Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-46, the pipeline safety act.
As I pointed out in my question, Canadians have a reasonable and high expectation that industry will ensure that our pipelines are safe and secure, not only today but well into the future. The Liberal Party is committed to ensuring that this is the case. If at all possible, it would be wonderful to say that we have a 100% safety and security record. We need to at least set that bar very high.
In her response, the member for Calgary Centre made reference to Algeria. We do not need to compare Canada to Algeria. We have our own standards and expectations. I hope the government, in going to committee, is not going to take the approach that because we have a 99.999% record there is no room for improvement. There is room for improvement. The government has recognized this, at least in part, by bringing forward the legislation. Hopefully, if amendments come forward through the committee process that would improve the safety of our pipelines, it will listen and respond accordingly. That is an important aspect as we get ready to go to committee. As the Liberal Party critic has clearly indicated, the Liberal Party will support the bill going to committee.
Bill C-46 does a number of significant things. The most important is that it enshrines the polluter pays principle. If we were to canvas, I think we would find that there is virtually unanimous support for that principle. It is something that is long overdue, and it is great to see it being incorporated in Bill C-46.
Bill C-46 deals with a few more issues I would like to quickly point out. It would better enable the National Energy Board to provide direction on using the best technologies available for building and operating pipelines. The NEB would also have a role in aligning federal and provincial pipeline safety.
We often hear about the 70,000 km plus of pipelines the federal government is, in essence, always watching over indirectly. I would suggest that in some areas, it is doing it more directly.
There are also other pipelines out there, and there needs to be coordination with our provincial counterparts. Many, including me, would suggest that it should go beyond that to include first nations and others.
Bill C-46 would give the National Energy Board the authority to take control of an incident if deemed necessary. I think most people would have anticipated that this would have been the case. The bill provides more clarity in that whole area.
The bill would provide for unlimited liability when at-fault or negligent actions are taken. There would be an expectation that the NEB would ensure that the companies responsible would actually have the funds necessary, which would lead to insurance contracts and so forth.
The bill also deals with an important point on which there has not been much debate, and that is the area of abandoned pipelines. There are, in fact, some abandoned pipelines, and the bill deals with that issue.
It is one thing to talk about pipeline development, and I will spend a bit of time on that, and pipelines that are fully commissioned and bringing product to market. However, there are, at times, decommissioned pipelines we need to spend some time, energy, and resources on to ensure that the environment where those decommissioned pipelines are is protected.
There are reasons to believe the legislation, which will ultimately pass through committee, will be of benefit, both to our environment and to the industry as a whole.
My understanding is that even industry stakeholders, in particular companies, are at the very least understanding of why the legislation is here today. If they have any understanding of public opinion and want to address the high standards that have been established by Canadians, they will be supportive of the legislation. There will be some areas of concern, but at this point I believe there is substantial support for the bill going to committee.
There is a great deal of need to ensure we get this right. Over the last number of years, the Prime Minister has invested a great deal of his political capital on one issue at great cost: the development and exportation of oil. It has cost tens of thousands of jobs in other sectors. He has made Canada more dependent on the price of oil, to the degree that the government indefinitely put off presenting its budget, which is somewhat bizarre.
The Prime Minister's inability to deal with the needs of future exportation of oil, whether it is to other provincial jurisdictions or to the United States, and his failure to work in consultation to develop pipelines that will be in the long-term interest of Canada will cost hundreds, if not billions, of dollars in the future. This means good quality jobs will be lost because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister on the file. We all need to be somewhat concerned about that.
On the one hand, we have the inability within the Conservative Party to get the job done. On the other hand, the New Democrats talk about pipeline safety, which means no pipeline development or just no real interest, from my point of view. We saw that in part when the leader of the official opposition went to the United States to tell Americans to say no to the Keystone pipeline. In the Prairies we understand how anti-west the leader of the official opposition can be at times.
With the development of our natural resources, the economic opportunities and how that improves the quality of life for all Canadians, it is to the benefit of the House to get this right. We in the Liberal Party recognize there are economic opportunities, but there are also environmental responsibilities. We believe we are in a position to say to Canadians that we understand the issue, unlike the approaches of the current government and the New Democrats.
It is the attitude of working with our counterparts, understanding the needs of industry, understanding the needs of first nations and those of other stakeholders, and our environment. In the right situation, working in consultation, it can be done. The alternative, as others have said, is this. If we do not do what is necessary, and we want to at least attempt to meet the markets, we would have phenomenal percentage increases in rail line and semi-truck transportation of oil and gas, which is no safer than our pipelines.