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.

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?

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

Thank you, Chair.

I do appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I just want to add a few more items here, especially speaking as someone from Ontario who saw the effects of Liberal policies in action, specifically talking about General Electric in the City of Peterborough. That has been a company in the city since the 1800s. It's actually known as the “electric city”. General Electric had a contract to build motors for the energy east pipeline. Now, when the Liberals changed the rules halfway through the process multiple times, causing TransCanada to cancel its project, 300 jobs at General Electric were lost just like that. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for General Electric. Those 300 people are out of work and no longer receiving a paycheque, and there were the ripple effects that happened afterwards. A major factory with well-paid jobs was no longer in the City of Peterborough as a result of the cancellation of the energy east pipeline.

It should be noted that there are three big companies that have applied to build pipelines in this company, and all three are no longer doing so under the Liberal rule. There has been $4.5 billion to build a pipeline, right now, to nationalize the pipeline, and yet it's another failure. They claimed they were going to get it built. They claimed they were going to move forward, and yet we are seeing that money, $4.5 billion taxpayer dollars, going to the United States to build pipelines and other energy projects in the United States, not in Canada.

We are seeing billions leaving this country for projects outside our borders. People are now without jobs, without paycheques, selling off items they own in order to keep a roof over their heads. What do you say to the energy workers who were once making six figures or more and who are now making zero because of the policies of this Liberal government? I'm actually quite shocked—I think “shocked” is the right word—by the fact that we're not even coming back, that we don't have the minister standing in front of us with a plan. You'd think they would be preparing for this result on both sides—a positive court ruling or a negative court ruling—and they would be ready for that, and yet we're sitting here while the members across the way say, “Well, we would like to work on this a little bit more.” Well, that's not really reassuring to the thousands who are waiting to get back to work, people who want to work, who are now without a paycheque and without direction. We can't even get a commitment on when shovels will be back in the ground, to at least say, “Yes, eventually it will, on this date.” We can't get a time or a date from this government. It's like they're running around now trying to figure out what's next, and meanwhile they haven't even taken those thoughts forward, that they should be preparing for that and coming to Parliament, coming to this committee, with a plan to move this forward.

I go back to saying I am shocked that we are not here discussing their solution to the problem they caused. We said, over and over again, right from day one when they approved the Trans Mountain pipeline, that they needed to get in front of this. They needed to talk to the people in British Columbia. They needed to do everything they could to move this forward, because we agreed with their decision to approve that pipeline, and yet they didn't. They just seemed to hope that everything would fall into place by pure magic, and clearly it didn't. It was one problem after another, and repeated calls from the opposition about what their plan was. We threw out ideas, and there was still nothing. They just went back to the same old talking points that it would get built, almost like “We've got this under control”, and there has been one failure after another.

The Prime Minister should have gone out to British Columbia to speak with the new premier when he was sworn in. He avoided that over and over again. These conversations should have happened, but what happened? All sides dug in, and we're in the situation we're in now, with no plan to move forward. People's lives are on the line because they just lost their paycheques. Do they stay in their houses? Is there some light at the end of the tunnel?

I can also tell you, from Bill C-69, and I'll go back to the Ontario route, that even those in northern Ontario in the mining sector are quite concerned with this bill. There is no certainty for major projects in this country anymore. We continue to see investment flee this country under this government. What happens after that happens? We also start to lose major talent from this country because they will go elsewhere, where the jobs and opportunities are.

Again, I was hoping there would be a plan, a path forward, but we just have failure after failure. Think of our position with our issues with Saudi Arabia right now, had energy east been moving forward. Just think of the jobs and opportunities out there if we had been able to get Alberta energy out east, and that was a pipeline with most of it already there. It was just an addition on each end.

I obviously will support Mrs. Stubbs' motion. It's a common-sense motion. Hopefully, we can get some answers for these people who are now without a paycheque.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, all, for being here. I know some of you cut short your summer plans. I know I should be sitting in the dentist's chair right now; I'm concerned about that.

I think this is an important subject. I agree with the Conservatives that we need to talk about this, perhaps for completely different reasons, and I would support the motion.

We're obviously here today in this special meeting because of the recent Federal Court of Appeal decision to quash the federal government's approval of the Trans Mountain expansion project. The court quashed the approval based on two errors made. One was in the environmental assessment part, with regard to the lack of consideration of the marine transport issues. The other error was the inadequate consultation with first nations.

The Conservatives here are of course gleefully blaming the Liberals for this mess. It's true that the Liberals do deserve some of the blame here, but the irony in calling this meeting is that this is a problem that was created by the Conservatives in the previous government. It's doubly ironic, for instance, to hear Jason Kenney complaining about the incompetence of the Liberals in this file when he was at the cabinet table when this mess was created. It's the Liberals who ran on a promise to clean up this mess, to redo the approval process for Trans Mountain with a new system, and they failed to do that. That's why we're here today. It's the Conservatives creating this mess and the Liberals failing to clean it up. I hate to say I told you so, but that's why we're here.

In the rush to get pipeline projects done, the Conservatives got into the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and the environmental assessment process. On their watch, the NEB hearings into the Trans Mountain expansion were widely criticized for being too narrow in scope, and they didn't properly consult with first nations. The courts also quashed the approval of the northern gateway pipeline for much the same reason they cited here. There's kind of a pattern.

Both the Liberals and the NDP, as I said, ran on the promise to redo the Trans Mountain expansion approval process under a new process with more rigorous science and more community input. The Prime Minister repeatedly said this on the campaign trail, but they broke that promise and instead simply had a ministerial panel tour through the region on very short notice to hear from first nations and other communities, businesses, and concerned citizens about the project. Nothing was even officially recorded at these meetings. The panellists simply took their own notes and produced a report at the end of the process. That report posed six questions that they felt the Liberal government had to answer before making its decision on the project. As far as I know, those questions have never been properly answered.

One of the two critical errors the government made, according to the Federal Court of Appeal, was the failure to properly consult with indigenous peoples. The consultation process was simply bureaucrats who were sent out to listen to first nations' concerns and relay those concerns to cabinet. As the court repeatedly stated in the decision, they were simply note-takers. There was no attempt made to actually address these concerns. In fact, the consultation team and the government mistakenly believed they couldn't add any more conditions on Kinder Morgan than the NEB had done, so why bother consulting if you can't make any change? That's what the court found was the critical error.

One example of that failure is the concern of the Coldwater first nation, which wanted the pipeline to take an optional route, the west route, so it avoided crossing their aquifer. That's a big concern, but there is no evidence that actually acting on that concern was ever considered.

I would like to quote a couple of paragraphs from the decision around the consultation process. It starts by saying that good faith is required on both sides in the consultative process:

The common thread on the Crown’s part must be “the intention of substantially addressing [Aboriginal] concerns” as they are raised...through a meaningful process of consultation.

It goes on to state the following:

The controlling question in all situations is what is required to maintain the honour of the Crown and to effect reconciliation between the Crown and the Aboriginal people with respect to the interests at stake.

Those are quotes that the court took from a previous ruling from the Haida Nation case. This is not news. The government knew this before they went into the process.

The decision goes on to make two final points on consultation. First, it says that when the crown knows, or ought to know, that its conduct may adversely affect the indigenous right or title of more than one first nation—we've heard concerns around that—each first nation is entitled to consultation based upon the unique facts and circumstances pertinent to it. So if half the first nations along the route were adequately consulted, or felt they were adequately consulted, and half felt they weren't, it's just not good enough. You have to consult with every first nation.

Second, to again quote from the decision, it's important to understand that the public interest and the duty to consult do not operate in conflict. As a constitutional imperative, the duty to consult “gives rise to a special public interest that supersedes other concerns” commonly considered by tribunals asked to assess the public interest. In the case of the board, a project authorization that breaches the constitutionally protected right of indigenous peoples cannot serve the public interest.

Earlier this year, I put a question on the Order Paper about the six questions that the ministerial panel posed. I want to quote one paragraph from the answer I received from the government that pertains to this consultation. It says:

While there are Indigenous communities opposed to the project, there are others in support of it. The goal of free, prior and informed consent is to ensure a holistic approach to interests, through transparent processes aimed at building consensus. It is the same goal at the heart of the Government's current legislation to modernize Canada's environmental assessments and regulatory reviews.

I could go on, but to me, this shows that the government doesn't get it. They are talking about building consensus within first nations. Each first nation has the right to proper consultation. When they talk about bringing indigenous rights—for instance, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—into modern Canadian legislation, they failed to do that in Bill C-69, the bill that updates our environmental assessment process. The government knew the proper way forward and they decided to do something quite different.

I'll just finish my comments on consultation by saying that the government knows what proper consultation is; they should. It's not an impossible task. It's been done before. It just requires more effort and a sincere desire to address the concerns rather than just write them down.

We heard here at this committee some good examples of that. There's the Squamish process regarding Woodfibre LNG. We heard how the Squamish Nation approached that and how that worked. It took some more effort, but it was done properly and they got to the endgame. We heard numerous examples from the mining industry. I think the mining industry has some great examples we can follow on how to properly consult with indigenous peoples and bring them into the benefits of resource extraction.

The other error the court of appeal pointed out was the failure to include concerns about marine transportation in the Trans Mountain expansion approval study. One of the main concerns there is the status of the southern resident population of orcas. That's something we heard a lot about in the news this summer. There were various new items on the plight of that population. The Liberals are relying on their oceans protection plan to cover off those concerns. It's a plan that claims to offer a world-class oil spill response.

This summer I was in Spokane, Washington, and I attended the Pacific NorthWest Economic Region meetings. They bring together legislators from across Oregon, Washington, over to Saskatchewan, and up to Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. I talked to American legislators and other people about the oceans protection plan, and they said one thing repeatedly. The ones who were very apprised of the situation said that Canada calls this a world-class plan, and it's world class only in the sense that it kind of meets basic world standards. It's not world class in the sense of being one of the best.

They pointed out that they have a very modern way of tracking shipping down the Pacific coast that Canada does not have. They want Canada to be part of this system so that we can act proactively when trouble occurs, and Canada has been stonewalling these attempts. They feel they have a real world-class system, and they're concerned about increasing oil tanker traffic off our coast, because they feel we're not putting in that extra effort.

I'll close here by saying that the actions of this government and the previous Conservative government have not only delayed these projects that they feel are so important to Canada but have polarized public opinion on pipelines and resource extraction in general. When people who are concerned about the environment or first nations reconciliation are labelled “foreign-funded radicals”, it makes the wide public choose sides and makes it very difficult to have a reasonable discourse. I think there's a way forward to reduce this polarization. I think it's important that we as a nation travel that path, because right now it's very difficult to have polite discourse on pipelines or on a lot of things, such as climate action, in Canada.

I've been involved in a number of meetings here in Ottawa with a group called Positive Energy out of the University of Ottawa. I'm not sure if anyone else here has gone to those meetings. Their goal is to find ways to bridge that gap, to bring these sides together, so that we can have these important conversations.

I was at one of their meetings and happened to be sitting next to the pollster Nik Nanos. He had done some polling for Positive Energy. That polling found that only 2% of Canadians had high confidence in our energy regulatory system—in the National Energy Board, essentially. I won't go into all the details, but he said that in the polling there was a path forward. The path forward was through more involvement of first nations and local communities to bring those voices into the national discourse and into the regulatory process. That would give people more confidence there. We have to look down that path.

To finish, the NDP was criticized for our call to redo the Trans Mountain expansion process under a proper system. Critics said it would take too long, an extra year or two. Well, here we are, three years later, and we're back at square one. The court decision is a reminder that we have to put in the effort at the start. There are no shortcuts.

We feel it's time for a thorough and critical look at our energy strategy in Canada and time to invest boldly in the clean energy sector to provide good, long-lasting jobs in a sector that is the true future of the world energy market. We feel that purchasing old pipelines is not a proper use of public funds. Let's invest in the future.

Thank you.

Impact Assessment Act

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I declare these elements carried.

The House passed Bill C-69, 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, in its entirety, at third reading.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions at third reading of Bill C-69.

The question is on part 1 regarding the impact assessment act, part 2 regarding the Canadian energy regulator act, the title, the preamble, the schedule, and all clauses in part 4, except clauses 85, 186, 187, and 195.

The House resumed from June 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-69, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Jim Carr, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

We're making very important strides in partnering with indigenous communities. The best example is in my department. We approached the indigenous communities located down the Line 3 replacement and the TMX line with a blank sheet of paper—not with our ideas written on the other side, but a blank sheet. We said to them, let's co-develop a monitoring system so that indigenous communities up and down these two lines are very much a part of ensuring that construction is done safely and the monitoring that throughout its life cycle. This has never been done before. It's a very important development.

By the way, in fairness, not all of these communities want the pipeline. Some of the chiefs had to go back to their communities when they knew that the majority of their residents were opposed to the pipeline for a variety of reasons. But when it came time to working with Canada to co-develop terms of reference and to be involved in monitoring the safe construction, the communities were in. That took great courage from indigenous leaders.

Another set of communities has chosen to sign on to benefit agreements with Kinder Morgan—some 43 of them, 33 of them in British Columbia—creating opportunity for these communities and their young people for employment, skills development, and community benefit. This is good. It's something that we have to understand is part of the future of resource development in Canada. Indigenous partnerships are a part of the reality. You saw that in Bill C-69, where we say right at the very beginning that these consultations have to start at the front end. I think Perry Bellegarde, chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said it best: “You don't build anything until you build relationships”. We have had the pleasure in our department of building relationships over a longer period of time. I think that speaks very well.

On Canada's role in the world, I didn't understand when I was appointed to this job how much time I'd be spending on an airplane—going to Beijing, Delhi, Mexico, Argentina, and Paris—but that's the way it is, because energy is international and pollution knows no boundaries. The reason Canada is such a welcome partner in the international community is the the richness, diversity, and abundance of energy we have and our proven track record as innovators. We are very confident that other countries will be looking to Canada for the way forward. I think we have the capacity to lead. I'm very optimistic about the future, and I think we should all be very proud of the steps we've taken and continue to take.

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.