Bill S-245 (Historical)

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project Act

An Act to declare the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project and related works to be for the general advantage of Canada

This enactment declares the Trans Mountain Pipeline Project and related works to be works for the general advantage of Canada.

Trans Mountain Pipeline Project Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Mr. Speaker, a lot of members who have spoken so far on this Senate bill have provided numbers or explained why they are either for or against. I heard the parliamentary secretary explain to us that this was not needed, that this particular bill coming from the other place is defective, because it does not deal with the current situation.

After three years of dithering, confusing and obstructing, we find ourselves in the situation now where the Government of Canada has expropriated Kinder Morgan, allowed a private company in the most profitable sector of the energy industry in Canada, in transportation, midstream, to take $4.5 billion from the taxpayer, and there is no pipeline being built.

We are at this point today due to desperation. There is a great Yiddish proverb that applies: Out of desperation, one finds.

What a surprise that it is an Alberta senator, duly elected by the people of Alberta to represent them in the other place, who has put before this House a bill that would fix a major problem, which is the rule of law in Canada. We have a Constitution that is supposed to apply equally to all provinces, but I would submit that the vast majority of Albertans feel that there is a two-tier system, one system for everyone else and one for Albertans, and that is simply not good enough.

This bill is about respect, respect for Albertans and energy workers in all provinces, because this is not just an Alberta issue. This is an issue that affects energy workers in every single province in Canada if we cannot build major industrial energy projects any more, and with bills like Bill C-69 on the books, we will not be able to build them anymore.

The Senate has already passed this bill. It is up to us to take up the task and pass it here to clear any further obstructions and delays that may come the way of this project from other levels of government, provincial and municipal, and actually get this project built.

The ideal situation, which I would have preferred, like the vast majority of Albertans, would have been to see a private company build it. As I said before, this happens to be the most profitable sector of the energy industry. There is a great cartoon Malcolm Mayes put together in the Edmonton Journal. It shows the Prime Minister riding a massive anchor hooked up to a piece of equipment, and it says, “I'm behind you all the way!” That is what most Albertans fear when they hear that from the federal government, that the Liberals have their hands in Albertans pockets, taxing them.

For the longest time, Albertans accepted it. They said it was okay. They were willing to pay their freight, to contribute to equalization, to contribute to Confederation, because they knew they were building a better country, improving Canada and putting food on the tables of families all across Canada. That is not true right now. That is not true anymore. The highest unemployment rate happens to be in Calgary. I represent a suburban area of Calgary, where countless energy workers are unemployed and underemployed because of decisions being made by the Liberal government of today. It is not getting better; it is getting worse. Families are still losing their homes. Severance pay has run out.

Many people have left the province. An entire generation of young people was told to go into STEM, into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, because they would get amazing jobs in the energy sector and contribute to the province. We spent a generation trying to convince more women to join the STEM fields, trying to convince young people that it was worth their time, and convincing people from outside the province to come to Alberta to establish themselves and bring their families, because they could make a living there. That has been taken away, much of that because of decisions made by the Liberal government, which have compounded problems on the commodity market.

Now we have a differential that has only grown. I remember working for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce many years ago when the differential was $25, and businesses were complaining then. Now it is $40. The reason for the increasing gap between what Canadian heavy crude can get on the market and what we can get in the United States is the decisions of the Liberal government only.

Bill S-245 would clear the way. Liberals have already expropriated Kinder Morgan. They already own the project. This would clear the way from any further delays that could possibly happen. It is the right thing to do. I hear a member again heckling from the other side.

This is about respecting Albertans and respecting energy workers in every province in Canada. This particular section of the Constitution has been used before, many times. The Canadian Grain Commission used it. Facilities, such as storage and sorting facilities linked to the grain commission, were federalized. The Teleglobe Canada Reorganization and Divestiture Act used this particular section of the Constitution so the Government of Canada could divest itself of a corporation. The Cape Breton Development Corporation Act used this section of the Constitution to come into being. The Ottawa canal used that particular section as well. It is not special in any way. It has just not been used as of late, but it has been used hundreds of times by the federal government to ensure that large-scale industrial projects get built for the benefit and general advantage of Canada.

If this is a country of 10 islands, 10 separate provinces that can each do whatever they want whenever they want, then Albertans have a serious question to ask, which is: why are we still footing the bill through massive equalization payments? It is a legitimate question to be asking.

The member for Lakeland has fought for three years to point out the damage that has been done by Liberal government policy. It is something Albertans know all too well. They have experienced this before with a previous Liberal government and its national energy program. It is a myth now in Alberta. It is an easy thing to mention, even for those of us who did not have the opportunity to be born there, who moved to Alberta and became Albertans because they wanted to. The civic nationalism of our province knows about the stories, about the farms that were lost and the homes that were lost. That is what we do not want to have happen again.

The price differential we are experiencing right now is leading to job losses. Just last week, companies were telling us that for the first time ever they had to pay others a few pennies on the barrel to take our oil. That is ridiculous. It makes no sense.

Bill S-245 clears the way. Members opposite say it is not needed anymore, but I have not heard a single description of what harm it could do. The proposed bill does not even mention Kinder Morgan. It just mentions the projects and the licences issued. It applies just as well today as it will in the future. The government has explicitly said it wants to find a buyer. It has not explicitly said whether the project will be fully built and complete by then and actually producing and shipping or not. This would clear the way for any future owner of the pipeline as well, ensuring they can maintain it, ensuring the safety of the workers on site and ensuring the safety of the environment.

Bill S-245 is the right bill at the right time. It took an Alberta senator, an elected senator, not a member of the Conservative Party, but an independent senator, to put it forward. I am happy to support it. It is a great piece of legislation. It is brought from that desperation I just talked about. He found an opportunity to use the Constitution for the general advantage of Canada. This is how we build a community, a community of 10 provinces agreeing that—and I think we all agree—this has gone on for too long. There are too many delays, too much obstruction. Let us get the project built. The energy industry in Alberta is part of the lifeblood of Alberta. The public treasury there depends on it to ensure we have hospitals and schools, and pay for the salaries of its public sector workers. Without it, it will not happen. There will be further harm done to Alberta and to Albertans.

I am calling on all members to support the bill. Like other members have done in the past, when this section of the Constitution was used for things like Teleglobe, the grain commission, the wheat board, all of those things, it is time to act. The time to act is now.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate, the hon, member for Calgary Signal Hill. I will let him know that there are only about six minutes remaining in his time so we can leave enough time for the right of reply.

[Ron Liepert, Conservative, Calgary Signal Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to use the six minutes to express some views that I consistently get from my constituents in Calgary. They are very similar to what the member for Calgary Shepard mentioned. However, a couple of comments were made today that prompted me to get up and respond.

I listened attentively to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources. He talked about the government having a plan. Many in Alberta believe the Liberals do have a plan, and it is called ragging the puck. Part of the plan was to purchase Kinder Morgan so they were then in control of the timeline for building the pipeline. Many people in Alberta, including me and many of my colleagues, believe the government has no intention of ever getting shovels in the ground. This is part of the plan all right, the plan to rag the puck until after the next election, and the Liberals are doing a good job of it.

I know a number of members on the government side may not be familiar with how the oil industry is priced. I thought I would like to make a few comments to put it in a perspective that is easy for all Canadians to understand. We hear terms like, “price differential”. Very few people really understand what price differential means, so let me try to lay out as to what it means to Canadians in the way of lost revenue.

Today, the price of world oil is about $80 a barrel. In the U.S., it is around $70 a barrel. Alberta today is getting under $20 a barrel. Therefore, that price differential of $50 a barrel equates to one school per day not being built in Canada, while one school per day is being built in the United States. It equates to the equivalent of one hospital per week not being built in Canada, but it is being built in the United States.

For those members of the government who come from the auto industry area of Ontario, let me put this in perspective. At the Ford plant in Oakville, it produces a car worth $70,000 and it sells for $70,000 in Canada. However, when that same car is sold in the U.S., the Americans are quite happy to give us $20,000 for it. That is what we are dealing with today.

It is time for the government to do what it says it will do. The Liberals say they are committed to this pipeline. I see nothing in what they are doing that will get this pipeline built. That is why this bill is so very important.

I am offended when I hear the Prime Minister say that the government will not use tricks. He is calling a piece of legislation a trick. The Prime Minister is very good at tricks. It is time he start to look at reality and get on with it, get the job done and get that oil flowing to the west coast so we can start having a school per day built in Canada, not in the United States; a hospital per week built in Canada, not in the United States.

The time is now. We can do it with this legislation. Let us get on with it and support it.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all of my Conservative colleagues for proving that we are the only champions of responsible energy development on Canada's long-standing track record as a world-leading environmentally and socially responsible producer of oil and gas.

I would like to thank them on behalf of thousands of Canadians in every single corner of the country whose livelihoods depend on Canada's responsible energy development and the amazing incredible role that Canada could play in the world to provide responsible energy for the world's growing oil and gas demand long into the future. That is our vision for Canada as an energy producer and for the benefit of all Canadians.

The Liberals did not have to spend $4.5 billion of Canadian taxpayer dollars to give to Kinder Morgan to go and build pipelines in the United States and consider selling and divesting completely from Canada.

All Kinder Morgan needed, and never asked for, was certainty that once it completed one of the longest and most rigorous environmental reviews with the highest standards in the world on all counts, received approval and met the 157 conditions applied, that it would simply be able to proceed with construction of the Trans Mountain expansion.

For nearly two years the Liberals have failed and their actions just do not match their empty words. They failed to give certainty to Kinder Morgan that the legal provincial and municipal challenges, delays and ongoing roadblocks, which were deliberate tools to try to get Kinder Morgan to abandon the pipeline, would be removed.

For two years Kinder Morgan did everything it could to try to proceed with building the expansion that the Liberals themselves had approved and that we supported.

The Liberals denied three requests for unanimous consent to pass the bill in the House of Commons expeditiously before the spring, before Kinder Morgan's deadline that the Liberals had known about for months. They failed to take action then to provide Kinder Morgan that certainty before it was forced to abandon it.

Earlier my Liberal colleagues suggested it is too late but as my colleagues have expressed here, even if the pipeline can get built there are still future and ongoing threats, like restricting the volume of the expansion that other levels of government and activists can bring to the pipeline.

That is exactly why Bill S-245 is needed now just as much as it ever was to ensure that if the pipeline does actually get built, there will be no further impediments to its construction, operations and ongoing maintenance.

The Liberals failed to deliver a law to assert federal jurisdiction that the Prime Minister himself promised this past spring, around the same time that the Liberals defended spending Canadians' tax dollars on a protest position that was explicitly to stop the Trans Mountain expansion. That is why nobody believes what they say.

The court ruled that the Liberals failed to follow their own plan to consult indigenous people on the Trans Mountain expansion. For more than a month they failed to take any action to fix that failure and their ultimate announcement was just a consultation on how to consult.

The Liberals failed to listen to premiers and legal experts and appeal the court ruling to request a stay of appeal so construction could proceed while the Supreme Court deliberated.

The Liberals failed to introduce emergency legislation to affirm Transport Canada's holistic review of tanker traffic and marine vessels in the area in the case of the Trans Mountain expansion, instead kicking the can down the road for six months with no certainty what would happen after that process. That is why my colleague said their tactic is to rag the puck.

The Liberals continue to fail by still no longer being able to provide concrete timelines for a start date for construction and completion of the Trans Mountain expansion. That lack of a timeline has caused massive uncertainty and stress for the thousands of workers who have been left in limbo after losing those jobs that they were counting on.

It is a pattern. The Liberals killed the northern gateway pipeline instead of allowing more consultation. They killed energy east by political interference, changing the rules, adding red tape and forcing TransCanada to abandon the pipeline. Today the reality is that the Trans Mountain expansion remains stalled and the consequences of their failures have been staggering: more than $100 billion in energy projects cancelled; hundreds of thousands of Canadians out of jobs; more investment losses than any time in more than seven decades; future money for all levels of government lost; lost opportunities for indigenous Canadians and communities in every corner of the country; and deep divisions between Canadians being pitted against each other because of these Liberal failures.

They are about to make it even worse by ramming Bill C-69 through the Senate and failing to listen to experts who have said that legislation will guarantee no new pipeline will ever be proposed or built in Canada again.

What tremendous damage that will cause to our country's international reputation as a safe, fair, predictable place to do business and create jobs. The Liberals should be ashamed of themselves. They should support this proposed legislation to give certainty so that the pipeline could go ahead. I hope it is clear why nobody should believe any of their empty words about supporting the energy sector. Their agenda to shut it down is clear.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, October 24, immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business.