my concern with members, whether from the Bloc or the separatist element, is that even though part of their motivation on the surface might be to introduce positive legislation, another part of the motivation is to not necessarily do what is in the best interest of the nation as a whole, but for one region of the country.

Ultimately, what is in Canada's best interest is in the best interest of our provinces, both collectively and individually.

We must continue to work with provinces, municipalities, indigenous groups, and others to ensure that we continue to build that consensus so that Canada remains a country of diversity and a country that understands and appreciates the true value of being a federalist state, and so that we ultimately develop our resources.