Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.
I'm Scott Archer, business agent of the UA Local 663 pipefitters union of Sarnia, Ontario. I represent our 1,600 local members and the nearly 6,000 family members who depend on them to provide a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Additionally, we're part of the UA's Canadian membership, which is 53,000 strong, and its 370,000 members across North America.
To start, I'd like to express our thanks for being afforded the opportunity to provide some insight into Line 5's vital importance to the Sarnia-Lambton area's 100,000 residents; to infrastructure, transportation and manufacturing in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta; and to the entire midwestern U.S.
Line 5 is truly the lifeblood of the central region of North America and essentially the spinal cord of Ontario's infrastructure, supplying Alberta crude feedstock to numerous refineries throughout Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, as well as providing fuel to major international airports in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Detroit. Line 5 also supplies gasoline, propane and diesel for transportation, construction and agriculture. Additionally, over 60% of the propane used to heat Michigan's upper peninsula this past winter, which wreaked havoc upon the state of Texas and ultimately caused Governor Whitmer to declare an energy emergency in Michigan because of a feared shortage of propane. Well, that very same propane that kept the upper peninsula warm and safe was refined in and shipped from Sarnia, Ontario, facilities via Line 5. We are the solution to Governor Whitmer's problems, not the cause of them.
It's difficult for me to emphasize how important Line 5 is to our community. The city of Sarnia has grown and prospered around oil refineries since the mid-1800s, when Imperial Oil set up operations there. The city has continued to grow, along with industry, to include three refineries and numerous chemical manufacturing plants in the area, mostly fed by Line 5 and employing a full third of the city's population as well as many skilled tradespeople from all around the country during new construction projects, maintenance turnarounds and expansions. This is to the tune of $300 million to $500 million in revenue annually. Line 5 provides the means for working-class families to prosper and enjoy a standard of living that embodies what it is to be proud, strong Canadians.
I'm now going to present to you a long list of problems that the closure of Line 5 will present, followed by a very short list of solutions.
If Line 5 is shut down, you can guarantee the following.
There will be immediate fuel shortages at the pumps province-wide for consumers; massive increases in fuel costs, possibly up to triple according to some experts; and 800 or more additional railcars daily, creating drastic increases in rail traffic and unnecessary risks to residents and the environment. The Lac-Mégantic and Mississauga cases are painful, tragic lessons learned.
There will be 2,000 or more trucks overloading already crowded critical arteries of transportation such as Highway 402 and the Blue Water Bridge, which is second only to the Ambassador Bridge in international traffic volume, with dangerous congestion proven to cause serious traffic accidents and fatalities and with unacceptable increases in vehicle emissions.
There will be costs incurred by returning empty railcars and trucks to their point of origin. Pipelines send product without this hindrance, without increasing the carbon footprint and without the safety and environmental risk of derailment or vehicle crash.
The amount of feedstock going to refineries will also be greatly diminished, resulting in economic devastation for tens of thousands of families across Canada and the U.S.
There will be sweeping unemployment and closures across industries as diverse as oil and gas, electronics, agriculture, cosmetics, sporting goods, pharmaceuticals, automobile manufacturing and medical supplies. This is not to mention the tens of thousands of small, privately owned support businesses locally.
In short, shutting down Line 5 will effectively kill my hometown and displace its families, as it will do to many more cities and towns like it in Canada and the U.S. This is not an exaggeration; it's a cold hard fact.
In the category of solutions, we need to keep Line 5 open to support Canadian and U.S. infrastructure. There is no workable replacement for Line 5. Thirty years down the road I'm sure we'll have many more options open to us, but without a cohesive unifying national energy policy, we as Canadians are left divided and vulnerable to situations exactly like this one.
In closing, I'd like to issue a challenge to Prime Minister Trudeau and the federal government. This is a call to action. It is non-negotiable. You need to take a stand to protect Canadian families, businesses and industry.
Exercise your power through the transit pipelines treaty to stop this attack on Line 5—which is an attack on hard-working Canadians—in its tracks.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee.