Bill C-49

An Act to amend the Canada—Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act to, among other things,
(a) change their titles to the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation and Offshore Renewable Energy Management Act and the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation and Offshore Renewable Energy Management Act , respectively;
(b) change the names of the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Energy Regulator and the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator, respectively (“the Regulators”);
(c) establish the Regulators as the regulating bodies for offshore renewable energy projects;
(d) establish a land tenure regime for the issuance of submerged land licences to carry out offshore renewable energy projects, as well as the revenues regime associated with those licences and projects;
(e) establish a ministerial decision-making process respecting the issuance of submerged land licences and the Regulators’ exercise of certain powers or performance of certain duties;
(f) expand the application of the safety and environmental protection regime and its enforcement powers to include offshore renewable energy projects;
(g) provide that the Governor in Council may make regulations to prohibit the commencement or continuation of petroleum resource or renewable energy activities, or the issuance of interests, in respect of any portion of the offshore area that is located in an area that has been or may be identified as an area for environmental or wildlife conservation or protection;
(h) authorize negotiations for the surrender of an interest, the cancellation of an interest if negotiations fail and the granting of compensation to an interest owner for the surrender or cancellation;
(i) establish the regulatory and liability regime for abandoned facilities relating to petroleum-related works or activities or offshore renewable energy projects;
(j) expand the application of the occupational health and safety regime to offshore renewable energy projects;
(k) allow the federal or provincial governments to unilaterally fund certain expenses incurred by the Regulators as a result of specific requests made by that government;
(l) allow new methods to demonstrate the existence of significant hydrocarbon accumulations in a geological feature and limit the duration of future significant discovery licences to 25 years;
(m) provide that the Governor in Council may make regulations to regulate access to offshore infrastructure, including to enforce tolls and tariffs;
(n) establish a new transboundary hydrocarbon management regime to regulate fields or pools that straddle domestic and international administrative boundaries, enabling the implementation of the Canada-France transboundary fields agreement;
(o) remove references to the former Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 and, to align with the Impact Assessment Act , clarify the role of the Federal and Provincial Ministers and Regulators with respect to the conduct of impact assessments of designated projects as well as regional and strategic assessments; and
(p) specify that the Crown may rely on the Regulators for the purposes of consulting with the Indigenous peoples of Canada and that the Regulators may accommodate adverse impacts to existing Aboriginal and treaty rights recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982 .
Finally, it makes consequential and terminological amendments to other Acts.

Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

No, Mr. Speaker, it was not withdrawn, as a member said, by the company. It was cancelled, and that company now has shut down.

At the time when this happened last year, the CEO said that the company put in $60 million and five years of work into the turbines, which were the first to return power to the Nova Scotia electricity grid, and DFO actually shut it down anyway. As I said, Sustainable Marine shared a video with a news organization that showed the tidal power working and how it was connected into the Nova Scotia grid.

The CEO said, “We’re the first ones to actually deploy and put power onto the grid and actually receive payment from Nova Scotia Power for power.“ He said, “so it's quite bizarre” in relation to what DFO has done. He continued, “We don't know how they've made that determination despite the fact we’re using very conventional technology and there’s over 20 years of experience with this technology internationally, and no one’s ever seen a single marine animal or fish harmed in any way, shape or form.” DFO shut this company down.

In the era of puffery and imagery of the government, it brings in input, but when it comes to actually executing on it, it lets a department like DFO shut it down. That is before this bill. Let me explain now how bad it gets with this bill, because if the system that gave DFO this power now was not bad enough, this bill would give DFO way more power.

This bill would give DFO the power, if it thinks at some point in the future it might want to do a marine protected area in the ocean in an area where there might be a development of oil and gas or a wind energy project, to veto without having to talk to anyone. It could just veto the project. It would give more power for DFO to shut down projects in the ocean.

However, this bill includes four sections from the Impact Assessment Act, and those four sections are designed to slow down energy projects. They were designed by the Liberals to stop energy projects from happening, to delay to the point where mines take 15 years to get a permit in Canada. That great success rate is what the government wants to impose now on offshore wind. Why would it impose a process on offshore wind that has been so detrimental to the energy industry out west and think that somehow the result of how it would be implemented in the ocean would be different?

I will give an idea of some of the projects in Atlantic Canada going through that particular process. The Tilt Cove exploration petroleum drilling project in Newfoundland in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin was started in 2019 and has been extended for a couple of years. It is already five years through the process, with no end in sight and was extended on the latest phase out to 2025 for more study.

The Cape Ray gold and silver mine in Newfoundland, which started in 2016, is now eight years through that process, with no end in sight. The Joyce Lake direct shipping iron ore mine in Newfoundland is now 11 years through the process, with no end in sight. These keep going on. The Fifteen Mile Stream gold mine, which I believe is in Nova Scotia, has been six years in the process. The Beaver Dam gold mine in Nova Scotia has been nine years in the process.

Anyone who thinks this IAA process works in an expeditious way has not actually looked at any of the impacts of the process on getting energy projects actually approved through the system. Taking that great success of five years, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years, 10 years and 11 years to go through a project, the government wants to put that success into offshore wind. If anyone believes the offshore wind projects off Nova Scotia are going to be done before Centre Block opens again in 2035 after construction, they are living in a different world.

Our opposition is not an opposition to “technology, not taxes”, as some members seem to always imply, and they abuse the line. It is our line. We believe that we can do these things. We just think they actually have to get done, and that imposing unconstitutional provisions in the act, and enforcing and pushing those down on the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, would only lead to failure.

We are a party that believes in success and that we have to get these projects done. The government seems to actually believe that the process it has put in place will actually get things done. I do not believe that the Liberals believe that, but they seem to spin it. However, getting things through in 10, 11 or 12 years is not getting them done. Fifteen years for a mine is not getting it done; that is driving capital to other places.

Every year in Newfoundland, the Newfoundland offshore petroleum board, whose mandate the bill would amend, does a call-out for bids for exploratory oil and gas drilling wells off Newfoundland. Every single summer, it gets bids and people explore. Companies from around the world explore. I understand how expensive it is to do exploratory drilling in the ocean. It is $100 million to $200 million-plus per drilled hole, minimum, to do that, so these are big global investments that happen. Every single year, the board has had bids for them.

The bill before us was introduced in 2023, in late May or early June. The Newfoundland offshore petroleum board went out with its bids. Guess how many bids it got last summer? Colleagues would be right if they said none. There was not a single bid. Year after year it got bids, but the bill got introduced, and the very threat of the IAA on the offshore petroleum business in Newfoundland sent the money elsewhere.

Guess where the money and the drilling permits went. They went to the Gulf of Mexico, because the mere idea that the process would be imposed sent capital elsewhere in the world. That is what it would do to offshore wind. The offshore wind money that is being proposed now, for the most part is not coming from Canada. It is coming from elsewhere to be invested in Nova Scotia, and it will fly away just as quickly as a Liberal promise. As soon as the bill were to come into effect, it just would not happen under the process. That is what we object to: a process that would not work.

Liberals believe in the output but have not even actually read the bill to understand what the four provisions are from the IAA that they have put in it. I would like all of the Liberals whom I can see from the vast number of them on the benches across from me to raise their hand if they can cite the four sections that have been pulled out of the impact assessment thing. I hear nothing. I do not see a hand going up. This is a very awkward silence indeed because I can cite the provisions if they like.

I will inform the members which sections are there. Clauses 61, 62, 169 and 170 are all from the Impact Assessment Act of the government. All of those are the clauses that would impose the IAA on offshore wind approvals in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in the energy industry out west. The outcome of those will be exactly the same for offshore wind, and that is why we oppose the bill.

We support the technology. We support offshore wind. We support using the Bay of Fundy tides to generate clean electricity. Unfortunately, the government does not, because it vetoed the only real functioning project. By the way, there is no offshore wind project or windmill anywhere in Canada up now, but we had one that was going to use tidal Bay of Fundy energy, and the government shut it down.

We will continue to oppose bad legislation that would bring in anti-capital processes that drive investment out of Canada, which is what the bill before us would do.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his wealth of knowledge of history, not only in his province but also in this country.

It is probably not in the Standing Orders for me to do this, so I want to be careful, but I will make a bet or a wager. Several Conservative members have consistently stood up and made a case based on the government's history, based on Bill C-69 and based on many of the same provisions that are in Bill C-49, which we are dealing with. There is an amendment that would send the bill back to committee to fix some of what I think is going to be deemed unconstitutional, dragging the process out and creating an investment climate in this country that is going to go in the wrong direction.

I want to make sure one more time that my colleague can get on the record again, as the Liberals and the NDP seem to be blind to the idea that this could even happen. Can the member talk about what he predicts would happen in the future if the bill passes in its current form and does not go back to committee?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer my colleague's question by saying that, like the value of most Liberal campaign promises, the number of projects that would result in offshore wind would be zero. The ability for energy infrastructure to get approved under this is proven. It is not new. We are not making this up; it is proven. It has happened out west and it has happened in the seven or eight mining projects that I just outlined between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador that have been going for anywhere from five to 11 years through this process, which is designed not to happen.

We know that the average mine in this country now takes at least 15 years to get approved. No one with private capital is willing to wait that long when there are other parts of the world willing to get projects approved much more quickly, in less than two years or 18 months, and approved in an environmentally sustainable way.

I do not know whether we are allowed to talk about wagering, but I would make a wager with most of my colleagues on the Liberal side about what happens if the bill goes through in its existing form without the amendments that we have put forward to send it back to committee. I know the government finds democracy totally messy. The whole thing about parliamentary debate is bothersome to them. However, Conservatives are going to continue to push forward on these things and bother the government with the democratic right that we have to push back with a different perspective, with the facts and not with fantasy.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very interesting speech. I especially liked the part about the tidal energy industry in the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world. As for the bill before us, we supported Bill C‑49 at second reading because we expected a collegial approach, and we thought we would be able to discuss it and improve it in committee. However, the government rejected all of our amendments.

In the hon. member's opinion, is that how this government operates, even with a minority of seats? Is that not the same way it behaves toward its provincial counterparts?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I think it obviously was that way. I attended some of the natural resource committee hearings and meetings on that, and it seemed that the government members there were totally opposed to considering any other additions that could fix, help or improve the bill. That is obviously not the experience I have had in some other committees. In particular, I am vice-chair of the industry committee, a very collegial committee on Bill C-34, which amended the Investment Canada Act, and the government agreed to many of the amendments the opposition made.

Right now there are many amendments to Bill C-27, perhaps one of the most consequential bills that Parliament has dealing with privacy and artificial intelligence, a complete replacement of our Privacy Act, and we have already passed six amendments to the bill from all parties. The government is operating in a very different way in very different committees, which surprises me, but maybe it should not surprise me that it does one thing in one place and says another thing in another place.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I get concerned every time I hear the Conservatives speak, especially right now, hearing the news. There are communities in B.C. that are being evacuated. Any time we talk about a plan to deal with the climate emergency, the Conservatives have a problem with it. I am not saying that the bill is perfect, but what I am saying is that the Conservatives are consistent in their climate denial or in having a real plan to deal with the climate emergency. I am wondering, besides sound bites like “axe the tax”, what my hon. colleague is willing to do to axe the climate emergency.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the province with the longest-standing carbon tax is British Columbia, and it does not seem to have slowed down forest fires out there, and in my province, there have been forest fires; two of them were in my riding last year, and they were both man-made. I know that the NDP likes to pretend that all forest fires happen by divine intervention, but they do not. A lot of times they happen because they are man-made, and they put our communities at risk.

I would like to hear the NDP once in a while acknowledge the fact that not every forest fire is caused by some sort of natural cause that they see, and that most of the time they are caused by man-made intervention, either by mistake or intentionally.

[Cathay Wagantall, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we hear the Liberals all the time on the other side of the floor claim they are investing in Canadians, and we know at this point they are running out of Canadians' money, printing it and borrowing it. Whatever we had is pretty well gone. They are taxing it as well. Could you explain to the Liberals the true definition of investment in Canadians?

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I am not going to explain it, but the member for South Shore—St. Margarets will.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there is an Ottawa-speak that happens, in which every time somebody spends a tax dollar, the government calls it an investment. Investment is really only when we buy equity in something, and equity generally is ownership of a company, so an investment is that kind of thing. When we spend money that leads to $40 billion deficits and that leads to $800 billion of debt being added, that is called an expenditure with very little result, as we have seen from the government.

We have the poorest productivity in the OECD, thanks to the government's expenditures. There is now a 40% gap between Canada and the United States in per capita income because of the expenditures, which the government calls investments. The purchasing power of our dollar is dropping, and our individual paycheques are dropping dramatically because the government's expenditure investments are producing very little in the way of economic benefit. In fact, they are hurting our economy, because the increased debt and increased spending have increased interest rates, which have increased the cost of everything to everybody and are causing an affordability and housing crisis in Canada.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand the answer to the last question, the member is saying, that because of his definition of what an investment is, things like $10-a-day child care, investing—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I should not use the word, but this is what I mean. The Conservatives will be critical of my even saying that. This is the irony of where I am going with this: Any kind of expense, as it relates to a national school food program, for example, is not an investment; it is just an expenditure. That was the member's word. He said that there is an investment and there is an expenditure, and apparently we can invest only if we are investing in something that is going to build us equity. The concept of a social equity is just going to be completely foreign to him.

If I understand this correctly, an investment cannot happen in people; it can happen only in a company. Is that what he just said?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the government's expenditures are not in people; they are in bureaucracy, but I know the government likes to build up the bureaucracy. In Ottawa, 106,000 new bureaucrats have been hired since the current government came to power. Those are called expenditures. Day care with over 80,000 people in Quebec waiting on the list is called an expenditure. There are dental expenditures that have eight dentists total in Nova Scotia signed up for it; the inability of the program to actually work is an expenditure. A food care program that does not deliver food, just a bureaucracy to look at and manage food in Ottawa, is called an expenditure.