Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2024

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Genuis is not the chair.

Chair, I would like to speak on the motion, but if the motion isn't proper—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay. I have you on the list, Mr. Angus. I wanted to see if you were on a point of order or not.

You have a point of order, Monsieur Simard. Go ahead.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Mario Simard]

I have a point of order.

Right now, I have full confidence in the interpretation service. The interpreters are doing a fantastic job, and I thank them. That said, if I don't have the French text in front of me, it's difficult for me to comment on the amendment, and to follow the debate as it unfolds. I would therefore prefer to have the French translation of the amendment.

My colleague seemed prepared to move this amendment. She certainly could have had it translated.

I think it would be a violation of francophones' privilege to debate this amendment at this time. I, personally, would never move such an amendment in French only and expect my unilingual anglophone colleagues to comment on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Okay. Thank you, Monsieur Simard. I'm sorry. I was waiting for the translation to come through fully. The translators are doing an exceptional job, as always.

Mrs. Goodridge, you had the floor. I know you've presented in English. Do you have a copy in French, or have you just submitted it to the clerk? If you could, continue on.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I apologize to my colleague. I just drafted the amendment. We're trying to get it translated into French as we speak. It should be ready in a few minutes.

As such, I would ask that we take a short five-minute break.

We will have it in both official languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Colleagues, we will suspend.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I call the meeting to order.

We are back. Colleagues, you should have received the translated motion. Thank you to our Conservative colleagues for putting that translation together—

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

I'm sorry for the delay.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

No problem. Thank you for sending it over.

Monsieur Simard, you should have a copy of it. Hopefully it has been translated well. I'm sure it has been.

Upon further review and discussions with the clerk, based on the reading of the book on page 541, the motion is inadmissible. As for the amendment, the book states:

...it is irrelevant to the main motion (i.e., it deals with a matter foreign to the main motion, exceeds its scope, or introduces a new proposition which should properly be the subject of a separate substantive motion with notice);

Based on my review, the motion is unfortunately inadmissible, so we will go back to the main motion as amended, which we previously had on the floor.

Mrs. Goodridge still has the floor.

I hope that clarifies things. I apologize for taking everybody's time, because it took some time to make sure that we had the appropriate translation for members, and then this arose as well.

That's the decision we've made.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We appreciate your ruling after doing the work to ensure that the amendment was presented in both official languages.

I therefore move that you ask if there's unanimous consent to accept the amendment as moved.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No.

Can we move on now?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We do not have unanimous consent, so we are back on the motion, once again.

Mrs. Goodridge, you have the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Of all the people to say no.... It's ridiculously frustrating. This just goes to show that this NDP-Liberal coalition does not respect the province of Alberta. This falls back—

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Or indigenous reconciliation.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Yes. Whether it's to do with indigenous reconciliation or provincial jurisdiction and actually taking time to stay in their own lane....

This motion, as it's currently written, does not actually respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and it doesn't acknowledge federal jurisdiction. That is the jurisdiction of these wells that exist on first nations land. It does none of this.

As I've said before, it doesn't acknowledge the fact that British Columbia also received money. They decided to cherry-pick and attack Alberta because they'd prefer to attack Conservative provinces. That has been the modus operandi of this Liberal-NDP government for the last nine years. It's ridiculously frustrating.

I don't really understand the speed of my colleague from the NDP to so quickly say this is not admissible. I don't understand how we can go forward with a preamble that is such an overt and open attack on the population and the energy industry in Alberta. This is frustrating.

Based on local, recent news, British Columbia had to return $12 million in oil and gas well cleanup funding, and more than $12 million from the investment in the cleaning up of inactive wells in British Columbia has been returned to the federal government. However, that's not identified in this because it wasn't part of the agenda that was brought forward by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, who reports directly to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and through him, his representation and his office's representation on this committee.... The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources clearly only does things that are in lockstep with the Prime Minister; otherwise, he wouldn't actually still be the minister.

This falls into this unique category, where this is very clearly an edict that's come down from Justin Trudeau himself. It's yet another attack on the home province of the chair; on the home province of my colleague, our shadow minister for natural resources, Shannon Stubbs; and the home province of my good friend Earl Dreeshen. This is why we have Albertans here at this committee. It's because this is egregious.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have a point of order.

I don't want to interrupt this fascinating discourse.

Am I on the list to speak? I was two meetings ago. I'm just waiting.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Yes, you are, Mr. Angus. You are the next speaker.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Goodridge, go ahead. You have the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I understand that the member from the NDP would really like an opportunity to continue his continuous attacks on Alberta's energy industry. In fact, he's proposed a private member's bill that's absolutely lunatic. It is such a clear attack on Canada's energy industry; it is insane. If his bill were to ever come into law, it would actually make it illegal to say that natural gas is cleaner burning than coal. This is a true, verifiable fact. Under his piece of legislation that he is pushing forward—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have a point of order.

I know that the Conservatives think that they're all going to get locked up in little vans by people who think that they're bad, and that's false. We're not discussing my bill. I would love to be discussing my bill. Rather than pushing falsehoods and calling me a lunatic, she should stick to the facts so that we can get on to other speakers so that she just doesn't continue to waste our time.

Can she stay focused on the issue at hand?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus, for your point of order.

Colleagues, we do have a motion on the floor that was presented by Ms. Dabrusin and amended by Mr. Simard. I would ask colleagues to focus on the motion at hand and to make sure that their debate and discussion revolves around the motion that we are speaking about.

Mrs. Goodridge, the floor is yours again.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is actually very relevant to the motion on the floor because the motion on the floor is an attack on the Albertan energy industry. It is an attack on Alberta energy workers, and it is seen as such.

I was just home in my riding over the weekend, and I had an opportunity to talk to people who, when I brought forward the fact that a motion was brought forward at the natural resources committee that only talked about these wells in Alberta's context and failed to talk about the wells in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Ontario.... It's very frustrating, and I can appreciate the fact that the parliamentary secretary is probably a little embarrassed right now that her department set her up by telling her that the only two provinces that got money were Alberta and Saskatchewan, and that's why those were the only two named in the preamble. They conveniently left British Columbia off, and they conveniently left out the fact that British Columbia also had to return some of its money. However, that's semantics, and that clearly isn't an intentional attack.

If the Department of Natural Resources didn't know, it failed you, Ms. Dabrusin. It failed you by giving you this motion to put forward.

That is the fact. If this is what you think you should be bringing forward as the parliamentary secretary of natural resources, shame on you. This is absolutely not okay. This does not send a signal to anyone that Canada is somewhere to invest. It doesn't show or support that the Government of Canada believes there should be any investments in the natural resources industry, in the energy industry or in Alberta. It just continues on. What else can we expect from a government that has very clearly decided to put a fringe eco-activist as its environment minister, someone who is very well known in Canada from the mug shots when he got caught scaling the CN Tower? Ironically, he was also arrested at one point while chaining himself to a coker on its way up to the Fort McMurray oil sands. This is a man who made his entire living on—

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm just fascinated because, again, we were talking about abandoned and orphaned wells, if I read the motion that was amended by Mr. Simard correctly.

On a point of relevance, I do not know how the member opposite's feelings about the Minister of Environment are relevant to the motion that we're studying.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin, for your point of order.

I would just ask the colleague who has the floor to continue on with debate but make sure that it's relevant to the motion at hand.

Thank you. I'll turn it back to you.