Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Give me one second.

We have another point of order, Mrs. Stubbs. I'll ask you to hold.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—the colonialist, anti-energy policies of the NDP-Liberals, who have removed economic opportunities and the opportunities for economic reconciliation—

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Colleagues, we have a....

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—with their anti-energy policies, while they simultaneously talk about—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Stubbs, I'll ask you to hold.

Go ahead, Mr. Sorbara, on a point of order.

I'll then go to you, Monsieur Simard, on—

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, can we get a determination on whether this motion is in order or not, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Sorbara.

I will go to the clerk before I go to Monsieur Simard.

Monsieur Simard, give me just a second.

Go ahead.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I just want to remind you—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Give me just one second. I apologize. I just want to address that question.

Mr. Clerk, would you like to provide that answer to Mr. Sorbara?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Alexandre Vassiliev]

Yes, the motion is in order. It had 48 hours' notice.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

I'll now go to Monsieur Simard on a point of order.

Monsieur Simard, go ahead.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I just want to remind you all that when several of you speak at the same time, you make it impossible for the interpreters. In the last 10 minutes, they’ve had to stop interpreting twice because people were talking at the same time.

Please be sensitive to the work of our interpreters. You must not speak when someone else has the floor.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Monsieur Simard, for that.

Colleagues, it is very important that one member speak at a time and that you speak when you're recognized. If I ask you to hold or pause, I would like you to hold or pause, so that I can deal with the procedural items at hand and so that our interpreters, who always do a tremendous job, can interpret. That's what they're here to do, and they do a great job. However, they need to hear clearly what the member speaking or the individual speaking online is saying.

Please take that into consideration.

Now I will go back to Mrs. Stubbs. You can continue.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hopefully, the colleagues who were all waxing eloquent about doing this efficiently today will stop interrupting.

I will continue.

As our common-sense Conservative leader said on Thursday:

For hundreds of years, First Nations have suffered under a broken colonial system that takes power away from their communities and places it in the hands of politicians [and bureaucrats] in Ottawa.

The [racist] Indian Act hands over all reserve land and money to the federal government. This means that First Nations have to go to Ottawa to ask for their tax revenues [that were] collected from resource projects on their land.

This outdated system puts power in the hands of bureaucrats, politicians and lobbyists—not First Nations. The direct result of this “Ottawa-knows-best” approach has been poverty, substandard infrastructure and housing, [unmet education needs,] unsafe drinking water and despair.

The former Conservative government, of course, made the historic apology for residential schools on behalf of all Canadians and launched the truth and reconciliation process and commission. More and more indigenous leaders and people across Canada after the last eight years call for overdue concrete measures towards what many indigenous leaders call “reconciliACTION” so that indigenous communities everywhere can move from managing poverty and gang crime to enabling prosperity and peaceful communities with abundant opportunities.

Last week, a visionary indigenous leader reminded me that many promises have been made by the Prime Minister after eight years. This Prime Minister says that the most important relationship to him is with indigenous people, but of course, he's failed over and over to deliver on his many big promises. That hereditary chief and former elected chief said to me that he says that the relationship with indigenous people is the most important one to him, but it's not Trudeau.

All parties should support this first nations-led optional tool because the first nations resource charge can help transform the status quo. Importantly, this is why it's an unprecedented proposal by a federal leader. It cedes federal tax room so that indigenous communities will no longer need to send the revenues to Ottawa and then ask for them back. It will make resource projects more attractive to first nations communities so that resource projects important to all of Canada and to every Canadian are more likely to go ahead.

This opt-in, optional program would permit first nations to collect 50% of the federal taxes paid by industrial activities on their land, with industry getting a tax credit in exchange. Under the tax-sharing proposal, businesses would pay tax directly to first nations in exchange for this 50% refundable tax credit. Of course, this proposal would respect existing treaties and uphold the Crown's constitutional duty to consult, and it could either replace or supplement any financial aspects of indigenous communities' pursuits of impact and mutual benefit agreements.

As many colleagues here will know, I come from Treaty No. 6 territory in Alberta, where indigenous communities and entrepreneurs have worked with the private sector and the government for decades to responsibly develop natural gas, heavy oil, clean and renewable energy, and oil sands. This is along with mutual benefit agreements and ownership positions in major projects, in energy infrastructure like power lines and pipelines, and in the service and supply sector. Oil sands and pipeline companies are, of course, the leading individual private sector employers of indigenous people in Canada, which is why the anti-energy just transition is so dangerous, particularly for them. Of course, indigenous employment in Canada is led by the mining and energy sectors overall.

Those indigenous communities all over Alberta have generated incredible own-source revenue, jobs, skills, opportunities and wealth for their community members and for future generations. They've created jobs and economic opportunities alike for their non-indigenous neighbours and for surrounding communities too. Opportunities and responsible resource development have helped indigenous communities teach the past, support their elders, heal people, help communities to learn and share languages and cultural practices, support essential health and well-being services, provide recreational and spiritual activities for youth, plan opportunities for future generations, and employ both their indigenous members and surrounding non-indigenous neighbours.

That's why radical anti-energy ideologies violate and undermine the aspirations and goals of hundreds of indigenous communities and people who want economic reconciliation for a brighter future with hope, opportunity and autonomy. Conservatives are especially mindful of how important it is to prioritize this kind of action because of all of the losses that eight years of the federal NDP-Liberal coalition's colonialist anti-energy, anti-private sector agenda has already cost all Canadians, especially indigenous people.

It's like the northern gateway pipeline, when Prime Minister Trudeau unilaterally vetoed the entire project in an order in council, instead of redoing the indigenous consultation—an option given by the court's decision on the shortcomings of that process. The Prime Minister's veto destroyed the years of work by indigenous leaders, who had secured dozens of impact and mutual benefit agreements worth almost $400 million. Those indigenous communities were not consulted on the Prime Minister's veto or about all of the major losses they would then sustain as a result, before the Ottawa-knows-best veto by Prime Minister Trudeau.

It's just like when the people of the Northwest Territories were caught off guard when the same Prime Minister unilaterally banned drilling—which was announced, of course, when he was in the United States. He stopped and blocked economic and energy investment opportunities in the north, where it's badly needed.

I'm thinking of the fact that the Lax Kw'alaams in B.C. were not consulted on how their rights and titles are undermined by the Prime Minister's imposition of Bill C-48, the anti-Canadian, anti-energy, anti-pipeline export ban. Of course, it wasn't a full tanker ban in the area. It only banned the onloading and off-loading at ports of vessels of a certain quantity and a certain size. It was deliberately to ban energy infrastructure and energy exports off of that coast, which indigenous communities wanted.

The Lax Kw'alaams are suing the federal government over C-48 because it violates their decision-making power over fishing activities and any pursuit of energy infrastructure and export opportunities, which dozens of indigenous communities leading to and in that area want to achieve.

I think of the brave Woodland Cree in Alberta, who went all the way to the Supreme Court in a multipronged effort to challenge this government's anti-energy, anti-private sector, pro-red tape Bill C-69, because it risks drowning out the voices of locally impacted indigenous communities who seek economic and resource opportunities on and around their lands. I make mention of the Woodland Cree because, despite all of the resources and the ability on the government's side, the Woodland Cree won.

It's been 122 days since the Supreme Court said that less than 10% of Bill C-69 is constitutional and that the rest is largely unconstitutional, yet those indigenous communities and all Canadians wait for this anti-energy, NDP-Liberal costly coalition to do something about that Supreme Court ruling, to fix that bill that Conservatives warned would result in exactly what has happened.

It's the fact that the Trans Mountain expansion was supposed to have been operating in 2019, but this federal government's deliberate, politically motivated failure to assert legal and political jurisdiction to ensure and prove that the project could actually get built by its private sector proponent delayed and risked the more than 40 indigenous mutual benefit agreements that their communities have worked years to secure with the private sector proponent.

That's even after the federal Liberals took the opportunity to redo their failed consultation after a federal court said they failed the first time around. After eight years, of course, the TMX is still not fully built or operational, and indigenous-led ownership groups are left waiting by this NDP-Liberal anti-energy coalition.

I think about the 15 losses of LNG projects since this government took office because of their anti-private sector, anti-energy red tape mess. We salute Woodfibre LNG, which has a groundbreaking partnership and proposal with the Squamish people as a regulator. They are entrepreneurial and leading their communities for economic and energy business opportunities.

LNG Canada was previously approved by the Harper Conservative government and then delayed by the NDP-Liberals. Thank goodness it's starting to be back on track. All 20 first nations along the route of the pipeline supplying LNG Canada have had elected band council signed benefit agreements with the private sector proposal from Coastal GasLink.

The Liberal red tape mess has killed energy and resource opportunity, over and over, for indigenous communities and for all of Canadians. I think of the indigenous communities who want to develop the ring of fire in Ontario and are speaking out because of the red tape mess of the regional assessments from Bill C-69. So far, they are lengthily delayed and roadblocked in their pursuit of essential infrastructure and economic opportunities in the region.

Both Webequie and Marten Falls first nations communities have proposed projects to support their development in the ring of fire region, but have been stuck in the Liberals' red tape mess.

I think of leaders like Dale Swampy of the National Coalition of Chiefs and Stephen Buffalo of the Indian Resource Council, who have fought against this colonialist, anti-Canadian agenda—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Mrs. Stubbs, I'll ask you to hold on. We have a point of order from Mr. Angus.

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

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

I would ask out of fairness and respect to people who shouldn't have to listen to this that we agree to suspend for five minutes to let the witnesses leave so they don't have to sit here and put up with this. Then Mrs. Stubbs can talk all night.

This is really disrespectful to people who have real expertise on an issue that is really important and that legislation has to get passed on.

I would make an offer on behalf of our party that we suspend. Let the witnesses leave so they can get on doing important things rather than having to sit and watch this show, and then we will go back to Mrs. Stubbs and whatever she wants to talk about.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Chair, I have the floor, so I will continue. I will continue with my argument since I have the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Thank you, Mr. Angus, for bringing that forward.

The debate may end, and we do have a change of panels partway through, so I'm hoping that maybe Mrs. Stubbs is near the end of moving the motion, and maybe we can proceed from there if other members would like to do so.

I think we will see if Ms. Stubbs is close to wrapping up and we will determine the course of action. If it looks like we're going to get into the next panel, we'll do so appropriately.

Thank you for your feedback.

Go ahead, Mrs. Stubbs.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will now move to why the Conservative proposal is a solution to many of these challenges and why all parties should support it. It will amplify the voices of indigenous leaders who support the initiative.

I'm quite confident that all the witnesses who are here, especially all those Canadians who are here who are also energy experts, are also seized and concerned with this topic because, of course, they rely on and depend on certainty, clarity, consultation and negotiations for all of their good work. I'm sure they are just as concerned.

I don't know why MP Jones seems to think it's hilarious, but I certainly don't think that the colonialist, anti-energy, anti-private sector agenda that has taken opportunities away from indigenous people right across this country is at all funny.

In response to my colleague Charlie Angus—

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Stubbs, can I ask you to hold, please?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

—there is not a thing that's a single show about this. I represent multiple indigenous communities involved in energy development—

[The Chair, Liberal, George Chahal]

Ms. Stubbs, I will ask you to pause, please. We have a point of order.

Go ahead, Ms. Jones, on a point of order.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The member opposite knows that I did not say those words. You can throw whatever jargon you want in your presentation, as many untruths as you want, but do not quote what I do not say, please. I ask you that.

I ask you show a little respect for the committee as well and let our witnesses do their jobs today.