Another point on that would be the price point they are paying, and if they are able to afford such a technology, but I guess with mass production, the more it's available, the more there is competition, the lower the price will be—that type of thing.
Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Chair, I do apologize to you and to our witnesses. Given what has developed in the news today, I'd like to move my motion, Chair, as follows:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, in light of the potential cancellation of the Trans Mountain Expansion on May 31, 2018 and the flight of investment in oil and gas leaving Canada, immediately invite Mr. Brian Porter, the CEO of ScotiaBank, to appear before the committee to inform the members of how Trans Mountain’s cancellation may affect future investment in Canada’s oil and gas sector, its supply chain and other resource markets; that the meeting take place no later than May 31, 2018; that the meeting be televised; and that the committee report its findings to the House.
If anyone needs a copy of that motion, I have many in my possession.
You're probably asking why this is so important. I think we all know the deadline that is coming forward very quickly from Kinder Morgan, which is of concern to many, and for those who weren't paying attention to the news this morning, a deal has been announced. The headline from the Financial Post says, “Canada said likely to buy Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline as deadline looms”. It came out about 15 to 20 minutes ago. The article says:
Canada is likely to buy Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd.'s Trans Mountain oil pipeline and its controversial expansion project in a bid to ensure it gets built amid fierce opposition, according to a person familiar with the talks.
Buying the pipeline outright has become increasingly likely and is now the most probable option for the Canadian government, the person said...because the discussions are private.
It went on to say that the deal, a value for which hasn't been publicly reported—but I think this has been updated since; I believe it's $4 billion—will be announced very shortly.
Here we have, Chair, a private company that did not ask for a single penny of taxpayer dollars being bailed out by a government which, since it approved this project, has been asked by the official opposition hundreds of times over a year and a half to come up with a plan to outline the path forward for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, a pipeline that has been in existence since the 1950s—it would be an expansion of what is there—a project that required private investment only.
Now we get to the point, because we heard for a year and a half that legislation was coming, that there was a plan in place. No matter how many times we asked for a plan, the blame game started, and that's all we heard, over and over again. Frankly, for the opposition, it was quite tiring to hear from a party on the other side that had complained time after time when they were in opposition that they didn't like the answers they were getting, and in the election they promised Canadians they would be different. You heard that over and over again, that it would be different. And thank you to the NDP, which pointed out that they're actually worse than the previous government, and that is actually quite disgusting for those who voted for real change.
We have this project, a $7-billion project, thousands upon thousands of jobs, and the government bungled the file so badly that now we have to nationalize the project in order to push it through. I think that is quite shameful, and I just cannot believe that we are at the point where all sides in this debate have dug in so hard that Canadian taxpayers are now on the hook for this project.
Who are they going to get to build this pipeline? I would like to know. Are they going to get Enbridge? They're probably not too happy, because their last project was cancelled. Are they going to get TransCanada? No—energy east. Petronas? No, they're probably not going to do it. Petronas thought Canada was the next area to invest in. Their number one area outside Malaysia was Canada, where they saw opportunity and hope, environmental standards and regulations that are the envy of the world, and an energy environment that had access, or so they thought, to many markets. We watched how that fell apart.
How many tens of thousands of jobs and how many good-paying jobs have been lost because of these decisions? I've talked about this many times in question period. I've talked about it many times in this committee.
Even next to my riding, in Peterborough, we had General Electric, where there were 300 jobs lost and there are 300 families without a paycheque. They had a contract to build the motors for the energy east project. That project was cancelled because the government continued to change the rules. Why would TransCanada continue to put good money after bad when they knew that there was no light at the end of the tunnel?
That project got cancelled, and General Electric, which has been in Peterborough since the 1800s—it's known as “Electric City”—closed. Now, that wasn't the main reason that it closed, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back. As you can imagine, the ridiculous price of electricity in Ontario right now is not helping matters much, along with the increased taxes and regulation. On and on, the pile continues to grow.
Now we have this pipeline needing to be nationalized. In this day and age, nationalized: I cannot believe it. This is why we need Brian Porter here. What does this mean for investment in general in Canada? What does it mean for somebody like my friend Marc? What does it mean in his riding for someone with the mining sector? Do they expand? Is there certainty at the end of this tunnel?
For those of us in Ontario, there's the Ring of Fire with its huge resources in the ground. What does that mean? Does any company think that it might be a good idea nowadays with Bill C-69 and many others, and with what's going on here, to dump some good money and convince their investors that, yes, Canada is a place to do business? You never know; you probably won't get your project built, but if it is approved, well, chances are that the government is going to have to bail it out because you can't get it finished anyway.
I just cannot believe this in a country such as Canada, where we had a regulatory process that is the envy of the world, with years and years of consultations upon consultations and environmental standards that are the highest anywhere, and this is how.... This is just incredible.
These are good-paying jobs that do not require taxpayer dollars. They require private investment that companies secure. Mining companies, oil and gas, you name it: they can secure that financing, and then the taxes they pay on that revenue fund our valuable social programs here in Canada, programs that we all love.
Yet now we have to bail out a project that the government approved, all because the Prime Minister did not go to meet with Premier Horgan when he was sworn in and work out the path forward. That is an unbelievable failure.
That is an unbelievable failure on this file. I feel bad for the tens of thousands of Albertans and anyone else employed in the energy sector who have had to wonder if they will get a job. Well, for the longest time it was, will my job ever come back?
I will read this from the Financial Post—