Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have a right of reply to first express my thanks to my colleagues from across the country and in the House. From the east coast and to the north, I thank my colleagues from British Columbia, New Democrats, Liberals and Green Party alike, as well as the independents who have shown their support.
I represent northwestern British Columbia in the House of Commons. We are a culture and an economy based on our environment. As we say up north, the people do not make the land, the land makes the people, which is increasingly true.
This bill that I have presented in Parliament was in fact borne out of a crisis, out of a threat from an oil company seeking to build an 1,100-kilometre twin pipeline carrying unrefined raw bitumen from northern Alberta to the Port of Kitimat and then on to China through supertankers three football fields long. In my duty as the member of Parliament representing this place, I realized that I had to oppose this project, because the risks so far outweighed the benefits for the people I represent, and I would argue for the people of British Columbia and Canada.
However, from this crisis is an opportunity, and we have taken this opportunity to find common cause, not just in northwestern British Columbia, but across beautiful B.C. and in fact across this country. First nations and non-native people, community to community, have stood shoulder to shoulder in expressing our commonly held values to protect our homes. They have expressed that most Canadian sense of determination, that when a government tries to force something upon us, we stand resolute with one another in opposition to that government.
Also through this bill, I sought to propose solutions to the crisis that is upon us, to make consultation with Canadians meaningful and respectful, so that if the opinion of Canadians in their communities and their homes is asked, then the Government of Canada should listen.
This bill, perhaps for the first time in Canadian law, also seeks to actually have an opinion about natural resources in this country as to whether we export them raw, as is planned by Enbridge's northern gateway and Kinder Morgan, Keystone, or if we add value to the endowment that we have inherited. However, if we ask these questions of proponents, the Conservatives say we are antagonistic, but I say that is not right.
I have held dozens of town halls across British Columbia, from the east to the west, from Vancouver Island to the interior, to the north, to the cities. Tens of thousands of British Columbians have been engaged, signing petitions, writing postcards and coming to town halls.
I was in the interior of B.C. this weekend and took the red eye back this morning. A woman came up to me at one of our town halls and thanked me for providing a little bit of hope, because she felt quite desperate with the current Conservative government and its approach to her province and home and native land. However, I realized that through the course of this, it has been myself that has taken the most inspiration from the British Columbians I have engaged with.
Despite a cynical and oppositional government that seeks to strip our environmental laws, ignore first nations' rights and title, ignore the reality of climate change, ignore the idea that we should be adding value to our natural wealth, despite all that, British Columbians, Canadians, have continued to show up. Even with the increasing threat from a government that says if one dares have an opinion that is contrary to its own, one will be called a foreign-funded radical by one's own government, one will be called an enemy of the state by one's own government, people have chosen hope over that fear time and time again. It does not make one an enemy of Canada to express an opinion; that makes one truly Canadian.
Coastal first nations; B.C. municipalities; the B.C. government; the Fraser community's labour, tourism and businesses have all stood together in opposing this project; two-thirds of British Columbians consistently. Therefore, I say to my Conservative colleagues from British Columbia that they clearly have a choice in a vote in 48 hours to decide who it is that they work for. Do they work for the current Prime Minister and his oil lobby friends, or do they work for the people who sent them to this place from British Columbia?
Those members must decide that within the next two days, because this bill is an opportunity to stand with British Columbia and defend our coast, or stand with the Prime Minister, who has truly lost his way and believes that it is a radical thing to stand up for one's community, that it makes one an enemy of Canada rather than a Canadian citizen.