Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 6th, 2018

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing today. We appreciate it.

Minister, I noticed in your comments that much of what you referred to seems to be a common theme that we have here, in question period and otherwise, whereby it's always the Conservatives' fault and always Harper's fault.

You're three years into your mandate. Before, in the previous government, we had four pipelines approved, we had three in the queue, and now we have two that were cancelled and one that was nationalized. How do you keep saying that your plan is working and keep blaming the previous government? You have to fix this for me here.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

Let me say thank you for asking that question, because what you're touching on is that when you had legislation put in place in 2012 that eroded the confidence of Canadians in the regulatory process, you faced consequences.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Energy East and Northern Gateway were political decisions. You could have continued consultations for gateway. You didn't have to change the rules on Energy East and you did not have to nationalize it.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

We did not—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

In your term, Alberta has dropped from 14th to 43rd in recent global investment rankings. Hundreds of billions of dollars are leaving your province and this country.

[Amarjeet Sohi]

First of all, I think it is absolutely necessary for this committee to understand that it was the proponent that withdrew the application for energy east. We were very clear that downstream emissions will not be part of the assessment. There is close to 175 billion dollars' worth of new investment planned in the oil and gas sector in Alberta. We will continue to support that and we will continue to repair the damage that has been done by the previous government to the regulatory process so that we can move forward.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Again, you had three in the queue—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Mr. Schmale. We've finished.

Minister, thank you very much for attending today, for your patience—

[Amarjeet Sohi]

No problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

—and for listening to the questions and answering them. We're very grateful.

We will see everybody in the new year. Enjoy the interim.

The meeting is adjourned.