Madam Speaker, I am glad to get a chance today to talk about this motion that has been put forward. It is such a good motion. It really addresses some of the issues that so many sectors in the Canadian economy are facing.
Three years ago, when a lot of people were heading to the polls, they thought they would give this new guy a chance, give this young prime minister a chance. What kind of damage could he do? Three years later, and look at the sectors that have been destroyed.
The forestry sector is in dire straits. It is lucky right now that the U.S. economy is booming and taking everything we can give it. If not for a booming U.S. economy, we would have massive layoffs in the forestry sector. What does the government do to address that? The Liberals had their friend Obama, their bud, who could not help them. The Prime Minister could not cash in on his friendship to do something for our forestry workers, and so that file just went to the background and was ignored. Again, when I look at it, I say, “Wow, just look at how bad this could be in that sector”.
Let us talk about the oil and gas sector, a couple of years later, and a hundred thousand jobs in Alberta alone. Here is a sector that five or six years ago was looking for every person to work. Companies were breaking down barriers, hiring members of first nations and women. They were taking people and putting them in jobs they historically had never been in. They actually did the jobs and belonged in those jobs. They broke down so many barriers because of the low unemployment rate in the oil and gas sector.
I find it fascinating when we talk about global warming and the global crisis that we have going on here and across the world. If we look at the oil and gas sector today, who has the best technology? Canada does. We are not flaring off oil stacks any more. We are capturing everything. We are capturing the methane, using it and getting value out of it. What does the government do? If it was so worried about climate change and the crisis that is being created by climate change, it would actually say that we have to get our oil to market quicker and displace all this dirty oil from other countries, which is destroying our environment. Did it recognize that? No. Did it recognize the need to embrace the technologies that Canada has? No, but other countries are.
For example, I was talking to a person who was doing development in the North Sea. He said to a Canadian company, “You know how to extract the oil in an environmentally friendly way, and make sure that it happens with a conscience. We want you here.” However, we are seeing investment leave Canada, because all of these other countries around the world want that know-how and that technology. What do we do here? We throw it out of work. We protest it. We fund the protesters who protest it. It is amazing.
It is even more amazing when we look at this big country from coast to coast to coast. It is a no-brainer: we do not want dirty oil in eastern Canada. We do not want oil attached to blood and gangs and corrupt governments. We can get this great oil out of Saskatchewan. All we need to do is pipe it there. Could the government get that done? No, it could not. What did it do? It played politics with it and made it so that eastern Canada had to import its oil down the Gulf of St. Lawrence in a ship in order to get gas here to Ottawa. Does that make sense? No, it does not.
The manufacturing sector is another sector the government is destroying. The government will face the reality in this sector fairly quickly, which is why it is very important we talk about this. Bombardier and Oshawa are just the tip of the iceberg in this sector.
We talked to manufacturers all summer in round tables, with the people who are producing the goods. There are some very creative Canadian technologies out there around the world, but they are in trouble. They need help. The tariffs that the U.S. has on is one thing, but the counter tariffs that we put on, the tax that we put on, are actually doing more harm. Will the government listen to these businesses that are asking if the government can help them?
Government members talk about this fund being there to help them, but did they talk to people who tried to apply for the money that is in the fund so that they could get some relief? We heard on the trade committee over and over again that it does not work, because their companies are not big enough, they do not have enough sales and do not qualify, or they need to fill out 90 pages of paperwork in order to get the form submitted properly. These are small businesses with eight to 10 employees. The owners are working, actually going to the till and coming back to the shop floor. Now, someone is going to tell those owners that they have to spend another 60 to 100 hours to apply for relief and then maybe he or she will get something. It is crazy.
The government has its head in the sand. The Liberals are not listening to Canadians. They do not understand, yet they go around the world spending money as if they are drunken sailors.
We have serious economic problems here in this country that we did not have four years ago. We went through a great recession in 2008. We watched Americans lose house after house after house. What happened here in Canada? The Conservative government put in a responsible infrastructure program that built waterways, sewers, roads and bridges that Canadians actually used and needed.
What does the government do? We are not sure. It is spending money, but I cannot tell where it is going. It definitely is not going into the riding of Prince Albert, so I do not know where it is going. I know some of it is going to China to build pipelines there. It does not have a problem putting the money somewhere else, but it does have a huge problem putting it here in Canada. It's absolutely crazy.
There are some things the Liberals could do, though. The first is that they could listen. Like I said, they could get their heads out of the sand and go talk to Canadians. The manufacturers have some ideas on competitiveness that would really assist them. I will give them credit. The fall economic statement, which talked about the capital cost allowance and making improvements there, is a good first step. Good job. I will give them that.
If the Liberals do not deal with the regulations we are seeing coming forward, that is a problem. They have to deal with them. They have to streamline them. They have to bring in programs like we had. If one new regulation is brought in, we have to get rid of three old ones. We have to make it easier to do business here in Canada.
We have a great opportunity to attract businesses here to Canada if we are competitive. We have trade agreements that the Conservatives started and the Liberals finished, which actually give our manufacturers market access all over the world. Why are they not locating here?
Why is Oshawa shutting down? If we are talking about electric vehicles and we have all this market access all around the world, why did GM not say, “You know what? We are going to transition Oshawa, because it has a great workforce, it has a great team, it has a great community, and there are 100 years of our soul in Oshawa. Let's make it the home for electric cars.” Why did the government not do that? That is a fair question. Why did it not do that?
I know the minister was lobbied enough. He was the most lobbied person by GM in the government. I cannot believe he did not know what was going on. Maybe he had a land deal on the go and he could not talk to them. I am not sure. That is neither here nor there. The reality is that for workers in Oshawa, it is not a nice Christmas.
I have talked to a lot of companies that want to ship their goods across Canada. In my riding, CanPro Ingredients in Arborfield makes alfalfa pellets. There are two plants left in Canada that do this, and they are almost ready to shut down because of transportation issues.
The government claims to have fixed the transportation problem, but it has not. Therefore, Canfor cannot ship its lumber and Rio Tinto cannot ship its aluminum. Over and over again, we are talking to companies that cannot get their goods from A to B.
The reality is the government has done nothing in the last three years except make things worse. The Liberals need to get their heads out of the sand, talk to Canadians and take action before it is too late.