Mr. Speaker, it is great to have the opportunity to speak to the motion, M-412, brought by my colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming.
We have a process in the House of Commons called an order of precedence. The last speaker talked about why someone from Atlantic Canada was not bringing this to the table. I would love to have brought this to the table, but I am number 231 on the order of precedence. I doubt in this four-year time arising that I will ever get a chance to bring a private member's bill to debate in the House.
I appreciate the member bringing forward this motion because it is important to Atlantic Canada and important to all of Canada, when we talk about the economy and the jobs that it would create. There is no question in my mind that this is a key project for Atlantic Canada. It is a key project when it comes to clean, renewable energy. That is why the governments of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia announced in 2012 that we had reached an agreement on the terms for the federal loan guarantee.
As the Prime Minister said, the agreement represents a promise made and a promise kept. That is exactly what that is, and I am proud that we kept our word to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we would do this.
Last summer, we had a chance to be in Labrador for our Atlantic caucus meetings, and it was tremendous to fly over the site where the development will take place. What was even more important and interesting was that, as we flew over the town, we watched the development of the housing. What is going on in Labrador is incredible, not only with this project but the tremendous development and mining potential and export business for Newfoundland. Newfoundland and Labrador is booming.
The motion is important because there are four key elements. First, it is an important part of a clean energy agenda. It is an economically viable project that would create thousands of jobs and economic growth. It would be significant to the Atlantic region, which would benefit from a stable and sustainable electricity source for decades to come.
I will talk a little bit about that because my colleague across the way mentioned the pricing. This project would provide stable pricing, because when we look at the alternatives, such as the oil station at Holyrood, the price will only go up. It is also environmentally friendly with substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions.
The first point I will deal with is the economic benefit. This project would create 8,600 person-years of direct employment. Almost 3,000 people would be working on the project at peak employment times, and it would have a Canada-wide employment of 47,800 person-years. That is Canada-wide employment, and Canada-wide income to business and labour would be $3.5 billion on this project.
This is continuing a tradition of significant projects. We only have to look at the Churchill Falls project, which started in 1967. At the time it was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in North America, with 300 metres underground. I do not know if any of my colleagues in the House have been to Churchill Falls, but it is impressive. It is impressive to go down 300 metres underground. People with heart devices are not allowed to go down there because of all the generators. Their heart devices would shut off.
The system that they have to feed the power is just tremendous. We visited the project a few years ago with the natural resources committee and I was duly impressed. At the time it was the third largest hydro station in terms of capacity in North America, almost 5,400 megawatts.
This project is another great development for Newfoundland and Labrador. The $6.2-billion project that we are talking about involves the development of the Lower Churchill. It involves the lines to connect to the mainland and, as well, the line to connect to Nova Scotia.
This maritime link that is going to bring this power into Nova Scotia is going to be important in Nova Scotia's long-term plans to lower their greenhouse gases because, as we know, in Atlantic Canada there is a tremendous reliance on fossil fuel.
New Brunswick has coal-fired power. I know my friend from Nova Scotia is in the House here today, and he knows the tremendous reliance in Nova Scotia on coal-fired power. This represents a tremendous opportunity in terms of lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
I will just go to Holyrood for a minute. This is going to allow Newfoundland to retire the Holyrood station. It burns somewhere in the order of 6,000 barrels a day for every unit at the Holyrood station. It goes through 250,000 litres a minute of seawater, and 90,000 litres per day of fresh water.
Let us just imagine 90,000 litres a day of fresh water. I know all my colleagues in the House appreciate the water resource that we have. Using the water resource to generate electricity as opposed to using it for cooling and everything else that we need it for is a tremendous benefit to the region and to the environment. We cannot talk just about emissions on this issue.
As well, retiring the Holyrood station will make the Newfoundland system 98% carbon free, eliminating 96 million tons of emissions. These are great stats, great metrics on a project that is going to mean a lot to Newfoundland and Labrador and also to Nova Scotia.
What this does is start the development. It is the first station, 824 megawatts. Potentially, the next one could be 2,500 megawatts. When we look at these benefits and reflect on the recent budget of this past week, the thing we think about is the number of jobs that are going to be created and the specific jobs that will be created in trades.
The other great thing about this what we will call a bit of a social aspect. The folks who are in Fort McMurray realize that there is a tremendous number of Newfoundland and Labradorians who are actually in Fort McMurray now.