Debates of Oct. 9th, 2014

Opposition Motion—Gros-Cacouna Oil Terminal

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very troubling issue, and I am grateful the official opposition has brought it to light, but it is not the only time that whales have been ignored in this part of the world in the efforts to develop petroleum. Seismic testing took place by Corridor Resources for Old Harry, which is a deepwater oil well currently proposed between the Magdalen Islands and Newfoundland and Labrador. Those tests took place during the migratory season for right whales, again, with no consultation with officials before it was approved.

I would love to know if the Liberal Party will join with the Green Party in calling for a moratorium on oil and gas development in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what I will say is that I think it is completely inappropriate that we allow exploratory work at very sensitive times of the life cycle of whales in this particular case. It is obvious from my remarks that I think the decision that was made on the northern gateway, a review panel decision that ignored the impacts on the humpback whale, is a mistake. It really undermines confidence in the environmental processes that are going to be done in future by the National Energy Board. Yes, we have to be sensitive to these seasonal patterns and so on. That is why the Superior Court in Quebec made the decision it did, and I agree with that decision.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this misguided NDP motion.

The motion we are debating calls on the federal government to outright reject a proposed Port of Gros-Cacouna oil terminal.

Unfortunately, as the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans pointed out yesterday in this House, no proposal for the terminal construction has been submitted yet. No assessment has been done.

The Cacouna terminal is one component of TransCanada's energy east pipeline proposal. Actually, it is not yet a proposal because it has not put it forward to the NEB yet, but that is the idea. TransCanada's exploratory drilling in Cacouna has been temporarily halted by the courts, as we have discussed today a great deal.

As we know, the company has been studying the composition of the seabed in that part of the St. Lawrence to determine if it is suitable for a terminal site. Of course we are very concerned about the situation there with the belugas and how this decision came about.

A marine terminal in Cacouna and another in Saint John, New Brunswick, would allow TransCanada, as it proposes, to export oil from Alberta as part of the energy east project.

It is estimated that the energy east project, if approved by the NEB, would pump the equivalent of 1.1 million barrels of crude oil a day through the pipeline to refineries and terminals in Quebec and New Brunswick. This is a big project. There is no question about it.

We are talking about some 4,600 kilometres of pipeline. The company says it would generate more than $2 billion in tax revenues for the Province of Quebec alone. It would also create 2,200 jobs in the development phase, 7,300 jobs during construction, and more than 500 jobs in operation.

Canada needs new infrastructure, including pipelines, to move our energy resources to domestic and global markets. These projects must earn the trust of local communities and cannot ignore the implications for coastal economies and the environment. Liberals have been consistent in calling for stronger environmental protections and pushing for a more substantive project review process.

We are deeply concerned that the federal government deliberately withheld information needed to assess the impact of the explorations being conducted at Cacouna.

This is yet another example of the government preventing scientists and evidence from informing decision-making on project developments. The federal government must turn over all the information it has to Quebec, so that the impact of the exploratory work can be properly assessed. This is the only way to determine and mitigate the impacts TransCanada’s work might have, including on the beluga whale population in the case of Cacouna.

In this motion, the NDP is asking Parliament to reject a project that has yet to be submitted for approval and has not yet been put through an environmental assessment. This comes after the NDP leader promised last December to “...take arbitrary powers out of the hands of cabinet”, so it could not override the findings of environmental assessments.

Apparently, now it wants to pass this motion to demand that cabinet do exactly what it said it should not do, which is take arbitrary actions in the absence of an environmental assessment.

What is the NDP policy on this? Is it environmental assessments or arbitrary action? Does the NDP want an independent process or not? Apparently it does not.

The NDP's central argument here, though, as it was in a debate this spring on the Keystone XL pipeline is that the export of unprocessed Canadian oil will cause the loss of well-paid jobs. That is the first issue and the main issue the New Democrats cite in the motion today.

The NDP is saying the oil has to be refined in Canada, every drop of it. Does this mean it is saying it would have the government subsidize refineries? Refineries have been shutting down because they have not been competitive. In fact, the demand for petroleum products in the North American continent is declining, unlike in most parts of the world.

The NDP wants to tell the market how it should work. Perhaps the plan is to have the government build refineries. The New Democrats have not actually considered the economics of this. In fact, there is lots of evidence that they are out to lunch in what they are saying here.

It costs about $10 billion to build a refinery. It would be about 5% of the federal budget just to build one. Therefore, the question is where New Democrats will find this money. Will they raise taxes? What will they cut?

Environmental and industry groups have said there is no market case for refining in Canada. Even environmentalists say there is no market case for refining in Canada. Generally speaking, refining is done close to the market because a lot of the products for refining are volatile and should be moved as little as possible. New Democrats ignore this reality. However, if the products can be refined economically in Canada, Liberals are all for it. That is great; we want to create jobs here, but let us have an economic case and let us not ignore economics in this case.

New Democrats want to engage in magical thinking and ignore these things, so how are they going to cause it to happen? That is a good question. I do not know. However, let me be clear. I do not believe that Canadians have much confidence in the NDP to determine what makes economic sense, so I am not too worried about that.

This is really about the NDP wanting to say one thing in Alberta and something else in Quebec. In Alberta, New Democrats want to appear to support the development of the oil sands and in Quebec they want to appear to be opposed. In the Atlantic, New Brunswick especially, they want to appear to be in favour of the pipeline but want to appear in Quebec to be opposed to a pipeline.

They say no oil should be exported unless every drop is refined in Canada. Is it their position that the oil should stay in the ground? If that is the case, why do they not have the courage to say so? If this is not what they are proposing, then I invite them to tell us what their position is.

What is the point of view of industry? This is what the Canadian Fuels Association said about pipelines:

In a nutshell, new pipeline capacity...is essential to enable Canada to fully benefit from...oil production in a world where energy demand is expected to grow by more than one-third by 2035. Failure to get our oil to markets is detrimental to Canada’s economic growth and Canadians’ prosperity. West-to-East pipelines that provide Eastern Canadian refineries with access to Western crude will help secure their future and the jobs they provide and communities they support.

Ironically, the leader of the NDP has said he supports energy east. Yes, that is right. We would not have believed it earlier today when New Democrats were attacking the leader of the Liberal Party for saying he was supportive of energy east provided, of course, there was the proper environmental process. They were attacking him for that, which appears to be the same thing as their own leader has been saying. It is a little hard to understand what they are getting at here exactly. Maybe some of the NDP MPs missed that endorsement by their leader or maybe they are more interested in playing political games.

It is interesting that our NDP friends support the pipeline on one hand and reject the terminal on the other. Do they really expect Canadians, particularly Quebeckers, to be fooled by such obvious trickery? Yes, in both cases they ought to go through the proper process, and in fact the Conservatives should allow the Quebec government to have the proper information on which to base their decision in a case like Cacouna. That terminal should only go ahead if it makes sense scientifically.

I think all of us in this room, I hope, are concerned about the belugas. They are a threatened species. We ought to be very concerned about them. We do not want them to be harmed, so let us be careful what we do in that situation in the St. Lawrence.

I could understand if the NDP had brought forward a motion saying that the Cacouna project should not get approval unless there were guarantees it would not constitute an unacceptable environmental threat to beluga whales in the St. Lawrence. If New Democrats were acting responsibly, that is what they would have done, and I believe everyone in the House probably would have supported that, because they must be protected. However, New Democrats are asking us to kill a project that has yet to be proposed and on which no assessment has been carried out.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I simply cannot believe what I just heard. I just heard from the same party that was in power for almost 100 years and made sure that secondary and further processing in the fishery would never be done, that it would be sent to Japan or any other place in the world, and it would not create jobs with our own materials.

Now he just got up and said the same thing. He said taxpayers will have to pay for a refinery. No, the business that is taking the oil out of the ground will be the one building it. Do Liberals not trust that Canadians could do their own refining and sell it across the world, making the money and creating the jobs here in Canada, instead of sending our jobs all around the world?

That is what the leader of the NDP said: that the jobs should be our jobs. It is our revenue. It is our primary resource and it has to be done here by our people. The Liberal Party has given all the jobs to other countries instead of keeping them here in our own country.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

First, Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy my hon. colleague's passion. However, I wish the level of his logic would reach the level of his passion. If he were in Saudi Arabia, for example, I think he would say that no oil should leave Saudi Arabia because it should all be processed right there. That is what he would say. They should not export it and have benefits come to their country as a result.

I have talked already today about the economic case. Economists, the industry, and even environmentalists admit that there is not an economic case for more refineries in Canada. I invite him and his colleagues to listen to what I am saying: one of the few continents in which the demand for petroleum products is in decline is in fact North America.

If there are cases to have refineries here in Canada, let us have them, absolutely, but let us have an economic basis. Let us live in the real world. Let us not just engage in magical thinking.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Minister of Natural Resources and Minister for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would just chime in on this fascinating debate.

I appreciated most of my hon. colleague's speech. I just want to catch a couple of points.

His colleague with whom he shared his time mentioned the northern gateway, and it is true that based on science and fact, we accepted the recommendations of the National Energy Board to impose 209 conditions on that project in order for it to proceed. In fact, 50% of those would have to be completed before shovels could be in the ground.

There is a bit of a discrepancy here. I would call it cherry-picking. They have a certain amount of enthusiasm for energy east, which has not even gone into the environmental assessment process, yet they reject the science- and fact-based position of an independent organization, the National Energy Board, on the northern gateway project.

I am just wondering if that member can reconcile what appears to be a competing claim on a project-to-project basis.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what the hon. minister is suggesting is that we cannot be in favour of one pipeline and against another. That makes no sense to me at all.

Yes, we want to have good, strong environmental processes. In fact, the way the government has weakened those processes leaves us very concerned about projects like northern gateway.

However, we believe we ought to have an independent process, contrary to the NDP, which wants to have an arbitrary process. The NDP wants us to vote today and decide right now what happens with this project. That does not make any sense either.

Let us have a good, strong environmental process and make our decision. In the case of northern gateway, we have very strong concerns about the course it has taken and the environmental impacts it would have, and it is legitimate for us to have those concerns.

In the case of energy east, we want a good environmental process. We are open to it. We think it has many benefits. Let us see it, but let us do it based on science, the kind of science that has been squelched by the government, squelched by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans' department.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for York South—Weston, Social Development.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to speak to this fundamental motion. I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague, the hon. member for Vaudreuil-Soulanges.

Before I begin my speech, I would like to say something else. I have had the great privilege of sitting as a member of Parliament for three years now, and I have often condemned the government for its ingenuousness and naivety, at best, or at worst, its complicity in dismantling our economy and transforming us into a nation of hewers of wood and drawers of water—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Look at them laughing. Sure, they can go to cocktail parties with big business here in Ottawa, or in Toronto, Montreal or Calgary. The reality is that we have become nothing more than providers of natural resources, except for some high-tech sectors that are struggling to get by but have to face global competition. I have heard some talk about that from the aerospace industry and other high-tech businesses.

After listening to the speech by the hon. member for Halifax West, I have to admit that my charges of ingenuousness, naivety, or at worse, complicity, also apply to the Liberals. I can hardly believe that this member could claim that there was absolutely nothing to be done with respect to adding value to our natural resources, oil in this instance. I am going to give him some time to understand this as I give him a brief course on the subject.

In the petroleum marketplace, there has been massive consolidation at the refining stage. A number of Canadian refineries have closed, which has reduced the distribution of refined products and forced prices upward, as the refinery margins have increased. When a market is left to operate as it wishes, it tends to consolidate and become an oligopoly.

I cannot stop the hon. member for Halifax West, or any of my Conservative colleagues, from drinking the Kool-Aid they are offered at the cocktail parties they attend. However, I will not let them serve that Kool-Aid to the people of Canada, because I am convinced something can and must be done.

In fact, there are many countries on the international market that make Canada look like a Boy Scout in comparison, like a little boy in shorts getting bullied in the schoolyard. One day we will need to wake up because, while they savour their great success stories, when I go meet people in the field, as I did all summer long, and as I will continue doing this fall and winter, people talk to me about their concerns. They are afraid of losing their homes, they want to have a decent job, and they want their kids to have a future. That is the reality of the situation.

Let us talk now about the issue that concerns us, another part of the situation. The issue is truly important because the future of vast regions and populations that are very proud of their identity, their history, their achievements and, most of all, their way of life is at stake. We cannot place them in jeopardy just to address specific interests, or even one interest.

Let me tell you a bit about my childhood. I grew up in Saint-Rédempteur, which is now part of Lévis. That same city of Lévis, now unified, houses one of eastern Canada's very large refineries, the Ultramar refinery, which operates at full capacity. Over the past few years, it again invested hundreds of millions of dollars to improve production. My father, who was a carpenter, helped build the refinery in the 1960s and 1970s, so it is part of my heritage, in a way.

The reality is that the Ultramar refinery is fed, almost entirely, by imported oil. We can always discuss the merits and problems of importing oil, but beyond that, there is a very clear reality for eastern Canada, in that it is largely dependent on foreign markets for its supply of petroleum products.

This is the kind of debate the House should hold on other days. The problem must be taken seriously because it concerns our collective future and our quality of life. We must not ignore the fact that the world changes very quickly. Of course, Conservatives want, at all costs, to live like in the good old days, but life is change. Life is progress. Being progressive means meeting the challenges of everyday life head-on.

Regardless of what options are chosen following these debates about our energy future, we must realize that the oil industry is risky, in every aspect. I will use an analogy. Driving involves a risk. I regularly drive between Quebec City and Ottawa. That is a risk, but it is a risk that can be managed. Driving the wrong way on the highway, on the other hand, is a totally unacceptable, reckless and suicidal risk.

If we consider the goal that building the Gros-Cacouna oil terminal is intended to achieve, a goal tied strictly to export, that is like wanting to drive the wrong way on the highway. Why are the Liberals and Conservatives so intent on closing their eyes, letting things run their course and finding themselves with a fait accompli? Why let it get to the point of no return? We will be left with an unmanageable legacy.

We really have to think clearly on this. There will have to be a debate about the decisions to be made for bringing oil from the west to the east. We will have to examine options. In the case of the Gros-Cacouna port, the debate we are having today is precisely about putting quality of life in the balance, or even the possibility that we will have thousands of people living in a fragile environment. If I had more speaking time, I could have talked about the beautiful landscapes in Kamouraska and Cacouna, for example, with their lowlands that are bathed by the salt water of the river.

I recall a battle to protect the aboiteaus, several decades ago now. That shows just how interconnected the farmlands and the river are.

When we understand the river environment of the St. Lawrence, we know just how enormous the constraints of that environment are, with its currents and tides, and we know that a spill would be an immeasurable and virtually unmanageable disaster. It would affect virtually everyone from the Île d'Orléans to Matane or Sept-Îles.

We cannot disregard the fate of those communities to fulfill the wishes of a single very small group.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with amazement to the speeches of the New Democrats. It must be nice to be on planet NDP.

The New Democrats say that there are not enough jobs and that people are struggling for survival. One of his colleagues said that there was too much oil being shipped on the St. Lawrence and that the shipping should be reduced. They sneer at natural resource jobs, calling them hewers of wood and drawers of water. I represent a constituency of hewers of wood and drawers of water and they are very proud of what they do. They work very hard. We represent the working person here. Those members do not.

Given that the New Democrats claim to represent the working person and many union pension plans are invested in natural resource industries, which they claim to detest, does he have the intestinal fortitude to recommend that union pension plans reduce their holdings of natural resource industries to zero?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but he has clearly lost touch with reality. In no way am I claiming that jobs in the oil industry are poor quality jobs and that they should not be filled. Quite the contrary. It is an economic activity like any other. However, it is an activity whose issues must be clearly understood. We must also understand that exporting our raw resources brings about some benefits, but the benefits are so limited that the jobs that will not be created can be reckoned in the hundreds of thousands.

It is amusing to see my colleague continue along the same path and ignore the example of many countries that put a huge value on their natural resources and, moreover, import huge amounts of natural resources for processing. Meanwhile, Canada is content just to sell them off at rock-bottom prices. My colleague is going to have to be answer for that one day.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the member. My concern is the St. Lawrence. It is a beautiful river. It has contributed immensely to Canada's economic well-being, has a wonderful history from an environmental point of view and is a beautiful place to visit.

Listening to some of the arguments that have been presented this afternoon, could the member provide some clear indication of what the NDP position is on any sort of economic development on the St. Lawrence? Is it the position of the NDP that an environmental study is not necessarily required, that in fact a political party can make a decision? Do the New Democrats have any base requirement that would say we would want some sort of scientific study, an environmental assessment, prior to a decision being made, or do they believe it is okay to make a decision before any sort of an assessment?

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his question. His comment is very interesting, actually. As the member of Parliament for Beauport—Limoilou, I have to deal with the consequences of the decisions made by Jean Chrétien's Liberal government, which decided to relieve Transport Canada of the management of port authorities and hand them over to agencies that are little different from private companies.

Currently, at the Port of Québec, there is virtually no accountability to local authorities and to the people directly. When it comes to facing up to the requirements of the social acceptability of environmental assessments, the Liberals already have a black mark against their name.

I am prepared to deal with those consequences. I have people telling me about their health problems because of the polluted air coming from the Port of Québec. But the case is before the courts and in the hands of the lawyers. It will go on for years. We need solutions immediately. That is what we are proposing.

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

Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP respect science just as we respect the law. At home, we have a piece of legislation called the Environment Quality Act. The decision to stop drilling was made pursuant to that act, based on the precautionary principle, because of the presence of a threatened species, the belugas.

That may be an alien principle for the Liberals and the Conservatives. But we in our caucus support it.

I will talk about the river and the beluga. I will also talk about the reasons why we reject the chosen location of Cacouna for a terminal for export.

I will start with a poem by Judith Farley:

St. Lawrence, kingly River!
What legends o'er it dwell,
They slumber in each hollow,
And on its billows swell;
They breathe, o'er its fair landscape,
And lend a pleasing charm
To sunny bays and inlets,
To homesteads bright and warm.

Those homesteads have been there a long time. The river has been populated for over 9,000 years. It was called Kaniatarowanenneh by the St. Lawrence Iroquis people who settled it 9,000 years ago. It was known as the Champlain Sea then and over time, it has seen many changes. It has always been a river for trading. Quartzite, copper, jasper, flint were all traded. It was also used for transport. It was used for fishing for sustenance. The islands on it were used for burial mounds. It has been used by humans for a long time, and no one is arguing that we stop humans from using the river.

Belugas ended up in the river. I mentioned the Champlain Sea and I mentioned the amount of time, 9,000 years. Belugas are adapted to the Arctic, so one has to wonder why they are so far south? Why are they swimming around in the St. Lawrence? During the time of glaciation, which was about 10,000 years ago, they might have already been there. They might have been there longer than human beings.

I feel bad for belugas. They are so pleasing to the eye and people like them so much. People think we are saying that we should protect them because of the way they look, but my reason for protecting them is a bit more selfish and a bit more anthropocentric.

The beluga is known as a sentinel species, or an indicator species. It means that when we study the beluga, we can actually see the health of our own communities. It was not always this way.

In 1928, the Province of Quebec offered a monetary reward for every beluga killed because people were competing with them for fish. One hundred years later we do not have the same way of thinking. Scientists look at certain species in our ecosystem and count them as indicator species. They indicate how well we are doing as human society in terms of protecting our environment and our own human health, and we contract the changes.

The reason why belugas are indicator species is because they are long-lived, top of the food chain, and they have lots of fat and blubber. Different substances can be found stored in the fat. In 1996, a study was done and unfortunately it found that DDT, lead, mercury and cadmium were in beluga carcasses. One would wonder why DDT would be found in them since we got rid of that. As I said, they are long-lived and they store these substances in their fat. A lot of belugas died from these substances.

Beluga contain so many toxic contaminants in their carcasses that they are considered toxic waste. When they wash up on the shore, people are told not to touch them because they are so contaminated with human chemicals. PCBs and all sorts of contaminants have been found. The fact that so many contaminants were found in the belugas in 1996 was the reason why people started to monitor the health of the St. Lawrence.

Canada and Quebec got together to come up with a recovery plan for these populations. They were going to try to rehabilitate the beluga population. Following up on that in 2009, they looked at the beluga whale population and said that it was not recovering the way they thought it would, and they had theories explaining why.

Some of the reasons were anthropogenic, which means human caused. They had habitat degradation, diseases from runoff, maritime traffic and contaminants.

The precautionary principle that informed the decision that the Quebec court made was based on the fact that foraging would perhaps degrade the habitat, would perhaps increase maritime traffic. The reason they stayed that decision to forage there was to protect the beluga. Again, it is not because belugas are cute, but because they perform something in our ecosystem. They are an indicator species for the health of our ecosystems. As long as they are there, we can monitor them and look at how well we are doing and how we are taking care of our own water and lands.

The water off of Cacouna is the essential habitat of the beluga. The presence of the beluga should be a sign, I would say, that this is the worst place to locate an export terminal for unprocessed bitumen.

Having said that, I also want to talk about the whole idea of exporting unprocessed bitumen.

I think there is a lack of imagination on the part of the Conservatives when they look at our natural resources. The NDP support the extraction and transformation of Canadian bitumen; however, we would prefer that it be in Canada.

We always hear from Liberals and Conservatives that this is not realistic, that Canadians cannot consume enough oil, that our population is not large enough. I am sorry, but we are close to New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore. I could go on listing American cities that consume petrol. There is no shortage of consumption of petrol in North America. It is within the whole refinery shed of a Canadian refinery.

Our leader has spoken on this. He said that our extraction of this resource has to be sustainable. When he spoke about the Keystone pipeline, he said:

Keystone represents the export of 40,000 jobs.... We have never taken care of our energy security. We tend to forget that a 10-year supply to the U.S. is a 100-year supply to Canada. We are still going to need the energy supply to heat our homes and run our factories, whether it comes from the oil sands or it comes in the form natural gas. Fossil fuels are always going to be part of the mix [for a long time to come].

I could talk for a long time about the need to make the transition to more renewable sources of fuel. I worked for a year on a study in the natural resources committee which looked at innovation in the energy sector. Many witnesses said that Canada was missing the boat when it came to innovating in the energy sector. They said that Canada was not investing enough and not looking at research on geothermal energy, wind energy, solar energy, a greater mix of fuels that we could have, and that we could actually be leaders in the field of renewable energy.

There was a promise made in 2008 by the Prime Minister. He said at the time that export of raw bitumen to countries that had lower standards than ours should not be allowed, and that he would do everything in his power to prevent the export of raw bitumen to countries that did not have the standards of refining and processing that we have. Yet, I have been here almost four years and I have never heard anything from the Prime Minister to bring in a law that would prevent the export of raw bitumen to countries with lower standards than Canada's.

All these reasons that I mentioned, the beluga, the river and the export of raw bitumen, are the reasons we cannot support the location of this terminal at Gros-Cacouna.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say at the outset that I have had the good fortune of flying out of Bagotville and have seen the belugas around the mouth of Saguenay many times. They are beautiful creatures, and we should do everything we can to protect them. I agree with that totally.

I am also old enough to remember the great pipeline debate back in the day. I do not remember all of the details of it as I was not that old, but I do remember the rancour of the debate. I recall that the party of which the NDP is the legacy party was dead set against the pipeline for similar rationale that we are hearing today. There was some kind of environmental or scientific assessment done at that time and they went ahead with it after that scientific process was done.

I am curious as to why it was okay then, and I realize this is a bit dated, but it is not okay now to let the assessment go ahead with the qualified people who are there to make these kinds of assessments and then decide, rather than making up one's mind before the first bit of science is in.

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

Mr. Speaker, for the reasons that I mentioned, the fact is that foraging itself might actually disturb the habitat so that the beluga will not return.

In reference to the pipeline debate of 1956, I can inform the member that the CCF was largely opposed to that project because of Canadian financing from Canadian taxation for an American company that had questionable characters in it, such as Clint Murchison, at the time, who was a Texas oilman and whose allegiances to Canada were questioned.

Part of the rancour of that whole debate was the Speaker reversing the decision on black Friday and the impact that had upon the House. Also, it was the first use of closure since 1913, which was an affront to Canadian democracy at the time. Unfortunately, we have seen it used 80 times now. That bad precedent set by the Liberals has been continued by the Conservatives, unfortunately.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member made reference to Gros-Cacouna being the worst location in which we could have a terminal of this nature.

It does beg the question, from his perspective what would be the ideal location? Is there a place along the St. Lawrence he feels would be more appropriate?

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

Mr. Speaker, I would prefer that scientists rather than oil companies choose the location.

If we could get a council of scientists that would choose the location for the TransCanada company, I would be comfortable with that. I would accept the recommendations of those scientists when they chose that area, as long as they were independent and not scientists hired by the company itself. It would have to be a completely independent body that would choose that location, rather than an oil company.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's detailed speech made a strong case for our position as a party.

As someone who represents a part of the country where we both rely on natural resources and have a very rich ecosystem, including wildlife like beluga whales, we know it is important to strike a balance to ensure that our exploitation of natural resources and that our livelihoods do not hurt what is so near and dear to us, like the beluga whale or the polar bear, or fragile ecosystems in our north.

In fact, many of us fought back against a proposal to ship crude oil through the Bay line, through the port of Churchill into the Arctic for that very reason, because we need to ensure that balance is struck.

I would like to ask my colleague, in terms of our party's strong position in support of value-added jobs and ensuring that our development of economic resources benefit our communities, to comment on that and the importance of balancing that with protecting fragile ecosystems and increasingly fragile wildlife.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to preface my comments by saying that I believe all work done in Canada has value to it. With respect to the question about value-added jobs, I think that everyone working on the landscape in the resource industry is adding value to the Canadian economy. I do not want that to be questioned.

However, with creativity, I think we can see the value of preserving the ecological beauty of Canada for tourism for generations to come, rather than looking at things in the short term. I think the strategy to do short-term exports of raw bitumen is misplaced. I think the plan to build a pipeline to Texas is an export of 40,000 jobs. I would like to see jobs being created in Canada, people working with Canadian resources, transforming them, and moving our economy forward.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Before we resume debate, I will let the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour know that there is approximately 13 minutes remaining in the time allocated for the business of supply today, so I will need to interrupt her at around the 5:15 p.m. mark. However, I will give the usual indication when we are getting close to that time.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour and for Western Economic Diversification]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to join this debate today, but to be quite frank, I am very surprised that we are actually having this debate. In British Columbia where I am from, the provincial NDP leader announced that he was not going to support a project which he had originally said he was going to wait for the environmental assessment review on. He announced he was not going to support it, to everyone's surprise and shock. Certainly the voters told him what they thought of that particular move in the recent election there. Here we have a project that has not even been applied for, and the New Democrats are opposing it off the top. We have scientists in place, plans in place, systems in place. They might want to learn from their counterparts in British Columbia about allowing proper processes to go through. Anyway, we are here to speak to this motion by the member for Drummond.

As all members know, Canada's energy sector is of great importance to our national economy and our quality of life. Energy is our leading export. The oil and gas sector generates 7.5% of Canada's GDP. All Canadians depend on this energy for their homes and transportation. Over 190,000 people depend on the oil and gas industry for their jobs and their livelihood. In addition, the energy sector provides many other benefits to Canadians. I have to note that almost every time I get on a plane to come to Ottawa, or I go from Kamloops to Vancouver or Calgary, the plane is filled with people who are going to work in Alberta. They are supporting their families. Those jobs are incredibly important to them and to their families.

The energy sector has paid royalties and taxes to government totalling over $23 billion annually over the last five years. These government revenues have helped pay for programs and services for all Canadians, including education, health care and pensions. Again, I have to look at the New Democrats. We consistently hear them wanting a whole variety of new spending on social programs, 45-day work years, increases to this and increases to that. Then they say no to absolutely everything that would potentially provide the resources for some of these programs they are asking for. Canada is very fortunate to have a great wealth of oil and gas resources. We can all take comfort in knowing that the energy sector will continue to generate significant economic activity throughout Canada, including jobs and government revenues for many years to come.

It is for these vital economic reasons that our government is proud to say that we support Canada's energy sector and all of our resource industries. That is why we created our plan for responsible resource development, a plan to ensure the success of Canada's resource industries and the protection of our environment.

Under this plan, we have focused on four key objectives.

We have made the regulatory review process for major projects more timely and predictable. That is really important. Investors need to get to a yes or a no in a relatively timely fashion. Now we have set timelines. Again, getting to that yes or no is absolutely critical.

We have reduced duplication across federal agencies and with provincial organizations. I remember the day when the provincial government would have a process, for example, for a mining project, and the federal government would have a process. There would be duplication of many things. We have taken those processes and had them make more sense so there is not that duplication across the organization.

We have enshrined stronger environmental protection measures in legislation, including new enforcement and compliance tools. We are also strengthening protections for marine transportation, offshore development and pipeline safety.

We are also strongly committed to engaging first nations in every aspect of resource development, underpinning all of these objectives and the many benefits they will bring.

It is a basic fact that major resource projects will only be approved if they are safe for Canada and safe for the environment.

I would like to also note that the Kinder Morgan pipeline has gone through the Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo riding for over 60 years now. When I look at that road, I understand if that pipeline were not there to move that oil to where it goes, there would be 2,300 trucks per day on that highway.

I drive that highway, and I know it is a two-lane highway. There are very few passing lanes. There are some horrific accidents, and I can only imagine what 2,300 extra trucks per day on that road would do.

The community of Kamloops looked at it just the other day and made some suggestions around the routing of the pipeline. We certainly recognize the importance of the gas to the people in Vancouver who regularly use it. I understand that 90% of the gas they use actually comes through that Kinder Morgan pipeline. They probably need to reflect on that particular issue.

I have talked a little bit about pipeline safety, and it is certainly something we all care about. We care about it for the safety of our families, the safety of our communities, and the safety of our environment. I just talked about that road and what the impact to it would be.

Canada's pipelines are among the safest in the world. Between 2008 and 2012, 99.999% of crude oil and petroleum products transported through federally regulated pipelines in Canada was moved safely. Furthermore, during the last 3 years, 100% of the liquids spilled on these pipelines were completely recovered. Our pipeline safety record is outstanding and compares well to the record of Europe and the United States.

There are some 73,000 kilometres of federally regulated pipelines found throughout Canada. These pipelines transport $100 billion worth of oil, natural gas, and petroleum products each year. That is, of course, just the activity that is within Canada. Beyond our borders, as global energy markets change, other nations are moving quickly to capture growing energy markets in places like China and India. As a result, Canada must act now if it wants to continue to fully benefit from the vast resource wealth.

Here, we are talking about the east coast, but I look at British Columbia and the keen interest of the province in terms of the opportunities around LNG. It is very actively trying to enjoy those opportunities for the benefit of British Columbians and Canadians.

Virtually all Canadian exports of oil and gas are destined for the United States, but growth of the unconventional gas and oil industry in the U.S. is making it essential for Canada to broaden its customer base. There is no question that Canada will continue to be a key supplier to the U.S., but shifting global demand and supply conditions clearly make it imperative for Canada to access new growing markets for its energy.

A key to achieving this market diversification is the development of new Canadian infrastructure. To support such expansion, our government is taking concrete actions to strengthen pipeline safety, marine safety, and rail safety, so that our energy transport system continues to be truly world class. The government will soon be introducing legislation to strengthen Canada's pipeline safety regime, and this new legislation will further contribute to its plan for responsible resource development by strengthening incident prevention preparedness and response, and by increasing liability and compensation.

Canada can rightfully be proud of its record for pipeline and marine safety. At the same time, we should never stop trying to do better. It is crucial to keep improving technology and updating regulations to further enhance pipeline safety.

We intend to enshrine the polluter pays principle in law, so that polluters, not taxpayers, will be held financially responsible for the costs and the damages they cause. We will introduce no-fault liability. We will require companies operating pipelines to hold minimum financial resources for incident response. For companies operating major oil pipelines, this financial requirement will be set at $1 billion. Together, these measures will significantly strengthen our pipeline safety regime.

All proposed pipelines will undergo a thorough, objective, science-based review, which will be through the regulatory process of the National Energy Board.

The National Energy Board will consider the potential environmental effects of increased marine shipping activities that would result from proposed projects, including the potential effects of accidents or malfunctions within the scope of its review.

As I stated earlier, no project will be approved unless the government is satisfied that it is safe for Canadians and for the environment.

In conclusion, right now no country in the world transports oil and gas as safely as in Canada. Canadians expect, and deserve, that government and industry should continually strive for the highest safety standards possible in the movement of oil and gas. The pipeline project would play an important role in the export of Canada's energy. The NEB will fully consider the potential impacts.

Again, the NDP wants to say no to a project before there is even an application. It is absolutely absurd. On this side of the House, we believe in having an intense, robust, strong process and letting the scientists do the evaluation, the assessment, make the decisions and advise government on how to move forward.

[François Lapointe, NDP, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite used the word “absurd” near the end of her speech. According to her, there is something absurd about us asking questions and opposing what is happening with the Cacouna port.

Is the hon. member aware that the ruling handed down by the Quebec Superior Court includes a stack of documents that prove the absurdity and administrative fiasco at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans under the Conservatives? Despite the province's request, this department repeatedly refused to provide a scientific opinion on the issue.

That is what is absurd, and that is the problem.