Mr. Speaker, the debate in the House of Commons does not do justice to the crisis we are in. For my Conservatives friends, when we arguing over the costs of the carbon tax, the costs of unmitigated climate change are going to completely dwarf anything we are arguing about now in future generations.
With respect to the minister, I know her heart is in the right place and I know many of my Liberal colleagues are as well. However, with respect to this motion, I look at what the government has done, spending $4.5 billion of our tax dollars on an export pipeline. Is this the economic future in which we want to be investing? How long is the pipeline going to operate for, another 10 years, maybe 20 years or 30 years? In 2050, are we still going to be exporting three times as much bitumen as we are presently? Is that where we want to be?
To use an analogy, the reason Wayne Gretzky was such a great hockey player was because he was always going to be where the puck was going to be, not where it was currently. That is what we need to do as a country. We have to look at where we want to be in 2050, 2060 and put ourselves on a projection toward that. It does not involve purchasing an oil pipeline, tripling its capacity and investing in fossil fuels that rightly belong in the past.
We have to do the just transition. We have to be faithful to our workers, use their skill sets and get them in the new energy economy of the future. I do not see actions with respect to the government paying attention to the seriousness of the motion before us today.