Madam Speaker, today's motion was precipitated by the British Columbia government's decision to challenge the approval of the Kinder Morgan expansion, and it represents possibly the greatest challenge to the federation in a generation. There are a number of things at stake in this, whether or not we are a country united in the principle of the rule of law and the Constitution of Canada, the viability of any large national project, and the future for any responsible resource development.
The response of the government to this crisis thus far has been wholly inadequate. We have occasionally heard from the minister who, in this House, quite smugly, almost condescendingly, merely repeated that the pipeline will get built. We have heard this a couple of times from the Prime Minister, but we have not heard the government championing this project in any meaningful way. This is important because the government's track record on energy project approval is abysmal.
Under the Liberal government, which is now into its third year, we have seen the northern gateway project killed by an arbitrary tanker ban that wiped out a project that was approved through an extremely rigorous and long-drawn-out approval process, with the support of dozens of first nation equity partners. We have seen how the government rendered the energy east project economically untenable by moving the goalposts, introducing upstream emissions, which is not an area of federal jurisdiction and not one which the NEB would have jurisdiction over, as well as downstream, which is quite ridiculous in a pipeline project. The final decision of what type of vehicle somebody is going to pour gasoline into is the strongest determining factor of downstream emissions.
Thus, we have seen two projects killed by the government. We have seen the anti-energy rhetoric that has come from many government members, including the Prime Minister himself talking about leaving resources in the ground. There are anti-energy activists in the governing party's caucus, in key staff positions, and indeed in the cabinet itself. We saw that ministers had to sanitize their social media accounts to delete anti-energy posts before the Liberals were in government.
The government has a large credibility problem when it comes to energy projects. Once in a while standing up in this House and trying to placate the Conservatives by simply insisting that this project will get built is not good enough. The Liberals need to do better than that.
Canada has lagged behind in energy infrastructure for years. We are way behind on LNG and are allowing the United States to become an energy superpower in exporting its product to international markets where we could be doing so ourselves.
The Canadian oil patch is not participating in the oil and gas industry recovery that is taking place in other producing jurisdictions. That is largely due to politics. It is due to the Liberal government's attitude and the signals it sends to the investment community. It is due to the attitudes of provincial governments as well.
We exist with a price differential on our energy products that is absolutely killing jobs. It is eroding our ability to produce public services. What we are doing because of the differential is exporting income taxes. We are exporting public service to the United States. A Canadian barrel has a $30 discount on world prices. Think of that one pipeline which has a capacity of half a million barrels a day, and we are taking a discount of up to $30 a barrel.
We should think of how much royalty money is not being paid to the Alberta, Saskatchewan, or other provincial governments. We should think of how much in equalization payments cannot be made. We should think of how much income tax is not being paid on money that is not being earned because of the differential. This has been going on for years and is exacerbated repeatedly by the absence of pipeline capacity.
By no means is this an Alberta issue alone. Although there are thousands of people in my riding whose livelihoods depend on the oil and gas industry, the benefits of this industry are spread throughout Canada. They are a major part of the public services that Canadians rely on and the revenue from royalties and from income tax.
Producers pay some of the highest royalty rates in the world on Canadian oil and gas. Producers are willing to do so because until now, Canada has been a reliable place where adherence to the rule of law, sanctity of contract, stable political regimes, and rigorous but predictable regulatory processes allow companies to invest in Canadian resources. All of this is being jeopardized by this current dispute. If international investors look at Canada and say this is not a country where they can rely on the rule of law because a provincial government can usurp federal approval, where the Constitution is not observed, where sanctity of contract in terms of governments moving goalposts on approval processes, this becomes a place where the international investment community will not go. All of the foregoing is under threat due to the Prime Minister's inaction and the mixed signals it sends to the investment community.
The situation today is utterly untenable. The Prime Minister and Parliament have the tools to remedy the situation. We know that affordable energy is an important human need. We are talking out loud about trade disputes between provinces. People are actually talking out loud about what would happen if the Government of Alberta were to refuse to allow the export of crude through the existing Trans Mountain pipeline. What would happen to the economy of the Lower Mainland? It would grind to a halt in days.
The fact that we are even talking about these things is absolutely unbelievable. There is no way we should be having these discussions, yet they are happening. It is time for the Prime Minister to choose what kind of prime minister he wants to be and what he wants his legacy to be. Does he want it to be a divided union? He cannot continue to placate everyone. He may need to alienate some of the extreme elements of the environmental movement, and why not? The utter destruction of the oil and gas industry is all that those folks will settle for, so there really is no trade to be made with these folks.
We know that Pierre Trudeau's family has a history of fomenting constitutional crises. In Alberta the same resentments and anger that I am now hearing are very familiar. I grew up with them in the 1980s. In Alberta they see a Liberal government that is letting its ideological fellow travellers in British Columbia kill a pipeline that many in the Liberal caucus do not even want anyway.
It is time for the Prime Minister to stop letting the noisy few kill the jobs and prosperity for the many. He should stop hemming in our oil and gas even as in the east we import oil from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and the United States. He needs to stop exporting social services like health care and education to the United States. He needs to stop chasing away investment and tax dollars that would go with it from an industry because projects are not being developed. He should stop rewarding those who would subvert the rule of law and the Constitution Act. He should stop trying to ride both sides of every fence. He should show some leadership, stand up for jobs, and for once be proud of Canada's energy industry and the rigours of our environment policies.