Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak during the Conservative Party opposition day debate on the government's mismanagement of the Canadian economy. When we talk to Canadians, they understand how badly it is being mismanaged.
More specifically, the Conservative motion states, “That the House recognize that the government has mismanaged the economy in a way that is damaging Canadian industries and diminishing Canadians’ economic stability by”. Then it goes on to list three separate industries and areas where it does it.
First of all is “failing to negotiate a deal on softwood lumber and instead offering a compensation package rather than creating sustainable jobs for Canadian forestry workers”. That is the Liberal way, a compensation package. They cannot get the job done, but they will fork over more taxpayers' dollars.
Second is “attempting to phase out Canada’s energy sector by implementing a job killing carbon tax, adding additional taxes to oil and gas companies, removing incentives for small firms to make new energy discoveries and neglecting the current Alberta jobs crisis”. I will speak more about that later.
Third is “refusing to extend the current rail service agreements for farmers in Western Canada which will expire on August 1, 2017, which will result in transportation backlogs that will cost farmers billions of dollars in lost revenue.”
The constituents of Battle River—Crowfoot want the Liberal government to admit to its failures as described in the motion. There is concern throughout the large agricultural community that I represent about railway service and the challenge of getting our products to ports and markets. There is even more concern when they see the Liberals, as I stated in a question earlier, failing to renew Canada's softwood lumber agreement with the United States. When they came into power, they thought it would be a fait accompli and an easy task, and they have failed. Again, their only response is compensation.
Alberta has already seen the Liberal government completely ignore the crisis in the oil industry. There were no hundreds of millions of dollars to help that very important sector of the Canadian economy. The Liberals have nothing to help the oil and gas industry and the workers who are now unemployed. In fact, the government has seemed to only hurt the industry more. There has been what we called back in my football days “piling on”. They have taken one crisis down on the turf and jumped on it all over the place. The Liberals have nothing except handouts and people want more. The unemployed want jobs.
In Battle River—Crowfoot and many other agricultural ridings around the country, people are concerned about the Liberal government's pending mismanagement of our rail system. Liberals are basically saying that what they have done to softwood lumber and the oil patch they want to now take to the railway transportation system. What we are about to receive from the Liberal government as an answer to many of these problems, by the way, is a carbon tax on everything and everyone, and there is no reason for it. That is the good news. Conservatives are here to proclaim loud and clear that there is no reason for a carbon tax at this time or any time, and no reason to call it a solution to the problem.
The Liberals are using the same emissions targets that were calculated by the previous government. The Conservative government set very achievable targets that would not require a carbon tax system for Canada to meet them, and we were committed. Conservatives know that Liberals are using their carbon tax as a cash grab and Canadians should not take it. Canadians should not just accept that a carbon tax is a way to reach the Paris accord or any other environmental goal that the government may want to reach. It is not required. That is what my constituents tell me when I am home.
Battle River—Crowfoot is a large agricultural riding, approximately 54,000 square kilometres. It is mainly agricultural and individuals who work in the oil and gas industry. The people I meet in groceries stores, on the streets, and at various community events are all being hit hard by the drop in oil prices. In fact, many skilled workers who worked in the oil patch are not employed any longer. Many people have come home and there is little or no work. The Liberal government has not come to the aid of this sector of Canada's economy. In fact, it has added to it. It has ignored the job crisis.
The Conservative members of Parliament from Alberta went through the province and created an Alberta jobs task force. We listened to Albertans and to Canadians about the government's role in helping to create jobs. It is not just hiring more bureaucrats and just hiring more public servants. We wanted to know what it was going to take to create a climate in which the private sector, the small and medium-sized businesses, could create jobs. We did this before the last recent budget, but the Liberals ignored what the people of Alberta said.
In my constituency through most of the time I have served, we have had an unemployment rate of around 3%. It would go down a little and it would just go up marginally, but it was typically around 3%. Even during the recession, it was relatively low compared to what we are seeing now. In the month of March, it was 9.9%. In the month of April, it was 9.7%.
I mentioned some of this in my speech last week. These are the issues facing Alberta and my constituency. Now, as we come into the summer, when there are typically more jobs, the Liberals say there has been a bump in some jobs, including in Alberta, but it is a small marginal jump that happens in the construction season, and it is there again this year.
However, the Liberals are going down the road of a carbon tax, believing that that is going to solve the problems that they want to focus on. It is a shame.
The way the Liberals want to implement the agreement they have would mean speeding up the closure of coal-fired generation plants. The Liberals have gone ahead and seriously limited Canada's softwood lumber industry, but on the coal issue, I have two in my riding. One is Sheerness Mine down by Hanna, on Highway 36. Most of the workers employed there live in and around Hanna. There is also the Battle River generating station, just out of Forestburg, These workers are being told that their jobs are going to end and that it may be sooner rather than later.
That is not what we see going on everywhere else around the world. China is allowed to continue to use coal. They continue building new coal-fired electrical plants while Alberta shuts theirs down. In fact, some say we are shutting ours down so they can open them in China. China uses their coal-fired electricity to operate manufacturing facilities to make goods that will then be sold back to Canada, and we are purchasing them in record numbers.
The question is, is the carbon footprint being lowered? It was asked earlier in questions. It was asked earlier in this debate. Are we sending money to China to help them fire up their coal furnaces to generate electricity and then send products back to us? Are we actually supporting that? Perhaps we are. All I know is that precious little is offered to communities like Hanna and Forestburg to replace the jobs that are going to be lost there.
I want to talk about the Conservative motion in regard to the mismanagement of the economy around the softwood lumber deal. In the softwood lumber agreement, a rookie government got caught in the promises it made. It said it could do this. Now the average family involved in that industry pays the price, the father who is unemployed or the mother who is unemployed. They used to work in the sector. The child is off at school, but now mom and dad are not working. That is the problem. It did not need to be this way.
What did the Liberals do when the oil industry needed help? Nothing. What did it do when the softwood lumber industry needed help? It came up with an agreement and compensation. Then what did it do when Bombardier needed help? It spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and we know that some of that money went to pay executive bonuses. It is shameful.
The Conservative motion today is about the future of the Liberal government in protecting Canadians' jobs and economic growth. That is what the Liberals are going to fail to do, through the Paris Agreement and others.