House of Commons Hansard #310 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was c-59.
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. government House leader if she can let us know what we are going to be doing here tomorrow, and then what else we will doing next week.
Bardish Chagger LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister of Small Business and Tourism
Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, we will continue with the report stage debate on Bill C-69, the environmental assessment act.
Following this, we will turn to Bill C-75, the justice modernization act, and Bill C-59, the national security act.
If time permits, we shall start debate at report stage of Bill C-68, the fisheries act, and Bill C-64 on derelict vessels.
Tomorrow morning, we will begin third reading of Bill C-47 on the Arms Trade Treaty. Next Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are allotted days. Also, pursuant to the Standing Orders, we will be voting on the main estimates Thursday evening.
Next week, priority will be given to the following bills: Bill C-21, an act to amend the Customs Act; Bill C-59, an act respecting national security matters; Bill C-64, the wrecked, abandoned or hazardous vessels act; Bill C-68 on fisheries; and Bill C-69 on environmental assessments.
We also know, however, that the other place should soon be voting on Bill C-45, the cannabis act. If a message is received notifying us of amendments, that will be given priority.
Proceedings in HUMA Committee—Speaker's RulingPrivilegeOral Questions
The Speaker Geoff Regan
I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on May 24, by the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove concerning proceedings at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
I would like to thank the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove for having raised this matter, as well as the hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster for her comments.
In raising the matter, the member for Langley—Aldergrove explained that the appearance of three ministers, who were at the committee to discuss the main estimates for the department of Employment and Social Development, was interrupted by a series of votes taking place in the House. According to the member, the chair of the committee had promised that committee members would be able to question the ministers after they returned from voting. However, after the committee meeting resumed and the ministers finished their presentations, the chair adjourned the meeting, leaving committee members unable to put any questions to the ministers. This, the member alleged, constituted a contempt of the House.
As I said when the matter was first raised, committees are masters of their own proceedings. The Speaker’s jurisdiction does not normally extend into committee matters, unless the committee sees fit to report one to the House. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at pages 152 and 153 states:
Speakers have consistently ruled that, except in the most extreme situations, they will hear questions of privilege arising from committee proceedings only upon presentation of a report from the committee which deals directly with the matter and not as a question of privilege raised by an individual Member.
Furthermore, on March 23, 2015, my predecessor said at page 12180 of the Debates:
This is not to suggest that the Chair is left without any discretion to intervene in committee matters but, rather, it acknowledges that such intervention is exceedingly rare and justifiable only in highly exceptional procedural as opposed to political circumstances.
In my consideration of this alleged question of privilege, I assessed whether if this was indeed a highly exceptional procedural matter. Distilled down to its basic elements, it seems to me that this is a dispute as to the procedural correctness of how the meeting was conducted and, as such, is a matter that should be managed by the committee itself.
As an option, the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove can still raise his grievance with the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. For this reason, I cannot agree that the incident constitutes a prima facie question of privilege.
I thank members for their attention on this matter.
Standing Committee on Finance—Speaker's RulingPrivilegeOral Questions
The Speaker Geoff Regan
I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Carleton on May 31, 2018, concerning the alleged intimidation of a potential witness by the office of the Minister of Finance.
I would like to thank the member for raising the matter, as well as the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader for his comments.
According to the member for Carleton, the Canadian Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, CAMIC, received two phone calls from the office of the Minister of Finance, which he claimed were intended to stop them from raising their objections to Bill C-74, either by meeting with parliamentarians or by appearing before committee. He surmised that these comments, which he characterized as threatening, might be why this association did not even express an interest in appearing as a committee witness.
In addition to questioning the timeliness of this question of privilege, the parliamentary secretary framed the matter as one of debate and contended that actions of a civil servant have not historically qualified as breaches of privilege.
The issue of timeliness is one that the Chair has raised on several occasions recently since it is a requisite condition that members must heed. In this instance, it is a valid issue to be raised again. This question could have, and should have, been brought to the attention of the House much earlier. The article from The Globe and Mail, dated May 15, 2018, in which the member for Carleton is quoted, suggests that he was aware of this matter as early as May 15. Additionally, it could have been raised at any point since May 22, when the House returned from a break week. The fact that the member for Carleton gave notice of his question of privilege a full week prior to actually rising in the House to make his case also suggests that he could have done so earlier.
House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, explains at page 145 what is expected of members in this respect, when it states:
The matter of privilege to be raised in the House must have recently occurred and must call for the immediate action of the House. Therefore, the member must satisfy the Speaker that he or she is bringing the matter to the attention of the House as soon as practicable after becoming aware of the situation.
In the past, Speakers have chosen not to pursue further on a matter when it is not apparent that it is being raised at the earliest practicable time.
In fact, Speaker Sauvé determined, on March 1, 1982, in a ruling found at pages 15473 and 15474 of Debates, that a question raised by a member was not a breach of privilege, as it had not been raised at the earliest opportunity. She stated:
The first problem I have with this question of privilege is that it does not appear to have been raised at the earliest opportunity....
I must therefore decline to accord this matter precedence over the regular business of the House, particularly in view of the fact that it does not appear to have been raised at the earliest opportunity. This requirement is not a mere technicality, but indeed in some respects a test of the validity of the complaint.
Today the Chair can only come to the same conclusion. This matter was clearly not raised at the first opportunity; the member did not meet this requisite condition, and therefore the Chair will not comment further on it.
I thank all hon. members for their attention.
The House resumed from June 6 consideration of Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.
Impact Assessment ActGovernment Orders
The Speaker Geoff Regan
The hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster has five minutes remaining in her speech.
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise again today to finish my remarks. I started them at five minutes to midnight last night, so I am glad that I have this opportunity to continue.
I want to remind my colleagues that Kinder Morgan never asked for a single dollar of taxpayers' money. It asked the government to provide certainty that its pipeline could be built. Even though the Liberals approved the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline, they sat on their hands and did not champion it. Kinder Morgan was not given the certainty it had asked for. Instead, it got delay after delay. That failure led to the nationalization of the pipeline, and as I have said, it has come at a significant cost to Canadian taxpayers.
Of the bailout, Aaron Wudrick, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said it is “both a colossal failure of the [Prime Minister's] government to enforce the law of the land, and a massive, unnecessary financial burden on Canadian taxpayers.”
Pipeline projects can be built without taxpayer money. The former Conservative government approved 4,500 kilometres of new pipeline through four major pipeline projects.
The role of the government should be to ensure that projects that are scientifically determined to be safe for the environment, and in the interests of Canadians, receive approval. Through low taxes and a clear and less burdensome regulatory system, the government could achieve some success. More than halfway through their mandate, the Liberals have not learned that lesson. That is why Trans Canada pulled out of the energy east pipeline project.
That was not the only energy sector loss. The Liberals' poor management of our energy sector has chased away over $80 billion of investment. As I am sure every member in this place will remember, just recently the Liberal government passed the oil tanker moratorium act through the House. This legislation, when enacted, will prevent an entire region from accessing economic opportunities in the oil and gas sector.
Chris Bloomer, president and CEO of the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, said, “Projects require clarity and predictability, and once approved should not be subject to costly delay tactics that thwart Canada's economic and social prosperity.” It is really quite a simple ask from Canada's energy industry. It wants to know the rules, know that they are fair, and know that they will not change erratically.
Bill C-69 would not provide that assurance to those working in the energy sector. First, it would provide a slew of ministerial and Governor in Council exemptions that could be used to slow down the approval process. It would also add a planning phase to the process, a brand new process that would be an added 180 days.
The legislation we have in front of us does not provide me with any measure of confidence that it would decrease project timelines or improve certainty for investors. Rather, it would do just the opposite. This legislation would not make investment in Canada more appealing. Rather, it would make it more complicated and more uncertain.
Bill C-69 proposes increased consultation and would expand the criteria to be considered in the assessment of a project. It would seek social license, but it would not increase scientific analysis of the project.
Let us not forget the fact that the minister would have a veto right at the end of the planning phase. This would certainly not instill confidence in investors. It would tell potential investors that decisions on the approval of a project could be decided on a political whim.
We have to also remember that this is happening while the United States is cutting regulations and lowering its taxes. Canada has lost significant business investment. We cannot afford the cost of increased regulation and increased uncertainty. This legislation would not strike the appropriate balance between protecting the environment and growing our economy.
This legislation, like the Liberal government's policies, is flawed. It would propose new regulatory burdens that, when combined with other measures the Liberals have introduced, such as the carbon tax, would drive investment away from Canada.
If Canada wants to compete globally, we need to lower taxes and streamline the regulation system. We need a government that works with Canadians and not against them.
Bill C-69 would result in a loss of jobs, a loss of economic growth, and a loss in global competitiveness. I cannot support the Liberal government's continued efforts to undermine Canada's long-term prosperity.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to catch some comments from the hon. member for Carleton on the radio the other night, and it brought up a very clear question about how the Conservative Party would handle a situation like this. I got a very clear message from the member that it would basically use all the constitutional powers of the federal government to simply drive it through, which sends a signal to the provinces about the character of a potential government in dealing with issues on which a province and the federal government may disagree. Therefore, I would ask the hon. member whether she would subscribe to the notion of simply driving it through.
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, it is quite interesting that I am being asked this question right now, because in Saskatchewan, the province I am from, we have a made-in-Saskatchewan climate plan. It is a plan to tackle climate change. We did that, and the Liberal government will not allow Saskatchewan to do that. Instead, it is forcing the Government of Saskatchewan to tax the people of Saskatchewan, when they do not want that tax. I find that ironic, because I do not see this government respecting provincial jurisdiction whatsoever.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-69, which is an omnibus bill that affects the new Canadian energy regulator, which was the National Energy Board; the Impact Assessment Act, which was the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act; and the navigable waters act. Having practised environmental law for most of my life, I do not suppose she will believe me when I tell her, but I will try to tell her, that this bill is incredibly weak and does nothing to make development more difficult. It cannot possibly drive away investors unless they only want to put their money in countries where environmental assessment meets the minimum standards of rigour that Canada used to have between the early 1970s and 2012.
I do not suppose she is reassured, but I am voting against Bill C-69 because it is absolutely weak. I wonder if she has read it in detail and recognizes that it keeps in place most of what the previous government had done.
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, I find my colleague's question very interesting because of what just happened with Kinder Morgan. The government made it such an uncertain area of investment that it had to pay off Kinder Morgan to build the pipeline, or else it will not be done. I am not going to accuse the government of not building the pipeline. It has not been done yet. We have not seen anything happen to promote that, except that the government has thrown taxpayers' money at companies that will take that investment elsewhere.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, on Kinder Morgan, the government has solved a problem that did not exist. It is not that we did not have a company to own the pipeline or a company to build the pipeline. It is that we did not have governmental approvals for the pipeline. Today we still do not have governmental approvals for that pipeline. That is exactly why I suggested that the government should use its constitutional powers to take control of the permitting process for all aspects of the project, which would be to the net benefit of Canada, as is provided for in section 92 of the British North American Act.
The fact that the Liberals have not done that means not only that we might not get the pipeline expansion but that we might be on the hook for billions of dollars for that failure. Could the member comment on whether this nationalization of a 65-year-old pipeline was in the national interest?
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity to read something written by a Canadian citizen. It is their opinion of the government buying a pipeline worth $4.5 billion. That person said that governments should not be in the investment business. The government's role is to encourage and create environments for others to take risks, they emphasized. The government should be there to provide a social safety net for the most vulnerable, not investing taxpayer money in projects that private investors already have money for.
I am receiving emails and phone calls from residents in my riding who are very upset that the current government is using their tax dollars to spend on a $4.5-billion pipeline that investors were already willing to do.
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-69, an act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. My remarks this afternoon will focus on part 3 of this misguided bill.
Part 3 is the section of the bill that makes amendments to the Navigation Protection Act. This section of the bill continues the Prime Minister and the Liberals' assault on common sense laws and regulations that promote jobs and economic growth. The only people calling for the changes proposed in the bill are those opposed to resource projects that create economic development and jobs. They are representatives of the same people who have been protesting the Trans Mountain pipeline, the pipeline the Liberals recently purchased for $4.5 billion in taxpayers' money.
It is rather ironic that the Liberals are burning the bridge, so to speak, with the very voter pool they had hoped to pacify with the bill.
Bill C-69 proposes to change the name of the Navigation Protection Act to the Canadian navigable waters act. While seemingly cosmetic, this change reflects a substantial refocusing of the act on the protection of waters rather than the protection of navigation.
Canada is a large country, the second-largest in the world. In the 1800s, waterways were often the primary means of transporting goods across our vast geography. The legislative forerunners of the Navigation Protection Act were designed to protect the navigability of waterways for the sake of our economy.
With the advent of Canada's rail and road systems, as well as our transportation system, Canada's transportation system has become less reliant on water navigation. However, that said, waterways remain an important element of our transportation system in many regions of the country.
As I said a moment ago, the changes in Bill C-69, including changing the act's name, demonstrate the Liberals' complete disregard for the original intent of the Navigation Protection Act, and instead reflect their misguided attempt to virtue signal in order to obtain the obscure idea of social licence. Without definition or boundaries, social licence is no more real than a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
The Liberals' fixation on this abstract idea is costing Canadians dearly. Again, just consider the $4.5 billion, and counting, that the Liberals have spent to buy the old Trans Mountain pipeline. Now consider the substantial changes to the Navigation Protection Act contained within this bill.
The current Navigation Protection Act includes a schedule of waters to which the act applies. This schedule was created by the previous Conservative government because we realized that not every seasonal creek, tiny river, or stream was used for the purpose of commercial navigation. We also realized that these seasonal creeks or tiny rivers were already protected by other environmental legislation and that when economic development was planned on or near them, it was duplicative and redundant to make these projects subject to the NPA when in fact these small bodies of water were not used for navigation.
Our changes were strongly supported by a broad range of stakeholders and organizations across Canada. They ranged from the construction industry, to the resource development industry, to municipalities and their associations. These organizations recognized that Canada needed prudent, careful environmental laws and regulations, but not duplicative ones. They realized that applying the NPA to projects where navigation was not a consideration was a waste of time and money and led to increased project costs.
On this point, the opposition by municipal organizations and the construction industry was highlighted to parliamentarians at the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities when we undertook a study in 2016 of the former Conservative government's changes to the NPA. The genesis of that study by the committee was very interesting and should be noted.
What prompted the committee's study of the NPA was twofold. First, I believe there was a misguided eagerness on the part of Liberal and NDP MPs to do the bidding of the Prime Minister, rather than focusing on the real issues, which would have had a more meaningful and positive impact on Canadians and our economy. The committee's study of the NPA was a case of the legislative branch taking its marching orders from the executive branch.
Second, and connected to my first point, the transport, infrastructure and communities committee undertook the study of the NPA as a result of an inadvisable letter from the Minister of Transport, co-authored by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, which was sent to the chair of the transportation committee. In this letter, the Minister of Transport, in effect, directed the committee to undertake this study to provide political cover for introducing changes to the previous Conservative government's legislation. Add to that the fact that the instructions contained within the Minister of Transport's ministerial mandate letter directed him to reverse the changes that were made when the NPA became law.
By directing the committee to undertake the study, the minister was foisting upon a parliamentary committee an instruction that he, himself, had been given. It is no wonder, then, that the conclusions of the committee study were pre-determined. To this day, I find this invasion by the executive branch into the workings of a committee of the legislative body to be a very egregious act on the part of the Minister of Transport and this Prime Minister.
Getting back to Bill C-69 and the new provisions it contains, if passed, the bill will maintain the schedule of waters to be covered by the bill, but it will change the rules and regulations for any work on any navigable water listed in the schedule. Additionally, the bill will create new rules and regulations that will apply to all navigable waters, not just those listed in the schedule.
When I say “navigable water”, it is important to note that this term is code for any body of water or seasonal stream that can float a petroleum-produced canoe or kayak. These new rules include providing an opportunity for the public to express concerns over a work's impact on navigation.
While noble in concept, we all know that this new provision has the potential to be abused by individuals and organizations ideologically opposed to certain projects. This bill is about undoing the good work of our previous Conservative government for spite, rather than implementing policy for the good of the country.
In conclusion, I believe that Bill C-69 is a bad bill and completely unnecessary. While I have only touched on a small part of this bill, I know that its other elements, which my colleague, the member for Abbotsford and others have articulated, will have an equally damaging effect on the Canadian economy and the investment environment in Canada as a whole. This damaging bill is just another piece of bad policy that is causing investment and job creators to look at other countries and/or leave Canada.
It is my sincere hope that the Liberals will reconsider what they are doing to Canada's economy and reputation with misguided pieces of legislation like this one.
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Mr. Speaker, at the outset of her speech, the member said she believes that legislation, or amendments to legislation, today, in 2018, should reflect the original intent of legislation from over 100 years ago.
I appreciate that original intent is an important component, but as the member knows, society evolves, concepts evolve, and that at the time the original act was passed, the notion of the environment did not exist. If we had spoken to somebody back then about the environment, they would have looked puzzled.
Today the environment does matter. The new bill, in terms of assessing projects, will look at impacts on water levels. As a member of Parliament whose riding went through terrible flooding last spring, I would like to ask the member whether she believes that the added component of looking at impacts on water levels is a good thing?
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Mr. Speaker, the Navigation Protection Act and its predecessors were created to protect navigation, not to protect the environment. We have many other pieces of legislation that protect the environment, including the environment of our lakes, rivers and oceans.
I do not believe I said that the changes to the current act were meant to reflect what was happening when our country became a nation. I was speaking to the Navigation Protection Act and the changes we made in 2012.
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Mr. Speaker, I heard my friend's comments loud and clear with respect to the Navigable Waters Protection Act. Canada had the legislation since 1867, originally under our first prime minister. It remained virtually unchanged until the very significant changes in 2012.
My friend and I will disagree. The omnibus budget bill, Bill C-45 in the fall of 2012, really did damage to our ability to protect navigable waters across Canada. This version in Bill C-69 represents a real improvement. The tragedy is that although the Minister of Transport has done a really good job in repairing that damage, because the impact assessment law does not create a requirement for a review of permits being given by the Minister of Transport, the whole system remains rather shattered, as it was by the budget bill and Bill C-38.
Has she looked at the definition and not recognized that this new definition in Bill C-69 does in fact take into account that waterways that can be used only part of the year and are not actually used for human navigation will not trigger any governmental involvement in navigable waters?
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Mr. Speaker, we would have noted this. A schedule was put in place when the previous government made changes to the act. What the current government has done is kept the schedule and has now indicated that every other waterway will also be subject to the same regulations as the waterways on the schedule. Therefore, it begs the question as to why we have a schedule if it will encompass every waterway in the country.
I will quote what my colleague, who was the lead on this bill made, had to say: “The proposed Impact Assessment Act adds a new planning phase that extends consultations and provides the Minister with the power to kill a project before it has been evaluated based on science.” It gives the minister the discretion to add whatever waterways to the schedule even though it seems a little redundant should he choose to use that discretion.
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have heard from many farmers and ranchers in rural Canada about the changes in Bill C-69 and the impact they will have, especially when it comes to working on their own land. When they are working in spring runoff areas, little waterways and ditches, they will be forced to work with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, even if someone cannot even get a raft or a balloon down that waterway. They are going to be treated like the last pirate of Saskatchewan is going to be sailing down the plain in his ship. It is going to cause a lot of burden and red tape for these farmers when they are trying to produce food and work on their land.
Could my colleague talk about the impact the changes in Bill C-69 will have on the agriculture sector?
Kelly Block Conservative Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the very good work he does on behalf of our producers and agriculture across our country.
When I made my remarks, I commented that it was important to note that “navigable water” was a code for any body of water or seasonal stream that could float a canoe or a kayak. I think that is very concerning to farmers across our country, certainly in Saskatchewan.
We heard from SARM when we were studying the bill at committee. It was deeply concerned about the implications it would have for farmers and municipalities to do the work they needed to do in order to continue to provide for Canadians and to provide services to the people they represented.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have this opportunity to join the debate on Bill C-69. It is an opportunity that unfortunately many colleagues in the House will not be able to have. We are currently debating it under time allocation, so we have a limit of five hours to debate it.
I want to walk the House through a little history lesson.
If we go back to the 2015 election, the Liberals, particularly the Prime Minister, made a lot of promises during that campaign. One of them was a repeated promise that if the Liberals were elected, they would immediately restore a strengthened federal environmental assessment process. They made a commitment that they would not approve any projects without first enacting that strengthened assessment process to ensure decisions were based on science, facts, and evidence, and that they would serve the public interest.
In fact, the Prime Minister made a visit to British Columbia. He came to Vancouver Island to the community of Esquimalt on August 20, 2015. People will know Esquimalt, because that is the home of the main Pacific naval base for Canada. He was asked specifically about the promise in the context of Kinder Morgan. He said, quite clearly, that the Kinder Morgan pipeline review process would have to be redone under stronger and more credible rules.
However, what we have before us today, with Bill C-69, is a gargantuan bill, clocking in at 364 pages. It is too little too late, because we are now debating a bill after the government has approved Kinder Morgan and after it has announced the purchase of the pipeline.
The bill comes to us roughly 28 months since the Liberals were elected. I have heard other members of Parliament express in this place that the bill should have gone to three separate committees. It should have gone to the transport committee, the natural resources committee, and the environment committee so each of those collective bodies, with the experience and knowledge that members attain while working on them, could have studied the constituent parts and called forth the appropriate witnesses.
Instead, one committee was entrusted to this monumental task, this herculean task. I know the efforts of the member for Edmonton Strathcona in listening to the evidence and in trying to put forward amendments to see that the bill lived up to the promises the Liberal government had made. Unfortunately, due to the time constraints and the Liberal members on the committee not really listening to her, most of those amendments were defeated, and here we are at the report stage of the bill.
I also want to go back to the time before Bill C-69 was introduced. The Liberals keep on saying that Kinder Morgan did go through a renewed review process. Well, let us just examine what they in fact set up.
The Liberals had set up what was known as a “ministerial review panel”. In fact, that panel admitted that it lacked the time, the technical expertise, and the resources to fill the gaps in the National Energy Board process. It ended up with little more than questions that remained unanswered. They kept no public records of hearings, admitted that the meetings were hastily organized, and confirmed that they had a serious lack of public confidence in the National Energy Board and its recommendations.
I attended one of those meetings when it came to Victoria. I remember the room unanimously coming out against Kinder Morgan. It was kind of a slapdash piece of work.
Despite all of the setbacks of the ministerial review panel, its members still came out and acknowledged that Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline proposals could not proceed without a serious reassessment of its impacts on climate change commitments, indigenous rights, and marine mammal safety. Therefore, they, in a sense, were acknowledging the huge problems that existed with this project.
The Liberals keep on openly wondering why there is such passionate opposition to this project, specifically in British Columbia where the risks are very much concentrated. It is because people did not have faith in the previous process. Many of them were lured to vote Liberal. They had hoped that the new Liberal government would actually live up to its promises.
Instead what they got was a ministerial review panel, judgment passed by the Liberal government before the facts, and now this bill, Bill C-69, which still has many problematic elements. One of the big ones is that the Minister of Environment will still have an arbitrary right to monitor environmental projects. It leaves them open to political influences instead of scientific evidence.
Governments come and go. We may have an environment minister in one government whom the public can trust and know that the person's heart is in the right place, but if a new government comes in that has completely different leanings and gives that kind of power to ministers, it can sway its decisions according to which way the political winds blow. That is not the way to enact strong, scientific, consensus-based decision-making.
I want to start framing this debate a bit more in the context of Kinder Morgan and the very fact that the government has made promises to get rid of subsidies to the oil and gas sector, that we are now last in the G7, and that the government has tried to strive to a 2025 goal.
The Liberals have paid $4.5 billion for a 65-year-old pipeline, one that exports diluted bitumen, and this is just the cost of the existing infrastructure and not of anything that will come from it. I hear members from all sides talking about a national energy strategy, but this pipeline serves foreign interests. It is not accumulating the best value for our product.
Diluted bitumen is the lowest grade of crude we can export. That is why it fetches the lowest prices. Expanding Kinder Morgan's capacity will not change the price. I see no incentive and I have seen no evidence that customers will be willing to pay more for the same product just because we can ship more volume. The existing pipeline exports 99% of it to California, so I would like to see evidence of all the buyers from Asia lining up at the door. They are currently not buying what Kinder Morgan is exporting today.
The Liberals like to use a favourite phrase that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. There are a few things that are wrong with this. It supposes that the environment and the economy are equal partners. That is not the case. I would argue that there is a relationship, but the economy is very much the junior partner. When we start affecting our environment, when we start polluting the waterways, and we see the effects of climate change, the economic ravages that can have far outweigh any of the benefits we can get.
There are economic opportunities in keeping in line with our environmental goals if we start to make the right investments into renewable energy. We have to see the way the world is going. This is 2018, and there is a trend. I want our country to take advantage of the economic opportunities of the 21st century economy, not invest in something that rightfully belongs in the 20th century.
Along the way, we have to be speaking to current energy workers. We have to ensure they come along with us. Everyone acknowledges that the oil sands will not stop production tomorrow, but we need to have a plan where we talk about the just transition of those workers to bring them with us into the new energy economy, so Canada is best placed for the 21st century.
I also want to talk about the Liberals' vote for Bill C-262 last week and how little those commitments mean this week.
The member for Edmonton Strathcona tried repeatedly, both at committee and now at report stage, to insert language into Bill C-69 that would live up to what Bill C-262 would do. Bill C-262 seeks to bring the laws of Canada into harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If we look at all the report stage motions, we can see that the member for Edmonton Strathcona has tried to insert language in there that acknowledges the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and acknowledges the Constitution Act, 1982 and all of our commitments. I have been questioning Liberals repeatedly on this. Will they at least have some consistency and vote in support of those amendments, following their support for Bill C-262?
This bill is too little too late. There are gaps in it that we could drive a bus through. While we appreciate some elements of the bill, we have to look at the whole thing.
When it is this large, there are just far too many negatives. They outweigh the positives. That is why the NDP is going to withhold its support for the bill. We were hoping for a lot more, and frankly, so were the Canadian people.
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's speech. He delivered it with great clarity.
It is often very difficult to ascertain exactly what subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are, because in some cases investments made with the help of government are aimed at greening that industry. That counts as support, I suppose, for a greener economy. However, often when people talk about the way we subsidize the fossil fuel industry, what they mean is that the industry is not paying for the externalities, for the contributions it makes to greenhouse gas emissions. Would the member not agree that the government's intent to place a price on carbon across the country is one way of eliminating probably the most important fossil fuel industry, which is the fact that we do not really yet have a polluter pay principle when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions?
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Speaker, I agree with my Liberal colleague across the way that we need to put a price on pollution. That is why, when we were debating Bill C-74, we were very much in support of separating the new carbon tax act out of that bill so it could be properly studied at its own committee. That way, the government could have done the House a service in bringing forward the appropriate witnesses who could have laid clearly on the table the evidence that this approach works.
My Conservative colleagues also have concerns that need to be addressed. I very much acknowledge that there are farmers and certain low-income individuals and industries that are still very fossil fuel dependent, so we need to construct the tax in a way that acknowledges the current fossil fuel users and helps them transition out of that situation. We need to structure the tax in a way that provides some benefit to low-income people while in the overall picture we try to transition our country to a fossil fuel-free future.
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague. We work very well together on the agriculture committee. He touched on something when he pointed out that although we are talking about Bill C-69, this really is about a larger narrative.
The government is making making significant decisions that will impact almost every aspect of our economy, whether it is energy, farming, ranching, or small business. As we have seen over the last few days, and certainly over the last couple of weeks, the Liberals are trying to ram these decisions through with little to no consultation either from members or from Canadians who are going to be impacted by this decision.
I would like my colleague to talk about some of the things he is hearing in his constituency about the impact, or about the frustration from his residents as a result of the decisions being made by the Liberal government with no consultation with Canadians.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Foothills. I enjoy working with him as well. I return the compliment.
When we look at how the Liberal government has treated the parliamentary process over the last few weeks, it has again lived up to another broken promise. The Liberal government came to power with a promise to respect how Parliament works, thus ensuring that members of the opposition and the constituents we represent would get to raise our voices. There has been increasing use of time allocation on huge bills, including the justice reform bill, a democratic reform bill, and an environmental assessment review bill. Limiting debate to five hours really does a disservice not only to us but to the Canadian public we represent.
The Liberals were elected with 39% of the vote. We in the opposition collectively represent 61% of Canadians. They deserve to have their voices heard, and we should not be paying the price for the Liberals' mismanagement of the parliamentary calendar over the last few months.