Debates of Oct. 20th, 2020

Opposition Motion—Special Committee on Anti-Corruption

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, September 23, we will not call for the yeas and nays. As a result, if a member of a recognized party present in the House wants to request a recorded vote or request that the amendment be passed on division, I invite them to rise and so indicate to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would request a vote.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, September 23, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, October 21, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I suspect if you were to canvass the House, you would find unanimous consent to call it 6:30 p.m. at this time.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

The Environment

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, on October 6, I asked this government if it would ban the destructive practice of gas fracking in Canada. In his response to my question, the Minister of the Environment stated that the government will exceed its 2030 emissions targets. It is important to point out that the current 2030 targets are woefully inadequate. Exceeding a target that is too low is not a win; it is a failure.

The minister also stated that the government has introduced regulations to reduce methane emissions. I appreciate the acknowledgement that the federal government has a role in regulating the extractive practices of the energy industry. This is especially true when those practices poison aquifers and airsheds and release climate-destroying pollutants into the atmosphere.

Fracking is a process for extracting methane that cannot be controlled. Reducing methane emissions at the wellhead does not make fracking a safe and acceptable practice. Fracking leaks toxic chemicals into aquifers and groundwater, releases pollutants into airsheds, releases methane into the atmosphere and increases seismic activity and earthquakes.

Methane is not a transition fuel. It is a climate change accelerator. When methane is leaked into the atmosphere, for the first 20 years, it is 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. The practice of fracking poses a direct and immediate threat to our future and the future of our children and grandchildren.

Using chemical fingerprints, researchers have linked the significant spike in methane emissions to the boom in shale and oil and gas fracking. This spike is linked to the accelerated pace of climate change. An estimated 30 million abandoned oil and gas wells around the world are leaking methane. Methane leaks represent as much a threat to climate change as burning coal to generate electricity. The provinces are not talking about new coal plants. Why are they so fired up about gas fracking?

Many jurisdictions that are serious about climate change are banning fracking and the installation of natural gas in new neighbourhoods and buildings. They know that methane is a climate killer.

After climate change, water and air pollution represent the biggest threat to human health from fracking. Fracking uses huge amounts of water and creates massive amounts of toxic waste water. People who live near fracking operations have had their wells poisoned, leading to increased disease in humans and animals. Fracking releases poisonous hydrocarbons into airsheds, representing another serious health threat.

Fracking has been shown to increase earthquakes. In northwest B.C., fracking in the vicinity of dams on the Peace River is putting the integrity of those dams at risk. The increased seismic activity could lead to the catastrophic failure of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam, the Peace Canyon dam, and it threatens the integrity of the Site C dam, which is under construction on geologically unstable ground. Ironically, the Site C dam is being built to provide cheap, subsidized power to the fracking industry and the LNG industry, which, if continued, could lead to the failure of that dam or a cascading failure of the dams upstream.

Ideally, we should have legislation that regulates against illogical decisions, such as building a dam in a geologically unstable area to support an industry that causes earthquakes, but we cannot regulate for common sense.

Any government that is serious about arresting climate change and protecting the health of its citizens would ban fracking.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We recognize that methane is a potent greenhouse gas. We also know that taking action on methane emissions is one of the lowest-cost actions to reduce greenhouse gases. With this in mind, and the understanding that regulation of shale gas production is mainly a provincial and territorial responsibility, we have worked together with provinces and industry to finalize national methane regulations. These regulations came into force on January 1, 2020, and require resource developers to eliminate temporary venting during well completions after hydraulic fracturing operations.

On Canada's emissions, we are making important progress. In December, the Government of Canada announced a commitment to exceed Canada's 2030 emissions reduction targets and chart the path toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Canada's most recent national report on climate change progress to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the fourth biennial report, demonstrates that the government has made excellent progress in implementing Canada's national climate plan, the pan-Canadian framework.

For example, this report predicts that in 2030 Canada's GHG emissions will be 227 million tonnes below what was projected in 2015. This is a historic level of emissions reductions, and our energy sector is a significant contributor to our national economy. In light of this and the challenging economic circumstances facing the sector and the regional economies dependent on it, the Government of Canada is providing funding to sustain workers in the energy sector, while cleaning up the environment. This includes up to $1 billion to the Government of Alberta to support the province's work to clean up inactive oil and gas wells across the province, up to $400 million to the Government of Saskatchewan to support work to clean up orphan and inactive wells across the province, up to $120 million to the Government of British Columbia to support work to clean up orphan and inactive oil and gas wells across the province, and $200 million to Alberta to ensure that the Orphan Wells Association is well-funded to support its work to clean up orphan oil and gas sites across Alberta. The OWA will fully repay this amount.

Fighting climate change does not mean that we need to immediately shut down Canada's energy sectors. Rather, it means that we need to develop Canada's natural resources in a sustainable and responsible way and protect workers with key green investments.

[Paul Manly, Green, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, the methane budget is spent. We have already released too much of it into the atmosphere and we must act now to stop these emissions, not just lower them. For all the reasons I have outlined, many jurisdictions around the world have either placed moratoriums on fracking or banned it outright, including France, Germany, Bulgaria, Scotland, the United Kingdom, Tunisia, the State of New York and the State of Vermont, and the list keeps growing.

The idea that exporting fracked gas to China will help them lower emissions has been exposed as an outright lie. When will the Canadian government study the research and stop supporting this fallacy? It is time to ban fracking, because the only thing we should be accelerating is our transition to renewable energy. Our children and our grandchildren deserve nothing less.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question.

Canada's methane regulations will help protect the health of Canadians by improving the air we breathe. Emissions of harmful cancer-causing air toxins and smog-forming pollutants that are often found with methane emissions will be reduced. Common air pollutants emitted from oil and gas production are volatile organic compounds, which are linked to a variety of serious public health effects, including lung problems, asthma attacks and early death resulting from respiratory and cardiovascular complications, and that is why we are taking action.

Natural Resources

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I address the House today as a follow up to a question I asked two weeks ago with respect to the dithering of the government, while Canada's oil and gas industry, our nation's pride, continued to face headwinds largely as a result the global pandemic, but also realistically as a result of the government's bias toward the industry and its workers who had largely provided for this nations' prosperity for the past several decades.

On March 25 of this year, at the beginning of a pandemic whose effects were multiplied by an—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I am sorry, but the member's connection is breaking up.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I believe you can hear me now.

On March 25 of this year, at the beginning of a pandemic whose effects were multiplied by an ill-timed global oil price war between large state-owned enterprises half a world away, the then minister of finance and the Liberal government proclaimed that support for the industry would be provided not in days or weeks, but in hours.

Clearly, that proclamation was over-promising and under-delivering. Nearly seven months later, the oil and gas industry continues to face the onslaught of temporary drastic reductions in demand for its resource amidst the world's supply that is robust for the near future. Were the situation to be a new structural scenario for the world energy industry, it is certain that state-owned enterprises would know and would cease further development of their assets.

Let me provide clarity. Despite some European producers, this is not the case at all. The Middle East sees robust demand for its oil resource for the foreseeable future, going out 30 to 40 years. The world needs energy and it will still need the energy intensity provided by hydrocarbons for which the world has, as of yet, no close competitor, particularly with respect to transportation fuels.

I know parties will quarrel that this is a sunset resource. An energy-educated person will tell them to give their heads a shake or to get an actual education in how energy is produced and which energy sources have environmental footprints. To be clear, every energy source has an environmental footprint.

At this moment, we, Canadians in particular, are betting that the environmental effects caused by greenhouse gases are worse than those produced by other energy sources, as in the soot and greenhouse gases produced from a burning biomass or as in the full scale build out required for an electricity grid that currently has no replacement source of electricity here or around the world.

Damming all the rivers in the world will not replace the energy we use and has its own environmental impacts. The steel, aluminum, concrete, copper, nickel, aggregate, rare earth metals and construction industries, all heavy on emissions, will free us from our power needs. We are deluding ourselves. The government is a cheerleader in this pretense.

Sometimes we get to see some sense of reality emerge when the vanity of the slogans we have heard for five years meet up with the wall of reality. Such seemed to be the case early in this pandemic. The government seemed to indicate that, yes, this industry, the world's environmentally leading oil and gas extraction industry, heavily regulated to ensure it meets the exacting environmental standards of Canadians, would withstand the economic downturn. There was the short pause of attacking the industry with obfuscation and opaque regulations and indeterminate timelines for decision-making when the government might need to admit how important this industry is to Canadians, and to the world, particularly with respect to our environmental practices.

Believe me, for a country that produces less than 5% of the world's oil supply, we lead by example, environmentally and with respect to society's outcomes. Show me industry participants around the world whose practices are as sound, as transparent, as responsive and as progressive as the Canadian oil and gas industry. There are none.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change]

Madam Speaker, it is an important question. We all know Canada's resource sector workers and suppliers have been hard hit by the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the petroleum sector, where producers have faced the added challenge of record low prices caused by the dual impact of a price war and a collapse in demand.

The success of Canada's energy sector is critical to the successful restart and recovery of the economy, and that is why our government moved swiftly last spring with more than $2.5 billion in direct investment in the industry to create and protect good jobs while strengthening the industry's environmental performance.

This new funding includes more than $1.7 billion to clean up orphaned and inactive oil and gas wells in the three western provinces, which will create an expected 5,200 jobs in Alberta alone and provide lasting environmental benefits. We have also launched a $750-million emissions reduction fund to lower greenhouse gases and, in particular, methane emissions in Canada's oil and gas sector. This new fund includes $75 million to help the offshore industry in Newfoundland and Labrador create and maintain jobs through pollution reduction efforts.

Just last month, the Minister of Natural Resources announced a further investment to support jobs and ensure a sustainable long-term, low-emitting future for the province's offshore oil industry. At the same time, we expanded credit and liquidity supports for mid-market companies through the business credit availability program and established the large employer emergency financing facility, or LEEFF, to assist Canada's larger companies. We have also taken action to directly sustain workers in all sectors through the Canada emergency wage subsidy. For oil and gas workers in Alberta, this crucial support meant sustaining 60,000 jobs at the height of the crisis.

Our government has consistently said that the success of Canada's energy sector is critical to the successful restart and recovery of the economy, and our unprecedented efforts during this challenging time reflect that. This pandemic has reminded us of the power of individual choices and collective will. Governments at all levels, regardless of political stripes, are working together to ensure all Canadians have the vital protection and support they need when they need it most.

Our government will continue to pursue all avenues to ensure Canada's energy sector continues to be a key source of good jobs that support a strong economy in Canada. We are supporting workers. We are supporting families, and we are supporting all Albertans and all workers in the energy sector.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, hundreds of thousands of oil field workers have lost their jobs in the last five years, and that has impacted their families. More than half a million more Canadians and their families are nervously watching during a pandemic as their government continues to act nonsensically toward their industry, seemingly indifferent to global realities or the effect its inaction will have on the families, lives, futures and health of Canadians.

These Canadians, bewildered by the insouciance of the Liberal government, are questioning, in ways they have never questioned before, the way this country makes decisions. These workers and this industry, which collectively contributed over $200 billion to Canadian social and economic development over the past decade and contributed to the world's environmental advancements, are now having their concerns swept aside. At this time this industry's prosperity, and a transparent and open democracy, such as Canada has been, are paramount for how the world emerges from a great pandemic. We need something better.

We see in this field the government choose, by both its actions and inactions, to be to the benefit of other countries that do not meet the standards to which we aspire, or in the this government's case, to which we pretend to aspire.

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am always pleased to have the opportunity to explain the ways in which our government has supported and will continue to support energy workers.

We have taken extraordinary measures to support workers in the energy sector because we know these are extraordinary times for families right across the country, especially in our oil and gas industry. That is why since forming government and over the last eight months, our government has put in place the measures that I highlighted earlier and has approved good projects that will be built so we can support Alberta's workers. We understand that by supporting a strong economic recovery, particularly in our energy sector, Canadian businesses will continue to attract investment in good projects that support environmental and social priorities and create jobs for all Canadians.

Public Services and Procurement

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, as the member of Parliament whose riding includes Garrison Petawawa, the largest army base in Canada, I am concerned with the health and well-being of each member of the Canadian Armed Forces. I am similarly concerned with the people employed at Arnprior Aerospace, who work in the aerospace industry and supply our military with the tools to do its job.

Earlier this month, I asked the Minister of National Defence an important question regarding Canadian jobs, procurement and protecting the lives of our women and men in uniform. Canada's aerospace industry and its value chain contribute more than $20 billion in GDP and 160,000 jobs to the Canadian economy annually. In my Ottawa Valley riding of Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, Arnprior Aerospace is a leading aerospace manufacturer. It has the capacity and skill sets to supply quality products to companies like Boeing and others.

As the Canadian government considers bids for the next generation of fighter jets, the Prime Minister needs to stand up for Canadian jobs. Canadian workers and taxpayers want the government to publicly commit to disqualifying bidders that take business away from Canadian companies like Arnprior Aerospace during these difficult economic times. Canadian taxpayers are opposed to funding manufacturing jobs in Mexico or elsewhere, which is what some fighter jet aircraft bidders will do unless they are told no. Canadians deserve much better.

If the Prime Minister cared about the lives of the women and men serving their country in uniform, particularly as we approach Remembrance Day, he would admit to Canadians that his defence policy is a scam. “Weak, Insecure, Disengaged” is the appropriate name of the Liberal government defence plan unveiled in 2017. While it announced billions for Canada's military over the next 20 years, who will be in the chamber 20 years from now to remind Canadians of another broken Liberal promise?

It is important to remind Canadians that the jet fighter replacement program dates back to 1997, when Jean Chrétien was prime minister and the decision was made to join with our allies in the joint strike fighter program. That would have seen Canada replace our aging fighter jet fleet with the fifth generation F-35. It is ironic that when the government attacks the former Conservative government over fighter jet procurement, it is in fact attacking Chrétien and his government's choice for a replacement fighter jet, a decision the previous Conservative government honoured. Here we are 23 years later.

This was not the first time a Liberal government has used military procurement as a political football to kick around. Remembrance Day is a tough time for the families who lost loved ones during the war on terrorism in Afghanistan. They do not forget that it was the decision by the Liberal Party to use military procurement, in this case replacing aging helicopters, during the 1993 election that meant our soldiers lacked strategic lift to avoid roadside bombs. The Chrétien Liberals' decision to cancel the Sea King replacement helicopter, the EH-101, was a cynical political act to get elected on the backs of the women and men who serve their country in uniform.

I remember the faces of the soldiers who died when their convoys drove over the roadside bombs. When the Liberals took office in 1993 and cancelled the Conservative order for replacement helicopters under circumstances like the F-35 debate, they paid $478 million in penalties and set off a 20-year delay in finding a replacement helicopter. That does not count the lives we lost as a result.

[William Amos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation]

Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that we obviously recognize Canada's aerospace industry as an engine for innovation, economic activity and high-skilled employment. The aerospace industry contributes $25 billion to Canada's GDP and over 210,000 jobs to our economy. It is ranked number one in terms of research and development among Canadian manufacturing industries. Its footprint is national in scope, with important aerospace clusters in every region of the country.

The aerospace industry is export-driven, with approximately 70% of total production exported, and Canadian aerospace firms, including small and medium-sized enterprises, are well integrated into global supply chains.

I really appreciate the question posed and the comments made by the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, because the Canadian aerospace manufacturing sector, with businesses like Arnprior Aerospace, creates good jobs for Canadians in the Ottawa Valley, in my riding of Pontiac and beyond. I am a neighbour to the member's riding, so I understand quite well how important this is to her constituency.

Our government is engaged with industry and has been proactive in promoting Canada's aerospace sector. We have been successful in securing strategic investments in advanced technologies, driving innovation and maintaining highly skilled jobs in Canada.

We are going to continue to attract and support new, quality investments in the aerospace sector. For example, we announced nearly $885 million in funding to support the aerospace and space industries through innovation programs. With regard to procurement, we are continuing to engage with Canadian industry on upcoming defence procurement programs to help drive investments in Canada's key industrial capabilities through the industrial and technological benefits, or ITB, policy.

The ITB policy allows the federal government's significant purchasing power to support Canadian companies and their workers. Through this policy, our government leverages major defence and Coast Guard procurements to create jobs, drive innovation and foster economic growth all across Canada.

When a company wins a defence contract, for every dollar that it receives, it is required to reinvest a dollar back into Canada's economy. What does that look like? That reinvestment means that Canadian small and medium-sized businesses, which make up nearly 90% of the firms in Canada's defence industry, have opportunities to do business with prime contractors. These are business opportunities that can translate into long-term and sustainable work that is directly related to specific defence procurements. It is work that helps these businesses integrate into the global supply chains of aerospace and defence multinationals, and work that helps build and strengthen the strategic partnerships between Canadian business and Canada's research community to advance Canadian innovations.

One recent example of our government leveraging successful industrial outcomes through procurement was the arrival of the first aircraft of Canada's future fixed-wing search and rescue fleet. This project has created hundreds of new jobs for Canadians. The CC-295 contractor, Airbus Defence and Space, continues to make investments in the Canadian aerospace and defence industry through the ITB policy.

Strategic work packages directly related to the aircraft are providing Canadian companies the opportunity to participate in global supply chains and create high-value jobs in aerospace manufacturing, simulation and training, propulsion, and in-service support sectors.

The success of the ITB policy is concrete. It touches many small and medium-sized businesses from coast to coast to coast. The 2020 annual report on the impact of the ITB policy shows that, from 2014 to 2018, more than 400 small businesses leveraged over $3.4 billion of ITB commitments as a result of active contracts—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Madam Speaker, for the sake of women and men who live with procurement decisions, I ask the Liberals to please not play with people's lives.

Arnprior Aerospace is a world leader in aerospace. It is a good source of jobs in my riding. As the government considers bids from companies, including Boeing, for the fighter jet contract, the Liberal government needs to send a clear, unambiguous signal to all fighter jet bidders that any company that takes business out of Canada, or uses the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to shut down jobs in Canada, will not be considered for this nearly $20 billion contract.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Madam Speaker, it really is important for the Canadian public to understand just how strongly the aerospace sector is supported through this ITB policy. It really does go directly to the member opposite's question.

The 2020 annual report on the ITB policy clearly indicates that over 360 Canadian small businesses are scaling up through supplier development opportunities and over 220 small businesses are supplying goods and services directly related to procurements. Finally, over 25 Canadian small businesses have expanded their collaborative R and D networks as a result of ITB investments, enhancing their capacity for innovation.

Going forward, our government is committed to ensuring that our men and women in uniform have the tools they need to protect Canadians and that Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises get the opportunities they so richly deserve to help continue building the aerospace sector. We are going to keep doing that through our federal purchasing power. We are committed to—

[Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:46 p.m.)