Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence, and I appreciate the audience that has returned. There they go again. However, I know for sure that my biggest fan is here today, so I will be pleased to speak to her if nobody else is available to listen to my speech today.
My speech has three points I want to discuss: sustainable development, transparency, and accountability. One of the parts of this bill I am incredibly pleased about is increasing the number of indigenous voices on the advisory councils. That is an important part. Indigenous people bring something I am very pleased about, which is the whole concept of the Creator. Whenever they are talking about the environment or working in this space, they always bring in the Creator. Whenever we are in the presence of first nations people, we see that they like to start events with a prayer, and they always recognize the Creator. When it comes to talking about sustainable development, an important aspect is this interplay between people and creation, and how that works in terms of public policy.
It would be a good addition to have these voices there, which understand that creation is not ours but granted to us by a higher being. That would temper and allow us to see ourselves as managers. I think that this would be a good voice at these tables. We are to manage the creation because it has been endowed to us by the Creator. I am really excited to see how these new bodies will work this all out.
Sustainable development is sometimes a bit of a loaded term, so I would like to talk about that as well. In my mind, sustainable development means that whatever we develop can go on in perpetuity. That would be what it means to be sustainable. Now, when we talk about it in environmental terms, we are often asking if the environment can handle it. In many cases, there is not just one lens through which to look at any particular issue. It is not just the environment that can be looked at. The idea first nations bring is that there is a Creator who will then look at it. That is a better way to look at particular issues, rather than through just one lens, the environment. It is good to look at sustainability in terms of how it impacts people, children, the vulnerable, and finances. Something is not sustainable if it goes broke. That is another part of sustainable development that we need to undertake.
In the House, I think we all agree about sustainable development, but we often have very different ideas about what the term “sustainable development” even means.
I have four minutes left. Well, that is unfortunate, but if four minutes is all I have left, I will have to work with that.
I do not think the Liberals really understand sustainable development, particularly when we see their own budgets. If we want this country to develop sustainably, we would not run massive deficits into the never-ending future. With the current rate of spending by the government, I would be a very old man by the time we get to balancing the budget, if we continue on this path. All this does is place an increased burden on our children and grandchildren.
I am happy to support this particular bill, but I would call on the Liberal government to get an understanding of what “sustainable” actually means.
That brings us to the whole idea of transparency. Once again, this is a great concept. I think all of us in this place want transparency in government. That is something that is very important. Once again, we see that the government talks a good game when it comes to transparency. The Liberal platform in the last election said great things about transparency. The Liberals were going to open up a whole new level of transparency, as the Prime Minister said.
However, when it comes to the carbon tax, the entire thing was blacked out when we asked what the cost of the new carbon tax imposed by the Liberals would be to the average Canadian family. The Liberals are not being transparent.
Once again, I am happy that we are all supportive of this particular bill. I am happy that it is improving transparency, and yet, as is often the case, every party in this place uses the word “transparency” to mean different things. In the case of the Liberals, they just say words and expect that everybody will believe them, just as they say that the pipeline will be built. We have to see if that is actually going to happen.
I am happy to support transparency. I am happy to support this bill. However, once again, I call on the Liberal government to reflect on the fact that while it says it supports transparency, its actions speak louder than words.
I get the impression that my time is coming to a close.
Finally, we have the word “accountable”. Whenever the government talks about accountability, it does so with its hand on its heart, and yet it is always frustrating to see that the government is not necessarily always accountable. The Liberals see the word “accountable” and think about their bank accounts and how they can put more money in their bank accounts, rather than being accountable.
We have seen it over and over again with the ethics scandals that have been going on, and also pay-to-play. The Liberals then say, “Oh well, we have been caught, and now we will fix the problem. Sorry, we did not understand.”
Accountability is a great thing to be supporting. Once again, I call on the Liberal government to reflect upon what it means when it says “accountable”. When it says that it wants to be an accountable government, it should actually do the things that it takes to be accountable.
With that, I would like to close my speech. I am happy to support this bill and its efforts toward sustainable development, transparency, and accountability. I hope that the Liberal government of the day reflects on those three items, reforms its ways, and comes to some sort of semblance of sustainable development, transparency, and accountability.