Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 30th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen, for that reminder.

I will remind colleagues that I use a soft intervention of first turning on my mic to allow members to look towards me, see when my mic is on, and then pause. Then I ask members to pause in their thoughts, so I can intervene. I do respect the work of our interpreters and I want to make sure they can follow along and interpret.

That's the approach I've taken and will continue to take. I do not want to speak while others are speaking into the mics because it does make it challenging for interpreters.

I ask all colleagues, when you do make a point of order, make sure you're looking towards me. You can see whether my mic is on or off, so I do not have to interrupt you.

However, I do appreciate you making those remarks, Mr. Dreeshen. I will reflect on that as well.

We have another point of order from Ms. Jones.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you.

I just want to add to what Mr. Dreeshen is saying. I totally agree that any points of order should not be debated and should be relevant.

I also ask you, Chair, to give more guidance on the relevance of the content of the debate. Most of the interventions have been regarding relevance of the subject matter. If we could have more rulings on that, we could probably avoid some of the points of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Jones.

You are correct that we want to ensure that we focus on the subamendment we are on, which is Mr. Falk's subamendment, making sure stakeholders from Timmins—James Bay can participate in the work of our committee, and keep it relevant to that.

We've exhausted all the points of order, I think, now.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

No, we have not. We have another point of order from Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

This is meant to offer information only. There's been a lot of discussion regarding the issue of relevancy. In my former career, Mr. Chair, as a member of the legal system, the term “relevancy” has a subjective element to it. It's not objective. My experience, as limited as it is in this 44th Parliament—

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

Is that a point of order?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Yes, and I'd like to finish my thought before I get “point-of-ordered”, Mr. Chair.

In my experience on a number of committees, when the issue of relevancy comes up, I have seen chairs provide a certain degree of latitude for interventions by members. I have been to at least a half-dozen. I'm not suggesting you have to follow suit because you are the master of your own domain in terms of how you conduct yourself, sir, in this committee, but we are bound by rules at parliamentary committees. There is a degree of latitude that you can afford the member to eventually get around to the concept of relevancy.

Just because an opposition member feels that the issue of relevancy is not within the first, say, couple of sentences of the intervention by the member, is not to suggest that the entire intervention itself is devoid of relevancy. I simply ask—and this is for information only—that you provide a degree of flexibility to every member of this committee to get to the whole issue of relevancy, knowing full well that relevancy, in my view, is a subjective element.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

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

I would just ask committee members to do what you've stated but that we do keep it relevant to the motion at hand, just to ensure that all committee members have the ability to participate in debate on this important subamendment. We also—as stated as well by you, sir—do not use points of order to debate extensively our thoughts on a point of order but get to the procedural aspects of the point of order.

Now that we've had that important conversation regarding those points of order, we will proceed. I see that Mr. Genuis is no longer here. We'll move to the next member we have on the list, who is Mr. Dreeshen, who now has the floor. Welcome, Mr. Redekopp, to the committee today as well. It's great to have you.

Mr. Dreeshen, the floor is yours.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

A few days ago, I had a chance to speak to both you and the clerk, questioning whether the following statement would be a point of order, and you suggested that no, it's best for me to bring it up when I have the floor, so I have patiently waited for that.

In my last intervention I misspoke. I indicated that it was a company by the name of Hoverlink that had been required to go and get funds from the U.S., actually through the Canada pension plan, in order to fund....

I made a mistake. It was actually in testimony from Mr. Zsombor Burany, who had said that he had needed to get a $250-million investment for his telecommunications company but that he was not able to get Canadian funds, so he had been required to go to the United States. It actually ended up being a U.S. company, but the irony, of course, was the fact that the funding for it came through the Canada pension plan.

I apologize for having made that mistake, but I did want to make sure that the record was corrected. That is the first thing I wanted to mention.

In my remarks, I went through a number of different issues. Again, one I had mentioned was the text of a book by the name of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. We, as politicians or business people, have certain ideas of what is happening in the world, based on our experiences and so on. It's not necessarily fact, and if you start to take a look at the way in which countries manage themselves, you'll see that things are a lot better off in the world than we perceive them to be.

One of the questions they posed—and this was posed to extremely intelligent people around the world— was about the average grade level of young men of 30 years old, who had 10 years of school. They then made the comparison and asked, “How many years of school do you think a young lady who is 30 years of age would have; nine years, six years or three years?” The vast majority of experts believed that it was three or six years. It's actually nine years, one year less than for a male equivalent, but that's not how we think. We have experts around the world saying that they are going to develop policies, make investments and so on, based on their perceived notion of how the world is.

When I read the book, I did the little quiz, and I realized that I am not much better at guessing than anybody else when it comes to that because that's my perceived notion. These are the things that I've heard since I was young. I also reflected on the point—and, of course, this got a little bit of excitement from the minister—about the sorts of things that I've been subjected to as someone who was born in the 1950s and grew up in the 1960s and so on.

I remember when I was a kid. It was only eight years after the Second World War, and the Cuban missile crisis was one of the key issues. My dad was part of a civil defence where basically he was the guy who had to have the Geiger counter out there in case we had an atomic war. That was the sort of thing I was subjected to when I was seven or eight years old—the idea that what is going to get us next could be an atomic war.

Then I started to hear things—this was in the 1960s—that oil was going to be gone in 10 years. In the 1970s, I heard that another ice age was going to take place in 10 years.

This is what got people excited. I mentioned that acid rain was going to destroy all of our crops in 10 years. People got excited about that.

Perhaps I should have explained the significance of the work that had been done in order to mitigate those and to look at that, but I didn't. That caused a little excitement for the minister.

There were similar types of things when we were discussing ozone layers. Again, there have been efforts associated with this. There's a lot to it, so I didn't give the two-hour dissertation about the relationship that exists about that. Nevertheless this is what was presented to people. That was the point I was trying to make—every once in a while or about every 10 years, we are given the next thing to worry about. In 1997-98, of course, it was Y2K—look how the world is going to fall apart, because our computers can't figure out what day it is. That was the next thing we looked at. Of course, in 2000 we talked about when the next ice caps were going to be gone.

Here are the issues. We are constantly given a barrage of information that says we are doomed. Every time we deal with that “we are doomed” scenario, somebody is out there making money. I think that's a critical point.

Again, being old enough, I remember Greenpeace. I remember their reason for being. I remember Patrick Moore and the efforts that he has made. Now he is some sort of a pariah in the environmental community, because he says that the people who have taken over these ecology-focused groups are not there for the environment; they are there to make sure they can get money. He said, “I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change [is] a complete fabrication.”

That all depends on where your definition is. I'm sure—as the last time the Minister of Environment took a run at me for stating some obvious facts, and the Minister of Natural Resources took a run at me for stating some obvious facts—that the climate does change. However, what we also have to recognize is that we need to use our strengths in order to make sure that we are helping humanity. Right now we have this thought, and we hear it constantly, that the earth is boiling, and all of these other kinds of things that are only meant to invoke fear in the populace.

You have others who sit back and say that it's not quite that bad, and maybe what we should be doing is using our wealth to come back to a spot where people are being looked after. That's not a bad idea. We have Dubai, where COP28 is taking place right now. The chair, basically, says that things aren't quite as bad as people think. Of course now you have the groups that ask why we decided to have a climate change meeting in some place where they actually produce oil, That's a dumb thing to have done. Well, no, maybe it's simply that they understand the realities of the world, and I think that's really a critical point.

Then we get back to Timmins—James Bay, and every other riding that we have. This is what I had mentioned last day, and I think it's critical. We have made decisions that say Canada, somehow, is going to be the leader in battery production, electric-vehicle production and mining. Sadly, we say that we will do that at the same time as we are going to minimize the oil and gas industry here in North America—so, our part of it. There are lots of contrary aspects and different things associated with it, but quite frankly, we know what is taking place in the rest of the world.

We know that China has a grasp on all of the supply chain as far as electric motors and battery parts are concerned.

These are the reasons we see companies backing off from their pledges of having this many electric vehicles by 2030.

We see that happening constantly, but here we sit down and say, “Not here in Canada”. We will keep going like a moose on a trail. Nothing that matters is going to change. We're going to stay on that trail.

That's where we have to be thinking. That's where when I go back to this Hans Rosling book. We have this concept that if this is what we have started on, nobody can tell us that anything else is relevant and, therefore, we are going to continue to push this.

We talk about Bill C-50, the just transition and so on. If you do a little bit of research on where that came from, it is a UN discussion. That UN discussion basically started off with a lady named Sharan Burrow who had written a commentary about how shared prosperity provides hope and security. It's basically giving everybody the thought that things are just going to be great.

Who is she? She heads the International Trade Union Confederation.

Basically she is saying that if we can convince everybody that they could change their job, but the only way that they're being saved is because we have trade unions that are going to be part of it and they will stand up for people.... That's not exactly how the world works, especially if you're looking at small business. The fact is that the majority of anything happening in this country right now is small and medium-sized businesses. They're not associated with trade unions. There are parts...but that isn't the reality, yet here is this UN Declaration that indicates that the world should be going through this just transition. That's the sort of thing we're dealing with.

When the UN presents this as one of their goals, they say all the right things. They say all the things that I hear our government talking about when it goes to international fora, about how this just transition is going to work out so well for us.

The reality is that's not the way the rest of the world is. Sadly, right now when we talk about what is happening in Europe.... As I mentioned, I've been part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We talk about food security, we talk about energy security, and of course we talk about what is happening in Ukraine. Those are the three main issues we have. A year ago, I was talking to these people and people from Ukraine, asking how we can help. How can we be part of this? Things have kind of fallen apart even worse now than they were a year ago.

I've been on the environment committee and the natural resources committee. I listened to my friends from the NDP and from the Bloc.They are adamant that there should be no nuclear energy development because of their concerns about something that I was concerned about back in the sixties because of nuclear war. We kind of realized that wasn't the reality of it, but they can still go back to that rhetoric that says that something terrible is going to happen.

They have no idea what it's like. They have no idea about the safety associated with it. They have no idea that the reason it is so expensive to produce is because we have all of these naysayers sitting on the sidelines saying that we have to make sure we do this. They say, “Fine, we will do it; we will prove it”. Once it's proven the first time though, you'd think maybe we could get to the stage where things could proceed a little faster.

Actually, they are proceeding faster now. If you look at what is happening in Europe, you see them expanding the number of nuclear projects they have to generate electricity, so much so that the next issue is how they transmit that. How do they get that energy to where they need to have it if they're going to concentrate on heat pumps, EVs and that sort of thing? They don't have a grid that can deal with that.

There are billions and billions of dollars that are associated with that part.

That's the reality we have, so those of us in our 338 communities start to look at the opportunities for us to be part of this new transition into electric vehicles. We have to be smart about it, and sadly, I don't believe that is the case.

As I've said on so many occasions, if you're not going to measure the environmental impact from the first shovel you use to dig something up until you're finished with it and have to shove it back in again and throw dirt on it, at the end—whether that be nuclear, hydroelectric, oil and gas, windmills or solar—if you're not going to measure it, then how can you say that you are actually doing anything for the environment?

However, we still do. We say, yes, but somebody told us this, or, we believe this is the case. Even though we might be completely wrong we believe it and therefore that is the path we are going to follow.

If we follow things that are wrong and we spend billions or trillions of dollars globally on these issues, what other things could we have solved in the meantime? I was on the health committee for quite some time. If we could spend our money looking at ways of helping with those things, whether it be cancer or other types of things that affect each and every one of us, if we were able to take the wealth we have and say, let's concentrate on that, instead of saying, the U.S. has the Inflation Reduction Act, so we've got to spend money or else we're going to be left on the wayside here....

It's not going to work for them either in the situations where they're doing it. It's not working from the perspective that they still have electric vehicle plants. They have all of these types of things. They have their own companies that are saying they can't keep up. This 2030 thing or 2035, there is no way that is possible. We are backing away from it.

They might have great ideas, but think, what was the last great idea that happened when this government was elected? The first thing that happened was that the president decided to shut down Keystone XL, and the little bit of push-back that the Canadian government gave, based on that, was very minimal. All that did was prevent our being able to take our rich natural resources that are produced in the most environmentally friendly way in the world from heading into the U.S. market because they didn't want it to move into the world market.

People have to understand the science associated with hydrocarbons. When you bring them in, depending upon how they come in, that's where you get the different types of products that can be used. They need them, so now let's start talking about Venezuela. How can we bring Venezuelan heavy oil in here so that the refineries we have on the gulf coast can actually do the things they need so that these products can be presented around the world?

When you have a neighbour who thinks that way about your energy resources, when you have a neighbour who says, you know what, now we are actually producing more oil and gas to send around the world than anybody else, how much do you really think they are going to be working with us as far as partners are concerned?

The president can simply say, we sure want to be engaged with some of your mining projects so that we can have the rare earth minerals that are required, whether it be for batteries or whether it be for engines and all those sorts of things, and we can look at that and we'd be happy to make you our partners. We have been partners before where we take what we have, dig it up and send it someplace else. Yes, there are lots of people who make money and we chip away at our wealth, give it to somebody else and we go from there.

That's not what the government is saying. The government is saying, “Yes, but we're not going to allow that. We are going to be the ones going in. We will make sure that, whether it's in Timmins—James Bay or Red Deer—Mountain View, we're going to get to these products that we have. We will try to find the supply chain to get them to markets, and everything's going to be great.” That's until, of course, you talk to the community and ask them what their thoughts are about different types of production in their communities.

I remember people being so upset that there were simply going to be transmission powerlines going through their part of the community. These weren't because of some windmills or anything else. It was just that somebody decided they wanted to change the line and then there was a lot of discussion based on that. That's the reality that each and every one of us is going to have to deal with when it comes to looking at what the future is going to be.

Now I know we have amazing wealth and amazing intellect as a country. We should not be stopping any options, but it does not mean we should be shutting down one part of our economy because of an ideological bent, which not just this government but other governments around the world believe is significant. I worry about that. The other governments still have their signatures on the bottom of these agreements, so they're not jumping up and down and saying what they're doing, but the reality is that within their borders they are changing things. I think that becomes a critical aspect of it.

We have had people here slamming the Alberta government because they chose.... As a matter of fact, I can't remember which minister it was as there's a sort of tag team on this. They slammed Alberta because of the moratorium on renewables, whoever it was—I think it was a minister. Nevertheless, what people don't recognize is that Alberta has a massive number of renewables, many more than other places, when you talk about what has been developed over the last number of years—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

We have a point of order from Ms. Dabrusin.

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

It has been fascinating to hear all about Venezuela and Alberta: We're travelling a lot these days. I would like to know, given that the subamendment is about witnesses in Timmins—James Bay, how the policies being brought by the Province of Alberta, in putting a moratorium on renewable energies, are relevant.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

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

I'd ask you, Mr. Dreeshen, to keep it relevant. I think you were getting there, to the relevancy to Timmins—James Bay. I just want to make sure that colleagues ensure that our debate is relevant to the subamendment brought forward by Mr. Falk.

Mr. Dreeshen, it's back to you.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I suppose I should start on the point of order.

I think that my discussion has constantly been on.... I've worked it around and talked about how we as individual MPs have to look at what is happening in our surroundings. I believe that was the point I was making.

I will attempt to keep to relevance. However, on my statement about the moratorium on renewables the comment back to me was, I believe, a point of debate. Once it went to that level when the suggestion was, “Oh, but what is this item?”, as far as relevance is concerned I believe that is when we moved to debate. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that is when there should be a case of shutting down that discussion because now it has brought back in this next level of debate, to which I had no intention of going, but it does bring that into the discussion.

That is the end of my point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you.

I'll remind you, Mr. Dreeshen, as you're reminding myself and others, that all colleagues should refrain from using debate in their points of order and keep to the procedural relevancy. I would ask you to make sure that you proceed to your comments now and not debate during your point of order as well.

Mr. Falk, you have a point of order.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I think Mr. Dreeshen was doing a very good job of building a case. You know, I'm not unfamiliar with the construction industry, Mr. Chair, and just using a house as an example, it's nice to be able to have the house, but before you have the house, you have to do some excavation. You have to lay a foundation, and you have to build on that foundation before you end up getting to the house. When there are these points of order based on relevance that are brought up, I don't think they're compensating enough and showing enough latitude to an individual who's building the foundation for the case he's presenting. I think that's a very important part of debate here.

The Liberals like to call out members of the Conservative Party on relevance, but it is absolutely relevant that you build a strong foundation before you start to construct a structure on top of that, and I think that's what Mr. Dreeshen was doing. He's building the foundation to make his point.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Falk, for your point of order and for providing some additional context around the debate that Mr. Dreeshen was providing through your own debate.

I think this is a time, colleagues, for me to reflect on the House of Commons Procedure and Practice book. I have, on a few occasions over the last few months as we've had this debate, been reading some important passages.

I think this is important because a lot of today's conversation has been on relevance, so on relevance, I want to read this passage on the top of page 629:

In doing so, Speakers tend to be mindful of the need for some leniency. At times they have allowed references to other matters in debate if they were made in passing and were not the principal theme of the speech.

I think that provides some additional context to committee members on the importance of relevancy. If you would like to read on your own the passage prior and the passage after this, I would ask committee members to do so to get further understanding of the importance of the rule of relevance.

Thank you, colleagues.

Mr. Dreeshen, I'm going to turn the floor back to you.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was just hoping that you would have a chance to see things through the eyes of the Conservatives there for a moment.

Nevertheless, the point I was making was that sometimes governments have to pause and look at the realities of the things that are taking place. It doesn't matter if it's in my province of Alberta, in Quebec, in the Maritimes, in Ontario, or in the territories.... I won't name all the provinces, but that's my point.

If you don't have a government that sits back...or you have people who say that they found out we've got some issues here, so we 'd better back off. It's the same sort of thing that's going to happen if there is a mining project set up for my riding, Mr. Falk's riding, Ms. Lapointe's riding or Ms. Jones' riding. You have to deal with not only the community, but the province or territory has to deal with not only the community, but the company and the federal government.

When I talk about what has happened in Alberta, a massive amount of renewable resource development is taking place. Then of course, we got somebody who had the support 170,000 union workers say that this is terrible. They said it was going to take $33 billion out. I think the minister—I can't remember whether it was the natural resources minister or the environment minister; they're interchangeable—said the same thing. It's nonsense, but nevertheless it's the same thing. You have to worry.

The reality is, in my community, as in any other people's communities, when you have groups saying they would like to take 11 quarters of good farmland out of production and put in solar panels, if that doesn't mean you should sit back and take a look at it, I don't know what does.

I know the farmers' advocate from Alberta told these people that they'd better really make sure they know what's taking place. At this point in time, it's the Wild West when it comes to these groups.

It's not like oil and gas, where there's somebody there to say this is how this has to be dealt with once it's gone. This isn't the way it is. The same sort of thing happens whether it be windmill projects and so on. They are only designed for 20 to 30 years. As I've mentioned, I have one where it's been about 15 years since it started. It takes a lot more of the environment to deal with putting them up, getting to them, the roads associated with them, the hydrocarbons that are needed to build them in first place and the hydrocarbons that are needed to keep them running in the second place.

A government basically said that they'd better have a plan for this. Therefore, they are going to have a moratorium on other projects. These things are still on the books. There's never a problem. Although we were told that's going to stop everything, that's not true.

That's what happened there. It should be happening around the whole country.

People should be asking whether this is really the right thing.

When you start digging a pit mine some place, it's not going to be like Fort McMurray. They're not going to turn it back into a forest when they're done. It's going to be a hole in the ground. Those are the things that people have to be aware of. I question whether we are aware, when we follow this ideological bent.

Coming back to what I had mentioned before, we do not have the right information in front of us. We believe certain groups that come at us with passion and commitment to their cause. We never take the time to figure out how that affects us as Canadians.

How does that affect our communities?

That, to me, is where I think we need this sober second thought.

Now, on the just transition part, again, this is going to affect people all over, not just in Alberta. It's going to affect people in the entirety of Canada.

When we take a look at what is taking place there, the union leadership is saying, “Oh, that's great. Here's another chance for us to look at the new jobs that are there. We get a chance to be part of that expansion. We'll be able to have more members,” trying to make people think that most people in this country are unionized. That's not necessarily the case.

The other part is that they're basically saying that the investments that have been made in hydrocarbons were a mistake; therefore, we go back. I was for years on the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee, as it was called back in those days. We are now stranding billions of dollars of indigenous investment with the policies of this government.

I have said it before, and I see other people using the term now. We are eco-colonialists. We believe that this is best for the indigenous people of this country. They would love to have jobs working on windmills, solar panels or other types of things, but we should not be encouraging them to continue to invest in or continue to work in the hydrocarbons in which they have spent decades perfecting their skills. If we continue to do that.... We are so naive.

There's always going to be some group that will say, “Oh yes, I'm....” It's whatever the government says. There's a box to check. There's going to be this happen if we do that, and it will make our lives easier if we've checked off any box that the government has. It doesn't matter what government. If this is their plan, then the best thing to do is find somebody who really knows how to write a proposal, send it to the bureaucrats, and then go from there.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Monsieur Simard, go ahead on your point of order.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Just out of curiosity, I'd like to raise the following point. I recall Mr. Dreeshen telling us last week about the possibility of pacifying the planet through oil. It was very interesting. Now we're talking about "eco-colonialism". That's something new. I didn't know Mr. Dreeshen was a left-winger who wanted to combat colonialism.

My question is a very simple one. How is that related to the subamendment on inviting people from the riding of Timmins—James Bay to testify?

I don't know whether people in the riding of Timmins—James Bay are particularly keen on eco-colonialism, but I don't see the link. Perhaps my colleague could inform me about it and explain the link with eco-colonialism and bringing in people from the riding of Timmins—James Bay to testify.

I'm curious. I'm keen to hear about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Monsieur Simard, for your point of order at a very crucial moment to make sure that the comments being presented to debate are relevant to the folks, the stakeholders and the individuals who all come from Timmins—James Bay, and the importance of it.

I would ask you, Mr. Dreeshen, to make sure that you get to tying it into the importance of that in making your argument.

Before I proceed back to you, Mr. Dreeshen, I have Ms. Lattanzio patiently with her hand up online.

I apologize, Ms. Lattanzio, that I did not see you earlier.

I do see your hand up, so I want to acknowledge you now on a point of order.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm listening very attentively here this morning, and I thank all members for their interventions.

I would like to get clarification from Mr. Dreeshen in terms of how he defines this new term that I've heard this morning, eco-colonialism or eco-colonialists. I'd like him to provide me more details with regard to this term.

I agree with my colleague in terms of wondering how this new term is relevant to the subamendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Ms. Lattanzio, for your point of order, and Mr. Simard as well.

We are not debating eco-colonialism here at committee today, as we may want to do so moving forward through a study, so I would ask my colleague if it does tie in to the relevance of Timmins—James Bay and the inclusion of those stakeholders. Mr. Dreeshen, please indicate how, so these committee members can also think about the importance of that connection of eco-colonialism to the subamendment introduced by Mr. Falk.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

I noticed that everybody wanted to get into the debate on eco-colonialism. First of all, it's a term that, when I was at environment committee, people from first nations used. Although people might believe that I'm attempting to claim it, it is not mine.

That is what has been said. I see this melding between my time in environment and my time here at natural resources. I tried to look at the mandate letters; I couldn't see any difference between the two.

We have a Minister of Natural Resources who still thinks he's the Minister of Environment, so I can't remember which one...whether it was discussions here or discussions there. I didn't coin it.

It's somewhat ironic that when Charlie is here and we talk about his community, I would think that is where you would find a lot of first nations people who want to be engaged in whatever type of development is going to take place, whether it's building a road to get there, getting the power coming from there. I've had lots of discussions with first nations leadership from Ontario, talking about this exact commentary. Yes, they know that if they have to follow the government's mantra there are certain boxes they have to check off, but they also know that in terms of those things that are important to their community, if you have a higher power that believes that it and it alone dictates how things are going to be done, that is exactly the colonialism that has been part of the discussion for over a hundred years.

I welcome the comment on it, but again, there are a lot of first nations people who believe that they should be the ones who have the right to make decisions in their lands. It's not me who presented that, even though I would be happy to take claim for it because, quite frankly, that is exactly what is happening when we talk about investments that people have.

Yes, it ties in to the fact that there are a lot more people being affected by that mindset than just native communities. Perhaps that's where the confusion is, but they believe that these things require us to work together.

You take Chief Helin—I'm grasping for his first name now—from British Columbia. One of the books he wrote was Dances with Dependency, which I would suggest people read, talking about what it's like being a leader in indigenous communities and the types of things that have prevented them from being able to do the things that are important for their community.

If we get to that stage, and their community has invested in oil and gas and mining and fishing and forestry, there are a lot of different things that communities in B.C. have been involved with, I think they would agree that there is a mindset here that says Ottawa knows best. As a matter of fact, Ottawa seemed to know best when they chose to take Bill C-50 out of our hands. The whole reason for that is the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that said parts of Bill C-69 were unconstitutional.

Therefore, the development of a bill that speaks to the workings in communities of a philosophy that says that we will do as much as we can to stop oil and gas development, or any type of development, and forget what the Supreme Court says.... When that affects that bill, it then takes us to the next part, which is to talk about Bill C-49. Whereas there are 33 references to the egregious parts of Bill C-69 within that bill, we get nothing from the government to say, “You know what? Maybe we should wait a bit. Maybe we should get some reference points.” All we get from the government and from the minister is, “Well, we don't believe that. That's just their opinion.”

Yes, it's their opinion; therefore, you should do something about it. Otherwise, you throw legislation to us, to each and every one of us sitting here, that says, “You have to rubber-stamp something that you know the Supreme Court has said is unconstitutional.” How then are we supposed to proceed?

We've waited for a discussion of Bill C-69 and these egregious points from the Supreme Court ruling. We've waited for some discussion on that. People talk about how long October was. Well, we're still waiting. We're waiting for the Supreme Court decision to be addressed by this government, rather than, “Oh, it doesn't matter.”

Those are the issues we have, which is why we come back to say that, well, if people don't agree with this—