Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'm going to first.... We have a main motion on the floor. We have an amendment and a subamendment to the main motion. The member has the floor to make his argument on the subamendment and how it relates to the main motion on the floor.

I would ask you, colleagues, to use your time effectively to make your argument on why you support or don't support, potentially, the subamendment, and to provide your arguments so that committee members have the rationale, which may also impact their decisions on why they want to support or not support this subamendment.

I ask all members to allow the member to continue and finish his debate on this issue, so we can move to other members, who may also want to add to and provide debate on this.

Now, Mr. Patzer, you had a point of order.

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

Yes, I absolutely did.

You've talked to all committee members at length about being respectful to their colleagues, and while Mr. Falk was talking, Mr. Angus was yelling at him from that end of the table...over top of him.

I want to make sure we put that on the record, because he is quick to point out that members are being abusive, but he is the one who is yelling at other members.

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

Mr. Chair—

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

I want to remind you, Mr. Chair, that the rules apply to everyone. I would ask that you make sure Mr. Angus is not the one who also—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Patzer—

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

—provides crosstalk and yells over top of people.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Patzer, thank you for your point of order.

Colleagues, I have asked all members to, number one, not speak with multiple mikes on. I know many of you like to converse with each other. You can do that, because you have the right to do that, to converse with your colleagues, but keep the decorum of this committee and focus on doing the work for Canadians on the motion, amendment and subamendment we provided today.

We should not engage in debate that does not pertain to what we're doing. Focus on that.

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

Mr. Chair, can I get a ruling from you?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Yes, I'm going back to you, Mr. Angus. Go ahead.

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

Thank you.

I have the floor, but what I'm seeing is a continuous attempt by the Conservatives to get falsehoods on the record, to make stuff up and undermine, so I want a ruling.

Was I yelling in this committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

You asked about yourself, Mr. Angus. I have not heard you yelling. When I commented earlier, it was not about you or any one member specifically, unless I stated it was specifically about a member. I have not.

What I've asked all members to do is avoid turning on their mikes, speaking at the same time, speaking loudly into the mikes when multiple mikes are on, or having debate that is louder across the table when their mikes are off. It makes it difficult for committee members to focus on what the member who has the floor is saying and doing. I think that's something we can all abide by in order to keep the tone of this committee focused on the work at hand: the motion presented by Mr. Sorbara.

We're going back to you, Mr. Angus. You had the floor. I'll ask you to continue your arguments on....

We have a point of order from Ms. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a bit of confusion over how to get some evenness in terms of committee members' responses for decisions.

I recall at a recent meeting our colleague Garnett Genuis was accused of lying and unparliamentary language when he asked for clarity, much like Mr. Angus just did. Out of a certain level of self-awareness, I want to put on the record that I have a high threshold for volume because I am a loud talker, as you all know.

My colleague Mr. McKay is nodding his head in agreement, I think.

I wonder why Mr. Angus's request for subjective clarity from the chair was answered immediately, but our colleague Garnett Genuis couldn't seem to get similar support for clarity on allegations of lying and unparliamentary language, when he simply requested specificity about a response.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you for your point of order.

Ms. Stubbs, I don't recall from several meetings back the specific issue that you have brought forward.

I would remind members that implying that a member is lying is unparliamentary, and we should refrain from doing that. We should be courteous to each other here at our committee and try to work together. If there are challenges we have, I think there are ways to do that within our parliamentary procedures and processes.

We have Mr. Angus and Mr. Patzer.

Mr. Patzer, I have you first, and then I'll go to Mr. Angus on the point of order.

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

Thank you very much.

Multiple times Mr. Angus has tried to imply that we have been lying over here, providing misinformation and things like that.

I would ask that you be judicious in making sure that it applies to all members, especially as it pertained to me just a couple of minutes ago here, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Patzer.

I'll remind colleagues. That's why I wanted to clarify and make that statement. We should not be accusing members here of lying. We should be courteous and focus on the work at hand. Thank you.

Mr. Angus, do you have a point of order? I just want to make sure that it's on a point of order. The floor is back to you now.

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

If I'm allowed to speak, I will continue to speak.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

The floor is yours, Mr. Angus. You can proceed.

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

I'll begin by thanking you, Chair. I did feel that it was important to get that ruling. I do believe that deliberate falsehoods are being put on the record to monkeywrench this committee.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

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

I was very pleased that you ruled that I had not made a false statement, as was claimed by my Conservative colleagues. I thank you for that, because the public record is important.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus, we have a point of order from Mr. Patzer.

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

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

Let's just be clear. When Mr. Angus alleges falsehoods and things like that, we know what he's doing. He's deliberately saying that we are lying. Now, there's no falsehood that was said, yet here he is right there deliberately defying what you just told him literally 20 seconds ago, to not accuse people of lying.

I just ask, Mr. Chair, when members do that, that you make sure they are stopped and asked to apologize. We know they're not allowed to do that in the House of Commons. We know that whenever somebody accuses somebody of lying, they're not allowed to continue until they apologize.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Patzer, I've acknowledged your point of order. That point of order was raised by Mr. Angus. I clarified what Mr. Angus asked for a ruling on. I gave him back the floor.

I've told all members once again not to target other members or say that they are lying. Members do have the right through their debate to debate the motions at hand. Mr. Angus did get the floor back. I did provide a ruling. He did get the floor back on the ruling that was provided. Now he's proceeding back to his debate.

Mr. Angus, I will go back to you now on debate, because we've addressed the point of order. If colleagues do want clarity, once again, I think I've provided it multiple times on that ruling and decision. If you want clarity, then I can provide it again. I think committee members do understand where we're at.

Go ahead, Mr. Angus.

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

Thank you, Chair.

We will continue to push forward on this. This legislation has to be passed.

This committee had 56 meetings with 133 witnesses and over 112 hours of testimony. We know what the energy file is. We know what the sustainable jobs issue is. We need to get this legislation passed.

We are hearing from labour groups across the country who are very concerned. I'm hearing from investors who are looking to shift investment to the United States because they are seeing that Canada is becoming a gridlock, with the Conservatives blocking Bill C-49, when there are such opportunities.

To that, this motion that I read, or my attempt to speak to this, was referred to us because two pieces of legislation were referred to our committee. As someone who has been in Parliament for multiple years and in opposition for all that time, I don't always agree with how government works. I know that when government moves legislation to the committee, it becomes the priority of the committee. The committee has to address that legislation.

What we saw from the Conservatives was an attempt to monkeywrench that motion on Bill C-50 and Bill C-49 by introducing another study on top of that. I reached out to the Conservatives. I said that I'd be more than willing to look at that study, but that study would have to come in order. It doesn't get to pre-empt the work that has been given to us by Parliament. There is a timeline ticking on this. We need to get this done. This is what we're hearing from labour.

We have a series of these amendments that are very.... First, it was Sudbury. Suddenly, we're going to have people from Sudbury. It wasn't really clear who we were going to have from Sudbury, but we were going to get somebody from Sudbury. The Conservatives suddenly were really fascinated. It's funny. They didn't have anybody come when the coal transition happened. It was the New Democrats who brought representatives who went through the coal transition. They didn't bring anybody. Suddenly, they wanted someone from Sudbury.

I believe the motion was that they wanted representatives from the mining industry in Timmins, which I think is a great idea. I would love to have a set of meetings with representatives from the mining region of Timmins, maybe Val-d'Or, maybe Sudbury, but outside of this meeting on Bill C-50 and Bill C-49, because it would certainly be a huge education to my Conservative colleagues.

If they think that the mining representatives from northern Ontario are going to come down and back their climate-denying anti-investment in EV technology, I think they're going to be in for a big surprise.

We have Alamos Gold in Matachewan that's running 8,000 tonnes of gold a day underground. That's massive. When I go underground at Alamos, we talk about the really important need to move from diesel to electric trucks. That's a huge investment. Those ITCs will be huge for being able to move those kinds of underground pit trucks to battery power.

There's the Newmont mine. I would love to invite Newmont to come and talk about Borden. Borden is a mine that's running almost entirely green now. It is possible.

Again, this is something my Conservative colleagues would not probably know anything about. When you work underground in a diesel environment and work with oil from the drills, the lung cancers and stomach cancers are enormous, just from what you're breathing.

When you go into a clean battery-driven mine, the air is so much cleaner, and it drops your costs enormously. What you pay in battery investments, you actually make up in less cost for underground fans. When you have to run fans, let's say at Creighton, deep, 9,000 feet underground, you're pumping a lot of cool air down at those depths. When you run diesel motors at that depth, you have to run really heavy fans.

I talk to mining representatives, and I'm sure they would love to come to this committee to talk about how ITCs would help in those investments so that we could make switches. For example, I believe Vale, which is not in my region, but is in Ms. Lapointe's region, is running 72-ton haulage trucks now on batteries. That's a really transformative moment. People didn't think that was possible. Certainly the flat earth EV deniers would say that you couldn't run trucks that big. What they can do now, because of how they've tied the batteries to the braking energy on those pit trucks, is run from six hours to 10 hours. A 10-hour shift on a battery hauling 72 tons of ore is a major transformative moment.

I would love to have them come and talk about that technology and why they are absolutely committed to the clean-tech future, because they see the opportunities for mining.

Whenever I talk to people in the mining sector, they get it. If we're going to be competing against China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there are horrific human rights abuses, we need to have a supply chain that is free of the abuses that are happening in places like Congo, but also that has a clean energy footprint. We can't say we're going to be a clean energy superpower and get critical minerals unless our mines are able to start running on clean energy.

That leads to questions on the grid.

I know, Chair, when you were sitting as just one of the members, we were going to study the grid, something my Conservative colleagues don't seem to want to deal with. But the grid is important, because we actually can't move some of this battery technology for big industrial projects without dealing with issues of the grid.

I think it would be really great to have representatives of the Timmins mining industry. They would also explain to the Conservatives that Bill C-69 has really nothing to do with how mine projects are developed. I know Conservatives are going on that it takes 10 to 15 years to get a mine up and running, and they blame the Liberal government for that. Well, it always takes 10 to 15 years for a mine, because when you're talking about a multi-million dollar investment underground, you have to make sure you really know where you're putting your infrastructure. If you put the shaft in the wrong place, you're going to go bankrupt pretty quickly, and you're not going to be able to raise the money on the international market until you've done all the important steps that are necessary.

Take Doug Ford. He announced he was going to run a bulldozer through the Ring of Fire. Well, that didn't go so well. I wouldn't be betting any money on the Ring of Fire right now, because it was Conservative politicians who shot their mouths off about the Ring of Fire. If you go to Neskantaga First Nation, they're saying, “It ain't going to happen, because it's not done properly.” To build a mine properly, you have to have a proper environmental plan, a proper financial plan, the support of first nations, because when you have the support of first nations, things move a lot quicker.

For example, we had representatives from the Timmins mining region come—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mr. Angus, I'll ask you to hold.

Ms. Stubbs, go ahead on a point of order.