Madam Speaker, the regulation, development, and support of natural resources is very important to my province of Alberta. The Conservatives are now raising this concern that export and interprovincial pipelines are not being built in Canada, yet during their 10-year tenure we did not see any being built. My concern is for the rising unemployment in my province. Apparently, there was a billion dollars earmarked by the former Conservative government for infrastructure, which was not delivered, yet we have the highest unemployment record since 2008, reported to be nearly four times higher for labourers and lower-paid workers than for higher-paid workers. Overall, we have lost more than 30,000 natural resource jobs. These layoffs did not just start this month; they did not start after the federal election; they started about a year and a half ago. Where was the Conservative government when it decided not to spend the dollars that would create good jobs in Alberta and across the country?
In the House of Commons on January 28th, 2016. See this statement in context.