My apologies, Mr. Speaker. I was reading a quote, and I guess I got lost within it. Here is another quote, on Kinder Morgan exiting the Canadian market:
In August of 2019, the petroleum and natural gas company Kinder Morgan secured a $2.5 billion deal to sell off its Canadian arm and leave the market.
In 2018, the Liberal government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline from them for $4.5 billion. According to estimates by the parliamentary budget office, [the Prime Minister] overpaid for the pipeline by up to $1 billion in taxpayer funds.
There are several other companies that have either been absorbed by bigger companies or forced out of the market in the last five years due to the severely limiting policies and overall death-by-delay attitude of the government. The investment climate in Canada is driving investments in resource-based companies to countries with weaker environmental standards and poor human rights records, which should be motivation enough to see a project like this through to completion.
It is important at this time to consider what Canadians are saying about Canadian-sourced oil and gas. It might surprise some of my colleagues from different parties to learn that there are opinion polls consistently showing that even Quebeckers have a strong preference for getting oil supplied from western Canada rather than other countries. In a poll done by the Montreal Economic Institute, it found that 71% of Quebeckers would prefer to import oil from western Canada than from other countries. It also found that 50% of Quebeckers believe the province should develop its own oil resources instead of continuing to import all the oil it consumes.
Colleagues might also be surprised to find out that there is strong support from indigenous Canadians for the project. This pipeline represents an opportunity for reconciliation and prosperity. Chief Alvin Francis from the Nekaneet First Nation in my riding is the president and CEO of a first nations group called Natural Law Energy, which, as some probably know, had a significant investment in an equity agreement with Keystone XL. When I talked to Chief Francis about the news that the permit was being revoked for Keystone XL, he was quite saddened and disheartened about it because this project had meant funding and the opportunity to further education and housing, and advance the economic development that they have been working so hard to build for their people.
There is a 30-year commitment from TC Energy for this project, and he specifically spoke about the opportunities that people were excited for, such as training, employment and developing a career working on this pipeline that was owned by Natural Law Energy, but now it is all gone. When he was interviewed, Chief Francis spoke to Global News, saying:
I always try to tell people, the glass is always half full, never half empty.
I want my First Nation to be successful … and there’s many things out there that I’m going to have to pay more attention to … I’m always trying to think of what is out there as being the next thing? Because if I don’t do that as being the leader of my community, I’m not doing my job. I always have to lead. Every morning’s a new day....
They have very knowledgeable people, TC Energy, and they will do it. They will put a plan in place and I’ll be part of that plan to make sure that we have our view on it, First Nations view on it so that we can continue to be successful together.
The loss of Keystone XL will be devastating for that community as it is for many others. The mayor of Shaunavon, Kyle Bennett, sent me his thoughts on it as well. He said that they are extremely disappointed by the short-sightedness of this U.S. administration and that this should be treated as an attack on fair trade within our countries. He continued that, at a time when our economies are suffering, we should be supporting industries that will create thousands of jobs and millions in taxation revenue. He feels that this project not only represents our economic interests, in the short term and the long term, but is also a sign of the relationship with our largest trading partner.
What does the government have to say to the Nekaneet First Nation, to Shaunavon and to the countless communities and workers it is letting down? Before last week, the Prime Minister told us about one phone call, and at committee we heard from the natural resources minister and also from the parliamentary secretary that they had one phone call back in November with the incoming American administration. He said that the first phone call was “the very definition...of a priority”.
If it is a priority, one half-hearted phone call does not add up to a priority. If it is a priority, the Prime Minister, the natural resources minister, the foreign affairs minister and the international trade minister would have all been at the table repeatedly asking the former and incoming administrations to ensure that this project is built. They would have been telling them that this is about Canadian and American jobs, that this is the most ethically sourced and environmentally friendly oil in the world, and that it also drives innovation.
There are oil and gas companies that have made the claim that they are net negative in their emissions because of the utilization of carbon capture and storage. In an article by CBC of all places, it was reported that Enhance Energy sourced 4,000 tonnes of CO2 underground, which is the equivalent of removing 350,000 vehicles off the road every day.
When something is made a priority, we relentlessly go after it. Enhance Energy and Whitecap Resources have made it a priority and have objectively achieved it with carbon capture and storage. The government has only proven, once again, that it needs to get its priorities straightened out.
I hope we will see the natural resources minister at committee again next week or in the coming weeks to explain where the project is going with the new administration and what kind of work and efforts the government has put into advocating for Canadians, Canadian jobs and our industry.
The Liberals knew the position of the incoming administration. Did the Prime Minister think that one phone call back in November and then one phone call at the eleventh hour, politely expressing disappointment, was going to be enough? Obviously, we all knew what the goals of the Biden administration were. We knew what it was saying. It laid it on the line.
The point I am trying to make tonight, and that all my colleagues are trying to make, is that if the government truly does care about Canadian jobs, if it truly cares about Canadian resources, about our oil and gas sector, about the workers who it repeatedly talks about, it would have put in a wholehearted effort.
It was great to hear the government talk about consultations with the Alberta energy minister and even with the Saskatchewan energy minister. That is great, but honestly that is just preaching to the choir. That is not really the audience it needs to speak to. The government needed to be speaking, as I said earlier, with the incoming administration and the now new President of the United States and his people about the importance of this project, what it was going to bring to Canada and what it was going to mean to the energy security for North America.
Several great opportunities have been proposed and promoted over the last five years. The Liberal government effectively killed them with its death by delay tactics. Quite frankly, it has allowed it to blame everyone else for its dithering and delaying on all these kinds of projects. We saw that with the Teck Frontier mine and we see once again with Keystone XL. A lot more is at stake each and every time the government uses this tactic.