Thank you.
It's an interesting conversation as it's unfolding.
I'll start by saying that I agree largely with the point that was raised by Mr. Jowhari, which is that we haven't completed the study that we had engaged in here. It seems like such a strange thing for us to be suggesting that it would be a good idea to put forward one report—basically, just one piece of the evidence that came in in our study and put that into the House to debate—when we've heard so much else over the course of this study. It would undermine, I think, the value of all of those other witnesses and all of the other pieces of information that we got.
The PBO officer was also very clear that he has a very limited mandate as to what he looks at and what he doesn't look at, so if we sent this to the House of Commons immediately, without the rest of the context from the study, then we're actually missing a lot of the other important pieces that were put before us by witnesses.
We heard from witnesses, in detail, about things like some of the extra complications about this project. We heard about, obviously, the impact of the pandemic, but also that apparently there were archaeological findings along the way that required attention, and that added to costs. There was an atmospheric river that also had an impact on the construction of it. It was also mentioned that there were many other projects happening at the same time, so there were challenges when it comes to labour and supply of the items required. There were issues about the challenges of geography.
All of those kinds of pieces were being brought forward to us by witnesses. Not all of that's reflected in the PBO report, so we would just be sending a report to the House of Commons without all of that extra context. Why bother having all the witnesses come if we're just going to take the PBO report and send it back? I think that the value in doing a study and bringing to bear everything that we have to say and everything that we have heard brings a value to it, and that's why we do the study.
From my sense, this isn't just about putting forward the PBO report. If we actually care for a thorough study about the TMX pipeline—and we did care so much about having a full study on the TMX pipeline that we all agreed to do the study and we all called witnesses and asked those important questions of witnesses—then I think we should be also making sure that the voices of those witnesses, the reports from those witnesses, their evidence and our findings and the analysis and the recommendations that would come from the work of the analysts should all go together with it. It doesn't make sense to me to take one piece. If we were going to do that, we could have brought any report or any witness's statement and sent that to the House of Commons separately, without all the other contacts, but it's missing things.
I was particularly fascinated by the part about how union labour had not been involved by the private sector beforehand. To me, that's a huge change, actually, and impacts workers, and as Ms. Stubbs said, it would potentially impact costs, but these are the kinds of things about supporting union labour in working on these things, and I hadn't realised that, actually. I don't think that that would be really reflected in the PBO report and analysis either. If you send the report without that kind of context, you're missing some of the factors and the pieces that would be going into the whole piece.
We also had economists who came forward and provided lots of context as to what they saw as the value of the TMX pipeline. Their opinions differed, by the way; they didn't all agree. That kind of context would be missing in bringing that forward.
That's also something important for people to talk about. I think, as Monsieur Simard recognized when he was speaking, the PBO was talking about how he was working within very strict parameters. I don't know why we would choose to keep ourselves within those strict parameters when we refer this to the House of Commons. We'd be in a better place if we put the whole study together and then had all of this go forward. We can debate all of the pluses and minuses regarding the costs and how this all came to be. That is, I think, one important part.
I also want to respond to what we heard from Mrs. Stubbs.
She said that the Conservatives believe in Canada's energy products and exports. The Liberal government does too. In fact, we have been very much supporting the development of energy in Canada. The offshore wind bill we passed was the whole of Bill C-49. All of that debate on Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and offshore wind was about an entire energy industry right here in our country. It's new and important, and it will have a very big impact on Atlantic Canada. Frankly, the Conservatives were not supporting us in moving forward with that bill.
I want to very much counter the idea that the current Liberal government isn't supporting energy. We put forward that bill and worked with the Atlantic provinces to make sure it moved forward. That's a very important thing we did.
If you want to talk about our support for energy products, look at nuclear power. That is an important piece we've been moving forward.
Do you know what? I want to talk about that. It's easy to chirp back at me when I'm talking about these things, except for—