Mr. Speaker, the 21 Conservative MPs from British Columbia have disappeared from the face of the earth. They are hiding from their constituents because of the Conservatives' disastrous approval of the northern gateway pipeline. Not a single Conservative minister from B.C. will explain the decision. The natural resources minister's spokesperson even went so far as to say the government had not actually approved it; it was just a “maybe”.
An approval by the cabinet is an approval by the cabinet. Approving this pipeline puts 45,000 British Columbia coastal jobs at risk.
How did we get here? Well, the Prime Minister removed all of the real barriers to the project by gutting environmental bills in one of his earlier omnibus budget bills.
How can the Prime Minister possibly deny that he stacked the deck in favour of the pipeline? More than 35 years after the Berger report, more than 25 years after Exxon Valdez, Conservatives still do not understand the basics of pipelines and tankers.
In 2015, an NDP government will set aside this grotesque decision.