Debates of Nov. 7th, 2013

Opposition Motion--Keystone XL Pipeline

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to clarify, so the people back home know I am very respectful of the rules. There is a difference between saying whether someone is here and whether someone is actually willing to participate in a debate. It is the lack of willingness of the Liberal leader to participate in key debates that is an issue that needs to be discussed, because this is about policy, about vision and where we are going.

For example, two weeks ago at the height of the scandal in the Senate, the Liberal leader was in Washington promoting the Keystone XL.

Last week, during one of the largest weeks in memory in terms of scandal, the Liberal leader asked a mere three questions on the scandal but was meeting with Calgary oil executives. It is about priorities. Is that not the slogan of the Liberals? It is about the priorities that matter.

The priority that matters within this House is debating; that is, the fact that the Liberal leader may or may not participate in this debate. The fact is that these are issues that need to be brought to the Canadian people. We are not shy at all, as New Democrats, to talk about our economic vision for the country, because we believe it is the right vision for the country.

Our colleagues on the Conservative side are not afraid to stand up on their vision, and we know their vision is the wrong one, but within the democratic tradition, at least we will debate each other and Canadians will not be fooled. There are no games here. They will not use slick slogans. It is about debate. This is where we are today.

I come from Coleman township, which was in its time the richest township in Canada. Most people do not know that. It is a fact. Coleman township, in the rich silver boom in the early years of the 20th century, was considered the richest township in Canada and we never had a paved road in Coleman township in all those years. A lot of cyanide has been dumped in the lakes. We have arsenic beaches. We call them the green beaches of Cobalt. At that time, the idea of a boom was that people got what they could get and they got out.

All across northern Canada there is a history of boom and bust. I come from the boom-bust economy of gold mining. My grandfather Charlie Angus died on the shop floor of the Hollinger Mine. My grandfather MacNeil broke his back underground. My uncles worked in the mines. We understand what the mining economy is about.

We have been extremely blessed in Canada with enormous resources. Even though I do not think we have handled our resources with the grace and sustainable vision that we should, we continue to find more resources. We are the envy of the world in that.

However, when I compare the mining industry with what is happening now with the plan for the Keystone XL, I see how the government allowed Inco and Falconbridge, two of the greatest world-class mining companies in the world, to be bought out by corporate raiders, and within a year we lost all the copper refining capacity in Ontario.

The member for Parry Sound—Muskoka shrugged, as though that was no big deal. At the time we were told there would never be another copper refinery built in Ontario if we let this one go down.

It was about the exporting out of Ontario of raw resources. This is the issue. It is the same when we talk to people about the Ring of Fire. I have yet to meet a miner or a miner's family anywhere in northern Ontario who says their idea of mining is to get it fast, get it out of the ground, dump what we want behind and ship it out without refining it. I have never heard a miner say that. In fact miners say that if the Ring of Fire is not to be done properly, we should leave it in the ground because it is the capital for the next generation. That is what I hear about sustainability.

I hear a lot of talk from the Conservatives about how Keystone and the oil sands are not subsidized in any way, but of course that is false, because the fundamental subsidy of the rip and ship philosophy is stripping the environmental protections, so it is shifting the cost of these operations and making them seem cheaper than they are, but that is because they are allowed to get away with the stripping of basic environmental standards across this country.

I refer to a November 5 Reuters article, which goes out internationally, on Canada's poor environment record, which could hit our energy exports. That is what Reuters is saying, based on the report of the interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, which said that the Conservative government's record on the environment is so bad that it is being noticed internationally and will affect the government's ability to negotiate projects like Keystone. The report says, “...the wide and persistent gap between what the government commits to do and what it is achieving” has missed the mark on “key deadlines to protect migratory birds, failed to protect wildlife habitat” and does “nowhere near enough to protect species at risk”.

We saw that in the interest of helping their friends get the oil pipelines through as quickly as possible, the Conservatives stripped the Navigable Waters Protection Act of this country so that they could push pipelines through without proper review.

This is not, as the Conservatives hysterically say, about stopping development. Development has to be based on sustainable resources with a sustainable plan. If one is going to ship bitumen, one has to know that it can be done safely. That is why we have had environmental standards over the years, and that is why the Conservative government is stripping them across this country. It is to get it out as fast as possible.

On the Keystone issue, the Conservatives are talking about shipping raw bitumen to Texas and shipping 40,000 jobs to Texas.

The new word my colleagues in the Liberal Party have discovered is “middle class”. The Liberal leader is saying that he is going to create middle-class jobs in the resource sector. Certainly they are in the resource sector, but if we are going to export 40,000 of them, it is not really that much of a plan.

There he was, down in Washington, calling out the people who have been raising legitimate questions about greenhouse gases rising out of the oil sands. He was saying that they were just “sound-bites”. Well, President Obama does not think they are sound bites.

The question Canada is facing is the fundamental question of a lack of credibility. The Conservatives would rather try to ship bitumen to the United States, where even the Americans are saying that Canada's record on the environment is atrocious and that unless Canada can show that it can develop these resources in a sustainable manner, America is going to look elsewhere.

We have an enormous ability to transition this economy by putting the investments in the right way. Simply shipping raw resources out of the country as fast as possible is not a vision for the long term.

As I said, the New Democrats are not afraid to talk about this. We represent the resource regions of northern Canada. We understand the need to reflect, in the 21st century, as we pass yet another dismal target in terms of increasing greenhouse gas emissions around the world, on the fact that we are entering a period when the abuse of the earth is no longer something we can just take for granted.

Yet it was the Conservatives and the Liberals who stood up in this House and voted against the motion brought forward in this House heeding the climate scientists' warning that if we pass that two degree centigrade mark in the increase in global temperature, we will be in an unstable climate. Both the Conservatives and Liberals stood together, because they will not deal with this issue of climate change. It has to be dealt with. It is going to be the fundamental cost of doing business in the 21st century.

My colleagues on the other side, who believe in the free market, as they call it, need to factor that in, which is what our leader has said. Whenever we factor in the development of resources, we cannot do it on the backs of the next generation. We cannot do it by simply assuming that greenhouse gas emissions have no impact. They are having a significant impact.

Until the government comes forward with a credible environmental plan, it will continue to be seen as an outlier around the world, regardless of whether its friends in the Liberal Party are out there trying to shill for them.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague for Timmins—James Bay talks about shipping 40,000 jobs to Texas.

On the Keystone XL pipeline, there is one decision left to make, and that is in the hands of President Obama in the United States. When the NDP tells the Americans that there are 40,000 jobs going to the United States, what is going to happen? Americans are going to tell President Obama to approve the pipeline. The consequence of the NDP's argument today is actually to increase the chance that President Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which contradicts the NDP's intent in putting this motion forward.

I think members of the NDP need to go back and think about the economics of the motion they are proposing today. It contradicts itself. The effect of this motion is the opposite of what they want it to be. I think they need to think a little more clearly about what they want to do and what we are spending taxpayers' dollars doing here today.

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

Mr. Speaker, I was quite amused by that. It seems that my colleagues in the Liberal Party once again cannot just stand up and say that, yes, they are going to support Keystone XL. Yes, they support the sell-off of oil sands resources to state-owned companies like China. Yes, they support the secretive China free trade deal, regardless of whether they see it. Yes, this is their position. They should just say it and not try to bend themselves into pretzels trying to use first-year philosophy logic.

We say this is a bad deal for Canada. Canadians are speaking up, and we are not afraid to stand up to do it. I would like to see the unplugged members of the Liberal Party actually plug themselves in and get a little bit of energy on this issue.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised by the Liberals' attitude. They would like to forget about all of the scars the current leader's father left on Alberta. I do not think that Albertans are willing to amputate just to get rid of those scars. It is a bit late for the Liberals to be standing up for Alberta.

The NDP feels it is important that the resources belonging to Albertans last as long as possible for future generations.

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

Mr. Speaker, in the 1970s, my relatives worked in the oil patch. They are from Alberta. They remember when Mr. Trudeau thought Alberta's resources were Mr. Trudeau's resources, and they rejected that. They also recognized that if we are going to develop these resources, Canadians and Albertans have a right to benefit from them. That is why we do not just ship raw bitumen.

I would like to quote former Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach who said, “Shipping raw bitumen is like scraping off the topsoil, selling it, and then passing the farm on to the next generation”. We certainly agree with him.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is right on. Good for him. Good for the NDP for standing up for Canadian autonomy, Canadian jobs, and the processing of Canadian resources in Canada. I am really disappointed in the Liberals' stance. I just do not see their logic at all.

Building on what the member said, is he aware that Mark Carney, when he was the governor of the Bank of Canada, said that buying high from Brent crude oil and selling low, at a 20% to 30% discount, Western Canada Select to the U.S., was a really dumb thing to do?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for participating in this debate with these kinds of interventions, because this is about an economic vision. It is about an economic strategy.

As I said, I very rarely agree with Conservatives on the other side, but there have been occasions. At least they are willing to stand and say what their vision is, unlike the Liberal Party, the third party. Their leader will go to Washington. He will go glad-handing in Calgary, but when it comes to Ottawa, he unplugs himself all the time and does not seem to think that participating in debates in the House of Commons is the role of a leader.

The role of a leader is to stand in the House, show a vision, argue that vision, be challenged on that vision, and if he is right, beat us at the end of the day. However, simply offering cocktails at a ladies' night event, when he should be in the House of Commons debating, is a disgrace. That is a failure of vision, and we will take them on any day over that.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this debate. As a Liberal participating in the debate, it is kind of amusing to listen to my NDP colleague, who does not seem to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

The issue is that Keystone starts out as a no-brainer. The Prime Minister rightly describes the project as a no-brainer. It has huge economic significance. It is a significant economic driver for both Alberta and the Canadian economy, yet at this point, it has gone from no-brainer to cliffhanger. How did we get from no-brainer to cliffhanger? It was by not paying attention to the environmental impact of oil sands development.

The world has noticed. We did not win those Kyoto fossil awards for nothing. The government worked at it. The world has noticed. The United States, the anti-Keystone folks, and President Obama have noticed. Because Canada, for the last six or seven years, has done nothing about getting control over the ever-escalating emissions from oil sands development out in Alberta, both in intensity and in quantity, we now have a significant issue on our hands.

My colleague has reminded me that I am splitting my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands. I apologize to my friend.

The issue here is gross mismanagement of a fundamental economic issue. Now we have moved it from no-brainer to cliffhanger. Now we see the Prime Minister going down to New York saying that he will not take no for an answer. Well, I am sure President Obama woke up in the middle of the night and said, “Michelle, the Prime Minister will not take no for an answer. My goodness gracious me, what am I going to do?” I am sure Michelle said, “Just go back to sleep, Barak, and stop snoring”.

For goodness' sake, one does not go down to the most powerful country in the world and say to the President of the United States of America, who controls whether or not Keystone proceeds, that we are not going to take no for an answer, then line up with the nutters in the Tea Party, President Obama's most difficult constituency, who brought the United States' government to a situation of near paralysis.

It is quite bizarre that the Prime Minister should actually be flummoxed as to why Keystone has become a cliffhanger. He is flummoxed that this no-brainer is apparently not going to proceed without some pretty significant intervention. It has an enormous economic cost for our country. Not only is it economic mismanagement, it is environmental mismanagement and political mismanagement. We are talking about potentially one of the most significant economic developments this country has seen. Yet we are in a situation now where we have no regulatory environment for those who create GHG emissions, except for the Government of Alberta, which is doing all the heavy lifting in terms of emissions into both the air and the water.

The chickens are coming home to roost. We ignore the environment at our peril, and the Prime Minister has ignored the environment. It is quite clear from actions such as limiting the budget of the ministry of the environment and Bill C-38, which basically gutted many of the environmental protections.

For goodness' sake, all of the new development in the oil sands is in situ.

There are two ways in which they can take the bitumen out of the ground. They either do it in open-pit mining or in situ. The Conservatives, last week, said that the federal government will no longer do environmental reviews on in situ mining. What message did that send to President Obama? Does that reinforce the notion that Canada could do potentially more to mitigate carbon release, or that he has not seen any specific ideas or plans from Canada that would help offset concerns? Or is it just that the Prime Minister has, through his actions and his inept handling of this file, handed a huge two-by-four to those who wish to oppose this pipeline issue so they can whack him over the head with it, but also whack President Obama over the head? President Obama does not appreciate it when a significant ally, an important economic partner, makes it very difficult for him to approve this particular initiative.

Shipping bitumen is not the issue here. Bitumen gets shipped by pipelines and creates no more and no less GHGs than shipping by truck or by rail. In fact, it is arguably safer. The issue is in the production. It is not in the tailpipe, not in getting there, but in the production. In the number of years that the current government has been in office, it has not been able to or willing to regulate emissions. As a consequence, industry has a cheerleader. It does not have a regulator, it has a cheerleader. Therefore, anything that the oil sands industry does is good and anything that a regulator does is bad. The government has absented itself from the regulation of the oil sands, and as I say, left the heavy lifting to the Government of Alberta and to a lesser extent the Government of Saskatchewan.

Hence, we have Premier Redford making regular trips down to Washington to sell the idea of Keystone because it is extremely important to her province. That has led to other issues. When they do not pay attention to environmental issues and legitimate concerns that come up in the shipping of bitumen or “dilbit”, as it is known, they create difficulties for themselves.

A little example is in the neighbourhood where the Speaker and I live, namely Line 9. The City of Toronto submitted some pretty important concerns to the NEB a few weeks ago. Many of them are very reasonable, but people have lost trust in the current government to stand up for them in terms of protecting their environment. Many of the concerns are simple things such as more valves, where the line is located, et cetera. The Government of Canada can issue permits, but it is only the people who can give the social licence to allow these kinds of projects to go ahead.

Hence, my leader is down in Washington. He does not trash-talk what happens in Canada. He tries to promote important projects. When he does that, we are all better off. Indeed we have to recognize that this industry is important.

There is no government, whether Green, NDP, Conservative or Liberal, that is going to leave that multi-trillion-dollar asset in the ground, nobody. The only question here is this. How do we get it out of the ground, minimize GHG emissions and be a leader in regulating this kind of activity, as opposed to a laggard? That is what gets us from here to there. That is what gets us from no-brainer to cliffhanger.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from the Liberal Party, particularly for his colourful cliffhanger no-brainer coupling there. It was good and worth repeating several times for the home audience.

I have a question for him. We are talking about pipelines, pipeline investment and Keystone XL. I agree with him, of course, on the debacle of the Prime Minister of Canada going into the United States and suggesting that Canada will not take no for an answer.

If there was ever a reverse scenario in which an American president came to Canada and suggested to a Canadian audience that on a controversial project here, the Americans were not willing to take no for a answer, I would hope that any government worth its salt would turn back to our American friends and say, “Thanks. You take care of your affairs but don't challenge and threaten us”, which is exactly what the Canadian Prime Minister did when he was in New York.

There has only been a couple of policies uttered by the new Liberal leader but one of them struck me as quite curious. The Liberal leader suggested that there should be no limits on ownership of the Canadian resource sector by state-owned enterprises in China. It seems like a pretty extremist view. Even the Conservatives have some caution about that.

I am wondering if my friend, who has advocated for responsible mining overseas and responsible development, also advocates that the Chinese government should own whatever resource they see fit in Canada.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if my leader said that, then that is news to me. I think I would know. I would appreciate it if the member could be a little more specific.

The issue is access to capital, which is what this is ultimately all about. I just came back from Fort McMurray, Calgary and Edmonton. I met with some of the people there. I met with the Suncor people. They just committed to a $13-billion investment.

Those investments are massively capital intensive. These are difficult investments. There was a reference earlier to the discount that Alberta bitumen sells for on the market. If members had read the ROB this morning, they will know that it is upwards of $40 on a barrel. Half of that discount is because of jamming in the pipelines.

We have the worst of all possible worlds. We have a government that pays no attention to GHG emissions, and we sell our resource at a massive discount. A file could not be mismanaged more than that.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend's speech was a little rich coming from a party that signed a protocol that was unrealistic and unachievable in the first place.

I would remind him that this country is at the top of the G7 right now. We have signed a world-leading CETA agreement that is going to help Canadians get jobs and grow our economy by billions. It is an economy that has grown the job base by over a million since the recession hit.

In his comment about GHGs, I would remind him as well that a new study released by IHS CERA confirmed that the Keystone XL pipeline will not have any impact on GHG emissions.

However, I am going to give my hon. friend an opportunity to comment on what Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said about the NDP leader, about his betraying Canadian interests, and about how what the NDP is doing is quite destructive in terms of getting the important pipeline approved.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague asked about 15 questions there, so let me just go through them.

On the CETA, we support the Canada-Europe trade agreement. We would like to see a few more details.

I thought I made my point in my speech that Keystone XL does not add, in any significant way, to GHGs as compared to other forms of transportation, so on that point we agree.

I think he missed the core point of my speech. Because we withdrew from the Kyoto protocol, as a consequence, we are not treated seriously with respect to GHG emissions. His party is the one that basically killed the whole idea of pricing carbon. As a consequence, that discussion is dead in this country and the rest of the world has noticed. The only thing that will move the odometer on GHG emissions is pricing carbon. That, unfortunately, because of his party is pretty well dead in the water.

Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

That, notwithstanding the Order adopted by the House on Monday, October 21, 2013, the Special Committee on Violence Against Indigenous Women be permitted to report its recommendations no later than Friday, March 7, 2014.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

(Motion agreed to)

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Keystone XL Pipeline

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start out by strongly agreeing with my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood that if the current government had taken a more serious and much stronger environmental policy in dealing with the environmental effects of developing the oil sands, we would not be debating the Keystone pipeline today.

I think it is very important to note that if the Conservatives and the NDP had the courage of the Government of Alberta, the Government of British Columbia, and the Liberal member of Parliament for Saint-Laurent—Cartierville to talk about putting a price on carbon pollution that would deal with the environmental consequences of developing the oil sands, the greenhouse emissions, we would not be having this debate about Keystone today.

I would also like to say that it is okay to disagree inside a party, for people in the same party to have different views. It shows that people are thoughtful. However, at the end of the day, the party has to have a position that makes sense. What I would like to talk about in my time today is the contradictions in the thinking of the NDP as it puts forward the motion today.

I would like to note that the upgrading of bitumen in Alberta, which members of the NDP have talked about, is really a separate question from pipelines. Because if we upgrade the bitumen and turn it into synthetic crude, we still have to ship it somewhere by pipeline. These are really two different questions. In fact, two-thirds of the petroleum that will go through the Keystone XL apparently is upgraded synthetic crude.

That is why today when the NDP talks about shipping 40,000 jobs to the United States and brings forth the motion, unions have spoken out against the NDP motion, saying they want the jobs that this Keystone pipeline would create. What is happening here is that the jobs from upgrading bitumen depend upon the price difference between bitumen and synthetic crude. If we could ship away the synthetic crude, we would increase that price difference and make the upgrading more economically viable. That is where the jobs come from. That is why the unions are opposed to the NDP motion today.

There are good people on both sides of the argument about the Keystone pipeline. What I want to talk about today is the contradiction in the NDP position.

Second, I want to talk about the effect of what we are demanding. What is the point of this debate?

With regard to the Keystone XL pipeline, there is one decision left to make, one relevant thing to address. That is the decision by President Obama, in Washington, D.C.

The NDP talks about exporting 40,000 jobs to the United States. What would be the effect of passing the motion on the one thing that is left to decide: the decision of President Obama? It is simply that the passage of the motion would encourage President Obama, increase the pressure on President Obama, to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

Some members are laughing at this statement, but really, what they are saying is that this debate is even less relevant than I am trying to make it out to be.

Here is the contradiction. The NDP says it is opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline. Yet, if we tell Americans that we do want them to have those 40,000 jobs and that we want to keep the 40,000 jobs, we would only be encouraging the Americans to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Therefore, what is the NDP trying to accomplish today and what is the economic thinking behind us spending time debating the motion?

First, a bit of background information before I talk about the fourth contradiction.

The New Democratic Party is one party across the country. The provincial NDP and the federal NDP are the same party. Canadians may not know that this is a bit different from, for example, the Liberal Party, where the Liberal Party in Quebec, in B.C., in Ontario and in Alberta are very different parties. They are totally separate organizations.

The point is that the Saskatchewan NDP and the federal NDP, which are the same party, disagree on Keystone XL. The Saskatchewan NDP says that Keystone XL is a good thing for Saskatchewan. The federal NDP is now opposed to Keystone.

What exactly is the NDP's position on this? Why is it that smart people in the federal and Saskatchewan NDP disagree? I am not saying that one side is right or wrong. However, if the New Democrats want to talk about economics, they have to sort things out first. They have to sit down, close the door and figure out what their party's position is and put some sense into it.

Lastly, I would say that even though the NDP opposes the Keystone XL pipeline, it supports the energy east pipeline, which will transport about 30% more petroleum than the Keystone XL pipeline. Today, it is also talking about these 40,000 value-added jobs with respect to upgrading the bitumen into synthetic crude. At the same time, the NDP candidate in Toronto Centre is saying that she would like to see a moratorium on oil sands development. There are good, smart people on both sides of this argument. However, if they want to bring a motion to the House about the Canadian economy, they have to sit down and sort out the contradictions in their economic thinking.

The point of my intervention today is that I believe there are too many contradictions linked to this motion, and it is important to point them out.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, why would the U.S. be saying no to Keystone XL? It is perhaps that Barack Obama knows what most Canadians know, that the Conservatives are stupid on the economy. However, after the Liberal leader's visit, the President also knows that the Liberals are stupid on the economy.

The members have claimed that the economics is not in getting it there, not in taking it out, but in production. This member seems to imply that our motion is somehow influential on the American—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. member for Edmonton Centre is rising on a point of order.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know everybody is having fun with this and so on, but there are certain words that are considered parliamentary, and some that are considered unparliamentary. I believe that calling somebody, or a party, stupid, is probably unparliamentary. I leave it to you to make that judgment.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I thank the hon. member for Edmonton Centre for his intervention.

There is no doubt that when members begin to characterize other members in a certain fashion, whatever party they may be from, it gets us into a different area that does not help the civility of our discussions in the House. I would caution hon. members on that. I would not say that in the context that the member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges used the term. Rather, it was borderline in terms of creating disorder, which is one of the measures we use to determine whether a term is unparliamentary. As I heard, it was not unparliamentary, but we are getting into risky territory. Therefore, I would encourage the hon. member to perhaps consider that in the course of his words.

The hon. member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges.

[Jamie Nicholls, NDP, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should have said “uninformed on the economy”. Nowhere has it been mentioned by the Liberals and Conservatives in this debate about the role of netbacks in transport options, which shows a lack of understanding of economics. Some analysts have mentioned that the netbacks are one of the reasons the Keystone XL project is stalled. Therefore, can the member illuminate why commodity prices and netbacks may play a role behind the project going forward or not? If it does not make economic sense, why would the U.S. want the project to go forward? The member seems to think that the motion will make the U.S. say yes to the project because it would mean the export of 40,000 jobs. However, I think he should look more at the argument of netbacks and transport options.

Could he illuminate the House about the role of netbacks in the oil industry?