Bill C-50

Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act

An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy

This enactment establishes an accountability, transparency and engagement framework to facilitate and promote economic growth, the creation of sustainable jobs and support for workers and communities in Canada in the shift to a net-zero economy. Accordingly, the enactment
(a) provides that the Governor in Council may designate a Minister for the purposes of the Act as well as specified Ministers;
(b) establishes a Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council to provide the Minister and the specified Ministers, through a process of social dialogue, with independent advice with respect to measures to foster the creation of sustainable jobs, measures to support workers, communities and regions in the shift to a net-zero economy and matters referred to it by the Minister;
(c) requires the tabling of a Sustainable Jobs Action Plan in each House of Parliament no later than 2026 and by the end of each subsequent period of five years;
(d) provides for the establishment of a Sustainable Jobs Secretariat to support the implementation of the Act; and
(e) provides for a review of the Act within ten years of its coming into force and by the end of each subsequent period of ten years.

Consideration of Government Business No. 31

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what a thing to witness this coalition collude to cover-up and take a top-down action to force through a top-down bill. The Conservatives will not stop the fight for the people we represent and for the best interests of all Canadians.

To review, the Liberals rammed through first the Atlantic offshore bill, Bill C-49, which includes 33 references to the five-year-old unconstitutional law, Bill C-69, that the Liberals have not fixed yet. By the way, Bill C-49 would triple the timeline for offshore renewables in the Atlantic provinces. Then was the just transition bill, Bill C-50. This was after fewer than nine hours and eight hours of total debate from all MPs on each.

On October 30, the NDP-Liberals tried to dictate every aspect of how the committee would deal with those bills. They reversed their own order to hold back Bill C-49 and spent a month preoccupied with censorship and exclusion of Conservatives like the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and the member for Peace River—Westlock.

The extraordinary motion being debated and the debate shutdown today mean the committee will be limited to less than two hours of scrutiny on Bill C-50. We will hear from no witnesses, no impacted workers or businesses, no experts, no provincial or regional representatives, no economists, no indigenous communities, no ministers and no officials, and MPs will only have one partial day each to review and debate this bill at the next two stages.

I never thought I would spend so much of the last eight years having to count on senators to really do the full scrutiny that the NPD-Liberals' bills require after the fact because the coalition circumvents elected MPs on the front end so many times. One would think after the Supreme Court absolutely skewered them all on Bill C-69, which both the NDPs and the Liberals supported, that we would see a change of behaviour and attitude, but no, not these guys. They are reckless and ever undaunted in their top-down authority.

The NDP-Liberals will say that the government has been working on it for years, that it has engaged unions all the time and ask what the hold up is. We heard that from the member for Timmins—James Bay earlier, even though what he did not admit was that at the time the committee was studying the concept of the just transition and the NDP-Liberals moved forward with announcing their legislation before it reported anyway. They will say that we should just get this done so Bill C-50 can give the reskilling, upskilling and job training workers need and want when they all lose their jobs because of government mandates.

I have a couple of points to make. First, it sure is clear the NDP-Liberals have been working together on something for a while since they were all together to announce the bill. Second, everybody needs to know there is not actually a single skills or job program anywhere in this bill at all. Third, cooking up something behind closed doors then being outraged and cracking down on the official opposition when we suggest we should all actually do our jobs, speak to represent our constituents, and most importantly, let Canadians speak so we can actually hear from them on the actual bill, and then analyze it comprehensively and propose changes and improvements, is a top-down central planning approach that sounds an awful lot like the way we have characterized Bill C-50, the just transition itself that has caused some outrage in the last few days.

Bill C-50, the just transition, aims to centrally plan the top-down restructuring of the fundamentals and the foundations of Canada's economy. It aims to redistribute wealth. It is a globally conceived, planned and imposed agenda. It is, in fact, a major focus of a globalist gathering going on right now, the same kind of gathering where it started years ago.

I confess, I do not really get all the consternation about stating that fact since the definition of globalism is “the operation or planning of economic informed policy on a global basis.” That is of course what is happening with the just transition and the many international bodies that bring together politicians, policy advocates and wealthy elites from around the world to plan economic and foreign policy globally. That is while they all contribute significantly to increasing global emissions to get there and back, while they dream up more schemes to tell the folks back home that they cannot drive; live in a house, on any land or farm; or, for those who can afford it, fly. We will all have to eat insects while they all do the exact opposite, even while they bring home agendas that will make essentials and daily life so expensive for all the rest of us that we will have no choice.

Globalism is literally the function of numerous organizations all explicitly heavily focused on imposing the just transition for years. Today, it is linked to the concept of the global citizen and of postnational states with no independent identities, just like the current Prime Minister said of Canada when he was elected.

That is what is happening at COP28 right now. It is in the UN 2030 plan. It is the top priority of lots of many well-known and respected gatherings, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organization and others. It is bizarre that the NDP-Liberals deny and attack all this now, when globalism is obviously implicit in its ideology. I thought they were proud of that. They have all been outraged about this, but the truth hurts. Anger is often a cover for hurt, so maybe that is what all their rage is about.

Maybe their issue is that I call it Soviet-style central planning, except for this: Bill C-50 really would create a government-appointed committee to advise the minister. The minister would then appoint another committee to plan the economy. This bill would not mandate that any of that would happen through openness and transparency. Neither of the committees would report either to Parliament or directly to Canadians along the way. I guess the coalition members want to say that it is a win that the reports would be tabled in the House of Commons, but that would not guarantee any kind of debate or accountability. The members are proving their true colours through how they are handling the bill now, especially since it is clear that they want to impose it all with little challenge and almost no scrutiny from beginning to end.

Oh right, it is there in the summary, in black and white for all the world to see. When would those plans from the government committees for Canada's economy be imposed? It would be every five years. That is literally the time frame for central planning that Soviets preferred. However, the NDP-Liberals are somehow shocked and outraged, even though the lead NDP-Liberal minister is a guy who is a self-declared “proud socialist”, as came out of his own mouth in this very chamber. Right now, he is at a conference about the progress of the global just transition.

There are no costs outlined in this bill either, even though it would obviously cost taxpayers, just as the NDP-Liberals' mega sole-source contracts for their buddies; infrastructure banks and housing funds that cost billions of tax dollars and build neither infrastructure nor houses, only bureaucracy; and hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants to tell the government to use fewer consultants. There would be a cost to create and maintain the just transition partnership council, on pages six to 10, that would advise the minister and then the secretariat that the minister would have to create. However, this bill does not tell Canadians about any of the cost that taxpayers would have to pay for all that, up front and after.

It is quite something to see the inclusion of the words “accountability” and “transparency” in the long title of Bill C-50, since it is all actually about government-appointed committees meeting behind closed doors and a minister who would cook up central plan after central plan. It would mandate neither transparency nor accountability at all, whether directly to Canadians or through their MPs, and it would not include an actual outline for one or any kind of skills- or job-training program.

That is how this whole thing was baked in the first place. Their rushed, top-down schedule today is to ram it through with as little analysis from MPs and input from Canadians as possible. It is a little silly for all the NDP-Liberals to be mad now that the official opposition actually wants MPs to do our jobs to debate, consult, amend and improve legislation, especially with such a wide-ranging and significant one such as Bill C-50 and the economic transition it would impose.

What about the tens of thousands of Canadians whose jobs were devastated by the NDP-Liberals' fast-tracked coal transition? The environment commissioner said this was a total failure. It left 3,400 Canadian workers in about a dozen communities completely behind. However, the government members say to just trust them to engineer an economic transition for 2.7 million Canadians and the entire country.

What about the nearly 40,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador who were all put out of work completely when they were promised that the government would help them transition from cod? It was the largest industrial shutdown in Canadian history at the time. It was a disaster for all of them: their loved ones, their communities and their province. I hope they see Bill C-50 as the end of oil and gas in Canada bill that it is, because the impact of the oil and gas sector in Newfoundland and Labrador is a quarter of the province's total GDP. It is higher than that in Alberta. It is 40% of Newfoundland and Labrador's exports, and 6,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador in the oil and gas service and supply sector have lost their jobs already, just in the last three years, because of the uncertainty and the NDP-Liberals' anti-energy policies.

The government's intent now, through Bill C-50, is like nothing Canada has ever seen before. Canadians could be forgiven for knowing that this would not go well.

A truly bizarre point about all this that should be noted, though, is as follows: Despite the collusion between the NDP and Liberals on the bill for about two years, other opposition MPs such as Conservatives do not actually get to see the bills until the government tables them. Despite what I hear really were some round tables and consultation meetings, there is not actually any tangible delivery of what the bill's own proponents say that it does for skills and job training.

It is not in here anywhere, which is one of the many reasons Conservatives say that the natural resources committee must actually do its job and, most importantly, must hear from all the Canadians it would impact. Both union and non-union workers, as well as union leaders, should be outraged about it.

What really did happen with all the time, effort and money that was apparently sunk into developing it behind closed doors between 2021 and 2023? Since the bill sets up committees to plan to set up committees to plan from on high, why the heck did all this require a law in the first place?

Government, unions and businesses consult, develop plans and report. Okay, what is holding this up from going ahead? Why is Bill C-50 even required for that work to happen if they all want it to? How is this actually all the Liberal-NDP government has come up with?

How is any Canadian supposed to trust these guys to deliver on anything, when it took all this time and all these meetings and tax dollars, but there is not even an actual plan or program? They would not even get a recommendation for two years. It is sort of like the ITCs that the NDP-Liberals keep talking and bragging about, as if they are doing anything in our economy right now. Actually, they do not even exist at all in Canada yet.

Of course, Conservatives and more and more Canadians know that Bill C-50 really is all about the just transition and ending oil and gas in Canada as fast as they possibly can. The NDP-Liberals have shown this repeatedly after eight years. A government, of course, that did not want to kill the sector and all the livelihoods it sustains really would not do anything differently from what these guys have done and continue to do.

Everyone can read it. In the 11 pages and 21 clauses of Bill C-50, there is not one single instance of a skills- or job-training program. That is the truth.

Now, because of the NDP-Liberals, neither union nor non-union workers will be able to speak or be heard by MPs at any remaining stage of the top-down agenda for this bill. In fact, nobody will: no workers, contractors, business owners, investors or indigenous owners, partners, workers or contractors. Therefore, I will talk about some of those workers now. I have a few points.

First, the reality is that the biggest growth of well-paying union jobs in Canada right now is actually created by the big multinational oil and gas companies expanding and ramping up new oil, gas and petrochemical projects in Alberta. These are the same companies that made Alberta, by far and away, Canada’s leader in clean tech, renewable and alternative energy for at least 30 years.

For the record, today, Alberta is again Canada’s leader in renewable energy. In fact, the investment commitments for renewables and future fuel development in Alberta have doubled to nearly $50 billion of private sector money planned and ready to invest, since the premier paused to set the conditions, to guarantee consultation, certainty and confidence for all Albertans, while the regulator keeps taking applications. However, the NDP-Liberals will not admit that to us either.

Second, where we are at is that the major oil and gas companies are leading the creation of new union jobs in Canada. However, this is actually the very sector that the just transition agenda would shut down first. The main thing every union worker needs is a job. That is what is at risk.

Third, the anti-energy coalition also refuses to admit the fact that, in Canada, traditional oil and gas, oil sands and pipeline companies have been, far and away, the top investors in the private sector for decades and, today, in clean tech, environmental innovation and renewables among all the private sectors in Canada, excluding governments and utilities. Likewise, oil and gas is still, right now, the top private sector investor and top export in Canada’s economy. The truth is that nothing is poised to match or beat it any time soon. Nothing comes close. The stakes of the anti-energy agenda imposed by the costly coalition for Canada are exceptionally grave.

Here are some facts about the businesses and workers that would be hurt the most by the just transition agenda, Bill C-50. In Canada’s oil and gas sector, 93% of companies only have up to 99 employees. They are small businesses, and 63% of those businesses are considered micro-businesses, with fewer than five employees.

That is the truth about workers and businesses in Canada’s oil and gas sector, especially the homegrown, Canadian-based ones. They are not union businesses, although their jobs are also sustainable; they are also higher paying, with reliable long-term benefits, than jobs in most sectors.

Large employers, with over 500 people on payroll, account for just over 1%, not 2%, of the total oil and gas extraction businesses in Canada; that is it. Those businesses are mostly union workplaces and support more union jobs than the rest of the sector. However, they are also among the first businesses that Bill C-50’s agenda would kill and that, after eight years, the NDP-Liberals have been incrementally damaging. Again, there would be no oil and gas sector, no businesses and no jobs, union or otherwise. That is the truth. It also means higher costs and less reliable power, especially where most Canadians have no affordable options, as in rural, remote, northern, prairie, Atlantic and indigenous communities, with fewer businesses and jobs. There would be less money for government programs, since the oil and gas sector currently pays the most to all three levels of government, and less private sector money for clean tech and innovation.

Which workers do the NDP-Liberals already know that their unfair, unjust transition in Bill C-50 would hurt the most? If colleagues can believe this, it would be visible minority and indigenous Canadians. Both ethnically diverse and indigenous Canadians are more highly represented in the energy sector than they are in any other sector in Canada’s economy, but the internal government-leaked memo that I am assuming colleagues have seen says they are expected to face higher job disruptions than any other workers. They would also have more trouble finding new opportunities. They would end up in lower-paying, more precarious jobs, as would be the case for all workers who lose their livelihoods to this radical, anti-energy global agenda.

Canadians will know instantly, of course, from these numbers that the top targets to be crushed by Bill C-50 are the 93% and 63% of Canadian businesses, the small- and micro-businesses, their workers and all their contractors. Bill C-50 does not contemplate them at all. There is no consideration about all the non-union workers who will lose their jobs in the just transition agenda. These are the homegrown, Canadian-based and owned businesses with Canadian workers who have been doing their part for environmental stewardship, innovation, clean tech, actual emissions reductions and indigenous partnerships to the highest standards in Canada and, therefore, in the entire world, just like the big guys here.

Since the NDP-Liberals refused to allow this, my office spoke with one of those union workers last week, a worker from Saskatchewan. He said, “I am not happy with the fact that I will be displaced out of a job from a federal mandate.” No matter what the NDP-Liberals try to call this or say about it now, he had it right. That is exactly what would happen to that union worker.

There is nothing, not a single thing, about all the non-union workers, who would obviously lose their jobs first, nor is there any space for union workers who do not want the transition accelerated by the anti-energy, anti-private sector NDP-Liberals. There is nothing about the communities and the people who would be damaged the most, nothing about what sector actually can and will replace the jobs and economic contributions of the oil and gas sector. Of course, right now, there is no such sector. There is nothing about all those hundreds of thousands of oil and gas union workers whose employers would also be put out of work quickly, as is the actual aim of Bill C-50. It is no wonder that the NDP-Liberals want to silence Canadians, so they can do this quickly and behind closed doors. They too must know that common-sense Canadians can see right through them, and they are running out of time.

I have a last point about the chair of the natural resources committee, the member for Calgary Skyview. When I congratulated him on his recent appointment, I told him the Liberals have done him no favours by putting him there to help impose their agenda. The people of Calgary Skyview will render their decision in the next election, as is their right, like it is for all Canadians.

I warned a former natural resources minister from Alberta that his constituents would see his betrayal. I said this in our last emergency committee meeting about the TMX, which has still not been built, in the summer heading into the 2019 election. Colleagues will notice that this member was not sent back here. I suspect that the people of Calgary Skyview will feel the same in this instance. In hindsight, I suspect this will not be worth it for the member for Calgary Skyview, but we all make choices and face the consequences.

I move:

That the motion be amended by:

(a) replacing paragraph (a) with the following:

“(a) during the consideration of the bill by the Standing Committee on Natural Resources;

(i) the Minister of Natural Resources and its officials be ordered to appear as witnesses for no less than two hours;

(ii) members of the committee submit their lists of suggested witnesses concerning the bill, to the clerk, and that the Chair and clerk create witness panels which reflect the representation of the parties on the committee, and, once complete, that the Chair begin scheduling those meetings;

(iii) a press release be issued for the study of the bill inviting written submissions from the public and establishing a deadline for those submissions,”; and

(b) deleting paragraphs (b) and (c).

Every member of the chamber has an ability to prove that they actually support democracy by supporting our amendment.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

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

Madam Speaker, as I was saying, as a former chair of the natural resources committee, I know we have seen three iterations of Conservatives cycle through the committee to make sure that no work gets done. That included when the committee had the hearings on the sustainable jobs work. The point is that, the previous Conservative member asked a question about disrespect. I would like the minister to flip that to demonstrate that this is a very respectful piece of legislation for labour. We know that the Conservatives stand up for big oil executives.

Could the minister explain to the House and the residents of Cloverdale—Langley City why Bill C-50 is so important and so needed?

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot of revisionist history in there. The committee has been blocked by the Conservative filibuster for six weeks, which is 11 meetings and about 25 hours. The committee has been stuck on the same meeting since October 30. The committee could have heard from witnesses on both bills, Bill C-49 and Bill C-50, which were in front of the committee, but the Conservatives blocked it.

In terms of the work that we are doing to ensure that there is a prosperous future for every province and territory in this country, I would point the hon. member to the announcement of the $11.5-billion plant with Dow Chemicals in Fort Saskatchewan, where we worked collaboratively with the Government of Alberta; the Air Products hydrogen facility near Edmonton, where we worked collaboratively with the Government of Alberta; and the CCUS tax credit, where we have worked collaboratively with the Government of Alberta, which will create thousands of jobs going forward in that member's riding.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will take this opportunity to ask the minister a question. I agree with him that what we have seen in recent weeks on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources is rather disgraceful.

However, one thing still has to be looked at. In Bill C‑50, the government unfortunately did not take into account the fact that there is a labour agreement between Quebec and Ottawa. I think that needs to be corrected.

I would like the minister to tell me whether he agrees with me that we must consider the workforce training agreements Quebec and Ottawa have previously signed.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that many Conservative colleagues who represent oil and gas workers and rural or remote northern Canadians and who will be hurt by the culmination of the anti-energy agenda, represented by Bill C-50 and the just transition's top-down, central-planning Soviet aim to restructure the Canadian economy and redistribute wealth, will have many questions today. However, I just wonder, off the top, how the minister can possibly justify such a significant, fundamental, never-seen-before piece of legislation and agenda for our country and for the fundamentals of our Canadian economy, and justify ramming it through with fewer than eight hours total of debate for all members of Parliament from every region of this country, who are just trying to do our jobs on behalf of the people who sent us here.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Usually how this goes is it takes another five minutes to go back and state the same types of things to prove the relevancy that was associated with it. If we don't deal with Bill C-69, if we can't therefore properly dispose of the discussions associated with Bill C-50, and if we then can't properly look at and be prepared to look at decisions with regard to Bill C-49, then anything we talk about within our own communities is held up by this blockage of legislation.

Of course, the things that happen in Timmins—James Bay are relevant to the discussion taking place here. You have people—the indigenous community—come, and you ask whether the government is overstepping its reach or whether they feel that they are back in a colonial era. That was the last topic we were talking about. Those are community people, specifically to Timmins—James Bay. We could go to that.

We look at the egregious parts of the Supreme Court ruling, which will affect Timmins—James Bay people. If we have something else that we put into legislation and then merrily go along our way, saying that the government said this is true.... Well, guess what? The Supreme Court doesn't like that one either. Why did the Government of Ontario, or why did this group, or why is it....?

I'm trying to remember. I think the first nations have taken the government to court too. I think this has happened on our carbon tax, but that's a different story. I would agree that that is perhaps outside this.

However, I really think it's relevant. How can you not say that the Supreme Court is making decisions, and they affect everybody's riding? They do. I believe that is certainly significant.

I fly over that part of our country twice a week. Unless it's at night, I take a look down there, and I see this amazing country we have. I know we have six time zones from one side to the other. I know there are only three provincial capitals that are north of the 49th parallel. I know that a massive amount of our population is within 50 miles, or 80 kilometres.... This is just to prove that I'm bilingual in math. That's where our population is; and those decisions, then, are made for the breadth of this nation and for communities, and they don't see what this country is like.

Yes, it concerns me, therefore, when someone says, “Yes, but Alberta, you want this,” or, “B.C., you want this,” or, “Saskatchewan is not being reasonable.” It's coming from a government that doesn't care, because its decisions are made for what it believes...for those who are hugging the U.S. border. Therefore, the Inflation Reduction Act and all of these kinds of things are significant, because where do you think all that action is going to come from? Where are all these billions of dollars going to be spent? They're going to be spent right next door. That's what we're going to see.

Quite frankly, no one has challenged them and asked if that's the right thing to be doing. When they say they're going to put billions of dollars into this project or that project, well, here's how they're doing it. They are basically saying to the States and the municipalities, “It's not going to cost you a dime. We're going to develop all of this, and we'll find out some way to get this back from the proponents later on. It's not going to cost you a dime.”

How sustainable is that, first of all? It's a lot more sustainable if you're the U.S. than it is here, because we look at the way our economy is tanking compared to the U.S., and so they have this flexibility. It's still wrong, but they do have this flexibility to continue in a wrong way for a lot longer than we do.

It's going to take a lot of nerve to say, “Here's where our strengths are.” We know that Canada can produce natural gas. We know that the world needs natural gas. We know that different parts of our nation have different strengths and different ways of creating energy. The worst part, though, is when one part of the country says, “We don't like yours, so shut it down and we'll do all we can. We will partner with like-minded individuals who really don't believe that your type of energy is the kind of energy that Canada should have.” Again, they don't make it too far off the 49th parallel when they come up with decisions like that, so I guess that's where we find this disconnect that we have as a nation.

Take a look at all of the potential natural gas we could have in Quebec. Go get it. We could use it, but that would take the narrative away from how we want to use all of our energy, we want to use.... We already have this area flooded, so now we have this green energy coming out of hydroelectric power. As long as nobody goes back and thinks about what it was like prior to that, and as long as we ignore the displacement of animals and humans, and so on, to get to that stage, then it's great. Everyone should be happy.

I remember as a kid—I guess I wasn't a kid at that time—when the Red Deer River was dammed. There are friends of mine who lost land. It had to be sold so that they could dam up the river. For years after, people loved it. It looked good, because you could put a sailboat on it and everything looked fantastic, and that must be environmental—until you saw these trees popping out. They pop up once the lake-bed has deteriorated. We know the methane that comes out of those. We know that any of the minerals and the toxic minerals that are associated with it will then get dissolved. We know all of those sorts of things, but it looks good. I congratulate the people in the community who take this facility and use it in a positive way. I don't go back and complain about it.

I'm not complaining about what the people in Quebec do. As a matter of fact, even if I were an eco-environmentalist, I wouldn't go to Quebec—if they were getting ready to go and flood the whole place to get their hydroelectric power—and tell them they couldn't. I'd say, “It's up to you. You make that decision,” but don't come back to me and say, “Hey, Alberta, we don't like your oil and gas, and we're going to stand up here and we're going to make sure you don't get to do that.” I see. Is that the duplicitous...? I'm not sure whether that's true—it may be two ways of looking at things, but—

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

I just want to again ask my colleague for relevance. We're not here debating Bill C-69. We're actually here debating a motion and a subamendment to a motion that deals with Bill C-49 and Bill C-50.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

I noticed that everybody wanted to get into the debate on eco-colonialism. First of all, it's a term that, when I was at environment committee, people from first nations used. Although people might believe that I'm attempting to claim it, it is not mine.

That is what has been said. I see this melding between my time in environment and my time here at natural resources. I tried to look at the mandate letters; I couldn't see any difference between the two.

We have a Minister of Natural Resources who still thinks he's the Minister of Environment, so I can't remember which one...whether it was discussions here or discussions there. I didn't coin it.

It's somewhat ironic that when Charlie is here and we talk about his community, I would think that is where you would find a lot of first nations people who want to be engaged in whatever type of development is going to take place, whether it's building a road to get there, getting the power coming from there. I've had lots of discussions with first nations leadership from Ontario, talking about this exact commentary. Yes, they know that if they have to follow the government's mantra there are certain boxes they have to check off, but they also know that in terms of those things that are important to their community, if you have a higher power that believes that it and it alone dictates how things are going to be done, that is exactly the colonialism that has been part of the discussion for over a hundred years.

I welcome the comment on it, but again, there are a lot of first nations people who believe that they should be the ones who have the right to make decisions in their lands. It's not me who presented that, even though I would be happy to take claim for it because, quite frankly, that is exactly what is happening when we talk about investments that people have.

Yes, it ties in to the fact that there are a lot more people being affected by that mindset than just native communities. Perhaps that's where the confusion is, but they believe that these things require us to work together.

You take Chief Helin—I'm grasping for his first name now—from British Columbia. One of the books he wrote was Dances with Dependency, which I would suggest people read, talking about what it's like being a leader in indigenous communities and the types of things that have prevented them from being able to do the things that are important for their community.

If we get to that stage, and their community has invested in oil and gas and mining and fishing and forestry, there are a lot of different things that communities in B.C. have been involved with, I think they would agree that there is a mindset here that says Ottawa knows best. As a matter of fact, Ottawa seemed to know best when they chose to take Bill C-50 out of our hands. The whole reason for that is the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that said parts of Bill C-69 were unconstitutional.

Therefore, the development of a bill that speaks to the workings in communities of a philosophy that says that we will do as much as we can to stop oil and gas development, or any type of development, and forget what the Supreme Court says.... When that affects that bill, it then takes us to the next part, which is to talk about Bill C-49. Whereas there are 33 references to the egregious parts of Bill C-69 within that bill, we get nothing from the government to say, “You know what? Maybe we should wait a bit. Maybe we should get some reference points.” All we get from the government and from the minister is, “Well, we don't believe that. That's just their opinion.”

Yes, it's their opinion; therefore, you should do something about it. Otherwise, you throw legislation to us, to each and every one of us sitting here, that says, “You have to rubber-stamp something that you know the Supreme Court has said is unconstitutional.” How then are we supposed to proceed?

We've waited for a discussion of Bill C-69 and these egregious points from the Supreme Court ruling. We've waited for some discussion on that. People talk about how long October was. Well, we're still waiting. We're waiting for the Supreme Court decision to be addressed by this government, rather than, “Oh, it doesn't matter.”

Those are the issues we have, which is why we come back to say that, well, if people don't agree with this—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

A few days ago, I had a chance to speak to both you and the clerk, questioning whether the following statement would be a point of order, and you suggested that no, it's best for me to bring it up when I have the floor, so I have patiently waited for that.

In my last intervention I misspoke. I indicated that it was a company by the name of Hoverlink that had been required to go and get funds from the U.S., actually through the Canada pension plan, in order to fund....

I made a mistake. It was actually in testimony from Mr. Zsombor Burany, who had said that he had needed to get a $250-million investment for his telecommunications company but that he was not able to get Canadian funds, so he had been required to go to the United States. It actually ended up being a U.S. company, but the irony, of course, was the fact that the funding for it came through the Canada pension plan.

I apologize for having made that mistake, but I did want to make sure that the record was corrected. That is the first thing I wanted to mention.

In my remarks, I went through a number of different issues. Again, one I had mentioned was the text of a book by the name of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. We, as politicians or business people, have certain ideas of what is happening in the world, based on our experiences and so on. It's not necessarily fact, and if you start to take a look at the way in which countries manage themselves, you'll see that things are a lot better off in the world than we perceive them to be.

One of the questions they posed—and this was posed to extremely intelligent people around the world— was about the average grade level of young men of 30 years old, who had 10 years of school. They then made the comparison and asked, “How many years of school do you think a young lady who is 30 years of age would have; nine years, six years or three years?” The vast majority of experts believed that it was three or six years. It's actually nine years, one year less than for a male equivalent, but that's not how we think. We have experts around the world saying that they are going to develop policies, make investments and so on, based on their perceived notion of how the world is.

When I read the book, I did the little quiz, and I realized that I am not much better at guessing than anybody else when it comes to that because that's my perceived notion. These are the things that I've heard since I was young. I also reflected on the point—and, of course, this got a little bit of excitement from the minister—about the sorts of things that I've been subjected to as someone who was born in the 1950s and grew up in the 1960s and so on.

I remember when I was a kid. It was only eight years after the Second World War, and the Cuban missile crisis was one of the key issues. My dad was part of a civil defence where basically he was the guy who had to have the Geiger counter out there in case we had an atomic war. That was the sort of thing I was subjected to when I was seven or eight years old—the idea that what is going to get us next could be an atomic war.

Then I started to hear things—this was in the 1960s—that oil was going to be gone in 10 years. In the 1970s, I heard that another ice age was going to take place in 10 years.

This is what got people excited. I mentioned that acid rain was going to destroy all of our crops in 10 years. People got excited about that.

Perhaps I should have explained the significance of the work that had been done in order to mitigate those and to look at that, but I didn't. That caused a little excitement for the minister.

There were similar types of things when we were discussing ozone layers. Again, there have been efforts associated with this. There's a lot to it, so I didn't give the two-hour dissertation about the relationship that exists about that. Nevertheless this is what was presented to people. That was the point I was trying to make—every once in a while or about every 10 years, we are given the next thing to worry about. In 1997-98, of course, it was Y2K—look how the world is going to fall apart, because our computers can't figure out what day it is. That was the next thing we looked at. Of course, in 2000 we talked about when the next ice caps were going to be gone.

Here are the issues. We are constantly given a barrage of information that says we are doomed. Every time we deal with that “we are doomed” scenario, somebody is out there making money. I think that's a critical point.

Again, being old enough, I remember Greenpeace. I remember their reason for being. I remember Patrick Moore and the efforts that he has made. Now he is some sort of a pariah in the environmental community, because he says that the people who have taken over these ecology-focused groups are not there for the environment; they are there to make sure they can get money. He said, “I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change [is] a complete fabrication.”

That all depends on where your definition is. I'm sure—as the last time the Minister of Environment took a run at me for stating some obvious facts, and the Minister of Natural Resources took a run at me for stating some obvious facts—that the climate does change. However, what we also have to recognize is that we need to use our strengths in order to make sure that we are helping humanity. Right now we have this thought, and we hear it constantly, that the earth is boiling, and all of these other kinds of things that are only meant to invoke fear in the populace.

You have others who sit back and say that it's not quite that bad, and maybe what we should be doing is using our wealth to come back to a spot where people are being looked after. That's not a bad idea. We have Dubai, where COP28 is taking place right now. The chair, basically, says that things aren't quite as bad as people think. Of course now you have the groups that ask why we decided to have a climate change meeting in some place where they actually produce oil, That's a dumb thing to have done. Well, no, maybe it's simply that they understand the realities of the world, and I think that's really a critical point.

Then we get back to Timmins—James Bay, and every other riding that we have. This is what I had mentioned last day, and I think it's critical. We have made decisions that say Canada, somehow, is going to be the leader in battery production, electric-vehicle production and mining. Sadly, we say that we will do that at the same time as we are going to minimize the oil and gas industry here in North America—so, our part of it. There are lots of contrary aspects and different things associated with it, but quite frankly, we know what is taking place in the rest of the world.

We know that China has a grasp on all of the supply chain as far as electric motors and battery parts are concerned.

These are the reasons we see companies backing off from their pledges of having this many electric vehicles by 2030.

We see that happening constantly, but here we sit down and say, “Not here in Canada”. We will keep going like a moose on a trail. Nothing that matters is going to change. We're going to stay on that trail.

That's where we have to be thinking. That's where when I go back to this Hans Rosling book. We have this concept that if this is what we have started on, nobody can tell us that anything else is relevant and, therefore, we are going to continue to push this.

We talk about Bill C-50, the just transition and so on. If you do a little bit of research on where that came from, it is a UN discussion. That UN discussion basically started off with a lady named Sharan Burrow who had written a commentary about how shared prosperity provides hope and security. It's basically giving everybody the thought that things are just going to be great.

Who is she? She heads the International Trade Union Confederation.

Basically she is saying that if we can convince everybody that they could change their job, but the only way that they're being saved is because we have trade unions that are going to be part of it and they will stand up for people.... That's not exactly how the world works, especially if you're looking at small business. The fact is that the majority of anything happening in this country right now is small and medium-sized businesses. They're not associated with trade unions. There are parts...but that isn't the reality, yet here is this UN Declaration that indicates that the world should be going through this just transition. That's the sort of thing we're dealing with.

When the UN presents this as one of their goals, they say all the right things. They say all the things that I hear our government talking about when it goes to international fora, about how this just transition is going to work out so well for us.

The reality is that's not the way the rest of the world is. Sadly, right now when we talk about what is happening in Europe.... As I mentioned, I've been part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We talk about food security, we talk about energy security, and of course we talk about what is happening in Ukraine. Those are the three main issues we have. A year ago, I was talking to these people and people from Ukraine, asking how we can help. How can we be part of this? Things have kind of fallen apart even worse now than they were a year ago.

I've been on the environment committee and the natural resources committee. I listened to my friends from the NDP and from the Bloc.They are adamant that there should be no nuclear energy development because of their concerns about something that I was concerned about back in the sixties because of nuclear war. We kind of realized that wasn't the reality of it, but they can still go back to that rhetoric that says that something terrible is going to happen.

They have no idea what it's like. They have no idea about the safety associated with it. They have no idea that the reason it is so expensive to produce is because we have all of these naysayers sitting on the sidelines saying that we have to make sure we do this. They say, “Fine, we will do it; we will prove it”. Once it's proven the first time though, you'd think maybe we could get to the stage where things could proceed a little faster.

Actually, they are proceeding faster now. If you look at what is happening in Europe, you see them expanding the number of nuclear projects they have to generate electricity, so much so that the next issue is how they transmit that. How do they get that energy to where they need to have it if they're going to concentrate on heat pumps, EVs and that sort of thing? They don't have a grid that can deal with that.

There are billions and billions of dollars that are associated with that part.

That's the reality we have, so those of us in our 338 communities start to look at the opportunities for us to be part of this new transition into electric vehicles. We have to be smart about it, and sadly, I don't believe that is the case.

As I've said on so many occasions, if you're not going to measure the environmental impact from the first shovel you use to dig something up until you're finished with it and have to shove it back in again and throw dirt on it, at the end—whether that be nuclear, hydroelectric, oil and gas, windmills or solar—if you're not going to measure it, then how can you say that you are actually doing anything for the environment?

However, we still do. We say, yes, but somebody told us this, or, we believe this is the case. Even though we might be completely wrong we believe it and therefore that is the path we are going to follow.

If we follow things that are wrong and we spend billions or trillions of dollars globally on these issues, what other things could we have solved in the meantime? I was on the health committee for quite some time. If we could spend our money looking at ways of helping with those things, whether it be cancer or other types of things that affect each and every one of us, if we were able to take the wealth we have and say, let's concentrate on that, instead of saying, the U.S. has the Inflation Reduction Act, so we've got to spend money or else we're going to be left on the wayside here....

It's not going to work for them either in the situations where they're doing it. It's not working from the perspective that they still have electric vehicle plants. They have all of these types of things. They have their own companies that are saying they can't keep up. This 2030 thing or 2035, there is no way that is possible. We are backing away from it.

They might have great ideas, but think, what was the last great idea that happened when this government was elected? The first thing that happened was that the president decided to shut down Keystone XL, and the little bit of push-back that the Canadian government gave, based on that, was very minimal. All that did was prevent our being able to take our rich natural resources that are produced in the most environmentally friendly way in the world from heading into the U.S. market because they didn't want it to move into the world market.

People have to understand the science associated with hydrocarbons. When you bring them in, depending upon how they come in, that's where you get the different types of products that can be used. They need them, so now let's start talking about Venezuela. How can we bring Venezuelan heavy oil in here so that the refineries we have on the gulf coast can actually do the things they need so that these products can be presented around the world?

When you have a neighbour who thinks that way about your energy resources, when you have a neighbour who says, you know what, now we are actually producing more oil and gas to send around the world than anybody else, how much do you really think they are going to be working with us as far as partners are concerned?

The president can simply say, we sure want to be engaged with some of your mining projects so that we can have the rare earth minerals that are required, whether it be for batteries or whether it be for engines and all those sorts of things, and we can look at that and we'd be happy to make you our partners. We have been partners before where we take what we have, dig it up and send it someplace else. Yes, there are lots of people who make money and we chip away at our wealth, give it to somebody else and we go from there.

That's not what the government is saying. The government is saying, “Yes, but we're not going to allow that. We are going to be the ones going in. We will make sure that, whether it's in Timmins—James Bay or Red Deer—Mountain View, we're going to get to these products that we have. We will try to find the supply chain to get them to markets, and everything's going to be great.” That's until, of course, you talk to the community and ask them what their thoughts are about different types of production in their communities.

I remember people being so upset that there were simply going to be transmission powerlines going through their part of the community. These weren't because of some windmills or anything else. It was just that somebody decided they wanted to change the line and then there was a lot of discussion based on that. That's the reality that each and every one of us is going to have to deal with when it comes to looking at what the future is going to be.

Now I know we have amazing wealth and amazing intellect as a country. We should not be stopping any options, but it does not mean we should be shutting down one part of our economy because of an ideological bent, which not just this government but other governments around the world believe is significant. I worry about that. The other governments still have their signatures on the bottom of these agreements, so they're not jumping up and down and saying what they're doing, but the reality is that within their borders they are changing things. I think that becomes a critical aspect of it.

We have had people here slamming the Alberta government because they chose.... As a matter of fact, I can't remember which minister it was as there's a sort of tag team on this. They slammed Alberta because of the moratorium on renewables, whoever it was—I think it was a minister. Nevertheless, what people don't recognize is that Alberta has a massive number of renewables, many more than other places, when you talk about what has been developed over the last number of years—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I wasn't sure how long that would go on for.

I will resume the points I was making previously with respect to the substance of this issue. I will say in passing that Mr. Sorbara raised three points of order in quick succession, first interrupting the points I was making about workers and then saying on the third point that we should get back to talking about workers.

I hope I don't cause a flurry of disorder by saying that this is the kind of duplicitousness we have come to expect from my colleagues opposite, who, in one instance in this committee, claimed that they want to hear from witnesses, but I expect that they are planning on supporting a motion in the House that would make it impossible for this committee to hear from witnesses.

This is what is happening. This is what people need to know. This is what is really an unprecedented attack on the ability of our democratic institutions to do their jobs.

The way the legislative process is supposed to work is that bills, when adopted at second reading, come to committee. They are considered in committee. In the process of consideration, there is a consensual process around hearing from a certain number of witnesses, and then ultimately the individual clauses and related amendments are put to a vote, and the committee is able to use its expertise on the issues at hand to study the bills and their effects.

Parliamentary committees are not supposed to be simply a rubber-stamp process. They are supposed to be a substantive investigation of critical issues by the members who are tasked with being on this committee and, therefore, becoming expert in the particular issues associated with it. That's why we have parliamentary committees. That's a critical reason that we have a legislative process in general.

Too often this government has treated Parliament as if it's some kind of a rubber-stamping sideshow. In particular, parliamentary committees are essential to the process of crafting good legislation.

We have been trying to establish a good process for working through this legislation. I think, if you look at the extended committee meeting that has been ongoing for the last month, you will see that the majority, if not the vast majority, of the talking has been done by members of the NDP and the Liberals. There have been constant interruptions and almost no opportunity for members of this committee to put thoughts on the record.

I had an experience early on when I was planning to speak to this issue, and I had the floor arbitrarily taken away from me by the chair, but we have had many instances throughout, as we have just seen across the way, when reasoned attempts to make arguments about the substantive issues associated with this legislation are being put forward, there are constant interruptions.

I think the claim by the government that this is some kind of sustained filling of the time by opposition members is just not consistent with the record. The record is very clear here in terms of what has been going on.

Nonetheless, we have, as I have been trying to identify for the last half hour in the midst of interruptions, motion number 31, which the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has put forward that radically abridges the committee study process and effectively eliminates the committee study process on Bill C-50.

Once adopted, it would give members less than 24 hours to submit their amendments, which is extremely limiting, especially given the constraints around the legislative drafting team to do great work. Demanding a turnaround of a couple of hours if there are multiple complex amendments is obviously quite unreasonable. Even the ideas that we would want to hear, about what type of amendments would happen and the possible refinements of those amendments that should be coming, we will not be hearing from the witnesses, because witnesses will not be able to appear.

The motion created by the government involves no witnesses and no ministers even coming before committee to explain their position around the bill. It envisions a process where, after a mere two hours of clause-by-clause consideration, the committee would be subject to a procedure whereby there would be no debate whatsoever on the clauses. This is in part 4 of the government motion that, after 8:30, all remaining—

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

—from Bill C-50, get to voting on amendments or subamendments and so forth, and get the conversation on relevance.

This is not about me, Garnett. This is about Canadians, about labour and about working together with industry, and that is what Bill C-50 is.

It's not about Francesco, or about anybody in this room. It should be about them, so let's get back to relevance.

Thank you, sir.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I would like to make it very clear that on Friday Ms. Dabrusin spoke in the House very passionately about Bill C-50 and about the work of this committee. She made a declaration in the House that day saying that she's looking forward to hearing witnesses here at committee. She knows full well that the motion that's presented by her party would prevent any witnesses from attending committee, so she's being very duplicitous in her comments between the House and our committee. I think she should maybe take an opportunity to clarify what she meant on Friday in the House by saying she was looking forward to hearing from witnesses she knew would never appear.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will remain relevant, as I always have.

Maybe to make it explicit for Ms. Dabrusin, who I'm sure is following intently every word that I am saying, the motion before this committee relates to the business of the committee, the study of bills, in particular, including Bill C-50. The amendment and the subamendment deal with which witnesses would be called during consideration of that bill.

Meanwhile, we have a motion before the House that, if passed, would make it impossible for this committee to hear from any witnesses. The government, with their coalition partners in the NDP, are moving in the House to impose a shutdown of debate here at the natural resources committee. Committees are supposed to be masters of their own domain, and we could be debating this subamendment based on the idea that we actually get to decide. It is the intention of the government to rob us of our historic and ancient rights and privileges as a committee, by imposing upon us this draconian situation where we would not be able to hear from any witnesses.

That is not merely tangentially relevant to the point; that is the point, because the subamendment is about which witnesses we would call.

This motion from the House, which I was discussing before being interrupted by Ms. Dabrusin's point of order, would make it impossible for the committee to hear from those witnesses.

Again, based on the government's scheduling and intentions, it appears to be their intention to impose the passage of this motion by the end of day today, December 4. This means that tomorrow would be the deadline for submitting amendments, and that the committee would meet “the second sitting day following” at 6:30 to begin clause-by-clause. I believe that means two days after, so that would be Wednesday. It would have two hours to do clause-by-clause; and if, by 8:30—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to respond to my colleague.

I have a great deal of respect for bilingualism and the French language. Your intervention clearly had nothing to do with the Standing Orders.

In fact, the chair lied to the committee. He said that when lots of people speak at the same time, it's a health issue. I would say that while it might make it difficult for the interpreters to do their work, it's not a health issue. We've already discussed this, but I'll take the opportunity to reiterate my position on this issue.

It's obviously not ideal when many people speak at the same time, but it doesn't have anything to do with the interpreters' health. That's obvious. We were therefore given inaccurate information.

Mr. Chair, we are now discussing committee business, but it is important to say in the context of that discussion of committee business that we now have a motion that was initially debated. It's begun debate in the House.

It would seek to impose an approach on the committee of considering this bill. This is motion number 31. It is an unprecedented, egregious and very draconian approach that the NDP-Liberal government is taking to impose a very specific timeline on this committee for Bill C-50. It's a timeline that is completely different from the approach that committees would normally take. This limits our ability to hear from any of the witnesses the motion we're currently debating would propose to enable us to hear.

The motion that is being debated before the House, which was put forward by the government—by all indications, with the support of its coalition partners in the NDP—says that in consideration of this bill, there will be, in effect, no witness testimony. Amendments would have to be submitted by four o'clock the day after the motion was adopted. It seems the government's intention is that the motion be voted on today, so amendments would have to be submitted by four o'clock tomorrow. The committee should meet “at 6:30 p.m. on the second sitting day following the adoption of the motion”—

Government Business No. 31—Proceedings on Bill C-50

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, that was a spectacle. I would suggest that, if the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources cannot understand the connection between plastic straws and fuels for vehicles that Canadians like and want to drive, then that says all we need to know about the Liberals' understanding of oil and gas development and how this all works in Canada and the world. Does it not?

Make no mistake, today is a dark day for Canada's democracy. Unfortunately, these darks days are increasingly frequent under the NDP-Liberal coalition government. After eight years, I, like a growing number of Canadians, cannot help but reflect on how far away, quiet, dim and so obviously empty the promises of sunny days were. There were promises of sunlight being the best disinfectant, of being open by default, and of collaboration with other parties, provinces and all Canadians, no matter where they live or who they are.

The truth is that, after eight years, the Information Commissioner says transparency is not a top priority for the NDP-Liberal government. She says that systems for transparency have declined steadily since the Prime Minister took office in 2015 and that the government is the most opaque government ever. She sounded ever-increasing alarms about the closed-by-default reality of the NDP-Liberal government over the last couple of years.

Back in 2017, an audit done independently by a Halifax journalist and his team for News Media Canada, which represents more than 800 print and digital titles, pointed out that the Liberals were failing in breaking their promises and that the previous Conservative government had been more responsive, open and transparent, including during the latter majority years. Everyone can remember when the now Prime Minister made a lot of verifiably baseless claims. Today, the NDP-Liberals want to ram through a bill that their own internal briefings warn would kill 170,000 Canadian oil and gas jobs and hurt the jobs of 2.7 million other Canadians employed in other sectors in every corner of this country. I will say more on that later.

Canadians deserve to know what transparency has to do with this. I will explain, but first, members must also know this: The motion the NDP-Liberals have forced us all to debate today, with as little time as possible, is extraordinary. It is a measure usually invoked only for emergencies, and to be clear, it was used twice in nine years of the former Conservative government, but it is happening almost every other day with the NDP-Liberals.

Now, I will give the background. Last week, Conservatives and so many horrified Canadians challenged the Liberals on their approach to crime,being hard on victims and soft on criminals, which, at the time, was made obvious by the decision to send Paul Bernardo to a medium-security prison. As usual, the Liberals claimed to be bystanders that day, as they do with almost all things happening in the Government of Canada, which they have been ruling over eight long years. The minister responsible really had nothing to do with it. He was removed from that position in late July, so evidently, someone over there thought he was. However, I digress.

To change the channel during the last weeks of that session, the Liberals dumped a number of bills in the House of Commons with promises to those they impacted, which they must have never intended to keep, including Bill C-53 about recognizing Métis people, which they put forward on the last sitting day of the session. They told people it would be all done at once, a claim they had no business to make, and they knew it.

Before that, on May 30, the Liberals introduced Bill C-49, a bill to functionally end Atlantic offshore oil and to establish a framework for offshore renewable development that, get this, would triple the already endless NDP-Liberal timelines. There would also be uncertainty around offshore renewable project assessments and approvals. The bill would invite court challenges on the allowable anti-development zones and the potential delegation of indigenous consultation to the regulators, which has been drafted, never mind the 33 references to Bill C-69, which the Supreme Court said nearly two months ago was largely unconstitutional over the last half decade.

That claim may end up to be okay in the context of offshore development, but surely we can be forgiven for refusing to just trust them this time, since both the Supreme Court and the Federal Court have recently ruled against the NDP-Liberal government and affirmed every single jurisdictional point that Conservatives and I made about both Bill C-69 and their ridiculous top-down, plastics-as-toxins decree.

On May 30, there was no debate on Bill C-49. The NDP-Liberals brought it back to the House of Commons on September 19. They permitted a total of 8.5 hours of debate over two partial days. It is important for Canadians to know that the government, not the official opposition, controls every aspect of the scheduling of all bills and motions in the House of Commons. The government did not put Bill C-49 back on the agenda to allow MPs to speak to it on behalf of the constituents the bill would impact exclusively, such as, for example, every single MP from every party represented in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. Instead, a month later, within two days, the NDP-Liberals brought forward a motion to shut down debate and send the bill to committee.

No fewer than seven Liberals and two NDP MPs argued to fast-track Bill C-49 to justify their shutdown of the debate, and they accused Conservatives of holding it up. This is about all the groups and people who must be heard. This is important because of what they then proposed at committee, which was not a concurrence study, as the parliamentary secretary claimed today.

When it comes to the last-minute name change to Bill C-50, which is still the globally planned just transition no matter what the NDP-Liberals spin to Canadians now. The Liberals first announced plans to legislate this in July 2021.

They introduced Bill C-50 with no debate on June 15, just a week before MPs headed to work in our ridings until September. They brought in Bill C-50 on September 29. They permitted only 7.5 hours of total debate over two months, and about a month later, over two days, shut it down and sent it to committee.

Bill C-50, which represents the last step and the final solution in the anti-energy, anti-development agenda that has been promoted internationally and incrementally imposed by the NDP-Liberals in Canada, and which they know would damage millions of Canadian workers in energy, agriculture, construction, transportation and manufacturing, just as their internal memos show it, was rammed through the first stages in a total of three business days.

Government bills go to committee and are prioritized over everything else. At committee, MPs analyze the details of the bills, line by line, and also, most importantly, hear from Canadians about the intended, and sometimes even more imperative unintended, consequences. They then propose and debate changes to improve it before it goes back to the House of Commons for more debate and comments from MPs on behalf of the diverse people in the communities we represent across this big country. That is literally Canadian democracy.

However, on October 30, the Liberals brought in a detailed top-down scheduling motion for the natural resources committee and changed the order of the bills to be considered, which was not concurrent. Their motion was to deal with Bill C-50, the just transition, first. This was a reversal of the way they brought them in. They also shut down debate on each, delaying Bill C-49, the Atlantic offshore bill they said they wanted to fast-track, even though they actually control every part of the agenda themselves.

Their motion limited the time to hear from witnesses to only four meetings, and there were four meetings to go through each line and propose changes, but they limited each of those meetings to three hours each for both bills.

On behalf of Conservatives, I proposed an amendment that would help MPs on the natural resources committee do our due diligence on Bill C-49 to send it to the next stages first, exactly as the NDP-Liberals said they wanted to do. I proposed that the committee would have to deal with the problem of the half decade old law Bill C-69, which was found to be unconstitutional two weeks earlier, because so many of its sections are in Bill C-49, and then move to Bill C-50, the just transition.

Conservatives have always said that both of these bills are important with disproportionate impacts in certain communities and regions, but ultimately very consequential for all Canadians. The NDP-Liberals had the temerity to say, that day and since, that they wanted to collaborate on the schedule, as we heard here today, and work together to pass these bills.

Let us talk about what that actually looked like. It looked like a dictatorial scheduling motion to the committee with no real consideration of the proposed schedule by Conservatives, and then there was a preoccupation to silence Conservative MPs' participation. They even suggested kicking a couple of them out, such as the MP for Peace River—Westlock and the MP for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who, like me and every Conservative Alberta MP, represent the hundreds of thousands of constituents that Bill C-50 would harm directly. They do have a right to speak and participate at any committee, like it is in all committees for all MPs and all parties here. Believe me, we have spent every single day fighting for workers, and we will not stop.

For an entire month, as of yesterday, the NDP-Liberals have claimed that they want to collaborate on the schedule for this important work, but other than a text message from the natural resources parliamentary secretary, which received no response when I replied with the very same suggestions Conservatives proposed in public and otherwise, and ironically, in the very order that they rammed it all through, they really have not dealt with us in any measure of collaboration or good faith at all.

I guess now would be an awkward time to put a fine point on it to remind the ever-increasing top-down NDP-Liberal government that Canadians actually gave Conservatives more votes individually in both of the last two elections, and they are a minority government, which most people hope or claim means more compromises and more collaboration. However, these NDP-Liberals do the exact opposite. Whatever happened to all those words long ago about respecting everyone, inclusion and working together? I guess we can never mind that.

That brings us to today, Friday, December 1. Close to midnight on Wednesday, Conservatives received notice of this motion. As usual, there is a lot of parliamentary procedure and legalese here, but I will explain exactly what it proposes to do about Bill C-50.

The motion would limit Bill C-50 to less than two hours of debate. The committee would hear no witnesses, so none of the affected workers, experts or economists would be heard. The committee would not hear from anybody. MPs would only have one day to review the bill at report stage and one day of debate at third reading. Given that debate at second reading was limited to less than eight hours, this is absolutely unacceptable for the hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose livelihoods this bill would destroy.

I want to make the following point clearly. Because of the NDP-Liberals' actions to date, no Canadian would be able to speak about the actual bill, Bill C-50. No MP would be able to hear from any Canadian in any part of the country about it. Of course, this is just like the Liberals' censorship of Canadian media, and now they are all howling that we have to communicate directly on the only option they have left us.

This bill would impact Canada and the livelihoods of millions of Canadians. As if the NDP-Liberals have not done enough damage already by driving hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs out of this country. They definitely do not want to hear from anyone about it. It is bad enough that they did a last-minute copy-and-paste job to switch all the references from “just transition” to “sustainable jobs”, even though no one had actually ever called it that before.

There was a National Post column in February entitled, “Most Canadians don't trust Liberals' plan for 'just transition' away from oil: poll”. The column says, “84 per cent of Canadians do not know what the 'just transition' plan actually is.” It also states, “40 per cent believe it will hurt the oil and gas sector; 36 per cent believe it will lead to lost jobs,” and, “Fifty-six per cent of Canadians are 'not confident' the government will be able to deliver, and 26 per cent of those people are 'not at all confident'.”

The article says, “About one quarter...of Canadians think the government is moving too fast to transition Canada’s economy,” which is what this is really all about. About 60 per cent of Canadians “don’t want to pay any additional taxes to support the transition and just 14 per cent were willing to pay one or two per cent more.” That is bad news for those who are pro quadrupling the carbon tax in the NDP-Liberal-Bloc coalition.

The article continues, “57 per cent of Canadians worry about the impact of lost tax revenue to governments should the economy transition away from natural resources. And 40 per cent believe that the plan to transition away from fossil fuels will make Canada less competitive in the global economy.” A whopping “60 per cent of all Canadians think we shouldn’t make major changes before larger global polluters make serious efforts to reduce carbon emissions”. Of course, and luckily, common-sense Conservatives agree with all of those Canadians.

For the record, I believe all of those Canadians will be proven to be correct if Canadians let the NDP-Liberals advance the rest of this destructive agenda, but I am hopeful more Canadians than ever will see right through the Liberals now and will have a chance to stop it. It does look like it will come down to that since, despite all the NDP-Liberals' big talk, they really are not interested in adjusting their anti-energy agenda at all. They are only interested in escalating it to what would be more major costs and more brutal losses for the vast majority of everyday Canadians, whom they prove everyday they do not really care about.

Canadians can stop this attack on our country from our own government, this attack on our standard of living, our quality of life and our ability to buy and thrive here in our Canadian home. However, because of the NDP propping up the Liberals, Canadians have no choice, but they will have to deal with it in the next election. Luckily, they have a common-sense Conservative Party that is ready and able to bring our great home, our country of Canada, back up and away from this cliff.

The NDP has abandoned its traditional, and often admirable, position of being a principled and plucky opposition party because it cries outrage everyday while it props up the Liberals, apparently with the co-operation of the Bloc now too, to keep them in power and to prevent Canadians from having a say in an election sooner than later. The NDP-Liberals are clearly parties of power at any price now, so it is logical to conclude that the truth-telling Canadians featured the February column about the polls on the just transition are exactly what caused the crass and obviously last-minute name change to cover up the facts and try to fool Canadians that Bill C-50 is not exactly what they fear and exactly what they do not trust the government to do. That is with good cause, after eight years, but it is the just transition.

I would also mention here that Alberta NDP leader, Rachel Notley, has also called on the NDP-Liberals to scrap this just transition plan, but they are not listening to her either, even though the NDP's federal and provincial parties are formally related, unlike, for example, the federal common-sense Conservatives, which is a federal party in its own right with no official ties with any similar free enterprise Conservative provincial parties.

The NDP-Liberals will say that this is all much ado about nothing. They will say, as the member did, that it went through committee last year. Of course, the bill itself absolutely did not. It was a study on the general concept.

I must note that, between April and September, we had 64 witnesses and 23 written submissions, and not a single witness, except for one lonely government witness at the very end, ever called them “sustainable jobs”. They all said “just transition”. However, the NDP-Liberals announced the Bill C-50 just transition before the committee even issued its report and recommendations, so that was all a bad charade too.

It is ridiculous that they are claiming this is not about what it plainly is, because of course, if there was no plan to kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and disrupt millions more, there would be no need for anything called a “transition” at all.