Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to express my concerns about Bill C-49.
I oppose the bill both as a citizen of Canada and as a resident of Newfoundland and Labrador, because it is a death blow to my province's ability to remain a contributing member of Canada.
Honourable members, in my respectful submission, Bill C-49 deserves to be known as the “no more offshore act.”
I'm a long-time member of the bar of Newfoundland and Labrador and a sometime leader of the legislative opposition. Now a non-practising member of the bar and retired from elected life, I'm involved in pro bono work for organizations like the National Citizens Inquiry.
My interest in Bill C-49, the “no more offshore act”, is not that of an industry spokesperson, of a fisher whose livelihood is affected or of a proponent or businessperson who hopes to profit. My interest is solely that of a citizen who wants a better Newfoundland and Labrador and, thereby, a better Canada.
In 1985, Prime Minister Mulroney and Premier Peckford came together over a deal enshrined in mirrored federal and provincial legislation to make Newfoundland and Labrador the principal beneficiary of the oil and gas resources of the subsea areas of our provincial shores to the 200-mile limit. This historic accommodation enabled Premier Peckford to proclaim that, “have-not will be no more.” This was the historic meaning of the Atlantic accord, that have-not will be no more.
The proposed change of title from Canada—Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act to the “Atlantic accord implementation and offshore renewable energy management act” tells us that a radical transformation of the Atlantic accord, the mainstay of jobs and prosperity in Newfoundland and Labrador for 30 years, is about to occur.
This radical transformation creates uncertainty about the viability of exploration permits and fishing rights over huge areas of the offshore and uncertainty even as to the availability of compensation for the expropriation it enables. As all know, uncertainty kills investment, prosperity and jobs. Uncertainty creates impoverishment.
The bill ensures that have-not will return, and have-not will return to stay because offshore natural resource development is drill bits in bedrock, but offshore wind-to-hydrogen heavily subsidized by government is pie in the sky.
Have-not will return because proposed section 56 of the bill imposes a reign of fear of the unknown on traditional energy developers, which will inevitably drive them away along with the jobs and tax revenues they generate. It has already driven them away. In 2023, these energy developers decided not to make a single bid for exploration—zero. Have-not will return because clause 8 of the bill says that the Atlantic accord does not apply to offshore renewable energy resources, which means that the principal beneficiary status of Newfoundland and Labrador, my home province, will not apply either.
The current federal government embraces a radical anti-carbon ideology to the exclusion of economics, so it may consider that killing the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore resource industry and the 25% of the provincial economy it generates is acceptable collateral damage. It may consider that ousting commercial fishermen from thousands of square kilometres of traditional fishing grounds is acceptable collateral damage.
More perplexing is the response of Newfoundland and Labrador legislators, provincial and those federal members not bound by cabinet solidarity. Only they can explain why they failed to defend the Atlantic accord and the jobs and prosperity it brings and could yet bring. Only they can explain to fishers why they failed to protect their livelihoods. Only they can explain why “have-not will be no more” will become “have-not will be again”.