Mr. Speaker, I thank the House for allowing me to speak on this important motion. I would first praise the work of my colleagues from Burnaby—New Westminster and LaSalle—Émard, who have really helped Canadians come to grips with this important issue. I commend them for their excellent work.
I am worried about two things concerning this debate today. The first is how careless the Conservatives are with their promises, which I will point out as I go through my speech today. The second thing is how the Conservatives are abandoning their responsibilities to Canadians. These are two important points that Canadians need to hear about.
I will go over these two points by relating four sub-points. Here I would like to talk about the broken 2010 promise to clarify the Investment Canada Act and the broken promise that the Conservatives made in 2008 to prohibit the export of raw bitumen. I would also like to talk about energy security and how this Nexen takeover would have a real impact on Canadians, including British Columbians in general and my constituents in the riding of Burnaby--Douglas in particular. Finally, I would like to give the House some ideas of how the NDP would really fix this mess.
I will start with the Investment Canada Act. We are worried about how the Nexen deal will really affect Canada. The Conservatives have rubber-stamped the takeover of this significant Canadian oil company by a Chinese state-owned company without any real public consultation whatsoever. It was mostly done behind closed doors, with little facts dribbled out here and there, but there was really nothing significant at all in terms of consultation.
Even the Prime Minister admits that this sort of state takeover of a Canadian energy company is not good for Canada, which really makes one wonder why he approved the deal in the first place.
Looking at the FIPA the government signed with China, once takeovers by Chinese state-owned companies are approved, these companies will be treated like Canadian companies. For example, CNOOC will gain powerful new rights to expand its control of the oil sands, such as buying new oil leases. This will undermine our ability to control the actions of foreign investors in our critical resource sector, and it is a very good reason that we need to clarify the investment act before, not after, approving these massive deals.
In 2010 we put forward a motion in the House calling for a clearer net benefit test and a more transparent investment review process. In 2010 the Conservative government unanimously supported our motion and the Prime Minister and the Minister of Industry promised to clarify this whole idea of net benefit. A promise was made; a promise was broken. This of course is not the case here today.
The NDP continues to call for mandatory public hearings with affected communities as well as public disclosure of all conditions attached to the approval of a takeover, with enforceable penalties for non-compliance.
The Conservatives must clarify whether the goal of the act is to encourage foreign investment that brings in new capital and technology and creates jobs, or simply to allow foreign state-owned companies to control strategic Canadian resources. That is my first point.
On the second point I am going to refer to a passage out of the 2008 Conservative election platform entitled, “The True North Strong and Free”. In ratifying the CNOOC takeover of Nexen, the Conservatives have broken their 2008 election promise to ban the export of raw bitumen. There is a heading in their platform entitled, “Prohibiting the Export of Raw Bitumen to Higher Polluting Jurisdictions”, followed by text that reads, “A re-elected Conservative Government led by Stephen Harper will prevent any company from exporting raw bitumen (unprocessed oil from the oil sands) outside of Canada for upgrading in order to take advantage of lower pollution or greenhouse gas emissions standards elsewhere”.
I would like members to think about the Nexen takeover in this context, which clearly seems to contradict the promise. A promise made; a promise broken.
I really have to ask the Conservative members who were in the House in 2008 whether, when they went door-to-door in their ridings and talked to people through the 2008 election, they looked their constituents in the eyes and said they would protect Canadian interests and the environment. They flip-flopped in a massive way by breaking this specific promise.
I will now move to the idea of energy security. This is probably what a lot of Canadians are thinking about and will be talking about much more in the near future. The Nexen takeover will have real effects on the ground in Canada and British Columbia, including in my riding of Burnaby--Douglas.
At the moment, state owned Chinese companies, such as PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC, control more than 7% of oil sands reserves. However, control goes beyond ownership of the oil sands. In fact, many of these companies now own parts of the entire supply chain. For example, Chinese state-owned companies own the bitumen mines, the oil tankers and the refineries, and now they can own the pipelines. Not only that but they can also bring in temporary foreign workers to build these pipelines.
Just to remind the Conservatives, Nexen is one of the firm service shippers for the proposed Enbridge northern gateway pipeline. That means it has a long-term agreement to transfer oil along the pipeline as a firm service shipper. The Conservatives might not know that firm service shippers also have the right to buy equity shares in the pipeline.
The FIPA agreement says that once a Chinese company is established in Canada it must receive “national treatment”, meaning that it is to be treated in the same way that the government treats Canadian companies. This means that a state-owned Chinese company can now buy the entire northern gateway pipeline. They already have 7% ownership of the bitumen mines, and we have already had a Chinese equity bid on the northern gateway pipeline that was later withdrawn. They can buy up the pipeline, have the bitumen mines and have the tankers. Of course, our refineries in Canada are shutting down at a rate of one per year. We used to have 44 oil refineries in Canada; now we have 15. The oil refinery in my riding of Burnaby--Douglas is under threat. In fact I am going in front of the National Energy Board in the spring to try to save that refinery.
It seems like the larger picture is being lost by the Conservatives, and I really think they have to take a step back and see what is happening to the entire oil supply chain in Canada. Chinese state-owned companies own the bitumen mines, they own the oil tankers, they own the refineries, and now they can own pipelines and bring in temporary foreign workers to build these pipelines.
If I turn to my own riding, the number one issue in Burnaby--Douglas is the Kinder Morgan application to build a new Edmonton to Burnaby export only crude pipeline. Nexen has signed a binding 20-year firm service agreement with Kinder Morgan to be a partner on this line. There are no provisions in place to stop Nexen from buying out Kinder Morgan. Therefore, Chinese state-owned companies can not only own the Northern Gateway pipeline but they can also purchase the future Kinder Morgan export pipeline. If this continues we will not own the mines, we will not own the pipelines, we will not own the oil tankers, nor the refineries.
Therefore, we wonder what Canada is getting out of this deal. Since the Conservatives have slashed the corporate tax from 22% to 15%, and companies pay as little as 1% royalty to Alberta to extract bitumen, it really means that Canadians are not getting much out of this at all. It is as if we are just sticking a straw in Alberta and shipping the oil right out to China without any benefit to us at all.
Therefore, what is left for Canada? There is a different vision on this side of the House. Picture this: Canada produces about two million barrels of oil per day and in fact consumes about two million barrels of oil per day, meaning that we could ensure energy security for Canada if we had the political will. We could have a stable domestic source of energy for Canada if we wanted it. However, instead we make Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces import about 85% of the oil they need for transportation and home heating, while exporting unrefined crude abroad from the west.
This really does not make any sense to me. Why are we importing 85% of oil in one half of Canada while exporting oil in the other half of Canada? Why do we not have a made in Canada energy security policy? With minimal effort we could make Canada energy secure.
However, energy security is not a Conservative priority. It is not a Liberal priority. It is our priority.
In conclusion, Conservatives have broken two key promises and abandoned any chance of ensuring energy for Canada in order to allow a communist dictatorship to own our resources. In contrast, we are advancing a number of proposals that we think Canadians support.