Debates of April 30th, 2018

Oil Tanker Moratorium Act

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am astounded by the member's comments, and not by the volume and number of words he speaks, because he is famous for that. I talked about how the Prime Minister has provided zero consultation with respect to his unilateral decision on northern gateway, zero consultation when he signed away Inuit rights to self-determination on 17% of their lands. The member comes back to me and suggests that their consultation was the election. I guess that is what he is saying.

I would bet that the Liberals have not consulted on Bill C-48 with the 31 first nations impacted by the northern gateway decision, but the member seems to think the election writ period qualifies as consultation with our first nations. I would suggest that is not meaningful. I would suggest that falls short of Supreme Court decisions.

The second apology I would like to hear in the House is from that member for that suggestion.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the member for Durham's renewed interest in indigenous issues in this country.

He refers to those 31 indigenous communities that have signed agreements. I have looked at the list of those so-called agreements. As a matter of fact, the 31 agreements that he refers to are secret, confidential letters of undertaking and memoranda of understanding. I have been in this business for 30 years, and those are not agreements, to my mind.

Second, does the member find these so-called agreements consistent with what the Supreme Court has said in the Haida Nation case? On that case, the Supreme Court said that on important matters—and I would suggest that pipelines are important matters—we need the full consent of indigenous communities. Does the member agree?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou because he has shared his perspective in the House on many occasions, and it is appreciated.

What I would suggest to him is that a 30% equity stake in a pipeline is a substantive agreement. Now, he is suggesting that they are not real agreements, but an equity stake in a project of that size is significant, and for him to discount it is simply wrong in law.

The second thing I would point out to him, if we want to debate Supreme Court cases, is that I would refer him to more updated cases from the Supreme Court, which I cited, from the Clyde River decision and the Chippewas of the Thames from last year in the Supreme Court. The decisions said that the duty to consult must be meaningful—and obviously the Prime Minister's zero consultations do not qualify as meaningful—but that consultations are limited in scope.

I have said clearly that there is no duty to veto projects in Canada. That does not help either first nations or the development of our resources for all Canadians. We have to engage in pragmatic, positive dialogue that builds partnerships with first nations. I think the member would agree with that, and it would agree with the Supreme Court.

My highlight tonight is that the Prime Minister's unilateral actions in our Arctic and in northwestern British Columbia fall short of the Supreme Court's expectations on Canada.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, Indigenous Affairs; the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Employment Insurance; and the hon. member for Calgary Shepard, Foreign Investment.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying a few things about pipelines in French. There are francophones in Alberta, and pipelines are an important issue for the entire country.

An American journalist by the name of Michael Kinsley once said that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. That is an interesting thought. It might be rephrased a little to say that a gaffe is when politicians say what they actually think. When we look at some of the comments that have been made by ministers and by the Prime Minister about the energy sector or various other issues, these one-off comments are often dismissed as gaffes or mistakes. We are told not to worry, that the tweet was deleted and the minister provided clarification.

However, when we start to see a pattern when comments are made, it is worth reflecting on this Kinsley quote. These are gaffes in the sense that these are cases when people are actually letting the curtain slip and are showing what their real agenda is with respect to our energy sector. For example, in 2012, the Minister of Democratic Institutions tweeted that it was time to “landlock” Alberta's tar sands. That is pretty offensive language, but it came from an MP who is now a minister in this government. The minister once said that she wanted to landlock Alberta's oil sands. Clarifications were provided and the tweet was deleted, but that person is now sitting in cabinet, and it makes people wonder what her views are with respect to Alberta's energy sector. Actually, we do not really need to wonder, because she has already told us what her views are in that regard.

More recently, the Prime Minister stated that the time had come to phase out Canada's oil sands. He has also said that Canada was not doing well with people from my part of the country in key management positions.

Such remarks, which are very disparaging towards Alberta, also indicate opposition to energy development and the desire to landlock our energy resources, and are sometimes deemed blunders or gaffes. I think they are truly revealing. They are gaffes in the sense that sometimes the Prime Minister and cabinet members let a comment slip and say what they are really thinking.

We have a government here that is attacking our energy sector, and people in my constituency and across the country realize that. The government has all these fancy talking points to try to hide what it is doing. The Liberals will say in one part of the country with one kind of audience how they are stopping energy development. These things will come out about what the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet really think. On a different day, the Liberals will say that they are getting the pipelines built and that the previous government did not build pipelines.

Let us correct the record on that. I am very proud of the record of the previous government when it comes to delivering for the energy sector. Not only did we say no to a carbon tax and not only did we approve the northern gateway pipeline, but it was under the Conservatives that four pipelines were built in this country: the TransCanada Keystone pipeline, Enbridge's Alberta Clipper, the Kinder Morgan Anchor Loop pipeline, and Enbridge's Line 9 reversal. Every single pipeline project to tidewater that was proposed under the Conservative government was in fact approved. For the minister to say that more could have been built, well it beggars the imagination how Conservatives could have approved pipeline projects which at that time had not even been proposed, but we put through a rigorous process and we approved pipeline projects that were proposed. We built projects. We approved the northern gateway.

We got it done, and we established an environment in which people wanted to build and invest. They saw Alberta and Canada as a place with the kind of taxation and regulatory environment that made it a good place to invest and create jobs. That is why we had the best economic record, the lowest unemployment, and the best fiscal performance in the G7 under Stephen Harper.

Since members across the way want to talk about the record of Stephen Harper, on all of these fronts, support for the energy sector and strong fiscal management, that is a record very much worth defending. We can line that up against the terrible performance of this government running massive deficits during good years, rather than using fiscal stimulus only during economic downturns.

The Liberals want to run deficits all the time, whereas Conservatives take a balanced approach. We believe in balanced budgets over the medium and long term. We believe in establishing the conditions that allow all sectors of the economy to succeed, including the energy sector, the auto sector, and the forestry sector, not pitting them against each other, but rather to survive, thrive, and excel together, recognizing their interdependence. The steel industry benefits from the energy sector because pipelines have to be built. Indeed, there are other parts of the country outside of Alberta that benefit. I know there is a plant in our leader's riding, but there are other regions of the country, as well, that benefit from the steel industry that serves the pipeline industry.

We see with the government an attack on the energy sector. What has it done when it comes to pipelines? With northern gateway and what we are talking about today, the Liberals killed the northern gateway pipeline. They are proposing today Bill C-48, an arbitrary bill that says we cannot export from northern B.C., from this established exclusion zone.

Let us dig into this a little. They say that we cannot export Canadian oil from this exclusion zone, yet we have Alaskan tankers taking oil as close as they can come to the coast, outside the designated area, but quite close in principle. Canada cannot benefit from that economic activity. We cannot export, but the same activity and potential theoretical vulnerability is very much still there. We have tankers coming into the St. Lawrence Seaway and on the east coast that are bringing foreign oil into Canada for import, yet we cannot get the energy east pipeline built because the government has introduced regulatory hurdles that make it difficult for the project to proceed. It killed the energy east pipeline indirectly. It has killed the northern gateway project quite directly.

However, the Liberals cannot explain why it is somehow okay for tankers to import foreign oil into Canada and not okay for Canadian oil to be exported by tankers from Canada. They cannot explain why there is some environmental risk that is unique to Canadian oil being exported that does not apply in the case of oil from other countries being carried very close to international waters. They need to answer that question in order to justify putting forward this bill.

They say they are in favour of the Trans Mountain pipeline. They have no plan to build it, but they say they are in favour of it. In the opposition, between the Conservatives and New Democrats, we have a different view on virtually every pipeline question, but one area where we agree is that the government is making strange unjustified distinctions. It claims to be in favour of the Trans Mountain pipeline and is doing nothing to build it, yet it is completely opposed to the northern gateway pipeline.

Obviously, if we tell people that pipelines are dangerous, then there will be people in the Lower Mainland who are going to ask why the government is pursuing one policy in northern B.C. and a completely different policy on the Lower Mainland.

We are clear in the opposition about the strong safety record of pipelines. We are clear about the benefit of Canada being an energy superpower, which means we seek to create jobs here in Canada by promoting the development and export of Canadian energy resources, by taking advantage of those export opportunities, because other countries are not going to wait for us.

There are countries in Asia, for example, Japan, which imports most of its energy resources. Canada could benefit from a stronger relationship with Japan by selling our energy resources to Japan. Right now most of its energy resources come from the Middle East through the South China Sea. There is a big opportunity for Canada to get in the game through helping Japan with its energy security and building a better partnership. I just use that as one example.

Canada should be getting in the game and it should be growing economically. We need to end this Liberal attack on Canada's energy sector. We are proud to oppose this bill.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, when I hear Conservatives talk about the energy sector, one of the things that strikes me is that there would be no energy sector in Canada without the Liberals. There would be no energy sector in the Athabasca oil sands without the Liberals, because Pierre Trudeau's government put measures in place to encourage development, and, through using the tax system, made sure that development occurred. Furthermore, under the Chrétien government, Anne McLellan made sure that there were accelerated writeoffs for capital investment. Now under this Prime Minister, we have achieved the appropriate balance between the measures from my colleague, the Minister of Transport, and others, especially with respect to carbon pricing, to ensure that we meet our environmental goals and environmental obligations to the world, while also making sure we get our landlocked and other resources to markets and to diverse markets.

The thing that strikes me about the Conservatives is that in the last decade, we have had woefully under-prepared Conservative governments, in both Alberta and federally, presiding over a collapse in the world price of oil, allowing the employment situation in that province to decay, and showing themselves to have no clothes when it comes to managing a resource economy.

It is in fact Liberal governments, which are the progressive governments in Canada, that are managing this resource economy back to prosperity.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know there may be close runners-up, but that is probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard said in the House of Commons. The member says there would be no energy sector in this country if it were not for the Liberal government, as if the Liberals had the wisdom to plant the oil in the ground or something. There would not be an energy sector in this country if it were not for the hard work of men and women in Alberta who do the necessary work in energy and who take the risks to get at the resource.

I would never have the arrogance to claim that energy development was solely because of the Conservatives, and yet the members opposite have the arrogance to take credit for absolutely everything. The sun would not rise in the morning if it were not for Liberal governments, no doubt. The Liberals are applauding, of course.

Let us be very clear: Liberal policies have consistently attacked the energy sector. If the member really wants to defend the record of Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the national energy program, I invite him to come to Alberta. He can stay in my office, and he can hold round tables there to tell people in my riding, and in the ridings of Edmonton Centre and Edmonton Mill Woods about the great legacy of Pierre Trudeau. That is a message he will have a hard time selling.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we heard the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan call on the Liberals to explain a lot of things.

One thing we have not heard is an explanation from the Liberals or the Conservatives with respect to how they are going to clean up raw bitumen. In fact, the Conservatives talked about their great track record in protecting the environment. Ask coastal people what that looks like. The Nathan E. Stewart spill was cited earlier. Ask the Heiltsuk what the spill response was like in that case, or in the bunker fuel spill in English Bay.

In fact, if we look at the Conservative track record, we can note that they closed the Kitsilano lifeboat station and they consolidated the MCTS stations on the largest coast in Canada, which is the 25,000-kilometre British Columbia coast, from five stations to two. In fact, they closed the Comox station, which is the only station above the tsunami zone, and the Liberals followed through with that even though they said they would not do it. They talk about modernization, and yet they have spent more on overtime than it would have taken to run those stations right now.

Perhaps the member could explain how the Conservatives are going to clean up raw bitumen, because I can tell members right now that the Liberals' two tugs are not going to be able to pull it off. People in British Columbia do not feel safe and confident.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

Would the hon. member please respond in 45 seconds or less.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I can do that justice, but I will say to my friend, who is a member of Parliament from B.C., that every week or maybe every couple of weeks, I know that he flies to Ottawa from B.C. and goes back to his constituency. All of us use energy resources. All of us have to use energy resources. It is part of living in the modern age. It is part of living in a country this vast. Therefore, I think it behooves us to look for every opportunity we have to improve the effectiveness, the safety, and the security of that use.

Dramatic steps have been taken and continue to be taken in that direction. However, I think other members who support the bill need to answer these questions: What about the import of energy resources? What about the fact that we have Alaskan tankers just off the coast in B.C.?

Let us take the steps that we need to take together to look for opportunities and to enhance safety and security. I think that process has already happened and is continually happening. It is unrealistic to say that we can simply shut it out, because if it is not Canadian oil, it is going to be international oil, which raises all of the same questions.

Therefore, let us benefit from it, let us prosper here in Canada, and let us also look for opportunities to improve at the same time.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak on Bill C-48 again.

There is a content creator on YouTube who does these great videos called “honest trailers”. He discusses what movies should actually be talking about when they do their trailers. I would like to do the same with Liberal bills, because quite often we hear these grandiose names.

For example, for the budget, I would rename it the “Dude, where is my infrastructure budget?”, because no one seems to know where the infrastructure money went. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer could not locate $7 billion of it. I do note that of the $7 billion, he was able to find that it was costing Canadian taxpayers $700,000 of spending for every job created.

I also called it the “Honey, I sank the kids” bill, because $100 billion in added debt is going to stick to our children and our grandchildren in the coming years. However, I stuck on a different name, the Vantablack bill. Vantablack is the darkest substance known to man, so I called it that because of the lack of transparency in the budget bill. In fact, it is so lacking in transparency that even a supernova could not bring light to it.

An issue with the budget bill was, for example, that the finance department refused to respond to either us or the Parliamentary Budget Officer about some five-year spending projections. There was vote 40, which the treasury board president has brought forward, which will allow him to spend $7 billion without any oversight from committees, Parliament, or votes once the money has been done. The government that brought us an $8 million hockey rink is going to be given $7 billion without any oversight or transparency.

With Bill C-48 there could be a lot of names, but I am going to call it the “hypocrite bill”. The name “hypocrite bill” could also be applied to a lot of other bills. For example, the government talked big on military spending, but it is not mentioned once in the budget. The Liberals also talk about helping the middle class, yet burdened it with tax hikes and hundreds of billions of dollars of added debt with no mention of how it will ever be paid back.

As well, the government brags about a gender-balanced cabinet, but they give all five junior ministries to women. No government since the Trudeau Senior government has given all five of the junior ministries to women.

The Liberals killed energy east by constantly changing the goalposts and requiring upstream and downstream emission considerations. At the same time, they have given hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to their friends in Bombardier to pay out millions of dollars in bonuses, by the way. Apparently Bombardier jets do not emit emissions. The Liberals have given millions and millions to Ford motor companies because apparently Ford cars now run on pixie dust.

Let us look at the general hypocrisy around Bill C-48. Do not let anyone be fooled. It is not about banning tankers; it is about killing the northern gateway pipeline once and for all and killing Alberta jobs.

The Liberals like to talk a lot about human rights, but they blocked Alberta oil, the cleanest, most ethically produced oil in the world, to bring in oil from some of the worst human rights-abusing countries in the world. We bring in oil from Saudi Arabia, where there are some of the worst oppressions of women and of the LGBTQ community.

The Liberals brought in oil from Nigeria, where the government will murder a person for being gay. Think about that. We are bringing in oil from Nigeria and giving them money. Instead of creating Alberta jobs, we are getting oil from people who murder gays just for expressing who they truly are. We bring in oil from Angola, a country that Human Rights Watch highlights for its heavy government oppression. However, we buy their oil and block Alberta oil.

This is really interesting. Just last week, the Liberal government banned the famous Angolan human rights crusader Rafael Marques from Canada. We have open borders to all those fleeing the tyranny of the U.S., where one million Canadians still live. I hope they are going to flee as well. The Liberals will allow open borders for that, yet an award-winning human rights crusader from Angola is banned by the government. However, we will buy their oil.

The Liberals talk about evidence-based decision-making, so let us look at the facts on tanker safety.

We allow tankers into the Vancouver harbour to pick up oil in Burnaby from Kinder Morgan, where it currently is. We are planning, if Kinder Morgan gets built, to move that up to one freighter a day. That is perfectly fine. The Liberals approved that.

We allow what is called an Aframax tanker to move under the Second Narrows bridge in North Vancouver or Burnaby, where there is a width of 137 metres across the narrows.

The government now also says that a tanker moving through a width of 1,400 metres, through the Douglas Channel from Kitimat to the open seas, is not safe. Not only is the Douglas Channel 10 times the width of underneath the Second Narrows Bridge, but it would be escorted with three pilots for the entire passage. That is something we do not do when bringing in Venezuelan oil, Saudi Arabian oil, or Nigerian oil on the east coast. It is something we currently do not do when we bring in ships through the much narrower passage from North Vancouver to Burnaby.

The TERMPOL document for northern gateway added many other safety measures, such as radar on Gil Island, and more response gear, which we also do not offer for the tankers coming in through North Vancouver or the east coast.

Let us talk about the hypocrisy of the government's empty statement on nothing being more important than the nation-to-nation relationships. We heard in the government operations and estimates committee that no industry does better in Canada than the energy industry in working with indigenous groups, indigenous business, and providing jobs and prosperity to indigenous people of Canada. Who does the very worst on engaging them? It is the Canadian government.

This is what the first nations are saying. Elmer Ghostkeeper of the Buffalo Lake Métis said that they and other first nations are disappointed by the political decision, not the evidence-based decision, but the political decision, made without their input. Mr. Ghostkeeper said that 30 bands were looking forward to the shared prosperity that northern gateway would bring, with $2 billion in set asides.

Again, let us remember. It is Suncor, Syncrude, Enbridge. These are all the companies that were named in the government operations and estimates committee as companies that do the very best of any industry in providing prosperity, jobs and opportunities for first nations, and we are throwing it aside.

Chief Derrick of the Gitxsan first nations said that the Prime Minister did not even want to hear from supportive bands.

The government will consult with every U.S.-financed radical environmentalist group on pipelines in the industry. It will even take taxpayers' money to give to these radical environmentalist groups, saying, “Here, take some taxpayers' money from Alberta, from all across Canada, and go out and work against the Canadian interest.” It is working against what the government has said is in the national interest. Will the government listen and consult with first nations? No, of course not.

I want to talk about some of the safety issues. B.C. coast pilots are some of the very best pilots in the entire world. They have a safety standard for shipping off of B.C. that far exceeds what we do on the east coast. I want to talk about their record.

Since 2007, the very worst year for incidents has been a 99.94% success rate. There was not a single issue of an oil spill from tankers since Kinder Morgan was built 63 years ago. Not one. On regular shipping, the very worst year was 99.94%. In 2017, it was 99.97%. They have gone above and beyond, as I mentioned.

With the portable pilotage units they put on their ships in case their ships piloting or GPS goes down, they can control it as well. They spend $600,000 a year in training for the pilots. As I mentioned, they have a perfect record for moving liquid bulk vessels of over 40,000 dead weight. These are the experts.

They did a computer program when northern gateway was being considered. The experts said that moving ships down, even without pilots, would be perfectly safe. However, the plan was to include three pilots. Here we have the experts saying it is perfectly safe without all the added measures, and they have offered to put on these additional measures to make them extra safe. The government shot it down.

Bill C-48 is not about coastal safety. If it were, the government would shut down the east coast and Vancouver as well. This bill is all about killing Alberta jobs, and about killing once and for all the northern gateway pipeline.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate a number of comments the member across the way has made.

Again, when we take a look at this particular bill, I see it as a positive bill that reflects the wishes and desires of a majority of Canadians in wanting to see the moratorium put in place. In that sense, it is a positive piece of legislation. I believe the Conservatives are going to be voting against it. They seem to want to vote against it because they are tying it to the pipeline issue and indigenous consultations. There have been consultations that have taken place. The pipeline is going to be built. This does not seem to fit the Conservative narrative of trying to divide and conquer.

It seems to me that the Conservatives are not in touch with what Canadians really want the official opposition party to be doing on such an important issue which is dealing with our oceans. Is the member not concerned that the Conservative Party continues to be out of touch with what Canadians want to see on such an important issue?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of being out of touch, I would love for the member to ask Canadians if they support giving taxpayers' money to radical environmentalist groups that kill jobs in Alberta and that want to kill the very pipeline this government says it supports.

The Liberals say they support building Kinder Morgan, and then they go out and give money to a U.S.-backed environmentalist group, and say, “Take this money from taxpayers in Alberta and B.C., and go and stop the Trans Mountain pipeline.”

If the member wants to talk about being out of touch, that is a perfect example from the government, and I thank my colleague for bringing that point up.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my friend talked a lot about jobs and his concern about jobs where he lives. Of course, he is going to be fighting for the people in his community just like we are standing up for our communities in coastal British Columbia.

We have concerns. We had a spill in English Bay, a bunker spill, and we had a diesel spill up in Heiltsuk Nation. I have talked about this. I have talked about the gutting of the MCTS centres on the coast and the overtime that is being paid as a result of the so-called modernization by the Conservatives and the Liberals. However, no one here today has told us how to clean up raw bitumen, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives. I can tell the member that two tugs are not going to protect the coast.

[An hon. member]

How many?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

A member is asking how many. Let us figure out how to clean up raw bitumen before we talk about increasing tanker traffic.

I keep hearing from Conservatives that people in coastal B.C. and New Democrats are against jobs in Alberta. In fact, we are for jobs. We want to hear about how they are going to move forward with an oil economy that is going to be a transition economy to clean energy. We have not heard proposals about refineries and pathways forward.

I would like to hear from the member about pathways forward, because shipping raw bitumen out of Canada is shipping jobs out of Canada. It is not about putting money aside for future generations like Norway has. We have not heard about responsible economic development.

We care very much about our brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, and uncles in Alberta, but we expect the same kind of respect. We have 100,000 jobs in British Columbia that are based on tourism and hospitality that rely on a pristine, clean environment. Maybe the member could speak a little about that.

Also, we have heard from Conservatives today talk about replacing foreign oil. This project is not proposing to replace foreign oil.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, replacing the foreign oil part just shows the hypocrisy of the current government.

We talk about cleaning up bitumen. There is a senior researcher, Heather Dettman, with Natural Resources Canada, who has been working on this for years and years. She talks about methods, and there are chemical, booming, and skimming methods. There are methods to do it. There is a lot of misinformation about bitumen. They say that it sinks to the ocean floor, but bitumen floats. This lady knows a lot more about it than all of us, and she is saying that it is actually easier to clean up than regular oil.

There has not been a single oil spill from a tanker off the B.C. coast. We hear a lot of fake horror stories. It is almost like we should never fly just in case there is a plane crash. What if the plane crashes into the hospital? Should we never have a plane? We should never get a new car because there could be a car crash.

We have the very best pilots in the entire world, and the very best in Canada based on the west coast. We have the best technology. We have the best response, and we have the best record, with well over 50 years without a single oil spill from a tanker in British Columbia. We cannot go on the horror stories of what ifs. We have to go on facts, and the facts show that we have done a fantastic job, a perfect job, and I am sure that will continue.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I stand today on behalf of Nanaimo—Ladysmith to talk about regulating the shipment of oil tankers on B.C.'s coast and what is at stake.

I worked for many years as an ocean kayak guide. I had the great privilege of going to B.C.'s wildest places and I so appreciate the ferocity of the weather, the complication of our shorelines, the speed at which currents and tides move, how the water is never standing still on the B.C. coast, how extremely complicated it would be to clean up oil, and how hard it is to get to some of these places. Where we have the roughest weather is where there is the highest probability of an accident and it would take the longest time to get to a spill. I know what is at stake: the coastal communities that are dependent on fishing, on tourism, and on a pristine environment; the people who live from the shellfish beds and eat the food of the sea, but also those who are invested in the marine economy, the wild salmon economy, and the aquaculture industry.

When the Enbridge northern gateway pipeline was proposed, there was some semblance of a National Energy Board review that gave coastal people their voice. I had the privilege to be in hearing rooms and hear people with emotion in their throats and tears in their eyes talk about the beauty of taking their herring boat through skimming fish, zipping over the surface of the water, the sea life, the birds, and the whales. The connection to the coast is deep and heartfelt and it is our livelihood. It is why we are there. It is where we have come from. A lot is at stake.

I was elected first in 2002 on fighting a pipeline that was going to run through the southern Salish Sea, through the southern gulf Islands. The community worked to fight it. It took four and a half years but we did beat that natural gas pipeline. I was elected to a local government with a conservation mandate. A few years later, I was the chair of council, and we got a real scare when a bulk tanker dragged its anchor in Plumper Sound. That is the sound between Saturna, Mayne, and Pender islands. It was a near miss with its huge tank of bunker sea fuel. We heard within days the head of the department of ecology in Washington state say it was a near miss, that another couple of hundred feet and that freighter would have been on the rocks. If its fuel tank had ruptured, it could have oiled the shorelines on both sides of the international boundary. That is when the lights went on for us. This was in 2009. The Hebei Lion was the first one. In 2010 and 2011, it was virtually the same thing. Huge container ships thought they were anchored safely but they were not.

We started as a local government asking questions about what the oil spill response is and if there had been an oil spill, how quickly response vessels would have arrived. Once we started digging around, we figured out that in fact Kinder Morgan was gearing up for an expansion of its pipeline. This was not well known. The fight against oil tanker traffic was focused on the north coast, but it turned out that this expansion was upon us as well. It is only since 2007 that Kinder Morgan has been exporting in oil tankers out of Vancouver harbour, and so the phenomenon of shipping out an unrefined product is still very new.

The lights went on and we started asking questions about bitumen. It was a Conservative government at the time in 2011. I started writing letters, as I was the trust council chair, asking the minister to tell us about bitumen. I asked where the science is that says it will float long enough for the government to be able to respond to it. I asked what response time was needed. I asked if the existing skimming technology was adequate. Those were questions I asked in 2011, and those questions remain unanswered today. We have never had a letter back from Liberal or Conservative ministers saying that they have a handle on that.

Indeed, we have repeated peer-reviewed studies from The Royal Society of Canada, Polaris, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, all of which say it is not clear with a spill in marine waters, especially with rough water and sediment, how long bitumen will float. Right now, the area I represent, the Salish Sea in between Nanaimo and Vancouver, is exactly the route of the Kinder Morgan tanker traffic that is happening now, let alone the sevenfold increase that will come if the Liberal government has its way and is able to force the project over the objections of coastal people.

No one has been able to say that they know how to respond to it. The response regulations that we have in place date from 1995. The Liberal government, despite its deep affection for the coast—the Prime Minister said he is a grandson of the coast and promised he would do it no harm—has not changed the oil response regulations. A spiller in my region that I am elected to represent has three days to get to the site of a spill and boom and contain the oil.

I keep hearing my Conservative and Liberal counterparts say not to worry, that they have this in hand. Who could possibly count on regulations that date from 1995? Who would ever allow regulations to remain in place that give a spiller three days to get to the site of a spill? I met with the Kinder Morgan CEO in Anderson about six years ago. My best advice to him was that he should be getting the Conservative government to up the oil spill response regulations. I know that he, as a corporate spiller, would respond faster, because he would not want the PR bad news of this. We continue to hear these old, broad announcements about the oceans protection plan from the government, but it has not actually implemented the regulations, which would have some teeth. It is one thing to say we are going to educate and do research, but we need tighter regulations right now.

The diluent that would evaporate off a dilbit spill is thought to be highly volatile, potentially so much in the very first hours of a spill that first responders may have to stay away. That has not been sufficiently studied and we have ample evidence that says it has not. If the first responders have to stay away, after the volatile diluent has evaporated away, it may be that we remain with the crude that sinks faster. We need to have strong measures in place to protect first responders and have fast response times so that the spilled material does not contaminate shellfish beds, the animals that live on them, and the first nations communities whose culture and economy are entirely dependent on a clean ocean.

I do applaud the government in moving forward with a north coast oil tanker ban. It is very much modelled on the legislation from our colleague, the NDP member of Parliament for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. His defend-the-coast tour in support of that legislation was famous in British Columbia. Thousands of British Columbians supported that initiative. Therefore, I very much applaud the government for advancing it.

As I said before, New Democrats wish there was not so much ministerial discretion. We are concerned that accidents, like the Nathan E. Stewart, which so badly affected the Heiltsuk people just last year, and continues to, would not be blocked by this. We continue to be extremely disappointed that the government has invoked closure on this debate so that we are not able to elaborate on the remedies and be even more persuasive about closing some of the loopholes in the ministerial discretion around the types of fuel.

That said, I will be voting in support of the bill, but I do not want friends and coastal people at home to have any false sense of security that the safety net is in place. If the government was really about oceans protection, tomorrow it would be legislating tighter response times so that our communities and ecology on the coast are safe from the threat of a bitumen oil spill.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I want to tell all Canadians, members, and constituents that our government is very much committed to protecting our oceans and marine mammals. We have seen ministers, up to the Prime Minister, talk a great deal about the importance to our government of advancing those issues.

Today we are talking about the moratorium for tankers. I am glad it is something the NDP is supporting. We have also invested a significant amount of money, I believe over $2 billion, for oceans protection. It is closer to $5 billion. It is a significant amount of money over the years ahead, so I would remind my friend's constituents and the member across the way that we are committed to doing the right thing.

That said, we are also committed to ensuring at the very least that a dialogue occurs and continues to occur. At times there is a need to get oil to tidewater or to market. I wonder if she could provide her thoughts in regard to that issue. Does she believe there is any situation in which there would be value in getting oil from, let us say, Alberta to tidewater?

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked about four questions there.

Yes, the government does talk a lot about marine protection, but I wish there was less talk and more action. One of the first things that happened under this government's watch was that it closed down the Comox Coast Guard base. How on earth could that be building the safety net? That closure was this government's decision.

Here is another example of talk. In 2013, the Harper government said it was going to do scientific research on diluted bitumen to understand how it would behave in the marine environment. That was in 2013. Then in 2016, the Liberal government said the government would conduct research to better understand how different petroleum products behave in the marine environment. Then it approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline, without having that science done. It was completely irresponsible.

Its action plan sounds just like the Harper Conservatives, and it never got implemented. I am afraid it is all talk and no action.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith for being a fierce defender of coastal British Columbia and for her work on abandoned vessels. In standing up for a pristine, clean environment, she truly understands the significant importance of clean oceans for a healthy marine economy and our way of life. I commend her.

We support the bill, even though there are so many holes in it that a supertanker could be driven through it. The Prime Minister, when he talked about putting a ban in place on the north coast, said, “Crude oil supertankers just have no place on B.C.'s north coast.” He cited a number of reasons around the environment and the need to protect our coast. I would like to ask my colleague how she feels, because it seems the Prime Minister's words do not seem to apply to the south coast when they are looking at Kinder Morgan and increasing supertanker traffic sevenfold.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, I stand with coastal leaders up and down B.C.'s coast in my firm opposition to the Kinder Morgan pipeline. It is all downside, no upside for British Columbia. Fifty permanent jobs are what are promised by Kinder Morgan, and there are tens of thousands of B.C. jobs right now, let alone the great value of the ecology.

It is irresponsible of the government. I have been writing letters to the federal transport ministers in both the Conservative government and this one, urging them to put in place geographic response plans. Washington State has 19 of them. These are microplans that identify where there is a migratory bird habitat or what is most important to boom first if a spill happens when the tide is rising or when the current is running a certain direction. These are minutely tuned to local ecology and local human uses, and this government still has put none in place.

How could it have approved the Kinder Morgan pipeline without regulating the safety of it? It is another example of the government being all talk and no action on marine protection.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a very quick point of order. I would not want to mislead the House in any fashion. However, I might have said $5 billion with respect to the oceans protection plan, and it should be $1.5 billion.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

That is tagging onto debate. However, thank you for the clarification.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Sturgeon River—Parkland.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not mention a great man who has been mentioned many times today in this House, former prime minister Stephen Harper, who is enjoying his 59th birthday today, so I wish Prime Minister Harper a happy birthday.

I rise today to speak to Bill C-48, which aims to ban oil tanker traffic on the northern coastline of British Columbia. This legislation is yet another blatant attack on Canada's energy sector, along with all the high-paying and high-quality jobs that go with it.

The current government can talk about balancing the environment and the economy, but this proposed legislation is not balanced, and it is a direct threat to the viability of Canada's energy sector. This bill not only threatens jobs and the prosperity of Canada but also the solvency of our governments. Furthermore, it fails to respect our commitment to first nations, because the Liberals failed to consult and are discriminating against first nations who support energy development.

This legislation sends a clear message that our country is closing up for business, and industry leaders are listening. Energy giants are already beginning to move their operations to Texas, taking jobs with them. Where will the wealth creation and tax revenues that are needed to finance our transition go? They will go straight south of the border, leaving Canada in a vulnerable position, with few resources, as we seek to embrace change and innovation.

The failure of our energy industry is simply not an option. Although oil prices have doubled over the last two years, governments in Edmonton and Ottawa continue to run substantial deficits. I would like to see the government start trimming these deficits. However, the Liberals cannot seem to kick the habit of spending more than they take in, even with significant tax hikes on small businesses. How is the government ever going to balance the budget while it campaigns actively to phase out the very industry responsible for those revenues? This does not square. Budgets simply do not balance themselves. The government must either raise taxes, cut spending, or, as we propose on this side of the House, grow the economy, not as the Prime Minister suggests, “from the heart outwards”, but by embracing the real opportunities in the energy sector.

The Minister of the Environment recently said in an interview, “Hard things are hard”, and they certainly are. However, the government has made things harder on the families that rely on the energy sector because of its ideological approach to energy development. Take, for example, that the current Liberal Prime Minister ran in the election on a promise to cancel the northern gateway pipeline. He did not run on a promise to review the science or to act in the national interest. No. He made a promise because it was politically expedient to do so. That is the easy thing to do. The problem with taking the easy way out is that someday one has to pay the price, and today, as we watch the dying throes of Canada's last, best hope of getting energy to tidewater, we have only the Liberals to blame. They are now doubling down on their mistakes. They are not content to just cancel northern gateway; they are legislating for future generations to ensure that no pipeline will even be considered for the northwest coast.

Actions have consequences, and those consequences are hard. The families of my constituents know that all too well. The reason for their hardship is that the current Liberal government made rash promises not founded on reason or science but on political calculation. Rather than recognizing that fact, the Liberals are closing their minds and hearts to the hardships of Canadians.

The bill before us today is an attempt to dig up the corpse of northern gateway and put it on trial. It is a declaration to the world that never again will a pipeline be considered to our north. This moratorium is not based on science. It is not even based on the national interest of Canada. It is a political exercise to try to appease those who oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline and who will oppose any energy infrastructure the Liberals' foreign masters will pay them to oppose. When will these Liberals show some backbone, stop caving in to foreign interests and radical activists, and instead stand up for science and stand up for Canadians?

If the Liberal government were to extrapolate its logic and apply it consistently across the country, it would severely hurt our economy. Oil tankers enter Canada daily through the Port of Vancouver, on the east coast, and through the St. Lawrence River without incident. The sad thing is that for the most part, these vessels have circumnavigated the globe to bring Canada energy from other countries, energy that we have ample reserves of ourselves. In ports like Saint John, New Brunswick, millions of tonnes of energy products have been shipped and provide jobs necessary for the prosperity of our eastern provinces. If Bill C-48 passes, the government will be setting a precedent for our entire coastline that will reverberate across our country, killing jobs and opportunities for Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Let me talk about the hypocrisy of the Liberal government, a government that stands every day in the House to malign the reputation of former Prime Minister Harper, a man they accuse of not consulting with first nations on energy development. Let us talk about the Lax Kw' alaams first nation and the nine tribes whose traditional territory lies within the zone that this moratorium would apply to. Did the government consult with the Lax Kw' alaams, or does it only negotiate with first nations who oppose energy development?

The nine tribes on the west coast have issued a legal challenge to this moratorium and this legislation. I wonder whether the Liberal government will respect aboriginal sovereignty, and will it fulfill its duty to consult? Evidently, it has not. The Lax Kw' alaams are fighting them in court. They are fighting for their economic future, the future of their children, and the Liberal government is disrespecting them and discriminating against them with this legislation. It is shameful, not only because it is the wrong thing to do, but because it flies in the face of everything the Liberal government claims to believe in.

For those who are reasonably concerned about environmental impact of oil tankers on our coast, let us look at some facts. In 2011, the Conservative government undertook the development and implementation of a world-class tanker safety system. This included modernization of navigation systems, enhanced area response planning, and ensuring that polluters pay for the spills and damages caused by accidents in their operations. As a result of this legislation, on top of Canada's sterling record of environmental safety, there has never been a major oil spill on our west coast.

Now the Liberals are pouring more resources into ocean protection, but for what purpose if they are not allowing development to proceed? Why are we spending taxpayer dollars to the tune of $1.5 billion, if they are going to ban the tankers in the first place? It is another example of the government's absolute incompetence when it comes to responsible development and environmental protection.

In the best-case scenario, even if this legislation only leads to preventing tankers from operating on the northwest coast, it would be an act of supreme unfairness for those communities on the coast. If there is a lack of infrastructure to protect from or mitigate a possible spill, then perhaps some of the Liberal money should be going toward that solution. Surely if this legislation is their solution, then it should be sufficient to protect our northwest coast. If oil tankers are as big a threat as the Liberals claim, why have they not invested in better ocean protection on every coast? Why are they not speaking in Halifax, St. John's, or other Atlantic city on the importance of protecting against oil spills with new funding?

The fact is that they are not. They know full well that there is no clear threat of a catastrophic oil spill. They are merely trying to score political points by shutting down an entire coast from any development, hurting communities like the Lax Kw' alaams in the process. It is a shameful state of affairs when a government chooses to put its own political self-interest ahead of the interests of all Canadians.