Madam Speaker, the Liberal Minister of Natural Resources started his speech earlier by saying that he was in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with the Conservatives, and that he had some soul-searching to do. That is strange, because Liberals so often agree with Conservatives when it comes to pipelines.
If the expert panel that the Prime Minister appointed to review the National Energy Board came up with the following conclusions: that the public has fundamentally lost confidence in the National Energy Board, and that there is a “crisis of confidence” with respect to the decisions that are being made because the public overwhelmingly feels that the National Energy Board is a “captured” regulator. That means it is too close to industry and is too often approving whatever it is that industry wants, leaving the public out.
If that is the situation and the promise was clearly made by the Prime Minister that in order to get that social licence, we have to restore and renew the NEB on this project before it gets approved, what situation do we have now? He went into British Columbia a week after the election and said that British Columbian voters, 60% of which voted for parties against this pipeline, were wrong.
What message is this Prime Minister and his silent Liberal MPs from British Columbia actually sending to the people of my province?