Transport Committee on June 18th, 2025

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, Chief Sunshine. Meegwetch.

The government can shirk almost all of its obligations, whether they have to do with the environment or first nations. Once a national interest project has the green light to proceed, who is responsible for monitoring the project and making sure that it doesn't have an impact on water or your resources, for instance? You've raised that concern already. You are in favour of major projects, provided that they don't harm mother earth's fundamental resources.

[Chief Sheldon Sunshine]

Could I just get some clarity on the question?

Was it, if we support these types of projects, what kind of consultation is required?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Do you feel that the federal government has given you protections? If not, are first nations assuming all of the risk in this situation? Basically, anyone in charge of a project deemed to be in the national interest can do what they want on first nation lands.

[Chief Sheldon Sunshine]

I don't feel comfortable, as it is today, for any project, unless we get the full information on the project. We're facing a lot of things in our communities. When I talk about the consultation piece in Alberta and some of the issues that we're facing, it's affecting our lives every day. We have spills and those types of things that are going to affect our lives long term.

There was a report here out of Alberta. The AHS had a report where life expectancy for our people is 19 years less than for the average Albertan. A lot of things contribute to that. It's opioids and all of those things. It's also the environment.

We're unable to practise our treaty every day, yet there are impacts on our lands, whether it's oil and gas development or water, being affected by these things.

I don't feel comfortable at this point to say that I'd agree with anything, unless all of those items were cleared first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Chief Sunshine.

Thank you, Mr. Lemire.

Next, we have Mr. Muys.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes, sir.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

This is for the carpenters and the operating engineers.

Obviously, the projects that your members work on are the projects we need for Canada's economic future, particularly with the challenges we're facing.

Just to raise it up to the 30,000-foot level, what do you see in Bill C-5 that's going to help get major projects done?

[Finn Johnson]

I think it goes back to my friend, Mr. Schumann's, earlier point. Our members would like to know that projects are coming down the pipeline.

There's been a lot of uncertainty as of late in the residential sector—in the GTA, for example, and in residential markets across the country—as the market slowed down. Our members don't always know when the next project is coming. We hate to see such well-trained individuals, who have skills that we need to contribute to our economy, sitting at home waiting for the call to get back on the project when financing comes through or the market has an upturn.

With this legislation, we have a clear idea of when we'll be able to see these projects come to life. Given the large size of these projects and, I would say, their nation-building nature, we know that the work on these projects will create millions of work hours for our members and for tradespeople across the country, and provide work opportunities for 10, 15 and 20 years, in many cases. You could work your entire apprenticeship and most of your career on a single project. That's what tradespeople want to see.

[Steven Schumann]

The only thing I would add is that it's helpful optimism, especially for those younger in their career, if they know the projects are going to be built within two years. If you're an apprentice or close to it, you're going to stick it out because you know there's the career, the benefit and the pension, but if there's no work.... You have bills to pay, right?

In the bill, this hope for the two years is, I think, the big thing.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Certainly, one of our criticisms is that there's a lot of symbolism, “We're going to build big projects in Canada,” and not necessarily a lot of substance in the bill. I think the comment was made that the devil is in the details.

What would you identify as impediments in the bill, and what are suggested amendments that you would have to bring some of that specificity that is going to create that certainty of those jobs in the future?

[Steven Schumann]

I think I'll throw it back on the provinces and the projects. I don't want this to become political or just a giant “Here's everything we want built, and here's the list,” right? It's not a criticism, but one thing I've heard is, I think the Province of Alberta is talking about schools, which are necessary, but those aren't the big projects that I think we've envisioned, like the dams and opening up mines in the northern regions are, right? We work at Baffinland; there's a big project, the best iron ore.

I want the projects to be listed, and let's not have politics around the projects. Have every province list a couple, “Here are the big ones. Let's get going.” If we know what's being built, we also can help plan with our training schools and get our workers to the right province, the right job at the right time, and help make sure there is no shortage. It's a made-in-Canada solution with Canadian workers, and there's no need to bring in foreign workers or anything like that.

[Finn Johnson]

I would add that as we get increased clarity on what the projects are, we're better able to create the conditions that allow the local workforce to thrive. We want to make sure that projects that are happening in your community, you as a tradesperson have the opportunity to work on them. You have the opportunity to say in your retirement to your kids and grandkids, “I worked on that project. That's a nation-building project that I built with my hands.” We want the opportunity for the local workers to create jobs in their communities and see those communities thrive.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North, ON]

Other than the Red Seal discussion, are there any other specific amendments you would suggest?

[Steven Schumann]

One thing is we are the largest trainers out there. Other than the universities and colleges, we are the greatest trainers of students out there in Canada. I think there could be more support, not so much in this legislation, but as we mentioned, we are at capacity in a lot of our schools. The government has a fund under UTIP. Let's get the bricks and mortar, like the province of Ontario. Premier Ford has bricks and mortar support in there. Let's get more of that so we can expand our training schools to allow more people. There are 42 carpentry schools.

If you can expand it, we can do more training, and we can do more remote training with technology as well. Give us more money to train, and we can go to communities in the north and other areas to train.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to Mr. Greaves.

Mr. Greaves, the floor is yours. You have five minutes to conclude the testimony today.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

I'm standing between everybody and the end of this round, Mr. Chair, but thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you to all the witnesses, and to you, Chief Sunshine, on the call. I appreciate your time this evening.

I'd like to start with you, Mr. Schumann, if I may.

At the outset, in your opening remarks you highlighted many of the large-scale projects that your members have worked on in my province of British Columbia and drew attention to the scale of development and the scale of major projects that we've been seeing in the west over recent years, so thanks to you and your members for your hard work in bringing those projects to fruition.

In that vein, the second part of Bill C-5, the building Canada act, identifies different factors that would be used to guide the determination of projects that would be listed in schedule 1, one of which is contributing to clean growth and meeting Canada's objectives with respect to climate change.

I wonder if, in your view, that commitment to try to support cleaner, more sustainable kinds of economic projects would be a useful way of helping to facilitate some of your members' transition into the clean energy economy and out of some of the more traditional, conventional energy projects that they may have worked on in the past.

[Steven Schumann]

We build it all. The example I'll give you is in southern Alberta, where they're developing wind power. Our crane operators were getting paid as much as they were working up in Fort McMurray, so there's opportunity out there. There's expansion out there. Again, pipeliners don't care what's in the pipe. If it's hydrogen, copper wiring, they don't care. They like that type of work. That's what they want to do. Yes, it is a great transition. Our members just want to work. They want to work in the trades. They want to work with their hands. They don't care if it's a conventional high-carbon project or low carbon. They just want to build and construct things.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

You brought up southern Alberta in that response. I can't help but think that some of the uncertainty around investment in the clean energy sector in southern Alberta has come about because of decisions by the Alberta government that have actually interfered with investments that might otherwise have been flowing into that province. Would the proposed changes in this regulatory framework help to create greater investor confidence in the clean energy sector going forward in a way that might make a higher level of confidence that those jobs would be available for your members in the future?

[Steven Schumann]

The gentleman to my left is an investor. I'm not.

What I would say is that if you start building things, investments will come. I was at the energy forum in Alberta. There was hopeful optimism that if you start building things, the money will come back. We have to show that we can build something, build it on time and build it within a framework, and then I think you will get those investments. However, I can't speak on that. I'm not an investor. Our focus is just to build things.

I will say this, though. We have pension plans that invest in these projects, and we invest in a lot of these projects, so we would like to see things being built because we would like to invest in them as well.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you.

I'll turn to Mr. Cyr, if I may, to pick up on that exact theme.

In your comments, sir, you said that investors obviously have to have confidence in order to be willing to place their money on the table. You also clearly indicated that you support this bill.

Is it fair to say that, in your view, this bill would not undermine investor confidence in these kinds of major nation-building projects in the future?

[Jeffrey Cyr]

You asked it in the negative, but I'll put it in the positive.

If the government is serious and gets behind doing major projects.... I'm going to need to make a distinction here between major projects and a whole bunch of other economic activity that can happen at the exact same time. They can be myopically focused on the major project, but there's a lot of other economic activity that can go on.

Investors will come to the table and bring capital to the table. My experience right now in raising capital globally is that it's looking for a home in things that are of particular interest and can provide the return, but have the confidence of governments at various levels and indigenous peoples that they're moving forward in lockstep together. Capital will then come forward.

First of all, I don't ever invest if the indigenous community is not on board from the beginning. Fundamentally, the way that capital works is it's going to drive toward things that it likes. Canada hasn't had a lot of really big, major national projects in a while and got behind them with a head of steam. I think Bill C-5 provides—I'm not putting words in Steve's mouth—momentum in the economy to move things forward. That's part one. The short answer is yes.

The second part of it is that there are a whole bunch of other projects that aren't building $200-billion major energy. There are the $10-million and the $5-million projects. They scale horizontally. If you're doing 20 of these, you're kind of there. These are also major projects, but there are a bunch of little ones that are put together. I don't think we should lose sight of how the government can, while it's looking for two- or three-year approvals, or whatever, be doing a lot of work on the ground that employs tradesfolk at the local level and indigenous folks—we use those folks in our projects—and builds the momentum.

I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can do big projects and medium projects at the same time as we move forward. Investors will come forward on them.

[Will Greaves, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much.

On behalf of all committee members, I would like to thank our witnesses for appearing on such short notice and for sharing their testimony with us on this very important piece of legislation.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend once again for five minutes to allow for our current witnesses to leave and the new round of witnesses to take their place.

With that, this meeting is temporarily suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

I call this meeting to order.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses for the next hour and make a few comments for their benefit.

Witnesses, please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking.

For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you're not speaking. For those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation, “floor”, “English“ or “French”. For those in the room, please use the earpiece and select the desired channel. A reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses.

From the Canadian Credit Union Association, we have Michael Hatch, vice president, government relations.

From the Canadian Meat Council, we have Lauren Martin, senior director, public affairs and corporate counsel, joining us by video conference.

From the Kebaowek First Nation, we have Chief Lance Haymond, joining us by video conference.

From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, we have Dr. Heather Exner-Pirot, director, energy, natural resources and environment, joining us by video conference.

Welcome to all of you.

We're going to begin with our opening remarks, and for that I'm going to turn it over to you, Mr. Hatch, for three minutes.

The floor is yours.

[Michael Hatch, Vice President, Government Relations, Canadian Credit Union Association]

Merci beaucoup. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Canada's credit unions and caisses populaires manage almost $702 billion worth of assets and serve over 11 million Canadians and more than 20% of our country's small businesses. With over 2,000 credit union locations, we are the only financial institution with a physical presence in around 350 communities. Credit unions and regional centrals employ over 30,000 Canadians and provide full service financial solutions, while being fully Canadian owned.

Removing barriers to interprovincial trade has been on the agenda in Ottawa and in the provinces for decades. It's encouraging to finally see concrete progress on this issue, which has been a major irritant and barrier to economic growth for so long. To the extent that the problem lies with federal policy, this bill will address many barriers inhibiting increased trade and mobility between the provinces and regions of the country.

As we all know, though, much of the work will have to take place at the provincial level, where we are also seeing good progress which we hope continues.

I would like to address an issue of concern for the credit union and broader financial sector that is not in the bill. It is regarding continued barriers facing provincially regulated financial institutions, like credit unions, looking to conduct business outside of their home province. As it stands, most credit unions are confined to their province of origin and are regulated by their respective provinces, not OSFI here in Ottawa. As such, they face major restrictions on growing assets, deposits and membership outside of their provinces. The option to go federal has existed since 2012, but in those 13 years, only three credit unions have successfully completed the process. Another has gone through the process and is awaiting final approval from OSFI and the Finance Minister, which we hope happens this year.

The reason so few have taken this route is due to the extreme complexity, uncertainty of the process, and the amount of time and human and financial resources that it consumes. Today, it takes up to six to eight years for a provincially regulated credit union to become federal and thus regulated by OSFI, during which time the credit union seeking to go federal is effectively prevented from pursuing other avenues of growth. As a result, at the moment, the option to be regulated federally is not attractive or, frankly, accessible to most credit unions.

To make this option more accessible to credit unions seeking to operate outside of their provincial borders, we urge the government to introduce other options for federal credit union growth, including asset transactions between federally and provincially regulated credit unions, and to ensure that OSFI's guidance for credit unions wishing to pursue the federal option, which is now over a decade old, is updated.

The limitations on credit union operations beyond provincial borders represent not just a brake on the growth of our sector, but also a barrier to further trade and mobility between the provinces. As provincial credit unions cannot operate outside their home province, if an individual or small business wants to move or expand operations across provincial lines, they need to go through the process of setting up a new relationship, in most cases with a large bank. This not only is a barrier to interprovincial trade but also acts as a major barrier to greater competition in financial services for all Canadians and is a force for further market consolidation among the large six banks.

In conclusion, we have been in discussions with OSFI and the Department of Finance about this problem. We had hoped to see some language in this bill that at least acknowledges the problem and commits the Department of Finance and OSFI to shortening the path for provincial credit unions looking to go federal.

We hope this committee will consider this as it studies Bill C-5 and contemplates further legislation in this Parliament.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hatch.

Next, we'll go Ms. Martin for three minutes, please.