Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise and speak to this issue about the necessity of starting to talk about putting a plan in place to build a true green economy. It is about putting workers back, front, and centre in the discussion on climate change, something that they have been left out of deliberately by both the Conservatives and Liberals for years.
In a low-carbon future there will still be oil and gas. We need to start looking at a credible transition, and that transition is important because Canada should not be known as the country that threw a generation of workers under the bus. Margaret Thatcher's government did that. I know the hagiography of the Conservatives for worshipping old iron lady, but the devastation that did to England, to a generation, we still see.
How do we get a credible transition? We could listen to the Conservatives, who are proving us correct in that people still believe the earth is flat. I will give the Conservatives credit, because they understand how important the oil and gas sector is economically. It is a major driver of our economy.
Canada is a petrostate and has been for a long time. A decision in this country to benefit the advancement of the petrostate makes sense from an economic point of view. The problem with my Conservative colleagues is the fact that we are reaching, and maybe we are reaching beyond, the tipping point of catastrophic climate change. Anybody who has a credible vision of the future knows we have to deal with that. The Conservatives will simply look at the financial aspect of oil and gas and say, “Keep drilling baby, keep drilling.”
I compare that to the Liberals. I have seen them on this issue for 14 years. They believe if they say nice things about the environment that things will get better. They have been telling us that we have to massively expand oil and gas in order to create another economy. That does not make any sense at all. Creating a new economy would require making investments.
I come from a working-class, resource-based region. When I talk to the workers who work in the mines, many of whom work up in Fort St. John and Fort McMurray on the flying crews, they tell me they are concerned about the state of our world and where we are going.
I was so proud to be in Edmonton talking with the IBEW workers, who are building a transition economy. They are building and doing the retraining. They asked me where the federal government was on getting serious. One IBEW worker said something to me that I thought was fascinating. He said when Stephen Harper said that Canada was going to be an energy superpower, he was right but he was wrong about what source of energy.
The greatest opportunity for solar in the world, bar none, is in south central Alberta and Saskatchewan. My friends in Calgary told me that the moment to start building a new economy was when the oil boom went bust. When the price of oil tanks, that is when investments should be made. The federal Liberals at that time did not make any investments because they were counting on Rachel Notley to do the job. Rachel Notley has done an amazing job in trying to put the pieces in place for a new economy but in order to get there a strong federal component is needed.
The Liberals tell us to just let them keep expanding oil and gas, to let them keep expanding emissions, and somehow that money will be used to create a new economy. It is simply not a credible response.
Then we saw the Kinder Morgan debacle. When the Texas oil company threw down this arbitrary ultimatum, it was telling Canadians that it was not going to build the pipeline, it wanted to be paid off. People at the beginning of major resistance to a project never say they are thinking of leaving. By doing that, they are guaranteed to face major resistance.
Why was there major resistance? It was because the Liberals did not answer the fundamental question of concern about safety on the B.C. coastline, where there is a strong and economic issue in terms of preserving that coastline. They did not answer the legitimate questions from indigenous peoples.
The Prime Minister had an opportunity to show leadership then by saying his government should sit down with the Notley government and the Horgan government, and with affected indigenous people, and ask them how to address the very legitimate concerns about a bitumen spill. The government could ask them how it could show it is actually serious about building a transition economy. Whenever we hear just economy, any worker I know says it means they are going to get thrown under the bus. Where is the money?
The government did not have any money for that. However, suddenly to appease Kinder Morgan, the investors, the Liberals had $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline that was built in 1953.
In 1953, the prime minister was Louis St. Laurent. He went down to defeat in that term on the famous TransCanada pipeline debate. The Liberals were so arrogant and they blew it so badly that they were tossed out of office. Now that the Liberals have bought themselves a 65-year old pipeline that leaks, they also have maybe bought themselves some pipeline karma.
Where were those $4.5 billion that could have been used in the downturn, in the collapse of the oil sector in Alberta when so many thousands of families were being affected? In the downturn, the Liberals could have said that it was time to start to build the transition, so they would will still have people working in oil and gas, but they would start to take advantage of huge opportunities in the green sector.
All we heard from the Liberals was that the environment and energy “go hand in hand”. Their environment minister went to Paris. She brought a huge camera crew with her, got a lot of photos, and said wonderful things. The Prime Minister said that Canada was back and he showed off his Haida tattoo. The Liberals ignored their own reports that said they were nowhere close to meeting the targets of Paris. They will not meet them because they brought in the same energy plan that Stephen Harper had.
We need to talk about the importance of getting serious about what a new economy looks like. That new economy involves workers who will be paid decent wages. Building that new economy is a conversation we have had in Leap. Other organizations talk about the “Leap Manifesto”. Leap is the beginning of a conversation. It is a conversation that has to include working class people, blue collar workers, the people who are on the front lines. They understand how a transition should work. We have seen none of this from the government. All we have heard is spin. Now it tells us that it has spent $4.5 billion, and we are all investors in a 65-year old leaky pipeline.
I can give the House another prediction. There is no way that the pipeline will be built by the government. Why? Who will overpay to cover up the cost of the existing pipeline for which we paid $4.5 billion, a pipeline that is worth only $2 billion, as my Conservative colleague pointed out?
Can we really see the Prime Minister sitting on a bulldozer, running through indigenous country? The Liberals can talk and they have the bluster. However, if the government really thinks that it will con anyone into believing it will be leading that pipeline through British Columbia, I would certainly not bet a cent on it
That leaves us with a question. We bought an old pipeline. Kinder Morgan has left. Alberta is still looking for a partner to start building the transition economy. The spin from the Liberals is not going to get us there, unless we as a House say that it is time we get serious about the impacts of catastrophic climate change facing our planet now, that we say we are going to build a future for workers and children. If the government can find $4.5 billion to buy a pipeline that was built in 1953, they can find $4.5 billion to work in partnerships with communities across the country to start building that transition.
In that transition, where we still have the oil and gas sector, we can start to say to the world that we actually are credible, that Canada is back. Right now, we have a lot of a talk from the Prime Minister. Canadians are on the hook for $4.5 billion, and no other pipeline will get built.