Natural Resources Committee on June 11th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome, Mr. Rowe. It looks as though he's had a good, vigorous walk. He's raring to go.

Let me acknowledge that we are meeting on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.

Welcome to meeting number 43 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources.

Today's meeting is taking place in hybrid format.

Let me remind the participants of the following points: Please wait until I recognize you before speaking. For those participating by video conference—we have two this afternoon—click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking.

Let me remind you that committee members may ask questions in either English or French. If you will need interpretation, please take a moment now to prepare your earpiece and select the listening channel you need in advance in order to take full advantage of the time allotted for questions and answers.

As a reminder—not that this happens all the time—all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Colleagues, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on Thursday, April 23, 2026, the committee shall resume its study of Canada's electrification, energy self-sufficiency and domestic energy security.

Let me welcome our witnesses on your behalf.

On the screen, as an individual, we have Philippe Dunsky, former chair of the Canada electricity advisory council. From the Canadian Climate Institute, also by video conference, we have Kate Harland. From The Transition Accelerator, we have Mr. Moe Kabbara, chief executive officer, who's with us in person.

All witnesses here virtually have conducted the mandatory witness onboarding test.

Each of you will have five minutes for your opening remarks, after which we'll open the floor to questions and comments.

Mr. Dunsky, we're going to start with you. You have the floor for five minutes.

[Philippe Dunsky, Former Chair, Canada Electricity Advisory Council, As an Individual]

Thank you for having me at this meeting.

I will speak in English, although I'm more than happy to answer any questions in the language of Molière.

Let me start with a little introduction about myself. I've been advising on energy issues for 35 years now. The firm I run supports utilities, governments, investors and others across every province and territory in this country and in the majority of U.S. states. I have a team of about 70 experts who work on nothing but energy issues. Over the course of my career, I've had the privilege of sitting on many—maybe far too many—energy policy committees and commissions, including, most recently, the Canada electricity advisory council, which I was invited to chair.

I have a few remarks on the transition. It's been awhile for me. It's been, as I said, 35 years. In that time, I don't think there's ever been a more exciting and, at the same time, a more daunting time to be working in electricity in this country.

The reason is simple. I'm sure you're all very well aware that we are now squarely in the midst of a transition toward electricity. This is a transition that will not affect everything we consume, but it will affect a majority of vehicles, heating systems, much of industry and, of course, the AI revolution that we seem to be in now. It's arguably one of the most wide-ranging, complex, profound and ultimately daunting energy transitions our world has ever known.

In my work, I try to ask myself a simple question, and I ask myself this on behalf of my clients as well. It is, what will things look like on the other side of this transition, when we're through it? There will invariably be winners and losers, as there are in any large-scale economic transition. This will be no different. Those who position themselves in advance, those who focus on their competitive advantages, those who are thoughtful without being slow-footed and those who are proactive in harnessing new technology are the ones who ultimately stand the best chance of winning. Those who drag their feet and wait to see how it all plays out are arguably the ones who will be most likely to lose at the end of the game.

I'm a Canadian. I want Canada to win this race. I think we have everything we need to win it.

A couple of years ago, I was asked to chair the Canada electricity advisory council. It was a one-year initiative—one and done. I like to think that I may have done a bit of the legwork for many of you on this issue. We spent 12 months with a very “Canada-sized” array of energy sector leaders with very different perspectives and very different biases, I'll say. We all have them. We still managed to achieve consensus across the board on what Canada needs to do to win this. I'm not going to have time in these five minutes to go into individual recommendations, but I will share the overarching principles and conclusions that we came to.

Fundamentally, there are two things we need to do as a country. One is grow. The other is clean.

We need to grow the power system. We need to grow it more rapidly than we ever have in our history. That is essential for our economy. It's essential for competitiveness. It's essential for capital attraction. As an aside, it is unbelievable that so many provinces in this country are now short on electricity and are having to turn away business and industry because they don't have the power needed.

We need it for competitiveness. We need it for capital attraction. We need it, obviously, for reliability. We need to keep the lights on. We need to get to a point of being able to say yes, not no.

We also need to do this cleanly. That's important for the climate, of course. That is also important for our competitiveness. It's also important for our ability to attract capital. Leaning into one of our great strengths, which is that we have the second-cleanest electricity system in the G7 and the third cleanest in the G20 at a time when more and more countries are looking to price carbon into markets, is a tremendous competitive advantage that we cannot lose.

Lean into grow. Lean into clean. There are obvious trade-offs between these two. We cannot go too far too fast on the clean lest we slow the growth or harm affordability and reliability. We can't do that.

The reverse is true, too—

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Dunsky. We're at time, and we're already running a bit behind, so thanks for your understanding. I think you got most of your points in.

We'll go on now to Ms. Harland.

You have five minutes.

[Kate Harland, Canadian Climate Institute]

Thank you very much for the invitation to meet with the committee.

My name is Kate Harland, and I am the director of clean growth at the Canadian Climate Institute. I'm going to draw on some research that the institute has been working on over the past year.

I'll make four main points.

The first is that low-cost, abundant electricity enables both economic growth and electrification. Access to reliable, low-cost power underpins economic growth. It has been a competitive advantage for Canada in the past, but Canada has to be proactive to retain and leverage that advantage.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

I'm sorry, Ms. Harland; we've just had a point of order raised.

Ms. Harland, the sound has been a little low, and I would urge you to perhaps speak a little more slowly for the sake of our interpreters. Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur Simard.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

The sound in the room is really low. It's not the sound coming from Ms. Harland's system that is causing a problem, because the interpretation is working very well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

We could adjust the sound in the room. It's fine through the earpieces.

Thank you for your understanding, Ms. Harland. We stopped your time, so there's no need to rush. Thank you.

[Kate Harland]

According to work done by Mr. Dunsky's firm, the Canadian economy is at risk of missing out on $110 billion to $220 billion in potential capital investment because of an insufficient supply of clean electricity for the current pipeline of projects.

Our interviews over the past year have similarly found tightening supply across the country and lengthening queues. As demand grows and continues to outpace supply, these opportunity costs only climb. Industrial investors will deploy capital here only if they get timely access to power at competitive rates. This applies to both new sectors, such as battery production, critical minerals and data centres, and existing industries looking to electrify and spend billions in expansion.

For my second point, falling costs of solar and wind and batteries mean that flexible clean grids can deliver abundant power at lower cost, and that's a big change. We've seen wind, solar and battery costs fall dramatically over the past decade. Since 2009, solar costs have fallen by 84% and onshore wind by 56%, while battery costs declined 27% in the last year alone.

It's not just these technology shifts in terms of cost. Electricity systems also have room to modernize and help keep rates competitive as they grow by operating more flexibly. Flexible systems, on both the demand and the supply side, can help build out a cost-effective system. With expanded storage, demand flexibility, interties and smarter grid operations, Canada can use its infrastructure more productively, avoiding both the cost of overbuilding for peak and the waste of low-cost renewable power.

Reimagining electricity systems is a major economic opportunity, yet current electricity planning processes and institutions are rooted in a world that no longer exists, with obsolete assumptions about technology costs, assumptions about fixed demand and limited focus on flexibility.

Third, Canadian electricity systems aren't keeping up with international competitors in creating the conditions to seize the economic opportunity. Our forthcoming analysis compares four Canadian provinces—Ontario, Alberta, Quebec and B.C.—against six global leaders on what it takes to attract both clean power supply and the industrial investment that demands it.

Provinces have different advantages and challenges in this race when it comes to electricity system growth and attracting investment, and all have some actions to take to help build the systems of tomorrow. These involve building a modern grid that can meet growing demand, delivering flexibility and linking regional power markets. It involves strengthening electricity markets through predictable procurement and modernized industrial rates. It involves establishing policy certainty to support investment.

Jurisdictions doing this, such as Texas, showcase the opportunity to get this right. Investment in Texas for solar, wind and storage reached over $27 billion U.S. in 2025 alone. That's from building, sending clear price signals, making fast connections and building transmission early to help that.

Fourth, the federal government has a critical role to play in working with provinces to deliver national benefits. Our research points to four areas for federal action.

The federal government should support new co-operative processes for interprovincial energy planning, focused on information sharing and goal setting in the short term and new intergovernmental institutions in the longer term.

The federal government should selectively deploy the national balance sheet to support anticipatory grid build-out for nationwide benefit. Specific solutions include both scaling up existing successful financing solutions, such as those of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and direct federal funding. A national test could support more consistent, prioritized application of federal support, recognizing the range of national economic and security benefits.

To build long-term policy certainty for clean electricity investors, the federal government should move forward with flexible clean electricity regulations that anchor expectations that new supply will be predominantly clean.

Finally, the federal government should prioritize clean flexibility within existing electricity, infrastructure and innovation programs, and it should consider how tax tools such as capital cost allowances can mobilize investment in on-site solutions to enable users to shift their demand away from peak periods and offer industry greater agency over its costs.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you very much, Ms. Harland.

We will go now to Mr. Kabbara.

You have five minutes.

[Moe Kabbara, Chief Executive Officer, The Transition Accelerator]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for having me.

My name is Moe Kabbara. I'm the CEO of an organization called The Transition Accelerator. We're focused on helping Canada win economically and geopolitically in a world in which the energy transition is disrupting the global economy and global power.

Today I want to talk about energy security and how that definition is changing in real time around the world. For most of modern history, energy security really meant one thing: securing the supply of fuel. The disruption we're seeing right now in the Strait of Hormuz has put roughly one-fifth of the global oil supply at risk, and Canadians have felt it here at the pump. Despite producing over five million barrels of oil a day, that is the security problem in its purest form: Oil is essentially priced in global markets. Conflict on the other side of the world sets the price here at home no matter how much we produce.

One thing to watch is how other countries are responding to this moment, as well as how they've been responding over the last few years. Pakistan, for example, imported 17 gigawatts' worth of solar panels in a single year last year. When the Strait of Hormuz crisis hit, solar exports from China doubled in one month. Most countries aren't thinking of Ethiopia as a country in which six out of 10 vehicles sold or new registrations last year were electric. It's not that they're trying to do this for climate policy or environmental policy. They're saving $4 billion a year in foreign currency by avoiding fuel imports.

These, I would argue, are not environmental decisions made by countries that are growing economically. These are energy security decisions. Around the world, electricity is becoming how countries buy security, because it is produced, delivered and priced domestically.

In Canada, the sectors that drive our energy demand—how we move, how we heat our homes and buildings, how we run our industries, manufacturing and data centres, etc.—are going to increasingly shift to electricity. As they do, security in those sectors stops being a question of fuel supply and becomes a question of whether we have electricity to provide reliably and affordably.

I'm here to make the point that the frontier of our energy security is moving from fuels to electricity systems. I'm a pragmatist. I'm a realist. We cannot electrify everything overnight. This is a multidecade undertaking, and energy demand still has to be met every year while it happens. Oil and gas remain essential through the transition itself. Again, I'm here to make the point of watching where the puck is actually going. Electrification can only proceed if electricity stays affordable and reliable. For example, a perfectly clean grid is not necessarily the objective if we compromise on whether we can build it large enough, whether it's reliable enough and whether it's affordable enough to enable the electrification of the economy.

The point I want to emphasize is that, to get there, we need discipline, because Canada is going to commit to new, long-lived energy infrastructure in order to secure our energy—conventional and electric. The decisive questions are concrete ones. What volumes are we talking about? What markets are we serving? What is the demand, and over what time frame? Does the asset we're building still earn its place? This discipline matters, especially when public funds are put on the table to help de-risk private investments, precisely because when the analysis is incorrect, it falls on the taxpayers—a downside.

That brings me to the opportunity and risk of this. The supply chains that underpin electrification are going to be a central risk because we're still going to be importing switchgear, transformers and batteries from a small number of concentrated global suppliers if we don't build these things at home. For me, that is a risk. It's different from buying a fuel you have to burn every year, but it's still a risk when you're importing this equipment. That same build-out is going to create an industrial opportunity for Canada to create the supply chain here at home, in order to help us supply the growth we're talking about for our grid, supply our allies and diversify our trade.

Essentially, in the last 30 seconds I have here, what is the federal role in enabling energy security through electrification? We know we're going to have to spend a lot to build or modernize the grid. We're currently spending about 0.7% of our GDP. We need to be spending 1.7%—an additional 1% of GDP, or about $30 billion a year. Obviously, the federal government is not going to pay for all of that. There's a lot of provincial jurisdiction.

What can the federal government do to sustain a durable, long-term horizon signal and leverage our AAA credit rating to lower the cost of capital and increase support so these benefits show up on Canadian bills, not just on paper or in theory?

Thank you so much for having me today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mr. Kabbara.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

We'll move on to questions and comments from colleagues.

We're going to start with you, Mrs. Stubbs, for six minutes.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you, Chair, for that introduction.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being here today.

Given that it's my first opportunity, that we are nearing the end of the parliamentary session and that all the witnesses have emphasized the necessity of certainty and clarity—as well as that of having major projects built in Canada for national security, for affordability and for geopolitical security—I would like to move the following motion that I put on notice Friday, May 29, 2026. I move that the committee make the following report to the House:

Your committee wishes to report the following observations:

a) Canada is in a privileged position to establish itself as a global energy leader;

b) demand for oil in the Asian market is expected to dramatically increase in the coming decades; and

c) increasing production of Alberta oil and gas to reach Canada’s export goals has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and contribute significantly to Canada’s economic growth, sovereignty, and national security.

Therefore, your committee is of the view that an Alberta oil pipeline to the west coast is in the national interest.

The reason I bring this motion today—we hope this committee will support making this report to the House of Commons—is, of course, that the Prime Minister got elected on a promise to Canadians to pursue the construction of a pipeline to the Pacific for Canada's most valuable exports of oil and gas, which are also heavily invested in. Most energy companies of all kinds—companies in renewable and alternative energy and technology development long into the future and Conservatives—certainly believe that all and every kind of energy is what must be developed in Canada and exported around the world.

It is undeniable that the entire Canadian economy is underpinned by the outsized contribution of the Canadian oil and gas sector. The reason that it's important for this committee to consider this motion today is, of course, in part related to some comments that have been made by the heads of the major pipeline companies and by producer proponents. They are also all looking for the Liberals to keep their promises on legislative and regulatory reform. This would allow private sector producing proponents and private sector pipeline proponents to invest in these projects, thereby creating jobs for Canada to pay the revenue in royalties and in taxes to all three levels of government that provide the programs and services that all Canadians care about right across the country.

It is not news at all that the majority of Canadians support the construction of more oil and gas production and exports from Canada, as that has been the case for years. For committee members and anyone watching, perhaps it is important for us to reflect on the latest public opinion polling about how much it is that Canadians want the Liberals to keep their promise on constructing a pipeline to the Pacific.

As recently as January, support for that pipeline's construction was up right across the country—everywhere—with 55% support in British Columbia, 66% support from Ontarians and 64% from people in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Furthermore, 51% of Quebeckers, as they always also said during the debates on the west-to-east pipeline, support the construction of a Pacific pipeline. Also, 62% of Atlantic Canadians support the construction of this pipeline to the Pacific.

It's no surprise at all that the strongest gesture from the Liberal government towards economic, fiscal and national unity would be the keeping of their promise to construct a pipeline to the Pacific, with 81% of Albertans supporting the promise the Liberals made.

The issue I think we must be seized with, though, colleagues, is to join in the pressure to call aggressively for the full-scale legislative and regulatory reform that this country needs in order for our businesses to compete, primarily with the United States—which, as we know, has aggressively shortened its permitting timelines. We've heard just recently that they are intending to pursue even faster streamlined approvals for major projects, particularly with regard to oil and gas, nuclear and critical minerals. Their emergency permitting procedures on federal lands can happen even all the way down to a month.

I'm not suggesting that would necessarily be possible in Canada, since the federal government must keep its section 35 duty to consult and accommodate, but to know that the United States of America has already set its approval timelines at two years—that happened under Biden—and that the current president is aggressively shortening those permitting timelines.... Our own Prime Minister said it correctly, that Canada is facing a crisis, and the Americans have brought in those very fast approval timelines for critical projects on federal lands. They too are striving to get their permitting timelines overall down to a year.

The reason we should be very seized by this issue right now is that there are only a couple of pipeline proponents in Canada that would be capable of constructing such infrastructure. One of them, of course, is this company called Enbridge that, in the time since I have been elected, actually proposed a stand-alone export pipeline to Asian markets, to the Pacific, which would be fully operational today and with which Canada would have multiple customers beyond the United States of America.

The court ruled, as it has with many governments, including on the Liberals' initial indigenous consultation on the Trans Mountain expansion, that this was insufficient in the case of the northern gateway pipeline. The choice put by the court to the then prime minister was that he could redo the indigenous consultation, to make it sufficient, or he could do what he did: Without consultation with any of the indigenous communities, which all supported the northern gateway pipeline and were counting on the future opportunities for their communities, he vetoed it outright. This is since I was elected. Therefore, that's gone.

Atlantic Canadians know well that there was another company, TC Energy, which—also in the time since I was elected, the last 11 years, with this exact same Liberal government—proposed cross-country pipeline infrastructure to bring energy resources from the west to refineries in the east and to export to Europe. What happened was eerily similar to what is going on right now, which is that the Liberals froze the regulatory process for all major energy projects and announced a series of values and principles that almost no Canadian would disagree with and that were hallmarks of the Canadian regulatory system. It sounds very close to what's happening now, doesn't it?

The Liberals then started adjudicating on major infrastructure and energy projects case by case. When it came to the west-east pipeline, they had to set up one panel, which then got disbanded, and then do another one, and they put conditions on it that no other pipeline has been asked to meet ever since. The company TransCanada, which now has dropped “Canada” from its name and primarily focuses on the United States, warned that it was going to have to abandon the project and then, indeed, it did. That was a domestic partisan political decision.

We should listen very carefully to what the CEO of Enbridge has said. This new pipeline to the Pacific, he has said—being the head of the company that tried to build one in the last 11 years—is “not the type of risk that we're looking to take on at this time”. He also said, “I don't think investors or the infrastructure companies should be taking on the risk of development in jurisdictions that have historically created a challenge”. He then said, “What I would say is the conditions don't yet exist for that pipeline to be built.”

Now, everybody should be aware that what was lost to Canada when the northern gateway pipeline was vetoed by this exact same Liberal government was 5,500 person-years of on-site employment, 57,200 person-years of employment through the Canadian economy, $85 million per year in tax revenue and labour income from construction of approximately $2.5 billion in B.C., $1.2 billion in Alberta and $4.3 billion, the most, for all of Canada. Overall, Canada's GDP would have increased by $300 billion over 30 years. Those are the opportunities that this same Liberal government killed when they vetoed the northern gateway pipeline.

We must take very seriously the comments of the CEO of that same company when he says today that the conditions do not exist. This is backed up by previous and recent comments from the CEO of TC, the company that also tried to build a cross-country west-to-east pipeline. He said, “for too long, [capital] hasn't felt welcome” in Canada. He said, “the US will continue to be where we'll invest.” He also said, “Industry in the U.S. believes it takes too long to approve projects. But reforms and policy alignment south of the border have accelerated federal approvals, reduced regulatory timelines and prioritized domestic energy and infrastructure development. And they are in a mode of continuous improvement.”

Furthermore, the TC Energy CEO said, “uncertainty is the enemy of investment, and this global competition is fierce. We allocate capital across projects in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and our investors expect it to earn the strongest risk-adjusted returns. Over the past three years, that has increasingly meant the U.S.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

I apologize. The bells are ringing, and I have to alert the committee to that fact.

Sorry, Shannon. You were going there.

Colleagues, I need unanimous consent to go into the bells period. I'm in your hands.

I think I see that the committee would like to proceed.

Go ahead, Mr. Simard.

Look at him; he's so relaxed.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I'm particularly interested in what's being said right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Ms. Stubbs, I don't see any opposition.

Why don't we go until about 15 minutes before? Is that all right?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thank you. That should be sufficient.

Thank you, colleagues, for allowing me to continue to comment so that I can really make the case to you as to why I hope you will support our motion to report this to the House of Commons.

I would also mention the most recent comments reportedly made by a Canadian CEO who is the head of Canada's biggest oil producer, Cenovus. He made the point recently, and it should seize all Canadians that he said, “Investment has left Canada for other jurisdictions. The jobs that come with investment, together with the taxes and royalties, were never realized. Foreign investors and producers have left and taken with them the benefits they bring. Yet through this, the world has not demanded one less barrel of oil, not one less Mcf [thousand cubic feet] of natural gas. The world just gets it from different jurisdictions like the U.S., Russia, and the Middle East”, as Conservatives have been saying for 11 years and before that.

He also reportedly said, “What is missing and unclear in the MOU is the commitment to regulatory reform that would allow industry to grow production to offset the costs of the carbon capture project and fill the million barrel per day pipeline to the West Coast.” An additional point was, “The carbon tax escalates through time, making our industry less resilient at lower commodity prices, and will require the premature shut-in and reclamation of oil producing projects that would otherwise be economic to produce.” Finally, “Without a competitive investment regime coordinated by the federal government and the Province of Alberta, the investment required to make this a reality will be challenged.”

I want all Canadians and committee members to recognize that none of these pipeline companies and none of these producers are asking for subsidies. What they are asking for is legislative and regulatory reform that is competitive, attractive, certain and fair. Every kind of energy developer needs this because all investors in every sector need that sort of reality.

The government should take note when, in a very unusual move, Canadian CEOs have spoken quite aggressively about what has to be done. This is normal in the United States, but it's quite abnormal for Canadian CEOs to speak out in the way that they have.

To make clear to Canadians why this is not pre-emptive and why every member of this committee should support this motion, it's because as far back as March 9 and March 19, 2025, CEOs of Canadian companies across Canada's resource sector, 14 of them, sent a letter. In April 2025, 38 followed up. Then, on September 15, 2025, 97 CEOs from all kinds of energy companies of all kinds of sizes across the sector sent a letter.

What main things did they call for? They asked for exactly the legislative and regulatory reform that the Liberals say is coming. The Liberals also promised two-year timelines for approvals, and they rejected what I tried to put in the law. We're advancing into two years of the Prime Minister's being in power, and he has yet to bring forward the legislative and regulatory reform agenda that is clearly being called for by provincial leaders, territorial leaders, industrial representatives, economists and proponents of all kinds.

They want significant simplification of regulations. This includes the repeal or the reform of Bill C-69 and of Bill C-48. They want shortened timelines for project approvals. They want a commitment to grow production, and they want a fiscal framework that attracts investment. As all of us do, they want expanded incentives for indigenous investment opportunities.

These, colleagues, are the reasons that all of us here as members of Parliament and Canadians everywhere should be seized by this motion.

I hope you'll consider supporting it. On behalf of all Canadians, I would say we agree that Canada is in a crisis and that this crisis was preventable. The reason that Canada is in a vulnerable and isolated position, playing catch-up now, is the antidevelopment laws and policies that have been inflated domestically. That's why I hope that every member of this committee will support this motion.

We will all work in partnership, as we have committed to do, with the federal government to ensure construction so that the pipeline to the Pacific can get built. Conservatives support the construction of pipelines in all directions for Canada, for the benefit of all Canadians, without carbon taxes and without billions in corporate welfare that isn't needed.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Thank you, Mrs. Stubbs.

That motion is in order, colleagues. It was put on notice on May 29. I have a short speakers list: Mr. Hogan, Mr. Rowe and Mr. Kibble.

Mr. Hogan, we'll go to you first.

[Corey Hogan, Liberal, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the intent of my colleague's motion. I agree with the observations in both the motion and much—but not all—of the commentary she provided.

With regard to improving regulatory speed, I point to our recent discussion paper on this topic. The pipeline project she refers to in her motion.... The northern gateway, energy east, KXL and Trans Mountain are all projects I've worked on, so I am mindful and appreciative of much of her commentary there.

It's my firm belief that, if you're going to move oil and gas, pipelines are the cheapest, safest and most environmentally friendly way to do so. It's also my firm belief that we should do what we can to reduce reliance on the United States, the current destination for 90% of Canada's oil exports. Declaring a pipeline that is consistent with the Building Canada Act and the national interest is already the intention of the federal government, as was committed to in the implementation agreement for the Canada-Alberta MOU.

Therefore, the opposition is pushing on a bit of an open door there, twisting a rubber arm, but we also have witnesses here. Energy security is a very important topic. We're also getting a bit ahead of ourselves, as Alberta hasn't submitted a proposal. It's going to by July 1. We are on the timeline agreed to with the Alberta government, and sticking to a timeline and sticking to a plan agreed to with Alberta is how we bring the stability that Ms. Stubbs mentioned. That's important.

There are also ongoing negotiations involving Alberta, Canada and other parties that we do not want to unbalance. We also need to acknowledge that opinions we've heard presented publicly are presented in that context. It is the choice of those parties to do so, but the Government of Canada does not want to negotiate in public, so let's find time for this later. We would love to revisit this motion once a proposal is submitted and we can properly schedule a discussion.

For today, I move to adjourn debate on the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Colleagues, you've heard the motion. It's non-debatable, a dilatory motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

Debate is adjourned on that item.

Colleagues, this is probably a good time to break. I'm going to be thinking about....

Mr. Kabbara, could you stick around?

Ms. Harland and Mr. Dunsky, we're going to see what we can do in terms of adjusting time.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

We can offer you something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

We'll be back in about 25 minutes. We are suspended for 25 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Colleagues, we're back in session.

We've spoken to vice-chairs or their representatives. It has been agreed that we are going to truncate our rounds of questions a bit. We have to drop off the fourth and fifth speakers partway through the second round.

I'm sorry, Mr. Rowe.

I'm sorry, Mr. Danko.

Mrs. Stubbs, you still have five and a half minutes. You don't have to use them all.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

I'm going to share that time with my colleague, Jonathan Rowe.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Terry Duguid]

Okay. That's exactly what I meant. You can share.

[Jonathan Rowe, Conservative, Terra Nova—The Peninsulas, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My first question today is for Mr. Kabbara.

We're looking at going to green energy. There's been a big uptake in solar panels.

It's very intriguing to put a solar panel on your roof and offset your electricity costs. Many Canadians would like to do that, but where are all of our solar panels coming from right now? Are we doing much solar panel manufacturing in Canada? Or is it coming from other countries such as China and other places?