Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Patzer, we have a point of order.

Mr. Angus, go ahead.

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

It is parliamentary rules that we cannot be discussing what was said in camera unless the committee agrees to it. Mr. Patzer would be violating that by making claims about what was or what was not said and done in a meeting that was in camera. I think we need to make sure that he does not make reference to work done in camera.

A motion is before us. We need to address that.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Mr. Patzer, make sure, because that was an in camera discussion, that you do not comment on anything that was discussed in camera.

To your question, the meeting was adjourned, and we are now into a new meeting today in public.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you.

I wanted to raise this off the top because of the reference to a speaking order. I'm not going to talk about what was said in camera, but I am just curious about the speaking order. This is why I raised my hand as soon as you gavelled the meeting in, because I was curious about that. At the start of the meeting, as soon as you gavelled it, I had my hand up to try to get a point of clarity on that front.

I respect your point on the in camera portion. Obviously we can't speak about what was said in camera.

Just out of respect for colleagues, I think it would be nice to have been given notice of this new motion in advance. That way we would have had as much time as possible to prepare for how we would want to address it.

I think at this point I will end my remarks so we can get to Ms. Stubbs here.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer, for your remarks.

We'll go to Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

As my colleague has pointed out, of course this is a new motion, an attempt to ram through scheduling, complete with dates and timelines. It presupposes the number of Canadians who must be heard and how long that will take on two bills. Of course, as we explained before, this is before all of those details are worked out, like witnesses, and until we hear from every Canadian who would be impacted by these various bills.

In the case of Bill C-49, people with many different livelihoods, and those impacted provincial governments in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do of course want this regulatory framework. That's one reason why, of course, this should come first, including coming before Bill C-50, including the fact that it was introduced, time allocated and passed at second reading, all before Bill C-50.

Also regarding Bill C-50, I am aware that this committee did study it. I think I came into the committee on the back end of that. Given the importance, significance, and the scope and scale of Bill C-50, this is at once a plan to plan jobs and skills training, but it is actually about the fundamental economic restructuring to a top-down, central, five-year planning approach that will immediately destroy 170,000 jobs in the oil and gas sector. This will impact the livelihood of 2.7 million Canadians otherwise, and cascade through the entire economy, which is what the internal documents of the NDP-Liberal government show.

Of course, years ago we warned on the carbon tax that the same thing would happen.

These bills are extremely significant, and Conservatives can't possibly support this before we have had a discussion with all of the Canadians, who must be heard from on all of these bills. We can't ram through a scheduling motion right now that is full of dates.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I have a point of order from Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Just quickly, I want to make sure the committee understands and get the facts out that this is not a programming motion. It's a scheduling motion. There's a difference. I had the same scenario with Bill C-13 at official languages, and the Conservative Party argued about the differences. I would suggest you understand the difference.

This is a programming motion—I mean a scheduling motion. I'm sorry. The last time with Bill C-13 at official languages, the internal filibustering lasted for about eight sessions on just that point. This is scheduling and moving legislation that's in the House to the committee, which is what we need to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for your point of order, Mr. Serré, on what's being discussed here.

It's back to you, Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you.

Thank you to my colleague for explaining that to me. You could see, even as you were explaining it, how easy it is to mess those up, so I appreciate that advice and that friendly and constructive criticism of what I've said here. I can certainly tell you one thing, though. The people of Lakeland definitely didn't send me here to worry too much about our navel-gazing, inside baseball or fancy parliamentary procedures. They just want me to be here to fight for their livelihoods and for their communities, and I think all Canadians do as well.

Chair, as I was saying, these are the reasons our position remains the same. Regarding the order when we are discussing these bills coming to committee and the precedence they must take, it is blatantly and blindingly obvious that Bill C-49 must be first because the Atlantic premiers want it, and then Bill C-50 must be after that. We cannot agree to timelines. We cannot agree to clause-by-clause. We can't presuppose how this is all going to unfold, because Canadians must be heard.

Of course, the most pressing and most urgent and biggest issue this committee ought to be dealing with and that, certainly, the government should have addressed by now.... Imagine the outcry if a Conservative government had rammed through a cornerstone, significant, wide-ranging, sweeping bill that was passed and was then on the books and then the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada said, “Hang on a second. The vast majority of this is largely unconstitutional.” I can't imagine. Well, I think we all can. Of course, the most urgent issue of all for the Prime Minister—but since he won't do it, I guess we have to try to deal with it here in committee—is to deal with this decision on Bill C-69 and to fix the bill and fix all the problems that Conservatives warned about, as did all the provinces and territories, indigenous leaders, private sector proponents and municipalities—all of them—when it was leaving the House of Commons.

Then, of course, Alberta pursued a court case against Bill C-69 primarily focusing on jurisdictional division—a warning Conservatives gave on Bill C-69 would become a problem—but, importantly, Alberta was supported by seven other provinces through this charge. The Alberta court said, “Yes, Alberta, you're right. This thing is unconstitutional. Just as Conservative official opposition members said when it was in debate and just as thousands of Canadians spoke out against five years ago, this thing is unconstitutional.” The Prime Minister immediately said he would appeal it to the Supreme Court. What happened a couple of weeks ago was that the Supreme Court said, “Yes, Justin Trudeau, you're wrong, and these seven provinces are right. Get this thing fixed.”

On Friday, the Minister of Environment said he guessed you guys were going to get around to that in the next couple of months, but what's terrifying is that what he said he would do would be to take the approach of these interim guiding principles. Well, I would remind everyone that's exactly what they did in our first term when the Liberals froze all of the existing major projects across all aspects of natural resources development. They froze all of those applications for two years, threw the economy and the sector into utter uncertainty, disarray, lack of clarity and, frankly, fear. The consequence of that was, over the years, losses of literally billions of dollars in projects that are especially important in remote, rural, indigenous and low-income communities.

I'm getting there, Charlie.

This is how important this issue is. This was all ignored, and the Supreme Court has now said it's a big deal. Now the environment minister is saying, “We'll get around to it in a few months, but right now, we're going to do these interim guiding principles,” but that's what happened the first time. It caused chaos for two years, an absolute collapse in oil and gas investment, collapses in all that investment in clean tech that's done in that sector, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs and, of course, as you know, particular harm in Alberta, Saskatchewan, parts of B.C. and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Of course, because of the importance of the leading private sector investor in the Canadian economy, and still to this day despite all the hostility and anti-energy, anti-development, anti-private sector policy, it still remains Canada's top export. It underpins the entire Canadian economy, including, obviously, the TSX, the importance of energy stocks there.

People on Bay Street and people in Toronto also need to be worried about their jobs.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Stubbs, we have a point of order from Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank my colleague for her lengthy intervention.

Mr. Chair, I think we should go back to the motion itself. The Impact Assessment Act is environment. I just want to clarify that. I also want to clarify what our colleague mentioned about no limit on meetings in the motion. Maybe you've just received the motion itself, but the motion does say four meetings. There's no max. I just want to clarify the facts about what's being said.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Serré, for providing that information.

I'd ask Ms. Stubbs to keep it relevant to the motion.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Chair. I certainly will.

I'm sorry that it's lengthy. I'm trying to map out for all Canadians why it's important we do the first things first, and get this right, but also why it is so important to every single Canadian in every single province and region that we do this.

My colleague, Marc, and I sat together on this very committee between 2015 and 2019 when I was in my first term. He was also in his first term. During that time, I was also the vice-chair. It happened at that time under different leaders, and I was also the shadow minister for natural resources.

I remember well the introduction and the debates on Bill C‑69. Of course, the fact is that bill was announced in a dual way by both the former environment and natural resources ministers involved. Since the Liberals also want to...I know Charlie does, since the NDP‑Liberals want to assess Bill C‑50 through this committee, and I certainly also want to do that, but the trouble with a caution about Bill C‑69 being environment is that, of course, Bill C‑50, the just transition—

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

A point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Stubbs, we have a point of order.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—was also jointly announced by the environment, labour, and natural resources ministers.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We have a point of order from Mr. Angus, so I would just ask you to hold on for one second.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus, go ahead on the point of order.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I've been listening very closely, but we are debating Bill C‑50 and Bill C‑49. We're not debating Bill C‑69. We have a motion before us, and we have to address that motion. If Ms. Stubbs wants to bring another motion, and we finish the legislative agenda, we can actually deal with that, and see what we can do, but right now, she has diverted from the topic at hand. Either she moves on and lets another member speak or she speaks to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

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

I encourage members to be succinct and keep on the topic of the motion.

Ms. Stubbs, the floor is yours.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I apologize for the length at which I'm dealing with this issue. It's just that it is crucial to the livelihoods of the people that I represent, to my relatives and my family members in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario. I know each and every member of Parliament here takes that seriously for their own constituents, and also for all Canadians.

It might seem to Charlie that this is irrelevant, but it's not. I'll explain why.

We are talking about the order and the scheduling as Marc had pointed out to me. We are talking about the scheduling that will dictate the order by which we do our duties as members of Parliament and assess the bills that must take precedence over our already existing work.

The reason we are saying Bill C-69 must be dealt with urgently.... It's, frankly, by the Prime Minister and the NDP‑Liberals, and it's shocking that this hasn't actually happened in a tangible way yet, but what else is new. They're now going to add more uncertainty, and a lack of clarity.

I'm also talking about Bill C-49 and Bill C-50, because that's germane to this exact motion that has been dropped on the table here, and it is the content of the scheduling that we are discussing. Another reason that Bill C-69 is so germane to the legislation that's coming to this committee—