Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House this evening, as well as the various people who are watching at home. I know my kids are watching. They wanted to watch the hockey game, but I told them no, as it was important for them to be watching their dad on CPAC instead. Given the score, though, they will be glad of the choice that has been made for them.
I want to assure members I will not be splitting my time, by the way.
The bill we are debating tonight is Bill S-6. This is a bill dealing with the issue of regulatory modernization. I have to say we have heard some complaints from the member for Kingston and the Islands, who does a lot of speaking and does a lot of complaining about other people speaking in this place. He has been asking why people are interested in speaking to this bill. Why are people interested in speaking on behalf of their constituents about the important policy issues that are raised by this bill?
It is clear in the substantive, important speeches that have been given by various members that there is a lot to say. To distill the essence of why this debate is important is that, on so many fronts, there is the government's failure to take seriously the need to modernize regulations; consider the competitiveness of our economy; and consider, broadly speaking, the environment in which businesses operate. The failure of the government to understand what is important for our businesses to succeed is at the heart of so many challenges facing this country.
It is important to remind people of something that I think Conservatives understand. That is that we want to have strong social programs and those strong social programs must be built on a foundation of economic prosperity. If we ignore the economic prosperity side of the equation and then talk about how we want to be giving more money to people, that is not going to add up at a certain point. That is why we need to have a strong economy driven by a strong private sector that is able to create jobs and deliver opportunity.
A strong economy provides the platform on which we can then do more for each other and more for the most vulnerable. It has to be on that foundation of prosperity. It is something that the government and the parties of the left in general, I think, very much fail to understand. We need to have a strong economy built on a strong private sector, and that requires the kind of regulatory modernization we are talking about.
We have had various bills over the last number of weeks that have dealt, broadly speaking, with questions of the economy. We have had regulatory modernization proposals, and we have this bill, Bill S-6. We also had the budget implementation act. I have to say that, in the midst of all of it, and I would never refer to the presence or absence of members in this place, but let us just say that, in terms of the statements that are on the record, the questions that are answered, we have heard very little from the finance minister.
We now have a discussion going on at the finance committee about the budget implementation act and there is a simple ask from Conservative. On issues around the state of our regulations, the state of our economy and what is in the budget, it is a reasonable ask to say that Canada's finance minister should come to speak to the budget for, let us say, at least two hours. Not only has the finance minister not answered questions in the House very frequently for quite some time, but also the government is not willing to agree to a simple amendment to the programming motion from Conservatives saying that the finance minister should come for two hours to answer questions on the budget implementation act because the finance minister is the person setting the economic agenda in this country. I know that Bill Morneau, the previous finance minister, has said since leaving office that most of the decisions about the economic direction of the country are made in the Prime Minister's office, but if we believe that it is the finance minister who is setting the tone, surely we should expect that the finance minister would be available to answer questions on these important topics.
As it relates to the strength of our economy, and as it relates to regulatory modernization, I think there are many questions to be answered. Here is what I see in the approach of the government. The approach of the government is kind of a retread of this old left-wing, government-knows-best idea of the economy, but it expresses itself now in a very different way.
At one time, parties of the left were more explicit in calling for draconian state regulations, state control, picking winners and losers, interfering in the economy, and controlling the means of production, as at least perhaps one member is still willing to say. That is the kind of explicit interventionist language we used to hear from parties of the left in this place and elsewhere.
Now the government is taking a new approach to the justification of its agenda, but it is still a retread of the same basic philosophical idea, which is that, fundamentally, the government knows best which sectors are going to succeed in the future, where new technologies are going to come from and which sectors are no longer required. Therefore, its budget has this policy of significant subsidies toward certain sectors, piling regulatory burdens on other sectors and saying which kinds of things are going to be the sectors, the companies and the investments of the future, while these other things are just not.
The government is still trying to make these decisions, but it is trying to implement these decisions with a greater level of subtlety. It is the long arm of the state trying to mask itself in velvet gloves, but the interventionism inherent in the government's industrial policy is still very evident.
The government's efforts to undertake regulatory reform are actually very selective. It would like to talk about regulatory reform but be selective in its implementation of it for selective subsidies and tax advantages to certain kinds of companies, certain companies in certain regions, and leave in place a significant regulatory burden in other areas.
Conservatives will support Bill S-6 because it is better than nothing, but we also see it as lacking in ambition. It is lacking in ambition for truly making this the kind of country where, as I think we used to be, we are a great magnet for investment, not just in particular sectors where the government is trying to subsidize what it thinks the winners of the future will be, but to be the kind of country where anybody with a good and profitable idea can come here to invest, and those regulatory burdens would be removed.
By the way, one area where we really need regulatory reform is in the area of getting critical natural resource projects, especially in the oil and gas sector, approved. The need for this was put in sharp focus by the horrific genocidal Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In the context of this invasion, it became clear what a mistake it had been for various European countries to become so dependent on gas imports from Russia. The need for a rapid transition away from that dependency became very clear. There was an opportunity for Canada to say we have a unique vocation in the democratic world and that is to supply the world with secure and stable access to energy.
At the time, Conservatives were saying that. If we look at the democratic world, most of the world's democracies are geographically small, densely populated nations. In Europe, but also in east Asia, there are many democracies that look like that, geographically small and densely populated.
Canada is relatively unique in the democratic world as being a geographically vast, sparsely populated nation that is very rich in natural resources. We could be that critical source of energy security for our friends, allies and partners throughout the democratic world so they do not need to be reliant on hostile powers that do not share our values and do not have the same security interests.
I would like to see Canada step up to fill that vital need. To do that, we will need to modernize, update and improve our regulations when it comes to getting projects approved. It is clear Liberals do not want us to fulfill that role. They talk a good talk sometimes about supporting Ukraine, but they do not see this vital strategic opportunity for Canada stepping up to fill this gap and be a supplier of the energy security our allies need.
The gas association was saying, right away, that we need to improve the regulatory environment to make it easier for projects to move forward. I think there were mixed messages sent on that, from various members of the Liberal cabinet, but no action on it. The Prime Minister said that there was no business case for these projects. Then European countries have gone and signed deals, and found sources of energy elsewhere.
Canada still has such immense potential. Why would we not seize that opportunity to now expand the development of oil and gas, creating wealth here in Canada, and supplying our allies and partners with energy security?
I know some members would say that the regulatory burdens that are imposed on energy companies are in service of the environment. However, if we look globally, if we look at the alternatives, we could see that that is not at all the case. In fact, in so many cases, in particular, gas exports from Canada, it could displace not only the conflict energy sources and save lives by reducing European dependence on Russia, but also the less environmentally friendly sources of energy. Some countries in Europe made the mistake of being reliant on Russian gas. Other countries in Europe are still using coal, because their response to the threat posed by the Putin regime has been to say that they do not want to be reliant on Russian gas so they will take whatever alternatives they have available to them, which may mean coal.
Canadian energy exports, the fact that we are a free democracy exporting energy and that we could displace coal with Canadian gas, could be good for global security and good for the environment. However, that requires regulatory modernization. That requires a willingness to go much further than Bill S-6 has done, to have a greater level of ambition, in terms of what we could be as a country and what we could accomplish. That would require us to broaden the range of the kind of regulatory changes that we are prepared to make. I think this would be the right approach, and it is the one that Conservatives have been championing.
In general, I will say, in terms of the gaps and the need for regulatory modernization, we have bureaucracy out of control in this country. We have a government that has massively expanded the public service, but at the same time has dramatically increased its spending on outside consultants. Go figure that one out. The government is spending more on the public service and substantially more on contracting out. One would expect that if it is spending more on the public service, it would contract out less, or if there was a smaller public service then it would contract out more. Aside from the sort of underlying arguments about contracting out or not, one would expect those things to be somewhat inversely proportional.
However, the Liberal government is spending more on bureaucracy, is spending more on contracting out and, in the midst of all this, is not actually able to achieve any kind of labour peace. We have this strike, right in the midst of the time when Canadians are filing their taxes, so they cannot get answers. Talking about the regulatory burden, the red tape people face, it is hard enough trying to figure out how to file taxes, and then when we do not have the people there who are supposed to be available to answer questions, it underlines the impression that so many Canadians have, that everything is broken, that the government just is not working.
Again, Bill S-6 does a little but it does not solve the fundamental problem. What is the alternative? What could we propose as an alternative in terms of regulatory modernization?
We have seen that the previous Conservative government, and other Conservative parties around the world, have taken the one-for-one approach, that if a new regulation is brought in, an old regulation has to be repealed. That recognizes the fact that there are likely plenty of regulations out there that are outdated, that no longer apply. It creates an impetus for government to always be looking to repeal old regulations that are no longer necessary, if a particular minister or department wants to bring in a new regulation.
This approach has been used successfully in the past and has created an impetus for government to go further when it comes to removing gatekeepers, streamlining processes and making this the kind of country where it is easy to invest and create jobs and opportunity.
