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.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Under the current legislation, the federal minister has 30 days to respond to a recommendation from the regulator on offshore oil development. Under your Bill C-49, Minister—and it's good that you have the provincial minister included and we support that—that would be 90 days. That's a tripling of the timeline. Not only that, but the same powers exist there as exist in Bill C-69 for the timeline to be extended for any reason, at any time, at the minister's discretion.

That uncertainty is exactly what has killed foreign investment in Canada and energy development in Canada from traditional sources, and it's exactly the kind of approach that will also kill renewable, alternative and wind offshore opportunities for Atlantic Canadians.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

It's interesting you would say that, because of course the sections of Bill C-69 that have been declared unconstitutional, which are also the sections in Bill C-49, have to do with roles and responsibility and timelines of decision-making. This is also why we need to do our due diligence on your Bill C-49, because what it does is triple the timeline for future regulatory decisions on offshore wind development.

The reality, after eight years of this government, is that you have been hell-bent on killing the energy sector, with the prairie provinces as your top target. However, that has impacted every province of the country, including Newfoundland and Labrador, which has a higher percentage of their GDP in oil and gas than Alberta does.

The truth about Bill C-69 is that it will end offshore petroleum drilling, which certainly is your intention. That's what you love to fly around the world announcing. Meanwhile, this bill, as written, will hinder and hamper investment in alternative renewable offshore wind development because that requires certainty, predictability, fairness and efficient timelines. You want this bill to be passed, fast-tracked, with all of the timelines, all of the red tape and all the inefficiencies from Bill C-69 in it, and you won't even give a date for when you're going to fix it.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

There sure is. This is why I'm asking.

Here's Bill C-49. I don't know if you've read it, but I hope you have. All of these yellow tabs are sections from Bill C-69—every single one. Look at how many there are, Minister. You're coming here telling us members of Parliament that we should fast-track and pass this bill when it's been 108 days and you still can't give a concrete answer as to when you're bringing in legislation to fix the mess that you created. Now you want members of Parliament to abandon their due diligence. You want Atlantic members of Parliament in the official opposition to abandon their responsibilities to their constituents, to the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, which they will not do. It's their right to do due diligence.

You want us to pass a bill that is full of sections that the Supreme Court of Canada has declared unconstitutional. How can you justify that?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Here's why I'm asking you that question, Minister. First of all, the Supreme Court ruling that major sections of Bill C-69 were largely unconstitutional was 108 days ago. As the Minister of Natural Resources, it's actually shocking that you have not yet fixed the legislation. It is the backbone for regulatory review and decision-making for investments in traditional oil and gas development and in alternative renewal energy development. Then there's the whole swath of your constitutional overreach in that bill. Conservatives warned you that Bill C-69 would be unconstitutional in all the factors the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on, which you haven't yet fixed. It's shocking that it's 108 days ago, and you still can only say it's in a few months.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

When you say Bill C-69, which of the three laws are you referring to?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate that.

Minister, happy new year and thanks for being here.

On what date will your government bring forward legislation to fix Bill C-69, which has been unconstitutional for half a decade?

Fall Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2023

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Happy new year, Mr. Speaker.

This is my first time rising in the House in 2024, and I want to wish everyone a happy new year.

It is 2024, and the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. That is the reality. That was the reality in 2023 and 2022, but the cost keeps going up every year.

That is why the Conservative Party has a very focused common-sense plan. We have four priorities that we want to work on in Parliament, and they are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop crime.

After eight years in office, this Prime Minister has managed to drive up the cost of living at the fastest pace in 40 years by doubling the national debt and printing $600 billion. He has increased inflation and interest rates at the expense of the working class and our seniors, and he did so with the support of the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc Québécois completely agrees with the exorbitant spending increases and the cost of government, which are creating a burden for Quebeckers. The Bloc Québécois voted in favour of all of this government spending in the fall of 2023. It supported the tax increases on gas, which punish Quebec farmers and workers.

The common-sense Conservative Party is the only one offering an alternative to this destructive and costly policy implemented on the backs of Quebeckers.

First, we will eliminate the second carbon tax, which does indeed apply to Quebec.

Second, we will control spending by eliminating waste. We are going to get rid of the $35-billion infrastructure bank, which has not delivered a single project for Canadians. We will get rid of the ArriveCAN app and the so-called green fund which, according to the officials involved, is now a scandal on par with the sponsorship scandal. We will cut spending on consultants, who now cost every Canadian family $1,400. In eight years, this Prime Minister has doubled the amount spent on outside consultants. These are extraordinary costs that do not produce results for Canadians. It is work that could have been done by the government, by public servants, whose numbers have ballooned by 50%.

We are going to introduce a common-sense law, a dollar-for-dollar law. Every time ministers in my government increase spending by one dollar, they are going to have to find one dollar in savings to offset that spending. Instead of increasing the national debt, inflation and taxes, we are going to cap spending. Once the government is forced to reduce the cost that falls on the backs of our people, it will enable workers, businesses and our economy to grow.

Let us talk about our workers. There is a war on work right now. Workers are being punished with sky-high tax rates that claw back more and more of every dollar they earn. A common-sense Conservative government will lower taxes and reward work here in Canada, for our workers, small businesses and all Canadians, so that we can be a country that rewards work.

We will protect the paycheques of ordinary Canadians and ensure that they can earn bigger paycheques by doing away with unconstitutional laws that prevent natural resource projects from going ahead. We will allow Quebeckers to build dams and develop mines and other projects that generate wealth for our country, instead of sending money to China or other countries that are dictatorships. We will keep that money for ourselves, so that Canadians can have bigger paycheques. We are also going to build houses.

After eight years under this Prime Minister, the cost of housing has doubled, rent has doubled, the money needed for a mortgage on an average house has doubled, and the down payment needed to buy that same house has also doubled. In Montreal, it has tripled.

After eight years under this Prime Minister, the cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Montreal has increased from $760, when I was the housing minister eight years ago, to $2,200 now. Red tape has blocked the construction of 25,000 housing units over the past six years. Thousands of construction projects across the country are in limbo because of red tape. In Vancouver, whose former NDP mayor is incredibly incompetent, it is even worse. He added additional costs of $1.3 million to each housing development built. These increases are tied directly to the red tape and taxes charged by the governments.

In Quebec City, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Trudel with my Quebec lieutenant. He told me that $500 of the monthly rent for these apartments goes toward taxes and red tape, the costs charged by the government. For apartments that rent for $1,000, half of that amount covers only the taxes and the bureaucracy. That cost is too high. That is why a common-sense Conservative government will encourage municipalities to speed up construction instead of obstructing it.

The federal government pays out $5 billion to municipalities through the sales tax program. Quebec receives about $1 billion. There are already a lot of conditions attached to that money, a lot of federal conditions. However, those conditions do not include accelerating construction. That is why we are going to work with the Quebec government on a new infrastructure agreement that incentivizes construction. We will tie the amount of money that each municipality receives to the number of houses and apartments completed in the previous year. That would mean that municipalities like Victoriaville, Saguenay and Trois-Rivières would receive substantial bonuses, because there has been a huge boom in construction there. Last year, for example, construction increased by 30% in those municipalities. That should be rewarded. Real estate companies are paid according to the number of homes they sell. Construction companies are paid according to the number of houses they build. We should pay local bureaucracies on the basis of the number of homes they allow to be built. This would encourage the acceleration of construction.

We should also insist that every transit station be located near apartment buildings. Transit stations should be surrounded by large apartment towers. Across Canada, in Vancouver, Montreal and elsewhere, we see beautiful transit stations, yet there is almost no housing around them. It is ridiculous.

The federal government provides funding, but often a third or a half of the amount needed. We should insist that this money not be invested if there are no apartment buildings where our seniors and young people can live next to a public transit station. That is how we are going to speed up home construction. We are going to insist that CMHC provide funding for apartment buildings within two months, not two years. Executives should be fired unless they meet that deadline. Finally, these homes should be located in safe communities.

After eight years under the leadership of this Prime Minister, crime has increased by nearly 40%. He has increased crime by allowing the same small groups of repeat offenders to keep committing the same crimes over and over, and by letting them out on bail the very same day they are arrested.

A Conservative government will replace bail with jail. We will target real criminals who use guns and seal our borders instead of targeting hunters and sport shooters. We will treat and rehabilitate people with drug addictions instead of decriminalizing crack, cocaine and other drugs, as the Prime Minister has already done in partnership with the NDP in British Columbia.

What I have been describing here is common sense. This is the kind of common sense used by ordinary Canadians. For decades, there was a common-sense Liberal-Conservative consensus that led to our extraordinary success. A Conservative government will rebuild that consensus to give Canadians back the country they love and deserve. That is our goal. We are going to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and, finally, stop the crime. It is common sense, and that is what we are going to do.

Madam Speaker, I wish you a happy new year. It is 2024 and the Prime Minister is still not worth the cost. He is not worth the crime. He is not worth giving up the country that we know and love. After eight years, everything costs more, crime is running rampant, housing costs have doubled, the country is more divided than ever before, and the Prime Minister seeks to distract and attack anyone who disagrees with him in order to make people forget how miserable he has made life in this country after nearly a decade in power.

Our common-sense counterpoint is very focused. In this session of Parliament, we will fight to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is how we are going to turn around the mess the Prime Minister has created in eight years.

Let us quickly touch upon that mess. After eight years of the Prime Minister, housing costs have doubled. This is after he promised that those housing costs would go down. In fact, they rose 40% faster than incomes, the worst gap in the G7 by far and the second worst among all 40 OECD nations. It is twice as bad as the OECD average, with roughly a quarter of OECD countries actually seeing housing affordability improve over the last eight years. Here in Canada, under the Prime Minister, we have seen it worsen at the fastest rate in the entire G7.

The Prime Minister has created a situation where only 26% of Canadians are able to afford a single-family home. It now takes 25 years to save up for a down payment on the average home for the average Toronto family, when 25 years used to be the time it took to pay off a mortgage. After eight years of the Prime Minister, it is now more affordable to buy a 20-bedroom castle in Scotland than a two-bedroom condo in Kitchener.

After eight years of the Prime Minister, a criminal defence lawyer reported on Twitter that numerous clients have asked if she can help extend their prison sentences so they do not have to live in this housing market and find a place to rent. In other words, the Prime Minister's housing market is worse than prison by the judgment of several people who actually live in prison.

After eight years of the Prime Minister, we have 16 seniors crammed into a four-bedroom home in Oshawa according to its food bank, which told me it had to house middle-class seniors together. They are all losing their homes because of the incredible rent increase the Prime Minister's policies have caused.

We have homelessness skyrocketing across the country. Every town and centre now has homeless encampments. Halifax has 30 homeless encampments for one medium-sized city. After eight years of the Prime Minister, who would have imagined that we would have 30 homeless encampments in one city, but that is the misery that he has created through his policies that are not worth the cost of housing.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister makes the problem worse. He gives tax dollars to incompetent mayors and bureaucracies to block homebuilding. The worst incompetence, of course, has been by the former mayor and the present mayor of Toronto, and the former mayor of Vancouver blocking construction in those cities and making it uninhabitable for many of the people who should be able to afford a home. We now have the second-slowest building permits of any country in the OECD. That is why we have the fewest homes in the G7, even with the most land by far to build on.

We were told that the media darling Minister of Housing, who was brought in in the fall, was going to fix all of this. He was going to hold photo ops right across the country, and all of a sudden there would be more building. What happened was that housing construction actually went down. There was a 7% reduction in housing last year under the leadership of the current housing minister.

Is it any surprise, when the guy who destroyed our immigration system was put in charge of housing, that we got a destructive result? It is not me accusing him of ruining the immigration system. It is his own Liberal successor. The current Liberal Minister of Immigration says that the system is out of control. In his own words, he claims that his predecessor was giving study visas for students to come and study at what he calls “puppy mills”. Those are his terms. I would never have used that term. It is insulting. They are actually human beings, not dogs. That is the language we get from the current immigration minister to describe the chaos that his own predecessor caused in the international student program and the temporary foreign worker program, not to mention countless other programs that have now been overwhelmed by fraudsters, shady consultants and bureaucratic incompetence. Now they take the guy who ruined all of that and say that this is the guy they are bringing in to resolve the housing crisis.

It is no wonder it gets worse and worse by the day. The Liberals' only defence is that they are spending lots of money. Failing is bad and failing expensively is even worse. That is what the Prime Minister has done after eight years. It is not only in housing. It is in generalized inflation. After eight years, inflation hit 40-year highs. After eight years, the Prime Minister has increased the cost of food so quickly that there are now two million Canadians, a record-smashing number, who are required to go to food banks in a single month. We have students forced to live in homeless shelters in order to afford food. We have seniors who say they have to live in tents in order to be able to shop and feed themselves, because food prices have risen so high.

In Toronto, one in 10 Torontonians are now going to a food bank, enough to fill the Rogers Centre seven times. If the monthly users of the food bank in Toronto alone were to go to the Rogers Centre, the place would have to be filled seven separate times, just to accommodate them all. Who would have thought we would have this many hungry people in Canada's biggest city, a city that has elected no one but Liberals since 2015? This is the result from that.

In that same city, crime and chaos rage out of control. In the adjoining suburbs, we now have stories of extortion, where small businesses receive letters saying that if they do not fork over big dollars to international crime syndicates, they will be shot at, their houses will be burned, their families will be targeted, and the government does nothing to protect them. Who would have thought that Canada would be so vulnerable to this kind of criminality and chaos that these foreign criminal syndicates would think Canada so weak and so easy to target that they could go after innocent small business leaders and their families in order to shake them down for money? Yet that is what has happened.

These same business owners go to bed at night with one eye open, because they know their car could be stolen as they sleep. I told some stories yesterday to the caucus, incredible stories of people in Brampton whose cars just vanished in the middle of the night. The cars go over to Montreal where they are put on a ship and sent off to the Middle East, Africa or Europe where they are resold at a profit. They are not even inspected as they go onto the ships in these containers.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister spends billions of dollars trying to buy back the legitimate property of licensed law-abiding firearms owners. He believes that the problem is the hunter from Nunavut or the professional sport shooter from Nanaimo, when in fact the real problem is the criminals.

Common-sense Conservatives are going to put an end to this madness. We are going to bring home the country we know and love. Let us go through the common-sense plan.

We are going to bring home lower prices by axing the carbon tax. It starts with passing Bill C-234 to axe the tax on farmers and food so farmers can make the food and Canadians can afford to eat it. Let us pass the bill unamended today and let Canadians eat affordable food. It is very easy. The House of Commons passed it once before. The Senate, under duress and pressure from the current Prime Minister, then sent it back with unnecessary amendments. Now the other opposition parties are flip-flopping and wavering. They agree in principle with the Liberal plan to quadruple the carbon tax, but say they might consider giving farmers a break on it. Now they are not so sure. They are siding with the costly Prime Minister again on keeping the tax on our farmers. Every time our people go to the grocery store and see those rising prices they will know that the NDP has betrayed working-class people in favour of greedy government with higher taxes on farmers and the single moms who are struggling to feed their families.

We are going to axe the tax on home heat not just for some or for a short time, but for everybody, everywhere, always. Common-sense Conservatives call on the Prime Minister to be consistent and not just temporarily pause the tax in regions where his polls are plummeting and his caucus is revolting, but rather let us axe the tax for every Canadian household to heat their homes in this devastatingly cold winter. It is incredible how cold it was in Edmonton, -50°C, and the Liberal member for Edmonton Centre voted to tax the heat of Edmontonians. Not only that, the Liberal member for Edmonton Centre wants to quadruple the carbon tax on the home heat of Edmontonians, so over the next several years, as the winter cold comes in and people crank up their heat, their bills will rise increasingly faster. In some places now the carbon tax is more expensive than the actual gas that people are buying. We are going to be sharing the bills that some of my caucus members have so that everybody knows how badly the Prime Minister and his NDP coalition are ripping off Canadians for the crime of heating themselves in -50°C weather. We are the only party that will axe the tax for them and for everyone, everywhere, always.

Our common-sense plan to bring home lower prices includes capping the spending that has driven inflation, the $600-billion increase in spending and debt, which means printing money. Printing money bids up the goods we buy and the interest we pay. In fact, government spending is up 75% since the Prime Minister took office. He has nearly doubled the cost of the government at a time when the economy has barely grown at all. In fact, it is shrinking while the government is expanding, which means it is gobbling up an increasing share of a shrinking pie and there is less left for everyone else. Right now the government is rich and the people are poor, because the Prime Minister cannot stop spending, and his greedy NDP coalition counterparts push him to spend even more of other people's money. Our common-sense plan would cap spending and cut waste. We would get rid of the $35-billion Infrastructure Bank, the $54-million ArriveCAN app and the billion-dollar so-called green fund, which is really a slush fund.

We would cut back on the money wasted on consultant insiders, who now consume 21 billion tax dollars a year, an amount that is equal to $1,400 for every family in Canada. We would cut back on this waste to balance the budget, and bring down inflation and interest rates, so that Canadians can eat, heat and house themselves.

We are going to unleash the growth of our economy. Instead of creating more cash, we would create more of what cash buys. We have the most powerful resources, perhaps the greatest supply of natural resources per capita of any country on earth, and we are very good at harvesting those resources to the benefit of our people and our environment at the same time.

The Prime Minister, with the help of the NDP, has been driving the production to other countries, where they pollute more, burn more coal and add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The Prime Minister would drive the production away from Canadians, who use among the cleanest electricity grids on Planet Earth, instead of bringing it home to this country. Our common-sense plan would repeal Bill C-69 and replace it with a new law that would not only protect the environment and consult first nations but also get projects built so that we can bring home paycheques for our people and take the money away from the dirty dictators of the world.

I was able to recently announce our new candidate in the Skeena—Bulkley Valley riding, the great Ellis Ross, former chief of the Haisla Nation. He is responsible for bringing Canada the biggest-ever investment in its history, which is the LNG Canada project. It is a project that was approved by the former Harper government, and the only reason it was able to go ahead under this government is that it gave the project an exemption from the carbon tax. Had the tax applied, the project never would have occurred. Had Bill C-69, the anti-resource law, been in place, the project never would have happened.

By the government's own admission, this project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world by millions of tonnes because it will displace dirty, coal-fired electricity in Asia by sending clean, green Canadian natural gas, liquefied using hydroelectricity and our natural cold weather, and sent abroad on our shortest shipping distance, which means burning less fossil fuels to get it to market. This will displace more emission-intensive forms of energy in countries where they need to cut back. That is a solution to fight climate change and protect our environment, and thank God we had the visionary leadership of the great Ellis Ross to make that project happen, along with that of Stephen Harper.

Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has blocked every other LNG project from coming to fruition. There were 18 of these projects on the table when he took office, not one of them is completed. Only the aforementioned—

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

I had my staff do just a bit more research on “Indigenous governing body”. I asked them to do a search on where that term also exists.

The term exists in Bill C-35, the early learning and child care in Canada act; in Bill C-23, an act respecting places, persons and events of national historic significance or national interest, archaeological resources and cultural and natural heritage; the Corrections and Conditional Release Act; Bill C-91, an act respecting indigenous languages; Bill C-92, an act respecting first nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families; Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act and other acts in consequence; 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; and Bill C-97, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2019.

I haven't looked at how these might differ from each other.

Having said that, have you been able to assess whether or not there are similarities or differences between what's in this act and what these other acts might be?

Indigenous Affairs

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the PM said he values indigenous people most, but that is only true when they agree with him. After eight years, indigenous leaders fight the NDP-Liberals' anti-private sector, anti-resource, anti-energy agenda.

There are 130 Ontario first nations that will take the NDP-Liberals to court over their colonialist carbon tax. It does what Conservatives warned. Everything is more expensive. Those who can least afford it are hurting the most. Rural, remote and northern indigenous, and all, Canadians can hardly survive. They are forced to choose between heating, eating and housing.

B.C.'s Lax Kw'alaams sued over the NDP-Liberals' export ban, Bill C-48, to make its own decisions about jobs, energy and fish. Alberta's Woodland Cree sued over the unconstitutional “never build anything” bill, Bill C-69. Five years ago, Conservatives warned both bills would hurt indigenous people. The Liberals ignored that; it is death by delay.

Indigenous leaders oppose the emissions cap to cut production and the central plan of the just transition bill, Bill C-50, to kill the Canadian jobs and businesses where indigenous people work the most. The Liberals block indigenous-backed pipelines, the oil sands, LNG and roads to the Ring of Fire. They stop all the deals for education, recreation, health and wellness.

It is no wonder that the NDP-Liberals censor and cover up their costly anti-Canada collusion. Common-sense Conservatives will turn hurt into hope for indigenous and all Canadians.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Why are they suing you, then?

You work as well with them as you do with the provinces, it seems. On that note, the fact is that you said earlier that provinces say the feds shouldn't interfere with their natural resource development. I appreciate that you've acknowledged that. However, your track record in the courts this year doesn't add up, obviously, with Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” bill, being slapped down by the Supreme Court, and a host of other cases being slapped down due to the unconstitutional nature of your imposition on the rights of the provinces to regulate their own prosperity in the natural resource sector.

This is my question to you: Did you seek external legal opinions over the constitutionality of your clean electricity regulations and your proposed methane regulations, particularly given the recent Supreme Court decisions regarding your imposition on the provinces?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

How are you going to justify supporting a policy that once again tramples over provincial jurisdiction, which was Bill C-69?

What is the government going to change if they take these opinions seriously?

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

It's my time, Minister. Thank you.

If your government was actually interested in good public policy, it would work with provinces and respect their jurisdiction. We all know that recently the Supreme Court ruled that the “no more pipelines” bill, Bill C-69, was unconstitutional. It affirmed the provinces' jurisdiction over their natural resources.

Do you accept the Supreme Court's ruling?

[Devin Dreeshen]

Thank you for that, Madam Chair.

To quickly finish that thought, if every shipper moved away from Canadian ports, there would be no jobs at Canadian ports, just to put that in context.

To the member's specific question about any type of disruption, whether it be rail, our border with the U.S. or at ports, we take it very seriously as a provincial government. Those are federal jurisdictions, and that is why we've been calling on the federal government to bring in some changes to the Canada Labour Code so that the federal government.... These are federal jurisdictions, and we in Alberta stay in our lane when it comes to jurisdiction.

On Bill C-69, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government was unconstitutional in allowing a federal impact assessment into provincial jurisdiction. Even if, as a transport minister, I had wanted to have a provincial road built, it would have fallen under the federal impact assessment, but thankfully the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional.

We're staying in our lane, which is why we've been calling on the federal government, whether it be on border crossings, on issues with rail or on critical infrastructure at the ports, to make sure it takes that seriously.

Again, to the point of the Montreal port, it was one day, and the same federal government introduced back-to-work legislation. We called for that same urgency to be used on the west coast port strike this last summer.

Consideration of Government Business No. 31

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this goes to show the view these parties in this House opposite the Conservatives hold about our oil and gas sector, our ag sector and every natural resource sector in this country, and it is so disheartening.

Centrally controlled leftist government economies have been tried around the world already, and it turns out they do not work. Canada must not follow the path of these countries of failed economies, like Cuba and Venezuela.

I recall a couple of weeks ago the member across the way for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill lamenting at the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development how farmers protesting the Liberal political interference in the Senate over Bill C-234 was leading us toward being a “tinpot dictatorship.”

With Bill C-50 and its intent to destroy Canadian jobs with this egregious programming motion, I guess the definition of a tinpot dictatorship is in the eye of the beholder.

Since the Liberals are trying to curb criticism on this bill, let us dive into what Bill C-50 would actually do. I have many criticisms of it, as do my constituents. At its core, this piece of legislation would do three things to enable the NDP-Liberal coalition’s so-called just transition.

First, it would establish the sustainable jobs partnership council to advise the government on how to implement its vision, with its members appointed by the minister. This is a great way to get policy cover: appoint a bunch of one's friends who already hate Canada’s natural resource sector and agriculture sector to this council to help implement one's shared objective, without regard for the impact on the people I represent and hundreds of members of Parliament represent.

Even worse is that while the unjust transition intrudes on provincial jurisdiction, the council would not include provinces, nor would it even be required to consult with them. We should not be surprised, after Bill C-69, the no-more-pipelines bill, was slapped down by the Supreme Court for its intrusion on provinces. The Liberals' war on plastic straws was slapped down by the Federal Court, and the clean electricity regulations are certainly going to be slapped down very soon.

These Liberals have absolutely no regard for provincial jurisdiction and have learned nothing from these past failures. The only thing the Prime Minister has learned is a cavalier approach, like his father took, that Ottawa knows best.

Second, the legislation would require the minister to table a sustainable jobs action plan to Parliament every five years. In other words, the Liberals want to hire more bureaucrats to take time developing a plan to report on the jobs they are able to successfully destroy in this country.

The Liberal-NDP coalition will destroy jobs in Canada, because it does not like those types of jobs. It will do it with callous disregard for the rural communities those jobs support and still will not even hit its environmental targets, because of course it thinks the best way to reduce emissions is by reducing the size of our economy. While it has been doing its very best, those pesky, innovative Canadians just keep trying to grow things, to mine things, to manufacture things and to build things in this country.

Finally, the bill would create a sustainable jobs secretariat that would “support the implementation of the act”. In different terms, the Liberals are going to further add to the already bloated public service, costing taxpayers more. This is how Liberals actually think we should grow our economy. With every job numbers update that comes out, they always boast of any new jobs being created, but they never highlight where those jobs are being created. They are always a majority of public sector jobs.

These are part-time jobs for people picking up jobs to try to pay for the costly carbon tax-driven increase of their cost of living in this country. This is at a time when the federal government is paying more interest on our federal debt than it pays for health care in this country. Canadians can thank the Liberals and their friends in the speNDP for this abject failure of fiscal policy. This is what the Liberal-NDP government is trying to do. It is always trying to find ways to grow the size of government and is never trying to find ways to have Canadians gain meaningful work to feed, heat and house themselves.

While I have touched on some of the specifics of Bill C-50, let us talk more about this so-called just transition and what it would cost Canadians. This started back in 2019 with a platform commitment from the Liberals. At its heart, this just transition is planning on devastating our energy industry.

We can all recall when the Prime Minister said, “We can't shut down the oil sands tomorrow. We need to phase them out.” This is how the Liberals plan to do it. This is part of the many pieces of legislation where they plan to phase out our entire energy sector.

I recognize the Liberals have already gone to work on reducing the size of our economy with their reckless inflationary spending. In fact, Statistics Canada just reported that our economy shrank by 1.1% while the economy of the United States grew by 5.2%. As our great Conservative leader put it, its economy is roaring while ours is snoring.

However, the Liberal plan would take it to a whole new level. According to an internal briefing, the plan would kill 170,000 direct Canadian jobs, displace 450,000 workers directly and indirectly working in the energy sector and risk the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians working in agriculture, construction, energy, manufacturing and transportation.

These economic losses would not be felt equally, since the plan is, of course, always meant to be divisive and designed to disproportionately harm natural resource-based regions, which is on brand with the Liberal strategy. What kind of politician sees these numbers and says it is a good idea to get that many Canadians fired? The Liberals must know best. They think since they are in Ottawa, they should dictate how the economy goes. It is appalling to think that any politician standing in this chamber thinks this is a reasonable approach to governing a country. At the end of the day, we should just call the Liberal-NDP coalition the anti-everything coalition.

The funnier thing is this piece of legislation is likely to prevent a transition to the clean-tech sector, because 75% of all private sector investment in clean tech comes from the sector the Liberals are trying to destroy: our energy sector. Without this investment, more handouts would be necessary to develop a clean-tech sector.

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, who I had the chance to serve with on the natural resources committee with at one point.

Again, on the idea of court rulings, we have heard many times about the misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the Supreme Court challenge on Bill C-69 that it is not throwing out the entire thing as unconstitutional. I think our minister has spoken very clearly about how there are some precise measures that can be taken to deal with that.

I think our government is very aware of what is constitutional and I think the courts will find that it is good legislation. It has a leadership role for the federal government, while respecting provincial and territorial jurisdiction in this realm.