Bill C-88 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act to establish an administration and enforcement scheme in Part 5 of that Act that includes the issuance of development certificates. It also adds an administrative monetary penalty scheme and a cost recovery scheme, provides regulation-making powers for both schemes and for consultation with Aboriginal peoples and it allows the Minister to establish a committee to conduct regional studies. Finally, it repeals a number of provisions of the Northwest Territories Devolution Act that, among other things, restructure the regional panels of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, but that were not brought into force.
Part 2 of the enactment amends the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to prohibit certain works or activities on frontier lands if the Governor in Council considers that it is in the national interest to do so.

Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-88 is intended to enhance the involvement of indigenous people in the regulatory process. When changes were brought forward by the Conservative government in 2014, everyone was against them, including industry. They were saying, “Do not change the process. This is a process they are familiar with. Everyone is used to it. Let us continue to use it.”

However, the government of the day decided to get rid of the regional boards. It said that land and water boards were not needed. It wanted to have one superboard and it plowed ahead, even though everyone recommended against it.

When I hear the hon. member talk about disdain for industry by introducing this bill, it makes me wonder why she would say that when industry supports the bill. When she says that the bill is going to be detrimental to industry, she is forgetting that the bill is going to enhance the involvement of indigenous people. Is she saying industry is more important than the indigenous people of the north?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question, although I will dispute his characterization of what I said in my speech. He is trying to confuse the issue, when, in fact, the issue that most indigenous communities have and that we have with this bill is part 2.

We have heard that indigenous peoples and communities were not consulted on this part of the bill. We know that part 2 would amend the Canada Petroleum Resources Act to allow the Governor in Council to issue orders, when in the national interest, to prohibit oil and gas activities and freeze the terms of existing licences to prevent them from expiring during a moratorium. Again, we have heard that indigenous communities were not consulted on this part of the legislation.

Further, this bill reveals a full rejection of calls from elected territorial leaders for increased control of their natural resources. We heard that. I am deeply concerned that with Bill C-88, the Liberals will continue to entrench into law their ability to continue to arbitrarily and without consultation block oil and gas projects.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are consistently trying to confuse as they ask questions tonight. I have described part 1and part 2 as the paradox in this bill. Part 1 is about the consultation process and reflecting on what happened, and part 2 is about ignoring the appropriate consultation process.

With regard to part 2, I would like my colleague to talk about how it is consistent with almost every single piece of legislation the government introduces in Parliament in being anti-resource development and against support for our industry.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to recognize the very good work my colleague does as the shadow minister for indigenous and northern affairs and how well she keeps us informed about what is happening on the files she oversees on behalf of our Conservative caucus and on the work the committee is doing.

It is my understanding that with part 2, the Liberals are further politicizing the regulatory and environmental processes for resource extraction in Canada's north. They have consistently politicized these processes, as I shared in my earlier remarks. As the shadow minister for transportation, we heard testimony from witnesses on Bill C-48 and Bill C-69 who told us very clearly that first nations communities were not consulted when it came to the introduction of these bills. In fact, many of the changes being proposed in these bills were simply the result of direction that had been included in the mandate letters for these ministers. There was actually no evidence to support what the minister was proposing when it came to making those changes.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-88, an act to amend the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Before I get into the details of the bill, it is important to look at the context of what has been happening over the past three years and what is starting to be a pattern of the Liberal government. The decisions it makes consistently increase red tape and bureaucracy and are mostly anti-resource development. This bill is no different.

I would like to talk about a few areas that show the context, which will then show that this follows a pattern that adds to what is becoming an increasing concern in the country, which is the ability to move our natural resources forward.

When the Prime Minister took office, there were three private companies willing to invest more than $30 billion to build three nation-building pipelines that would have generated tens of thousands of jobs and billions in economic opportunities. The Prime Minister and his cabinet killed two of them and put the Trans Mountain expansion on life support. Bill C-69 would block all future pipelines.

In addition, the government has made a number of arbitrary decisions regarding natural resource development, with absolutely no consultation with those impacted. Today, we only need to look at what is happening in Alberta with the hundreds of thousands of job losses. Who has ever heard of a premier having to decrease the production of a needed resource throughout the country and the world because we simply cannot get resources to the market? This is because of the government's failure.

The northern gateway project was approved by the former government in June 2014. It had a number of conditions on it, just like the current Trans Mountain project does. In November 2015, just one month after being elected, the Prime Minister killed the project without any hesitation. It was subject to a court challenge. When we finally heard what came out of that court challenge, to be frank, it was nothing that could not be overcome. We could have dealt with that.

The court decision told the Prime Minister to engage in consultation in a more appropriate and balanced way. The court really gave what I would call a recipe for perhaps fixing some problems with the process. Did he wait for the court decision? No. He went out and killed it flat. With this approved pipeline, he did not wait for a court decision or wait to see how it could move forward. He decided that he did not want that one.

I think we are all pretty aware of the Trans Mountain pipeline as it has been moving along for many years. We know that many first nations support it and hope to see it go through, as they see enormous opportunities for their communities. Of course, others are against it.

What happened in this case? When the Liberals formed government, they decided they had to have an additional consultation process. However, did they follow the directions of the court in the northern gateway decision, in which the court was very clear about what the government had to do in order to do consultations properly? Apparently not.

When the court decision came down, we learned otherwise. To be frank, it was much to my surprise, because the Liberals talked about how well they were consulting and that they were putting this additional process in place. The court said that the Liberals did not do the job. What they did was send a note-taker and not a decision-maker.

The fact that the Liberals did not consult properly on the Trans Mountain pipeline is strictly on their laps, as they had very clear guidance from the northern gateway decision, and they did not do what they needed to do. They should be ashamed of themselves. Had they done a proper process, they likely would not have had to buy the pipeline, the pipeline would be under construction right now and we would be in a lot better place as a country. With respect to the Trans Mountain pipeline, the blame for where we are on that pipeline lies strictly on the laps of the Liberals.

I also want to note, in spite of what people say, that the courts have said that the process was okay, so it had nothing to do with environmental legislation by the previous government or with anything the Conservatives put in place. It was—

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I note that you just notified the member that he only had several minutes left. However, his entire speech has not made even the vaguest reference to Bill C-88. Hopefully, in the last couple of minutes, he will refer to the bill we are discussing.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Yukon is aware, of course, that the rule of relevance is not strictly applied. However, I am confident that the member will focus on the bill as he goes forward.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it was the Liberals' execution of a flawed process.

Energy east was another one. The former Liberal MP who is now the mayor of Montreal was very opposed to it. I am not sure of all the pieces that went into the Liberals' decision-making, but all of a sudden, the downstream and upstream emissions of energy east had to be measured. As people have rightfully asked, has that happened for the tankers coming down the St. Lawrence from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela? Did that happen with the bailout of Bombardier?

The Liberals created regulatory barriers. Trans Mountain hung on for a long time before it finally said it was a no go. I think energy east saw the writing on the wall, knowing that the government was not going to be its friend and create an environment in which to get work done. It could see the new rules coming into place, so it walked. What a double standard. Canadians who extract energy in an environmentally sound and environmentally friendly way have had standards applied to their ability to move oil through a pipeline that no other country in the world imposes on companies in terms of upstream and downstream emissions.

The final part of Bill C-88 is the drilling moratorium. It is perhaps the most troubling. It would allow the federal cabinet to prohibit oil and gas activities in the Northwest Territories or offshore of Nunavut if it were in the national interest. This is a much broader power than currently exists, which allows Canada to prohibit that activity only for safety or environmental reasons or for social problems of a serious nature.

As I have noted, Bill C-88 is another anti-energy policy from the Liberal government. It is driving investment out of Canada, costing Canadian workers their jobs and increasing poverty in the north. Like Bill C-69 before it, Bill C-88 would politicize oil and gas extraction by expanding the power of cabinet to block economic development, and it would increase red tape that proponents would face before getting shovels in the ground. Further, Bill C-88 reveals a full rejection of calls from elected leaders in the territories for the independence they desire.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the hon. member about the changes brought forward in 2014 to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. The act was created through the negotiation of the land claim agreements, which are constitutionally protected. The Conservative government of the day decided to move forward and make changes, which were challenged.

Why did the Conservatives make these changes and expect them to stick, when they knew that they were breaching the Constitution?

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in 2014, the Liberals voted for it. However, all of a sudden, in 2015, there was a whole mind change on the political process and the reason was to gain more votes. This was the main reason they voted against it, and for the same reason energy east was cancelled, northern gateway was cancelled and TMX is still waiting for final approval.

We talk about the environment. If the Liberals were really concerned about the environment, where were they when eight million litres of sewage water was dumped into the St. Lawrence? What did they do? Did they ask questions of anybody about what was going on? It is just nitpicking here and there.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member for being able to get away with spending nine minutes and 30 seconds of a 10-minute speech not talking about the bill at all. Therefore, because he only got to speak to the bill for 30 seconds, I am going to give him lots of time now to talk more about this particular bill, Bill C-88.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me refer to some comments by one of my favourite former Liberal MPs, Martha Hall Findlay. On Bill C-69, a number of former Liberals have been very open about their concern. Martha Hall Findlay is a very respected former MP who said that it is the “antithesis of what the regulatory reform effort hopes to achieve.” She also said, “But in its 392 pages, the word 'competitiveness' appears only twice. Neither the word 'economy' nor the phrase 'economic growth' appear at all.”

We have new environmental legislation that most people call the no-more-pipelines bill.

She went on to note that the bill would “create enormous uncertainty, more red tape and increased court challenges. And not only for the energy sector...every major infrastructure project in Canada for years to come.” This is from Martha Findlay, a former Liberal member of Parliament.

I do not know if members are starting to see a pattern. The Liberals have killed pipelines and put forward legislation preventing new pipelines from being built.

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

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Liberals on the opposite side question relevance, but I would suggest that every single point you made was relevant, and that is talking about how part 2 of Bill C-88 is consistent with their anti-energy policies.

Could you quickly mention some of the other legislation that they have introduced that is so detrimental?

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I would remind the hon. member to direct her comments to the Chair. Of course, when one says “you”, one is referring to the Chair. I do not think that is what the member intended.

[Bob Saroya, Conservative, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of my favourite shows is Ice Road Truckers, which takes place up north. When I get home late at night, I can watch it. According to the show, people up north can pay $38 for a jug of milk or a loaf of bread and $50 to $60 for a piece of meat. The cost of some things can be 50 or 60 times more than anywhere else. However, things such as extracting gas up north would create the opportunity for the northern people and would take them out of poverty.