I lost my train of thought.
Yes, it was on Bill C-69. I think my colleague's motion is something the committee should consider very seriously. Of course, as you know, I am voting in favour of it.
Prior to the bill's implementation, we had a number of indigenous leaders at this committee talk about the damage Bill C-69 was going to do, and we saw, almost immediately, the amount of investment that left Canada following its introduction, among others. I'm including the anti-tanker bill that came after that, as well. We got warnings from indigenous leaders before, during and after the debate. We saw oil and gas investment take a severe hit.
It's in turn also hurting first nations communities themselves. I point to an article written by Stephen Buffalo, who was at our committee just last week. The date is June 14, 2019. It's talking about the damage it will do to the prosperity of first nations communities that would have benefited from resource projects like oil and gas, mining, and the list goes on. It talks about how there is a way to capitalize on the investment coming into the country for natural resource projects and turning it into jobs, investments, revenue generation, wealth and opportunity, on and off reserve. That would be a benefit for everybody—indigenous people and non-indigenous people. That could be a win-win.
At the same time, it could supply the world with energy—some of the cleanest energy taken out of the ground—and displace the bad actors in the world. We saw the German Chancellor come to Canada. We saw the Japanese Prime Minister asking for Canadian energy. The Prime Minister told them there wasn't a business case for it. I don't know which industry people he spoke with, but clearly not the same ones who are advocating for the growth of the industry.
Then, we saw disruption in the world. We saw Germany sign on to Russia, which is basically financing the war against Ukraine, despite warnings against that. The conflict happened. We've seen pipelines disrupted; therefore, supply starts to get disrupted. Of course, demand was ramping back up after the pandemic and other things. Therefore, we have a shortage of supply, not to mention that some other countries are cutting their production. Canada could have played a leadership role had we been promoting this industry and the extraction of this resource. There would be tremendous wealth earned and generated from some of these projects.
When we talk about the cost of gas, we mentioned the carbon tax as a major point, but another way to bring down the price—which would bring down the price of almost everything, including food and fuel, things that Canadians are having a tough time affording—is to add supply. The law of supply and demand is almost absolute. By adding supply to an already stretched system, doing it the best way we can, and providing jobs, wealth and opportunity in all communities, we could have a win-win situation here. At the same time, we'd help our residents and citizens—the people of this country who would like to have lower prices at the supermarket and who would love to have lower energy prices when filling up their cars and the tanks in their trucks, which they use to transport the goods. It is all combined.
When you have an industry that is handcuffed—basically shut down because of bad government policy, with no way to increase it when the world is itching for it—you have an increase in price.
I find it very frustrating that these indigenous leaders.... I'm going to quote Stephen Buffalo very shortly, and I will wrap up my comments, because, again, we do have witnesses and we want to ask them some questions.
The warnings were there, all the warnings, that this was going to cause problems. All of the warnings were there in terms of the investment that was going to leave the country, and we saw billions of dollars leave. Even when the government bought Trans Mountain, what did the company that sold the government Trans Mountain do? They took that money and invested it in infrastructure in Texas, so Texans and the Americans get to use Canadian dollars, Canadian taxpayer dollars, to invest in their infrastructure and create job opportunities and wealth in their country while we lag behind.
I'll quickly quote Stephen Buffalo, and then I'll wrap up, because I do want to get to the witnesses.
For some of our communities, oil and gas projects, pipelines and related infrastructure, and a vast service sector have produced jobs, supported new Indigenous-owned companies and produced large returns for Indigenous governments. We used the money to build houses, support cultural programs, and pay for our administrative operations. The revenue also gave us more financial autonomy and created a real sense of optimism in some of our communities.
Again, Stephen Buffalo just appeared at the committee last week. He was advocating for this. There are lots more opportunities here if the government would reconsider some of its anti-energy policies, especially at a time when the world is asking for it to do so.
Thank you, Chair.