Yes, Mr. Keating, I want to apologize for cutting into your time, because it's been very interesting. I gave you as much time as I could while still giving me the time to put this motion forward, because it is important. Data collection is important, and it will be important moving forward in this industry of oil and gas exploration and development.
However, given the enormous importance of the Trans Mountain expansion to the Canadian economy, and given the failure of all major pipelines to go ahead, I move that this committee proceed with a study to find solutions to this growing crisis that threatens to affect all of Canada.
Mr. Chair, the urgency of this matter is highlighted by the Kinder Morgan deadline of May 31. Today is May 1.
Greg D'Avignon, president and CEO of the Business Council of British Columbia, has expressed why this is an urgent matter requiring immediate attention:
We’re here today because the organizations and individuals in communities and businesses across this country believe we are at a point or crisis of confidence in Canada. A crisis that needs leadership and immediate attention to resolve.
The business community is nervous about this inability of the pipeline to be built. Mr. D'Avignon is not the only concerned business leader. Laura Jones, executive vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, has said:
If uncertainty is allowed to continue, it risks doing serious damage to this country’s reputation. We need to find a better path forward and we need to do it now.
As was noted earlier in this committee by my honourable colleague Shannon Stubbs, the member for Lakeland, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion crisis is an emergency. It has been reinforced by Parliament with emergency debates in the House, the Senate, and even by cabinet. Parliament has called it an emergency. Business leaders have called it an emergency. Kinder Morgan has deemed the situation an emergency, as they have suspended non-essential spending until the situation is resolved in a concrete manner and in a way that makes the project tenable.
Mr. Chair, I would say that this committee needs to declare this an emergency. I believe this committee needs to take responsible action and do an immediate study. The urgency of the situation requires us to do this. It falls within the scope and mandate of this committee's job. I think this is something that we need to prioritize. We need to get pipelines built so that we can get our oil to markets. These markets are desperate to buy our oil. Pipelines are the safest, most efficient conduit for Canadian oil, but we're unable to build a pipeline to get the oil to market, which will have serious consequences for Canada as a nation.
The Department of Natural Resources has indicated that Canada has the third-largest oil reserves in the world. In fact, Canadian oil reserves account for about 10% of the world's proven oil reserves. Energy production counts for about 7% of Canada's nominal GDP, according to the Department of Natural Resources. Oil is essential to our economy. Canada is the sixth-largest energy producer, the fifth-largest net exporter, and the eighth-largest consumer. Canada is a big player worldwide in terms of energy. The United States, currently our largest market, accounts for only 2.3% of the world's proved oil reserves, which puts it at tenth place.
Canada and the United States are the only two free democracies on the list of top 10 proven reserves. Other countries include places like Venezuela, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Despite all of our oil, due to our nation's geography we have only three major directions to export this vital resource, which is needed to lift many people out of poverty—to the south to our American friends and neighbours; to the Pacific and to hungry Asian markets; and to the Atlantic, where we have refineries and access to Europe.
Unfortunately, the route to the Atlantic through the TransCanada energy east pipeline did not proceed. This major nation-building exercise failed. That failure has cost Canada its truly most precious resource, and that is its unity. Oil in Canada is a resource, but the pipeline dispute is more than simply about energy: it's about national co-operation. It's about western Canada and eastern Canada working together. In fact, it was oil revenue and the strength of our exports that allowed our nation to emerge from the recession in relatively good shape compared with our peers. This is now being taken for granted, and our development and investment are falling behind.
One CEO was quoted in the National Post by John Ivison as saying, “The level of foreign investment has never been so low and continues to fall off a cliff. There is a real, genuine, honest, non-partisan concern that Canada is so completely out of touch with the real world.”
Foreign investment drives innovation and drives development, and I think we've heard testimony to that here this morning by Mr. Keating. Our oil sands were and are a source of tremendous innovation. Oil should not be seen as a dirty resource that we are ashamed of, but as a source of wealth that not only provides good, high-income jobs in the private sector but also funds our strong and talented public service.
I would like to quote from Dr. Kevin Milligan, a professor of economics at UBC's Vancouver School of Economics. In an April 16 submission to The Globe and Mail, Dr. Milligan argued that it is natural resources, particularly energy, that is growing and sustaining the middle class in Canada. He puts his argument forward very well, and I quote:
Opinions on pipelines are flowing around Canada more quickly than the oil. The ultimate decisions on natural resource projects, however, ought to derive from facts. As an economist studying income inequality over the last 15 years, I can offer a key fact to the debate. In my view, nothing has contributed more than natural resources to buttressing the Canadian middle class against the rapidly changing global economy of the 21st century.
Mr. Chairman, in a rapidly changing global economy of the 21st century when so many Canadians are turning to the gig economy to make ends meet, it is natural resource jobs that provide good-income jobs. Natural resources are good for all Canadians and for Canada as a country. Natural resources, especially oil, are vital to good, sustainable, long-term growth, which creates middle-class jobs. Dr. Milligan puts this in context, and I'll quote him again:
The impact of natural resources is not just on those who work directly for natural resource companies. There are large wage-spillovers to others working in resource communities in construction, transportation and services. Moreover, resource-derived tax dollars fill up government coffers to support strong compensation in middle-class public sector jobs in nursing, education and transit. And what's more, these benefits don't only help provinces with plentiful resources, since our equalization formula uses the federal purse to top up provinces without comparable resource-revenue streams.
What that means and what it should mean is that projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion are good for the national interest. Yes, Alberta is a prosperous province in no small part due to oil revenue, but it also contributes greatly to national equalization payments. Equalization payments allow for all provinces and regions of Canada to share in our natural resources. Oil revenues fill government coffers across 10 provinces and three territories. If we lose the ability to export our oil or we lose the opportunities that oil revenues provide, our nation will be poorer both in dollars and in national unity.
Oil provides for the most vulnerable, supports first nations communities, strengthens the middle class, and helps everyone get along. Dr. Milligan highlights some of the benefits of oil to Canadians all over the country. He has said:
We also must count the Canadians living in First Nations communities near resource developments. In British Columbia since 2009, we have developed a system of Economic and Community Development Agreements that share resource revenue with nearby First Nations. This structure allows the legal certainty that resource companies need to proceed with long-term investments and the sharing of economic benefits that First Nations deserve for the future of their communities. This kind of agreement is another way natural resource revenues are dispersed across our economy.
Around the world, the relentless pressures of technology are hollowing out middle-class employment, leading to stagnating middle-class incomes and exacerbating social tensions. These same pressures appear in Canada too, but resource development has allowed the Canadian middle class to push back on these pressures better than almost any other advanced economy on earth.
The stakes we face are high. To maintain public support for pro-growth initiatives such as trade agreements and for doing Canada’s part in limiting climate change, we need to ensure that economic growth is felt by everybody in society. Economic growth that brings everyone along gives all families a stake in Canadian economic success. This increased economic security energizes social forces that pull us together.
That's the end of his quote.
What he does not say is that decreased economic security also energizes social forces, but social forces that pull us apart and threaten national unity.
This is, unfortunately, happening.
British Columbia and Alberta are engaged in a fierce fight over pipelines. The federal government, which is the government with the actual authority to act on this matter, has been largely silent. The silence has allowed B.C. and Alberta to fight a battle they have no real business fighting.
Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline was a federally approved project, yet the debate and protests over this project have turned this pipeline dispute into a debate on national unity. The only reason this could have turned into a debate on national unity is the lack of leadership from the federal government.
The NEB is a federal regulator. When the NEB grants its approval on a project, the project is and should be ready to go. The federal government maintains the right over the transport of energy between provinces. Trans Mountain—