Mr. Speaker, while considering the Kinder Morgan proposal that would drastically increase tanker traffic off the coast of my riding of Victoria, Conservatives stood by as the National Energy Board limited public input and cross-examination by intervenors, including the NDP. They gutted long-standing environmental protections and continue to ignore climate change. Now, they are again standing by as Kinder Morgan is allowed to keep its plans for oil-spill recovery secret from the people of Victoria and all British Columbians—the very kind of plans that are routinely available across the border in Washington state.
This deplorable secrecy does no favour to the resource industry, which depends on social licence from first nations and from communities small and large, who are being trampled by a government that allows our resources to be sold at any price.
Canadians deserve laws that protect us from toxic spills, make polluters pay, and rise to the challenge of climate change, and they deserve a government with a plan to invest resource revenue in the public interest and to build an advanced low-carbon economy powered by renewable energy.