Bill C-5

One Canadian Economy Act

An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act

Part 1 enacts the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act , which establishes a statutory framework to remove federal barriers to the interprovincial trade of goods and services and to improve labour mobility within Canada. In the case of goods and services, that Act provides that a good or service that meets provincial or territorial requirements is considered to meet comparable federal requirements that pertain to the interprovincial movement of the good or provision of the service. In the case of workers, it provides for the recognition of provincial and territorial authorizations to practise occupations and for the issuance of comparable federal authorizations to holders of such provincial and territorial authorizations. It also provides the Governor in Council with the power to make regulations respecting federal barriers to the interprovincial movement of goods and provision of services and to the movement of labour within Canada.
Part 2 enacts the Building Canada Act , which, among other things,
(a) authorizes the Governor in Council to add the name of a project and a brief description of it to a schedule to that Act if the Governor in Council is of the opinion, having regard to certain factors, that the project is in the national interest;
(b) provides that determinations and findings that have to be made and opinions that have to be formed under certain Acts of Parliament and regulations for an authorization to be granted in respect of a project that is named in Schedule 1 to that Act are deemed to have been made or formed, as the case may be, in favour of permitting the project to be carried out in whole or in part;
(c) requires the minister who is designated under that Act to issue to the proponent of a project, if certain conditions are met, a document that sets out conditions that apply in respect of the project and that is deemed to be the authorizations, required under certain Acts of Parliament and regulations, that are specified in the document; and
(d) requires that minister, each year, to cause an independent review to be conducted of the status of each national interest project.

One Canadian Economy Act

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by saying the word “pipeline”. I do believe pipelines will be nation building.

I would actually like to start my speech by talking briefly about the contributions of some of the great Conservative members who have done a lot to improve this flawed Liberal legislation.

There is the member for Lakeland, who has been leading the debate, leading the charge on bringing transparency and accountability to this legislation, and strongly supporting and representing the people of Alberta.

The member for Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna has done tremendous work supporting free trade across our country. Years before it became invoked, he was pushing to free the beer and free the wine, and we all should salute his great work.

The member for Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North was tremendous at committee, pushing for amendments to increase accountability and transparency in this flawed Liberal bill.

Finally, the member for Haldimand—Norfolk did an absolutely tremendous job working hard at committee to restore order to this otherwise flawed legislation.

Let me now start with where we are right now. Bill C-5 contains two pieces of legislation: one is the free trade and labour mobility act of Canada; the other is the building Canada act.

The free trade act, or so it is called, would be anything but free trade. The Prime Minister promised during the campaign that there would be free trade in Canada by Canada Day. We now know, as we are closing the last day of our sitting in Parliament before summer break, that there will not be free trade in Canada by Canada Day.

This, in addition to the tax cut, the massive expenditure, the consultant expenditure, is yet another broken Liberal promise. What this bill would do is allow, in certain circumstances, the authorization of provincially regulated products and services to be recognized in the federal context. It would also allow occupations that are authorized by provincial legislation to be recognized by federal legislation.

The challenge is that this is an extremely limited scope. The actual number of interprovincial trade barriers that are federal in nature is tiny, perhaps less than 5% of the total number of trade barriers. In addition to that, there would actually be federal trade barriers that remain after the passage of this bill, so we would not even have eliminated all of the federal trade barriers.

Oftentimes, as members of the opposition, Conservatives are accused of just providing critiques without solutions. We have solutions too. As the government has seemed adept at stealing Conservative ideas, I am hoping its members are listening. We have the blue seal program, which would allow nurses and doctors to work from coast to coast without the need to get accredited again and again, which, after this legislation passes, sadly, will still need to be done in many cases.

The other thing is that many of these are in provincial jurisdictions, which we heard brought up over and over again by the other side. The reality is, though, the Prime Minister has tremendous power, the power of moral suasion and the power of vision, to bring provinces together.

If nothing else, the Prime Minister also has the power of the purse. He has the ability to provide financial incentives to provinces, like my own province of Ontario, where provincial leadership has torn down some of these barriers. Why not provide a financial incentive, additional federal funds, for those provinces that have the vision to reduce their interprovincial trade barriers? The best part about this is that it likely would not cost the treasury a dime. The reason is that tremendous amounts of economic flow can be generated by reducing these interprovincial trade barriers, allowing for greater tax revenue, which is likely an offset to the reduction of these trade barriers.

Instead, the government has chosen to miss the moment, which is a real shame and a challenge. I extend an olive branch here, as I would love to work with the government over the coming months or years, however long it stays in power, to work with the provinces to get substantive work done to remove those interprovincial trade barriers and capitalize on the much-stated $200 billion in economic flows we can benefit from with the actual reduction of interprovincial trade barriers.

The second part of this bill is the building Canada act. The building Canada act is the greatest admission of failure by a government in recent history. Let me say that again: It is the greatest admission of failure by any government in recent history.

What the government is basically saying is that over the last 10 years, the old Liberal government, which is the same as the new Liberal government, put so many barriers in the way that it was impossible to build national projects, projects of national significance, projects that bring our country together.

John A. Macdonald was able to build an entire railroad from coast to coast in the 1800s. We cannot seem to build a simple pipeline that goes across a provincial border. We cannot build roads. According to the former minister of environment, we do not even need new roads.

We have put in Bill C-69. We have put in the oil and gas cap. I should say that the Liberals have. They have also put in place the industrial carbon tax. They have so tainted the ground that it is impossible to get these projects built.

What is their solution? I have an easy one for them. Repeal Bill C-69. Get rid of the oil and gas cap. Get rid of the industrial carbon tax.

No, the Liberals' solution is to do an end-around on all of those regulations they have put in place. Why not just fix them fundamentally?

Conservatives are stuck here. We are sitting here saying, well, we want national projects to be built. We do not love the fact that they have this discretion, but we need pipelines built, we need roads built, we need railroads built, not just to grow the country economically but to unite us together. Quite frankly, the country is more divided than I can remember in my lifetime because of 10 years of Liberal government. We need to bring it together.

Conservatives were stuck, leading into committee, with a situation, a very flawed bill but a bill that would, perhaps, at least allow some projects to go forward. What did Conservatives do? We got to work. We rolled up our sleeves. We went to work. We did not simply say no and allow projects to just die on the drawing floor. We decided to work with the Bloc Québécois, quite frankly, to put in place the amendments we needed to ensure accountability and transparency.

The member for Lakeland, particularly, did a great job of drafting and leading the charge on accountability and transparency amendments that would make sure the government could not do what it does best. Liberals are going to Liberal, quite frankly, which is to engage in corruption and cronyism.

What are some of the things Conservatives have done? We have worked with the Bloc Québécois to set up a parliamentary committee that will have to be reviewed on a regular basis. We are going to get transparency and accountability on those projects. Who is building this project? Why is it being built? How much public money is going to it? This is so we know what is going on and when.

The most nefarious parts of the legislation, in total, were clauses 21 to 23. The operation of these three clauses was absolutely mind-blowing. They call these Henry VIII clauses, actually. That is a fitting name, because the operation of these three clauses would have allowed the government to exempt any national project from any legislation passed since 1867. That includes the conflict of interest laws, the lobbying laws, the laws on income tax and the laws on the Criminal Code.

Conservatives said we were not going to let that happen. We want national projects to be built, but not at the cost of Canadian taxpayers' dollars going to Liberal insiders. We have seen 10 years of that. We do not need any more.

What we did was put in place amendments or safeguards around that to prevent Liberal cronyism, because we had the crazy idea that the government should not be able to exempt itself from the Criminal Code, the conflict of interest law, the Lobbying Act and the Investment Canada Act.

By the way, the Investment Canada Act is a particularly important one, I might add. The Investment Canada Act controls the impact of foreign investment within Canada. The disclosure rules in there are absolutely critical to protecting our economy, especially in a difficult geopolitical situation.

Here is the reality. We had to get somewhere, and the Liberals brought us a car; that car came in missing a tire and half an engine, polluting all over the place. It was terrible. Conservatives spent the last two weeks working our tails off to make this bill palatable, to prevent Liberal corruption, to prevent Liberal cronyism and to, hopefully, get some projects built here.

[John-Paul Danko, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, I would like to congratulate LiUNA Local 837 on its 75th anniversary. LiUNA is a trade union. Its members are literally building Hamilton, building this country, promoting and supporting workers in the skilled trades.

As a professional engineer licensed in Ontario, I completely agree with the member that we need increased labour mobility and professional mobility across provinces.

What would the hon. member say to workers in the skilled trades who would directly benefit from having one Canadian economy and who would directly benefit from major infrastructure projects included in Bill C-5?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have many great union workers and unions within Northumberland—Clarke, and I salute them, as the other member talked about.

What we really need, and what unions are, quite frankly, clamouring for, is the reduction, as the Minister of Transport said, or elimination of a thicket of regulations that is slowing economic growth and projects. If we want to get more quality union jobs, we need to make sure that not just some projects but all projects are allowed to go forward, in order to build pipelines, build roads and get more great union jobs.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, during the study of this bill, we spoke out about the fact that the government does not need to comply with any criteria or constraints in designating a project as being in the national interest. Yes, the bill does include certain criteria and factors, but the problem is that these criteria and factors are completely optional. It is entirely up to the minister to decide whether to follow them or not. That means, for example, that the minister could designate the pool they want to have built in their backyard as being of national interest. It is that crazy.

Does my colleague think that is acceptable? I do not understand why the Conservatives decided to draft their amendment in a way that allows the government to simply issue an order in council to create its own definition. Does my colleague think that that is sufficient and that we can trust the government to that degree?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for working so well together with Conservatives at committee to put in safeguards on accountability and transparency.

Projects like building a pool in one's backyard will not happen, but I would like nothing more than to work with the Bloc or any other members to fundamentally change, instead of having an end-around on the morass of regulation and burdensome taxes, to actually put in place the foundation, the environment. That way, all projects can get built as opposed to having an end-around. Unfortunately, we have not had the support of the Bloc or any other of the radical left parties in the House to eliminate things like Bill C-69, the oil and gas cap and the industrial carbon tax.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a fairly tough question for my hon. colleague.

After a decade of the Liberal government, and should Bill C-5 pass, does the member actually believe that a national energy corridor will get built so that we can replace the $2 billion a year of Saudi oil that is coming into eastern Canada with Canadian oil?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question, but honestly, I do not know whether it will or not. However, I can tell the member one thing: If the Liberals do that, we will be there to help them and support them to get that national energy quota up. If they do not, we will be here to hold them accountable.

[Lori Idlout, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Uqaqtittiji, I completely agree that there is a huge problem with the bill, specifically because of its nature and being the one bill that would fast-track the violation of indigenous peoples' rights. I wonder if the member agrees. Will he vote against the bill so we can make sure indigenous people's rights are being protected?

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the very important question. What I would say to the hon. member is that Conservatives worked with other opposition members to put additional protection in for indigenous rights. A number of amendments were made, including eliminating the Indian Act from schedule 2. Schedule 2 would allow the government to exempt projects from legislation. We did not think that was right, and we will continue to push for indigenous rights in everything we do.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-5, An act to enact the free trade and labour mobility in Canada act and the building Canada act, as reported (with amendments) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, let me start off by staying that history is repeating itself. Once again, we have before us a legislative measure in the grand tradition of predatory federalism, which has no use for Quebec and the provinces and considers the Quebec nation and the provinces to be mere branch-plant economies.

What is the purpose and intent of this bill? During the election campaign, the Prime Minister told us that he was going to propose robust legislation to resolve the tariff crisis. The idea behind this measure is to build Canada. I am not surprised that he used the idea of building Canada, because the former leader of the official opposition spent three years telling us that Canada was broken.

What does surprise me is that my Conservative colleagues decided to support the government and its gag order. That is pretty ironic considering that, during the election campaign, I heard Pierre Poilievre say that, if a Liberal government were elected, inflation would be so high that people would be forced to hunt for food. I am teasing, but I will stop there because I do not want to be too hard on Mr. Poilievre, who is probably watching at home.

The government's intention is to provide a legislative response to the tariff crisis. Bill C‑5 does anything but respond to the tariff crisis.

First of all, I would like to consider the definition of a project of national interest. My colleague from Pierre‑Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, who did excellent work on Bill C‑5, tried to introduce an amendment that would have allowed us to define what constitutes a project of national interest. In my opinion, that amendment was not accepted because the government quickly forgets that there is more than one nation in Canada. There are the indigenous nations and the Quebec nation. Since the government is quick to forget, I wonder in which nation's interest these projects will be carried out. They will certainly not be projects that are in Quebec's interests, since the amendments that would have required the government to get Quebec's approval were rejected, as were the amendments that would have required approval by indigenous nations.

Clearly, the bill in its current form is aimed at defending the interests of the Canadian nation. I am not trying to be flippant, but these interests often coincide with the interests of the oil and gas industry. We will come back to that later.

I was talking about the government's objective and the situation we are in, which leads me to a very basic question: In what way does this bill support Quebec's economy? In what way does it address the crisis that Quebec is facing right now, namely, the tariffs that are being imposed mainly on the aluminum industry? Frankly, it does not address that at all.

In my opinion, we have to differentiate the bill's objective from the situation we are in. The situation is the tariff crisis. The government's answer gives it a way of reducing the regulatory obstacles it is facing, especially for oil and gas projects. Even if the Liberals do not want to say so, this bill will, above all, facilitate new oil and gas projects.

Let me give you an example that occurred this week and that I found just appalling. I asked the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons if he did not find it outrageous that the government had paid $34 billion for the Trans Mountain expansion, knowing that the Parliamentary Budget Officer had stated that that oil and gas infrastructure would have to be used to maximum capacity for 40 years for it to be cost effective. I asked the government leader if he did not find that outrageous. His answer was that we will build Canada the way Robert Bourassa built Quebec with Hydro-Québec. What incredible irony.

Do members know how much money the federal government put into Hydro Québec? It did not contribute one red cent. Quebeckers paid for the biggest energy infrastructure in Quebec. They never got any support from the federal government. The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons has the nerve to use that as an example. To him, building Canada is doing what Robert Bourassa did. There is a disconnect. I think that my colleague should take a history lesson to better understand Quebec's economy.

I have been saying from the outset that the government's goal was to respond to the tariff crisis. How does this bill respond to the tariffs affecting Quebec? The answer is that it does not respond to those tariffs in any way. Let me prove it. Quebec is affected by the 50% tariffs on aluminum. When we talk about aluminum, we have to make the distinction between producers of primary aluminum and aluminum processors.

The United States currently consumes four million tonnes of aluminum per year. Of those four million tonnes, 3.3 million tonnes come from Canada, mostly from my region, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, and also from the north shore. The government says it wants to carry out major projects, in other words, infrastructure that would require the use of more aluminum. I cannot imagine what magic trick the government thinks it can pull off to replace a market of 3.3 million tonnes of aluminum per year. We will never consume that much in Canada.

This week, the government decided to propose some measures that I described as impotent, saying that they would impose certain quotas. That might work for steel, but it does not apply at all to aluminum. This bill will therefore have no impact on the tariff crisis affecting the aluminum sector.

It gets even worse. In 2019, during the CUSMA negotiations, a Canadian negotiator candidly told us that the government had dropped the ball. The only industry that would not be protected under the 2019 CUSMA was the aluminum industry. Steel had some form of protection. The Bloc Québécois speaks from experience because this was the first fight that we waged in the House when we came back in 2019. We wanted to make sure that the aluminum industry would be protected. This is an ongoing issue that proves that the government never pays attention to Quebec's industries.

The same is true for the forestry sector, which has been paying countervailing duties since 2017. Ten billion dollars in countervailing duties is currently being held captive in the United States, including $2 billion from Quebec. The federal government has always refused to implement a liquidity program that would have helped people in the forestry sector. It has always refused to implement that measure, so much so that today we are seeing many small sawmills in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, on the north shore and in the Gaspé Peninsula shutting down, which jeopardizes the economic vitality of the regions of Quebec. Instead of implementing measures that would have supported the Quebec economy, what the government is proposing is Bill C‑5, a measure that will help it build pipelines.

I will wrap up by saying that the history tends to repeat itself. I remember another crisis we went through in 2008. We all remember the 2008 crisis. The government responded quickly by announcing an $8-billion investment in the auto sector. We realized only later that it was far from a loan; it was a gift that had been given to the auto sector. The government never wanted to put a penny into the forestry industry in 2008.

Now history is repeating itself. A bill is being proposed that does not meet the expectations of Quebeckers. Once again, this is predatory federalism. No measures are being proposed to support the economic pillars of Quebec, and the government is trying to ram this down our throats by imposing closure. To me, that is far from a triumph.

[Guillaume Deschênes-Thériault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Mr. Speaker, we were always extremely clear and transparent throughout the election. We made two strong commitments: unify the Canadian economy, including by eliminating barriers to internal trade, and build major projects of national interest. Over 8.5 million Canadians voted for our plan, which enabled us to win 44 seats in Quebec. As a result, we now have exceptional new colleagues in the House.

I want to ask my colleague the following question. Will he respect the will of voters, particularly those in Quebec, who asked us to strengthen and unify the Canadian economy, and will he vote in favour of Bill C‑5?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my Liberal colleagues from Quebec to listen to voters. The government cheated us out of $800 million by giving all Canadians a carbon tax rebate even though that tax had not been collected. I am not convinced that the people who voted for the Liberal Party are happy today.

With Bill C‑5, the government is proposing to build infrastructure that will not have any impact whatsoever on Quebec. On the two major industries in Quebec hit by tariffs, the government has remained silent.

If I were in my colleague's shoes, I would do some soul searching and I would realize that someone has dropped the ball somewhere.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague mentioned, we have various concerns about the form and the substance. I will get back to that in a speech in a few minutes.

In my colleague's opinion, what happens when bills are put forward that have so many implications and consequences for the future and the time isn't taken to listen to citizens, municipalities, the provinces, scientists, environmentalists and first nations?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I always agree with my colleague from the NDP.

Yes, it is true, there was a major gas infrastructure project in Quebec and in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. It was GNL Québec. The developers said again and again that if the environmental assessments were not favourable to the project, they would step back. What did they do when they got the results of those assessments? They sued the Quebec government for millions of dollars.

Now the government wants to fast-track projects whose details are unknown. Just think of the developers who we will turn down and the money that will have to be spent. This bill is a disaster in the making.