Mr. Speaker, what we are debating today is not just about one project. It is about leadership, policy and the future of our country.
Make no mistake, what we are talking about is how to responsibly develop our natural resources. This is not a new debate in this country. For many years, we have talked about the whole myth of Canadians being hewers of wood and drawers of water, and the notion that we could only take our raw materials and send them abroad.
Clearly that kind of approach is the past. What we are looking for is the future. The Conservatives are clearly living in the past. We know that. There is no question. In fact, they do not even apologize for it. They just talk about getting this raw material out, sending it to someone else, and that is fine. Rip it, strip it and send it, as they say.
We are saying that is not responsible development. We have heard that not only from people who look at the need for value added to create more jobs but also from people who are looking at what is happening in terms of the effects of this rapid development. Let us look at scientist Dr. Schindler's work on the effects of the rapid development, which was commissioned by the current government. It is about responsible development.
The government is in the past. Rip it, strip it and send it. We know where it sits.
In fact it was very bizarre when most recently our Prime Minister was in New York, not addressing the UN General Assembly as all responsible world leaders who were in New York were doing. Let us remember, our Prime Minister was in New York when the General Assembly was sitting and most world leaders were speaking to the General Assembly about the vision of their country, dealing with the major issues, be it on Syria or be it on climate change.
Our Prime Minister did not show up even though he was in town. He was addressing the Canadian American Business Council, which is a good group to speak to. We spoke to that group when I travelled with our leader to Washington. He was speaking to them about the need to push this project.
Now what is interesting about that is that most people thought our government was being hosted by the Canadian American Business Council. It turns out that taxpayers paid for this audience, $65,000 of taxpayers' money so that the Prime Minister could have an audience to push his agenda.
It was quite shocking. This information got out because the bill was sent by mistake to CTV as opposed to the embassy, but that is kind of how these guys manage things. It was $6,500 for coffee, by the way. I thought it was outrageous enough to have a $16 juice, but this was $6,500 for coffee.
This was the approach the government took, but we know what it is about. We know it is the past. It is the old idea of not being able to do value added, so it will just rip it, strip it and send it, and that is the vision.
This debate is also about the other vision for development in this country. We believe we should have value added. We believe that we should take the resources that we have been given, our future for future generations, and be responsible with it. It is not just about hurrying it out the door and getting it over the border. It is about actually doing value added.
That is why New Democrats are putting this issue on the table. We agree with those who say we should look at the effect of the pipeline for Canadian workers and what it means in terms of the future. The future means looking at beyond a year or two years or three years. It means looking at it over a period of time to see the effects of these kinds of projects on our economy and on our environment. Our leader has been straightforward in saying that we need sustainable development, which is not the case with the government's agenda.
What is shocking is the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party would have us believe that it is concerned about the environment and responsible development. The Liberals jettisoned that. In fact what happened, which was shocking for many of us, is that when the leader of the Liberal Party went to Washington, he shocked a lot of people when he said that he was not going to criticize the policies of the present government. He did not believe that was his role, and I will come back to that later. Then he went on to advocate for and promote the Conservative government's agenda on the pipeline.
What was strange about that was that he was saying on the one hand, “I will not criticize the government abroad”, and I think we will understand why that is a problem in a second, but then he went on to say how he supported the government's agenda on this pipeline project.
Many people were quite confused. They thought the Liberal Party still believed in sustainable development or some notion of responsible development, and that when it came to this new Liberal leader, the Liberals would actually take on the Conservatives on irresponsible development. However, he did not do that. It was surprising, because he then criticized our leader for going to Washington to explain our policies of responsible development.
I was with our leader when we met with business leaders and members of the administration. We talked very frankly about the need to have good relationships and about the need to have responsible development, and they quite agreed. In the United States right now, this topic is being debated very robustly. As a responsible opposition, we are debating it here today because we think it is important.
Our visit to Washington was to say how we disagreed fundamentally with the government on the environment in particular. When the government decided to rip out environmental assessments at the federal level, not to participate responsibly in talks on climate change and not to follow up with commitments, we believed it was our responsibility as the responsible official opposition to let people know, especially our friends in the United States, our closest ally, what our vision was, and we got a very warm reception from them.
It was confusing for many people when we heard the leader of the Liberal Party saying that we should not do that when we go abroad. That is not leadership. Leadership is when we talk to our friends and allies about our vision.
I will give some detail. We were talking about the need for value added here in Canada. They understood that. Why? In the United States, and most government members probably do not know this, it is prohibited for states to export crude. They do not allow the export of crude, in other words, unrefined petroleum, in the United States, with the exception of Alaska. If we think about that, it is the exact opposite of our government. Our government encourages the export of unrefined and raw materials that are not value added. The Conservatives think it is great. They say we should go ahead and do it. We send our raw materials down to the states. They will refine it and we will buy it back. It is not responsible. It is the past, and we need to look to the future.
However, when the Liberal leader went to Washington, he said that looking at this particular project, it was a good project and it would create jobs. He actually said it would create jobs in the United States, so it really was confusing for Canadians. Whose jobs is he promoting, Canadian jobs or American jobs? I understand Conservatives do not worry about that, but when the leader of the Liberal Party goes to Washington and starts promoting a project that he acknowledges will create American jobs, we have to wonder what kind of vision he has.
He went further. He dismissed any criticism of Keystone as political games. When the leader of the Liberal Party promotes the Conservative agenda in Washington and suggests that outsourcing jobs is good for Canada, we have to challenge that vision.
The notion he argues that official opposition or opposition leaders should not go to Washington to critique the government is so offside. Before President Obama was president of the United States, he went on a world tour to say how he was different from then-sitting President Bush.
If we are to have responsible leadership in this country, we need a responsible leader. We have a responsible leader in this party. I would challenge anyone to look at our vision, compare it to the vision of the past, of the Conservatives, or the confused vision of the Liberal Party and decide who is serving Canada's interest. I would argue it is the NDP, and that is why we brought the motion to the House for debate today.