Thank you, Chair.
I do appreciate the comments from my colleagues. I just want to add a few more items here, especially speaking as someone from Ontario who saw the effects of Liberal policies in action, specifically talking about General Electric in the City of Peterborough. That has been a company in the city since the 1800s. It's actually known as the “electric city”. General Electric had a contract to build motors for the energy east pipeline. Now, when the Liberals changed the rules halfway through the process multiple times, causing TransCanada to cancel its project, 300 jobs at General Electric were lost just like that. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for General Electric. Those 300 people are out of work and no longer receiving a paycheque, and there were the ripple effects that happened afterwards. A major factory with well-paid jobs was no longer in the City of Peterborough as a result of the cancellation of the energy east pipeline.
It should be noted that there are three big companies that have applied to build pipelines in this company, and all three are no longer doing so under the Liberal rule. There has been $4.5 billion to build a pipeline, right now, to nationalize the pipeline, and yet it's another failure. They claimed they were going to get it built. They claimed they were going to move forward, and yet we are seeing that money, $4.5 billion taxpayer dollars, going to the United States to build pipelines and other energy projects in the United States, not in Canada.
We are seeing billions leaving this country for projects outside our borders. People are now without jobs, without paycheques, selling off items they own in order to keep a roof over their heads. What do you say to the energy workers who were once making six figures or more and who are now making zero because of the policies of this Liberal government? I'm actually quite shocked—I think “shocked” is the right word—by the fact that we're not even coming back, that we don't have the minister standing in front of us with a plan. You'd think they would be preparing for this result on both sides—a positive court ruling or a negative court ruling—and they would be ready for that, and yet we're sitting here while the members across the way say, “Well, we would like to work on this a little bit more.” Well, that's not really reassuring to the thousands who are waiting to get back to work, people who want to work, who are now without a paycheque and without direction. We can't even get a commitment on when shovels will be back in the ground, to at least say, “Yes, eventually it will, on this date.” We can't get a time or a date from this government. It's like they're running around now trying to figure out what's next, and meanwhile they haven't even taken those thoughts forward, that they should be preparing for that and coming to Parliament, coming to this committee, with a plan to move this forward.
I go back to saying I am shocked that we are not here discussing their solution to the problem they caused. We said, over and over again, right from day one when they approved the Trans Mountain pipeline, that they needed to get in front of this. They needed to talk to the people in British Columbia. They needed to do everything they could to move this forward, because we agreed with their decision to approve that pipeline, and yet they didn't. They just seemed to hope that everything would fall into place by pure magic, and clearly it didn't. It was one problem after another, and repeated calls from the opposition about what their plan was. We threw out ideas, and there was still nothing. They just went back to the same old talking points that it would get built, almost like “We've got this under control”, and there has been one failure after another.
The Prime Minister should have gone out to British Columbia to speak with the new premier when he was sworn in. He avoided that over and over again. These conversations should have happened, but what happened? All sides dug in, and we're in the situation we're in now, with no plan to move forward. People's lives are on the line because they just lost their paycheques. Do they stay in their houses? Is there some light at the end of the tunnel?
I can also tell you, from Bill C-69, and I'll go back to the Ontario route, that even those in northern Ontario in the mining sector are quite concerned with this bill. There is no certainty for major projects in this country anymore. We continue to see investment flee this country under this government. What happens after that happens? We also start to lose major talent from this country because they will go elsewhere, where the jobs and opportunities are.
Again, I was hoping there would be a plan, a path forward, but we just have failure after failure. Think of our position with our issues with Saudi Arabia right now, had energy east been moving forward. Just think of the jobs and opportunities out there if we had been able to get Alberta energy out east, and that was a pipeline with most of it already there. It was just an addition on each end.
I obviously will support Mrs. Stubbs' motion. It's a common-sense motion. Hopefully, we can get some answers for these people who are now without a paycheque.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.