Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's absolutely a pleasure for me to speak today on this motion put forward by my colleague, MP Dabrusin. I know it was amended by MP Simard, and we're happy to support the motion as amended.
My colleague who just spoke, Mrs. Goodridge, spoke last week as well. There are a couple of things in her commentary that I really would like to address.
First of all, whenever we bring a motion to the table, it's never about the preamble; it's about the actual motion. What we're voting on is the last stanza in the motion, which is what is calling for action. The rest of it is basically not as relevant. However, if she's offended by a comment, she should not be, because it's just stating the facts very clearly.
I want to run through that motion to start with, because I think it's important for people to understand the context in which this motion is being brought forward.
First of all, if you remember, during the pandemic and subsequent to that, there were a lot of issues around the oil and gas sector and the impact of it on companies, workers and so on. The Government of Canada did a deal, I guess, with Alberta, or they did a deal to invest in the cleanup of abandoned and orphaned wells in the region.
In Alberta, a number of these wells were identified—up to 1,800 to 2,000. In Saskatchewan, a number of wells were identified. That's why these two provinces are mentioned. They are the only two that received federal government money to do orphaned and abandoned well cleanup, which is a responsibility of the provincial governments, not of the federal government.
First of all, that's why they are mentioned in the preamble. Again, the preamble basically has no influence in terms of what the motion is.
The motion itself is calling on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to:
begin a five-meeting study on the impact of this failure to clean these wells, the impacts of the pollution from not cleaning up abandoned and orphaned wells, the costs of cleaning up abandoned and orphaned wells, the federal regulations to hold companies to account for well cleanup, and the potential opportunities associated with cleaning up abandoned wells, and report its findings to the House of Commons.
That's the motion that's before us on the table.
My friend seems to be hung up on the fact that two provinces are mentioned in the preamble. One is Alberta and one is Saskatchewan. I reiterate that they are mentioned because they have the largest number of orphaned and abandoned wells. They also are the only provinces receiving federal government money.
The motion itself is very clear, but the preamble does allude to the fact that Alberta sent back $137 million of federal government money that was provided to it to clean up these abandoned wells and create jobs during the pandemic. The whole idea was to reduce pollution, reduce our environmental footprint, clean up the orphaned and abandoned wells and keep Albertans and people in Saskatchewan working and in jobs.
The Alberta government made a choice that it did not want to spend this money. It did not want to clean up these 1,800 to 2,000 orphaned and abandoned wells. That's why it returned the money.
The purpose of the study is to look at those wells. How important is it that they be cleaned up? How important is it that the right federal regulations be in place to hold these companies accountable? It's to look at what the opportunities are for cleaning up abandoned wells and report those findings back to the House of Commons. It's very simple. There's nothing complicated about any of this whatsoever.
I think my colleague is really bogged down with information that has absolutely nothing to do with it but really is just conceived, at this point, as a speaking point for herself.
You know, if she wants to see what a real attack on a province looks like, I'm going to give her the example of Bill C-49. I sat through this committee for over two months while the Conservative caucus filibustered Bill C-49. They used every second of time they could in this committee to bring forward fictitious motions and to make comments that had no real impact whatsoever on Bill C-49. It was an intentional means to filibuster the bill, to hold Newfoundland and Labrador hostage to this committee and to the House of Commons, simply because they did not want to pass this piece of legislation.
Just like the Harper government before them, they did not believe that Newfoundland and Labrador should have any special agreement or rights when it came to oil and gas. They obviously felt that Bill C-49 was going to afford this province once again an opportunity to earn royalties, create real jobs and produce clean offshore wind energy. As a result, they held the bill hostage, and they held our province hostage and our workforce hostage, and they held up big projects.
That, my friend, is what you call holding a province back, and that's exactly what the Conservative Party did. They held back the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and they held back the province of Nova Scotia as it relates to wanting to lead clean offshore wind energy in their provinces.
What we are doing today is supporting Alberta, supporting Saskatchewan and supporting a clean environment for Canadians, making sure that when we have abandoned wells that are left behind, there is a mechanism to get those wells cleaned up, to reduce the amount of pollution in the environment but also to create very important, well-paying jobs in these provinces.
No one should be offended by that. I can honestly tell you that there is tremendous support, especially on my side, for Alberta and especially for Fort McMurray, where I have many constituents who live and work. I have family members and close relatives, a sister who lives out there. It's not about being offside with any province.
I take exception to her comments around that. That is not what the motion is asking for at all. The motion is very clear. I don't want to read it over, but I think anyone who can comprehend the language in the bill will see that it is not offensive to any province or territory. Rather, it is a mechanism by which we make sure that abandoned wells, no matter what province they're in—in this case, it happens to be in Alberta—can be cleaned up, and it can be done in a way that is very practical and engaging for the community.
It allows businesses to make money. It allows workers to gain opportunities. It allows the province to be able to talk about the great work they're doing in cleaning up abandoned wells and creating a clean, fresh, new environment to enable other opportunities to proceed. We see this as a win-win situation, so I take great exception to that, because I have a lot of time and a lot of support for the province of Alberta, just like I do for my own province and the other provinces and territories in the country.
Any time we bring forward a motion like this, it is always with the best of intentions. It is never to undermine or to single out any particular region, any particular industry or any particular province. Just like every single day in the Government of Canada and in this country, there are debates around legislation; there are debates around projects, and there are differences of opinion on how we move forward and what is best. I think, at the end of the day, our collective goal is the same, and that is to do the best we can for Canadians.
In this case, the Government of Canada felt that orphaned and abandoned wells, especially when you're looking at up to 2,000 of them in one particular region of the country, are something that we should be addressing as a government. We stepped up to address that and very simply made the funding available so that, when people were displaced during the pandemic, they would have an opportunity to gather other employment, to have new, well-paying jobs created in their economy that they could solicit and work in. They would be able to bring stability to their own income and that of their family and still contribute to their province. This is not a bad thing.
We know it's going to cost over $200 million to clean up these wells, and why the provincial government in Alberta would return $137 million to the federal government without creating those jobs in their own province for their own people, without even putting these contracts out to tender for local companies to do the work.... They were satisfied to allow up to 2,000 abandoned and orphaned wells to just continue to exist, to continue to cause pollution in the economy and in the environment. We know it's having a negative impact, and any scientists or studies that have been done on orphaned and abandoned wells will certainly substantiate that information.
The motion is simple. It's very clear. In my opinion, it's the smart thing to do.
I also want to address a couple of other comments that came up. Obviously, one was with regard to the Alberta piece, so I hope I've been able to clarify that. This has nothing to do with the province of Alberta in terms of giving them a black mark. It has everything to do with giving them a hand up, giving them some assistance on cleaning up orphaned and abandoned wells—which is the right thing to do in Canada—providing them money to create jobs in their local community, to give businesses and contractors opportunities they didn't have.
Again, it comes back to the overarching message that Conservatives refuse to believe in doing anything that is helpful for the environment. They refuse to accept that we are in an environmental crisis. They refuse to accept that reducing pollution is the way forward to a clean economy and to a better world for all of us, and certainly a better Canada. They have only to look in their own province and see what happened in Jasper last year to know that climate change is real and is impacting our communities in a very real way.
When you look at the fact that more than nearly 240 structures were lost in Jasper in that fire, including people's homes, businesses, bridges, roads and other pieces of infrastructure, this is very serious environmental damage that is occurring because of climate pressure. If we don't accept that that is real and start drastically making more changes in society, we're going to see a lot more of it.
In Canada, in 2023, we had 15 million hectares of land destroyed by fire in the environment. This affects animals, plants, communities, people, homes and everything of that nature. Normally in Canada, we would have had fires that would have destroyed probably about 2 million hectares a year, on average. To go to 15 million hectares is huge. It's one of the largest. It is the largest in Canada, and it's a trend that we don't want to see continue. We're also seeing it in other parts of the country, not just in Alberta, but Albertans have had their share of wildfires. Even their firefighters are saying that these fires are different: They're more rapid; they're more aggressive; they require specific and specialized training; they require a response that has not been seen in the past when it comes to these kinds of wildfires.
The experts who are out there in the field fighting these fires are the people who are saying that. That's why, in Canada, we want to set up the fire training facility of excellence. We want to train firefighters across Canada so that they are able to deal with specialized situations and the changing and aggressive wildfires that we're seeing today.
They don't have to look far to know that capping orphan and abandoned wells is a critical part of our response to reducing pollution, to protecting the environment and trying to avoid major wildfires like the ones we saw in Jasper this year. Even in my own riding this year, I've had two communities evacuated, up to 10,000 people at a time. When you live in the north, it's even more complicated. You don't always have a road out, and if you have a road out, it's usually only one road out. That causes serious life-and-death situations in many communities.
Just think: In Canada today, when we are evacuating some of these communities, we're having to do it by air. In my own riding, we evacuated hospitals and long-term care facilities in the middle of the night by aircraft to the nearest other hospitals and facilities. This is what Canadians are dealing with every single day in this country, whether it be floods, fires or major storms. This is what we're dealing with.
We believe firmly, as does the world—except for Conservatives—that this is very much instigated by changes in the environment. We know that our job is to try in every way possible to reduce pollution without having major impacts on the lives of Canadians. I know we're not always going to agree on how we do that. However, surely we can agree that when the Government of Canada gives a province the money to clean up abandoned and orphaned wells that are causing pollution as a means of making the environment a cleaner, more pristine place and to create jobs for people, then the province should at least step up to try to do that.
I'd like to make sure that this is on the record and that people understand that there is a real reason behind doing this. It's partly to create jobs and to give businesses new opportunities, but the huge part of this is the environment, as well, and cleaning the environment, making sure that we have the resources and the potential available that people need.
Mr. Chair, I'm hoping that the motion will pass. I hope that members opposite will see that there's value and importance in this, and that they will not get caught up in the fact that Alberta is singled out. The reality is that Alberta does have these numbers of abandoned and orphaned wells, and the reality is that the Government of Canada is giving Alberta a cheque to deal with it, to create jobs, to give businesses more opportunity, and to clean up these orphaned and abandoned wells.
No one should take offence to it. It is a good program for Alberta, just like it was a good program for Saskatchewan. We want to make sure that it gets implemented and done properly. We don't need to belabour this issue. It's very, very simple; the writing is very clear. I would ask that colleagues support this motion so that we can pass it and move on to the study in committee, where every member will have the opportunity to make whatever points they want to make around this motion. Whether they support it or are against it, they will have the opportunity to lay that out in the committee and to make their points. However, as it is right now, the Government of Canada stands by Alberta. We stand by our policies on the environment. We know that climate change is real. We know that doing the right thing is the way forward. This is the right thing. Including Alberta, supporting Alberta financially, giving Albertans jobs, giving businesses in Alberta a new opportunity for contracts and, at the same time, reducing pollution.... That is a way forward for all of us. It's a win-win.
I would ask all members of the committee to support the motion put forward by MP Dabrusin.