Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise to speak to this topic today. I will be sharing my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
I would like to read the motion as it has been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition:
That the House agree that the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion Project: (a) has social license to proceed; (b) is critical to the Canadian economy and the creation of thousands of jobs; (c) is safe and environmentally sound, as recognized and accepted by the National Energy Board; (d) is under federal jurisdiction with respect to approval and regulation; and (e) should be constructed with the continued support of the federal government, as demonstrated by the Prime Minister personally announcing the approval of the project.
I would like to address a number of the points we have laid out in this motion. I am particularly going to focus my comments at the beginning of my speech on the idea of social licence and that this project has social licence to proceed. Without a doubt, this project has public support. The Prime Minister often talks about social licence. This concept has different meanings, depending on who we talk to, so I would like to outline what I think that social licence means. It is a relatively new term, and it was coined in 1990 by a mining executive named Jim Cooney. He suggested that social licence is a subtle approval that runs parallel to governmental regulatory process. It seems that social licence is required for all projects to go forward, regardless of whether they have been officially approved.
The minister points out that when the regulatory process has been successfully completed, he then will politically decide whether it has social licence to go forward. The National Energy Board released its report on the Kinder Morgan pipeline on May 19, 2016. It had already approved a northern gateway pipeline as well. For some reason, one has been approved, and the other one has not been approved to go forward. It has been interesting to see. One of the things that is important for the concept of social licence is more on the moral question. If it is legal for these things to go forward, is it moral for these things to go forward? The question we are looking at in terms of the pipeline is what this pipeline means for the world in terms of whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. I will argue that it is a good thing.
Petroleum products are a big part of our lives. I would not be here today if it were not for petroleum products. I flew here from northern Alberta. I drove down to Edmonton in my car. I got on an airplane, and I flew here from Edmonton to Ottawa. That is due to the exceptional development of our natural resource petroleum products. The fuel used to fuel the jet and the fuel used in my car allow me to get here in a relatively easy amount of time, and they allow me to go back and forth. That is a good thing.
Fuel that is used in a tractor allows modern farming to produce more food than we can consume. In fact, members may be aware that in this country at this time, we are having a discussion about supply management. Do people know why supply management is even an issue? It is because we can produce more milk than our nation can consume. That is why supply management is an issue. That is what we have been discussing. For example, the State of Wisconsin produces 30% more milk than that state can consume. That amount of milk is the same amount of milk that all of Canada consumes. It goes to show that through modern technology, through the use of petroleum products, we are able to produce more food than we are able to consume. That is a good thing. The very fact that we are able to live in a society where there is an abundance of food is unprecedented in history. The resource of food has always been a limiting factor on the ability of humans to flourish.
I would make the argument that petroleum products are a very good thing. The very fact that we have a wealth of them and can ship them around the world is good for the entire world. We could feed the entire world based on the developments we make in petroleum products going forward.
The argument for getting our petroleum products to tidewater is very important. In Canada, not too many of us are starving. In the western world in particular, obesity is more of an issue than starvation. However, in other parts of the world, across the oceans from this continent, starvation is still a reality. I would make the argument that without the benefits of petroleum products in other parts of the world, agriculture will not flourish. Without the benefits of petroleum products, health care will not flourish. Without the benefits of petroleum products, transportation to get food to the people who need it will not happen. When we say that the pipeline should not be built because it does not have social licence, we have to understand that we are dealing with a petroleum product that has the ability to lift everyone out of poverty and feed the world, based on the way we use it.
I would argue that this pipeline most assuredly has social licence, because the moral question of allowing the world to starve or to eat is bound up in this question of whether we build the pipeline to tidewater.