Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Parkdale—High Park.
I would like to thank my colleagues for their warm welcome. It is an honour to rise today to speak to the opposition motion. I am pleased to thank our colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster for his work on the energy file and on this issue in particular.
This motion is so important that I feel I must read it.
That, in the opinion of the House, the Keystone XL pipeline would intensify the export of unprocessed raw bitumen and would export more than 40,000 well-paying Canadian jobs, and is therefore not in Canada’s best interest.
The motion is about the Keystone XL pipeline.
I feel that this motion highlights the fact that there are different visions here in the House. The NDP is offering a vision of the future. On one hand, we have economic development; on the other hand, we have sustainable development, environmental protection and a number of social issues that must be taken into account when considering a project. I am very proud to talk about our vision today. I will attempt to show the contrast between our vision and that of the Conservatives and Liberals because, in this case, they are one and the same.
The Liberals and the Conservatives joined forces to back the Keystone XL project. They are on the same side on this issue, just as they are on many others.
What is Keystone XL really about? It is about transporting crude oil from the Alberta oil sands south through a pipeline to refineries in the United States. Then the United States can sell that oil back to us. That is it in a nutshell. That is the Conservatives' business plan and the Liberals' as well. We are talking 830,000 barrels a day. It is a huge project.
A project this size often creates jobs. In this case, we are talking about 40,000 jobs. Where do those numbers come from? They are based on a CEP estimate derived from a 2006 Informetrica report on exporting bitumen. The United States has talked about the possibility of 42,100 jobs.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberals are very proud to say that they will create jobs. However, when it turns out that those jobs will be created in the United States, I cannot figure out why the Conservatives are so proud of it, but they are. They go to the United States to meet with people in the American administration and tell them that they will create jobs that will benefit their country's economy.
I am from Brossard-La Prairie, which is not far from Hochelaga, where the Shell refinery closed its doors a few years ago. People lost their jobs. Nevertheless, instead of trying to create jobs in Canada, the Conservatives have decided to create jobs abroad. I understand why they say that our economy is based on natural resources and the oil sands. They want to develop those resources at all costs.
What we are saying is that we have to start with a vision. There is no vision on the other side of the House. We need a vision of what should be done to build a better Canada. We know that the oil sands are being developed and that Canada cannot stop using oil tomorrow. Even I travel by train or by car from time to time, and those modes of transportation use oil.
What we are suggesting is transporting oil from the west to refineries in the east so that we can create jobs.
Our vision is rather broad. We are saying that we want to create jobs, but create them here in Canada. Why fight to export 40,000 jobs to the United States?
The Conservatives, who are once again being helped by the Liberals, are very good at that, as we saw with Electrolux in Quebec. The Conservatives were very proud to say that they reduced the corporate tax rate. They congratulated themselves for it. However, as soon as their tax rate went down, those companies laid off their workers here and moved their production abroad.
Under the Conservatives, about 500,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector. I find that shocking. It shows they have no economic vision. That is no way to move the country forward. The Conservative vision, now supported by the Liberals, is to sell everything right away. The goal is to develop all that as quickly as possible and shift production to the United States. The Americans will do the work, get the added value, create jobs and refine the product. Then they can send it back to us, sell it back to us and open new markets.
The Conservatives and Liberals do not seem to care about that. They have a rather narrow vision of this kind of development.
We are talking about economic development, but in this case, the environment also matters. Why are the Conservatives hitting a wall in the United States right now? Why is the Obama administration giving the Conservatives a slap on the wrist? They have had no vision when it comes to the environment.
They say they want to push oil sands development to the limit, and in order to do so, they want to ignore all the rules we have in place to protect the environment. This was all set out in the omnibus bills that the government so proudly introduced, which were clearly problematic.
In closing, I would like to say that I am very proud of this motion, because our vision is much broader and more focused on the future, while the Liberals and Conservatives remain very narrow-minded and have no vision of the future.