Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals nationalized the Trans Mountain pipeline, Canadians were told that their $4.5 billion would allow construction to begin immediately. Little did they know that the Liberals meant that Kinder Morgan would start building pipeline in Texas immediately.
Political dithering by the Liberal government has ensured that not one inch of pipe has been built and that two construction seasons have been lost. While the Liberals abandon Canadian middle-class energy workers here at home, they are happy to create middle-class energy jobs in Asia with Canadian taxpayer dollars.
In 2017, the Liberals gifted over half a billion dollars to China's new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is building three new pipeline projects in Asia. The Liberal government's pipeline priorities are to finance a pipeline in the suburbs of Beijing instead of right here in Canada.
It is time for the government to get to work, stop dithering, set a construction date and build that pipe.