Debates of Jan. 25th, 2021

Keystone XL Pipeline

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, along with the member for Kings—Hants, I want to wish everybody a very happy Robbie Burns Day. In honour of that I am wearing my Oliphant tartan tie. It is a minor nod to the heritage that some of us share in this place.

It is a great privilege to participate in tonight's debate, which has been very wide-ranging. This debate is about a pipeline and the decision by a democratically elected President of the United States of America to cancel a long-hoped-for pipeline that was to take Canadian energy to our neighbours to the south. However, it is much more than that. It is about Canadians, mostly Albertans but not only Albertans, who are worried about their livelihoods with the cancellation of this pipeline.

It is about Canadians across the country who are worried about how they will fit into an economy that is undergoing a fundamental transition regarding the way we live, the way we work and the way we engage together, and it is dramatically changing our economic and industrial landscape.

It is also about Canadians who are wrestling with the reality of climate change, of threats to air quality and the health impacts of environmental degradation. Mostly, it is about how we hold all three of these things together at the same time, protecting livelihoods in the short term, ensuring economic transitions in a fair and just way and ensuring that no one is left behind, and how we do these things while taking real and concrete steps to address climate change and improve the quality of life in Canada and around the world for the benefit of everyone.

As we wrestle with these three things simultaneously, we also recognize very clearly that Canada is not an island. We share this continent and, maybe more to the point, we share an economic, cultural and deeply important energy and environmental relationship with the United States. It is second to none in the way it impacts all of us. That relationship is something that all Canadians are now coming to grips with. We are each other's top energy supplier across virtually every source of energy: oil, gas and hydroelectricity.

We are also the United States' number one partner in energy security, ensuring our industries and consumers have a supply of power to sustain jobs and communities. That energy security also demands environmental sustainability as a key component. The Canadian government and Canadian industry are committed to the ongoing process of increasing the sustainability of our energy supply, and together we are taking action to drive down the environmental footprints of traditional energies, developing and deploying clean energies, and increasing energy efficiency.

As we move into a clean-energy transition and toward a decarbonized economy that will address the challenges of the changing climate, our bilateral energy and climate change collaboration becomes even more important. That is because climate change is, at its core, an issue that requires collective action. We are committed to that work. This applies to the energy sources we use today, the ones we invent tomorrow, and our policies to fight climate change in the weeks, months and years to come. Every energy projection indicates that over the next few decades we will continue to need fossil fuels as that transition continues.

Today, I bought a new car. It is kind of fun to pick up a new vehicle. It is my second hybrid: a Toyota made in Woodstock, Ontario. It will use gasoline, but it will use less gasoline than a car with a conventional engine. It is a symbol of the transition that we are in, moving to new technologies while continuing to be dependent on fossil fuels. Many of us find ourselves in that same place. In Canada and in the United States, we are in that together. Today, Canada is by far the best source for the United States for that fuel because of many factors, including our geographic proximity and world-leading energy production practices. We are good producers of some of the world's best sources of energy, and I think we all share, in the House, the goal of producing the oil and gas we will continue to need for some time in as sustainable a way as possible.

Canada's environmental, social and governance record for oil production ranks third in the world, well ahead of any other supplier to the United States, which itself ranks sixth. Is this good enough? Not good enough for us, but it is an excellent record and can only get better.

Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, for example, which represents all the major oil sands companies, is developing new technologies and sharing best practices to enable a further reduction of the impact of their in situ operations on freshwater resources.

Canada is also a leader in clean tech and reducing the environmental footprint of fossil fuel production. Just today, two Calgary companies, Enhance Energy and Whitecap Resources, announced they had gone beyond net zero to achieve net negative production of oil. This remarkable accomplishment was achieved by capturing carbon which was then itself used to extract the oil. This means that the companies are storing more emissions underground than they are producing in their operations. This is the kind of innovation that will accelerate our transition towards a green future, which underpins our climate commitments as a country. The world is watching and taking note.

It is in that context that I, for one, very much welcome the renewed commitment to climate change that we saw in the election campaign of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden, and in the early signals coming from President Biden in his new administration, such as rejoining the Paris Agreement and implementing a build back better green recovery.

Canada is committed and determined to work closely with the United States as we move forward addressing climate change. There is no greater problem in our world than climate change. We will not always agree, and from time to time there will be bumps in the road with the United States, but our two countries will show the world that we are serious about the existential crisis that is climate change.

On December 11, our government announced an initial $15 billion investment as part of its plan to accelerate the fight against climate change so that Canada can exceed its 2030 Paris Agreement targets and reach the government's additional commitment of net-zero emissions by 2050. The Prime Minister has already raised climate change with the president in both of his telephone calls.

We are all in this debate together and though we are not all in agreement, we do agree that climate change is an existential crisis that needs to be dealt with. At the same time, we also recognize that people continue to need jobs and that we need to continue to have fossil fuels for the way we live in this country as we transition to a new economy and a new way of life. Together we can ensure our economies so that our children and our grandchildren live in safety as we recover from COVID, and that we will benefit from a complete mix of energy sources that reduce emissions and enhance North American energy security, combatting climate change and making this climate livable for generations to come.

I am very pleased to engage in questions now as we continue in this very important debate.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the issue here is accountability. We talk about the environment all the time. We talk about taking environmental steps, including getting more world-class environmental product to market, but we run into walls because we do not advocate effectively enough for that environmental solution.

Would the member take it upon himself as a member of the governing party caucus to make that point more well known in the decision-making in his party and to put this at the forefront of the agenda of getting something done for our economy, for our environment and for our future?

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I am committed to that. We have been saying as the government that the environment and the economy go hand in hand. We cannot have a clean environment and somehow sacrifice the economy to the point that it does not matter how we are living on this planet. We need both of these things together.

One of those realities is that having lived in western Canada, I have a different perspective than some people who have not lived there. I have a sister who is an Albertan and she reminds me regularly of the importance of this. I have heard about the commitment Alberta has to a cleaner environment.

We are trying to do this together. We want to ensure that we do not fracture our country, but recognize that together we have to battle both of these things. We have to ensure we have jobs and a clean environment. We combat climate change and we do it in a way that is positive, constructive and step by step.

Therefore, the answer is yes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Don Valley West for his role as a parliamentary secretary. He has just done exemplary work for probably every MP and thousands of Canadians across the country in the last year. He has worked so hard and I really thank him for that. However, I want to ask him a question on the foreign affairs part of his role.

When we are faced with a decision by the U.S. President to cancel the permissions for Keystone, I would hope that Canada's goal, in speaking with the President and members of the U.S. administration, would be to advance that climate action plan. He has laid out that trillions of dollars of work needs to be done. Canada should be a part of that and we have to negotiate with the United States to ensure we are not on the other side of that buy America plan, so Canadian companies and workers can benefit from coast to coast with the effort the United States will be undertaking.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the last year I have learned about the commitment every member of Parliament has to work for their constituents. Through this year I have heard such tremendous passion from all my colleagues. Doing my consular affairs work has been mostly fun and enjoyable.

As I said earlier, we have a democratically elected President in the United States who clearly campaigned on the cancellation of this pipeline and is now taking action on that. Our job is to find a way for Canada to fit into that decision in the best possible way. This is not going to be an easy relationship. Many of us had our shoulders drop and were very happy with the results of that election, but it does not mean it will be easy. Whether it is the buy America program or whether it is other issues, the United States may differ very fundamentally from Canada. Our job as the government is to stand up for Canadians and Canadian values, while working with the realities that we are given on this continent.

We will attempt to show the United States the value of our energy, the importance of Canada being its best supplier of energy; the value of Canada as its leading customer for American-produced products. We will continue to be a valued partner economically. Sometimes we have to remind Americans of that. I think they sometimes forget that.

Our job, from both sides of the House, is to remind our American friends that we are a good friend, we are a good customer, we are a good supplier of energy and other resources as well as manufactured goods, technology and innovation, and we should do that together. Somehow we have to show them that it is a win-win.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Forest Lawn.

On this first day of the House sitting in the new year, I am proud to speak up for something that is important to all Canadians. The importance of Keystone XL is something I want us all to focus on right now. It is obviously why the official opposition has requested an emergency debate on it tonight.

The Liberals have officially acknowledged the benefits of this pipeline, but they really do not seem to understand or care much about the urgency of what is happening. I wish they did. I wish they would take seriously the needs and aspirations of Canadians all across our country. My riding, my province and my region want this pipeline for many good reasons and they are not alone.

It was great to hear the Minister of Natural Resources talk earlier in the evening about the couple of pipeline projects that have received approval during the Liberals' time in government. A more appropriate description of their approval, though, would be that they survived the Liberal gauntlet that was thrown down before them. Since the minister listed a couple of projects that received approval, I thought it would only be appropriate to list a few companies that did not survive the Liberal gauntlet.

I found some examples online. The first is Houston Oil & Gas, which ceased operations in November 2019. Calgary-based Houston Oil & Gas abandoned its operations due to financial difficulties. The company operated 1,264 wells, 251 pipelines and 41 processing facilities, mainly out of south-east Alberta. It could cost a total of $80 million to clean up the remaining infrastructure.

The next is the move by Encana, the Canadian oil giant, of its headquarters to the U.S. In October 2019, when it announced its rebranding to Ovintiv Inc., it said it was moving its headquarters to the United States to attract more investment. CEO Doug Suttles stated that “A domicile in the United States will expose our company to increasingly larger pools of investment in U.S. index funds and passively managed accounts, as well as better align us with our U.S. peers.”

Former CEO Gwyn Morgan also said that “The destructive policies of the Trudeau Liberals have left the company with no choice but to shift its asset base and capital program south of the border.” Kinder Morgan has—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands might recall that he used the family name of another hon. member here in the House. I remind him that now that we are back into regular sessions, he should use either the title of the member or the riding name, but not their family or given name.

The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

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.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a long night of debate. The Green Party members never got a speaking slot, so I will try to be brief but there is so much to say.

My hon. colleague from Cypress Hills—Grasslands and we find ourselves at different ends of this discussion. The crisis that consumes my sleepless nights is the threat to my children and grandchildren of a galloping climate emergency. I do not think it is incompatible to protect workers in the fossil fuel sector, but it is incompatible to continue to press for growth in fossil fuel infrastructure and avoid the coming climate crisis.

My question for my hon. colleague is this. What would have made the Conservatives believe, and for that matter what made the Liberals believe, that the well-founded, evidence-based decision of former secretary of state, John Kerry, based on an extensive review, would be ignored when, for purely political reasons, former president Donald Trump overturned it? This was an evidence-based decision for which we ought to have some respect.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, one of the overall themes that we have routinely been hearing throughout the night here is this: If not Canadian oil and gas, where else is it going to come from? We know it is going to be replaced by Saudi Arabian and Venezuelan oil. The global demand is not going down; it is going up. That is a real fact, so we need it to be Canadian oil.

We can support Canadian jobs and it is being sourced in the most environmentally friendly way there is in the entire world. We have the highest standards here in Canada, so let us be proud of that and not vilify our industry.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, looking at the trajectory of the current government, it has sat across the table from three American presidents and really failed to advance Canadian strategic objectives in every case, but it is particularly obvious why in the case of the energy sector.

The Liberals profess to want Keystone XL pipeline to succeed, and yet they have killed pipelines in Canada. They killed the Northern Gateway pipeline right out of the gate. They passed Bill C-48, which prevents any kind of pipeline project, such as, perhaps, the Eagle Spirit pipeline, from moving forward through northern B.C. They killed energy east, indirectly, by piling all sorts of additional, unreasonable conditions on top of it.

We see them killing pipeline after pipeline here in Canada and then profess to wanting to get Keystone done. It is just not at all credible that we have somebody supposedly wanting to sell something to the United States and yet is not supporting the construction of that here in Canada. We should build pipelines in Canada and use that as a basis for promoting Canadian energy infrastructure in other countries.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague. Further to that point, if we want to find common ground among the opposition parties here, I would point out that even the Green Party members said that the government should not invest in the Trans Mountain pipeline. We Conservatives had that same position, that the government should not invest in that pipeline, but let the private sector invest in it. We should let the private sector do what it does best: drive jobs and employment.

The government members like to claim they are taking action for energy workers because they chased out investment from the private sector and overpaid taxpayer dollars for it. The private sector had the ability to do that project on its own. We should have left that alone and let private sector investors do it because they were doing a great job.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member just said that the private sector should have stayed on with Trans Mountain. I just wonder whether he agrees with his premier, Jason Kenney, investing billions of Alberta tax dollars in Keystone XL, which have now basically gone down the toilet.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will just take the opportunity to state that Scott Moe is the premier of the province where I am from. I know Jason Kenney was trying to invest in jobs for Albertans and Canadians, and also trying to champion the energy sector as it is because, again, we have the highest environmental standards here in Canada. We should be proud of that, not embarrassed by it.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on his first day in office, U.S. President Joe Biden cancelled the expansion of the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that is critical to Canada's economic interests, and pushed 1,000 people into unemployment immediately. The Prime Minister responded by waving a white flag. He got so tough that he declared how much he was looking forward to working with the new President on their mutual goals.

The government has told Canadians the President is keeping his campaign promise and that we ought to move on. It is easy to say if one is a Prime Minister who recently shut down Parliament and spent most of his time at his home and cottage while hard-working Canadians went to work and others were being put out of their jobs. What the Prime Minister is really telling hard-working Canadians in the oil and gas sector, and the industries that support it, is that they ought to move on from the much-needed jobs that support their livelihoods. They ought to move on from making sure they can put food on the table and provide for themselves and their children. That Albertans ought to move on from an industry that gets us to work, keeps our houses warm when it is -20°C outside, and supplies all of the plastics in the PPE that has been so valuable during this pandemic.

Here are the facts. Canadians are being asked to move on from a thousand direct construction jobs, an anticipated 2,800 directly related projects with jobs that could be available in Alberta, a $1 billion equity investment in Keystone XL by Natural Law Energy, which represents five first nations in Alberta and Saskatchewan, $1.1 billion of Government of Alberta investment, and manufacturing jobs in Ontario and elsewhere that support oil and gas development, not to mention all of the potential jobs and internships for newly graduated students. Recently, when I was doing Zoom meetings with a lot of students, that was what they were worried about: that there would be no more jobs or internships. This is a direct attack on those students.

Must I remind the Prime Minister that Canada is in the middle of the greatest public health crisis and economic shock this country has seen in many decades? The government squandered an opportunity to bolster economic development during a time when Canadians most desperately need it and instead is looking for the great reset, none of which is appealing to Albertans or most Canadians. Many businesses in Alberta and throughout the country have closed because of the pandemic. The vacancies of office space in downtown Calgary are staggering. Families are struggling to scrape by and people's mental health has been greatly affected.

Through the Keystone XL expansion, we had an opportunity to encourage significant job growth and investment. However, the Prime Minister has abandoned Canadians. While he is more than willing to turn his back on hard-working Canadians and an industry that much of the world envies, the Conservatives will always put Canadians first.

Canadians are tired of a Liberal government that continues to pander to radicals while shaming our own oil and gas sector in the process. The Canadian oil and gas industry is a product of inspiring ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit. It is an industry we have every right to be proud of, which is why I found the Prime Minister's response to the President's decision puzzling and weak. We heard about the Prime Minister calling the President and expressing disappointment.

Disappointment is an understatement. Was that really all the Prime Minister could say? Why have we not heard more from the Prime Minister and his government about how great Canadians are at producing our own resources?

Our people and companies are incredible innovators. I recently visited a company that has developed a system that monitors pipelines in real time and transmits information about events instantly. This shows the innovation we are seeing in this industry. While oil production has gone up, our emissions intensity has decreased in a very significant way. To a growing world that needs reliable energy, that is an important fact. Since 2000, Canada's oil sands emissions intensity is down by 20%. Emission levels from new projects are near or better than the average levels of emissions from American crude.

Sadly, the government seems very reluctant to cheer on the accomplishments of Canadians. All across the country, work continues on economic development and environmental protection, yet all they hear from the leader are platitudes about balancing the economy and the environment while he kills their jobs.

Canadian workers are ahead of the government. They care about the environment and they care about their jobs. From a U.S. perspective, why would President Biden say to yes to Keystone XL? From his view in Washington, he has likely watched as the Prime Minister killed northern gateway and energy east. I have no doubt his response to the Prime Minister was “If you don't want your own oil, why would we want it?”

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. We are getting back into our habits of being in the House again. I did not want to interrupt the hon. member, but it is a good time to make note of this.

The hon. member may go ahead.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, this seems to be a final chapter of the long saga that is the Keystone XL pipeline. The Obama government punted the project around like a political football for years and years. Mr. Obama's State Department approved it twice, but he waited until the Liberal government was sworn in and then rejected the application, with very little objection from the Prime Minister.

It has become clear to many of us that the Prime Minister and the government are looking to cover up their real agenda: the destruction of the Canadian resource economy. Nothing in the last five years of the government has Albertans convinced that the Liberals have our economic best interests at heart. They vetoed the northern gateway pipeline. Energy east was shot down by ever-changing and burdensome regulations. They have stood idly by while Keystone XL was vetoed twice. Antienergy legislation like Bill C-48 banned exports off the northwest coast, and Bill C-69 altered the regulatory process to such a degree that it was labelled the “no-more-pipelines act”. The government botched the Trans Mountain expansion to such a degree that it nationalized it.

Numerous other taxes and delays are just more pileup on the government's failed policies. Unfortunately, other parties represented in the House have cheered on every delay and veto, no matter how much it hurt their fellow Canadians. This is having a very negative effect on our Confederation.

Albertans are not willing to move on. That is why it has not been a surprise to westerners that all the Prime Minister could muster was an expression of disappointment over the phone, not much else. With the government's track record, the cancellation of a crucial pipeline seems par for the course. However, let me remind the Prime Minister that first and foremost, he is Canada's Prime Minister. He has a responsibility to stand up for Canadian workers and their families. We call on the Prime Minister to show that he has not turned his back on Canadians and assertively re-engage the president to make sure the Keystone XL expansion resumes.

I have heard many times from my constituents, many of whom are either close to retirement or about 10 years to retirement. These are hard-working Canadians, the men and women who drive the rigs on the oil fields. Where else do they have to go? If we are killing this industry, we are killing their livelihood and we are killing them.

I have heard over and over again that mental health issues are on the rise. Suicides are on the rise. If we are not standing up for the industry that is providing livelihoods and providing for these families, we are contributing to those mental health issues and the rise in suicides.

I hope the Prime Minister grows some fortitude, stands up for the industry, stands up for western Canada for once and stops all of the pandering. Let us get people to work.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to participate again to ask a very clear and direct question.

We are still hearing that Canada's production of oil and gas is somehow green or environmental. It is not. It contributes more greenhouse gases than almost any other form of oil, except for heavy crude, which we know is produced elsewhere in the world.

In Canada, since we produce more oil than we use, we are exporting product. If we want to continue to use Canadian oil while we transition quite rapidly off of fossil fuels, we could do that and give ourselves a timeline so that oil workers and others in the industry have the time to transfer their excellent skills to a renewable sector, to clean tech and green tech.

The fallacy here, somehow, is that if we do not sell other people our oil, they will get oil from worse places. The world is transitioning off fossil fuels. We have to do our part, and pipelines are not part of the moral obligation to do our part.

Does the hon. member agree that we should begin to diversify our economy and move away fossil fuels as quickly as possible?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, “Yahoo” is what the member tweeted when the cancellation happened. She was cheering about the fact that Canadians were being put out of work instantly. Their families were being devastated by this. The member, embarrassingly, was cheering it on by saying “yahoo”.

This is not the Calgary stampede. Yahoo is supposed to be a good term for us. However, the member celebrated the contribution of our students who were looking for good-paying jobs, internships, a livelihood, a future, by cheering about that. What is happening is going to contribute to mental health issues and suicides, frankly, and she said yahoo to that. I am very embarrassed by that.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn talked about a number of things that are quite important, particularly about jobs. I hear a lot of that from my constituents.

We have a prime minister who continually downplays the oil and gas industry, does not look to support it, but says that he has their backs. He continues to talk about jobs. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands basically said that they would be able to get their jobs. However, a lot of these jobs are in rural Canada, where the pipelines and the oil fields are, not in urban Canada. They are not in big-city Toronto, big-city Calgary or Vancouver or whatever. This is rural Canada. If we do not have rural Canada, we do not have urban Canada.

My question for the member is along the lines of what sorts of things can help with these jobs. We see the benefit of carbon capture. We see the enhancements of Whitecap Resources in minimizing and reducing its emissions such that they are at net negative. These are beneficial jobs. What other jobs does the government need to step forward on?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to jobs, I heard a lot in today's debate, especially from NDP members, about the government needing to create these jobs. I do not fully agree with that. In a perfect socialist world, where they like to dwell, they want the government to control everything. We want to see less government regulation. We want government to get out of the way so jobs are created by job creators. We need to unleash them and their potential rather than putting burdens on them with regulations such as Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the doubling up on carbon taxes, which are instant job killers. We have seen that over and over again. The Conservatives want people to carry on with that entrepreneurial spirit.

I came here with my family as an immigrant. We had something called the Alberta advantage when we moved here. That helped to enable me and my family to grow and for me to be blessed and be in the House today. I was a very successful, with God's grace, small business owner. We had less burden and fewer regulations. Today, I deal with many immigrants and they do not feel that the Alberta advantage is there. Nor do I nor any other Albertan.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here. I was actually in the House earlier today to open it with everyone and was very pleased to be there. Then I drove to Sudbury in the last six hours to make it back for the debate, and I listened to the debate all the way there. It was quite interesting to hear all of the very interesting debate going back and forth.

I want to first acknowledge that right now I am speaking from the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory of 1850 and from the traditional lands of the Atikamesksheng Anishnawbek and of the Wahnapitae First Nation. As we say here, meegwetch.

All members of the House share the same goals, namely to keep all Canadians safe and sound during the second wave of the pandemic and ensure a strong economic recovery that leaves no one behind. Our determination to encourage this recovery is what brings us together tonight. We recognize that—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I apologize for interrupting the hon. member. I am wondering whether he wishes to share his time with another member.

[Paul Lefebvre, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell.

As I was saying, we recognize that Keystone XL would have played an important role in that recovery by creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs and ensuring North America's energy security.

As was said before by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources, we are deeply disappointed by President Biden's decision to revoke the project's construction permit. We are also concerned about the thousand workers being laid off as a result of this decision and the communities that have been impacted, including indigenous communities.

The public record will plainly show that this government has supported Keystone XL since taking office in 2015, not just through public engagement but also through submissions in the regulatory process. It was one of the first issues that the Prime Minister raised during his congratulatory call to President Joe Biden in November. We have continued to press our case with the incoming administration's top officials since then. In fact, our government and Alberta have worked shoulder to shoulder in the U.S. capital to appeal to the incoming administration to change its mind.

This was always going to be President Biden's decision. This is, after all, a huge infrastructure project on U.S. sovereign territory and President Biden did make an election commitment.

Many things have been publicly said about democracy, in connection with the U.S. election. This is democracy in action and it leaves us with only one option, which is to respect the new president's decision to keep his top election promise.

While we accept this decision, we will not waver in our support for Canadian workers, especially those in our four petroleum-producing provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. I think I need to remind members that Canada is still the single largest supplier of energy to the United States, contributing every single day to America's energy security and economic competitiveness.

At this time, we must look to the future and not to the past. We must stand tall, work with the new administration to fight against COVID-19, face the challenge of climate change and do everything we can to ensure a sustainable recovery for all.

I believe that the energy sector must and will play a vital role in this recovery. Despite the challenges of the past year, the sector remains a powerful national economic engine. Not to oversimplify it, but the late Jim Prentice, a good friend to many of us in the House, used to say that energy is our family business. It is something that we are really good at and because we are good at it and because our petroleum industry innovations have led to extraordinary wealth, we have been able as a nation to fund schools, hospitals and much more infrastructure, generating jobs in rural communities and advancing indigenous reconciliation.

Right now, this part of our economy is struggling. People and communities are hurting through no fault of their own. The oil sector has been particularly hard hit by the double shock of an oil price war and a pandemic that has strained global demand through most of 2020.

Our support has included an injection of billions of dollars in much-needed liquidity. We brought in a 75% wage subsidy that has helped support as many as 60,000 energy sector jobs in Alberta. We injected some $2.8 billion directly into the oil and gas sector to create and protect jobs while also strengthening the industry's environmental performance.

I know that some of my colleagues have expanded on these programs this evening, but I want to focus on something else. One year ago, the Minister of Natural Resources delivered back-to-back speeches that highlighted Canada's changing economic reality. They were delivered a few weeks before the pandemic turned our world upside down.

In his first speech in Vancouver, he spoke at the Globe 2020 and CleanTech conference, the largest gathering of its kind in North America. He told the clean-tech enthusiasts something that maybe some of them were surprised to hear. He said there was no way we could get to net-zero emissions without our oil and gas industry, its ingenuity and resources and the wherewithal it provides to fund and support the necessary breakthrough solutions to get us to net zero.

The next day in Calgary, he delivered opening remarks while co-hosting an innovation summit with his Alberta counterpart, energy minister Sonya Savage. In the heart of Canada's oil patch, he told an audience of petroleum industry executives that there was no future for them that did not include getting to net zero.

These messages are two sides of the same coin. It is the same two-sided coin that applies to all of Canada's industries, not just energy, but mining and forestry, manufacturing, transportation and every other part of our economy. As Canada's executives, including those in the oil patch, recognize that, investors from around the world are making clearer choices.

They are investing their money in businesses, industries and jurisdictions that take climate change seriously, and they are withdrawing investment from those that, in their opinion, are not taking adequate action to address climate change.

This recognition crosses party and jurisdictional lines. It was just last October that Premier Jason Kenney told his party faithful that Alberta could no longer stick its head in the ground or pretend that the aspirations behind the Paris Agreement were not hugely influential in how capital is allocated and how market access decisions are made. There is a growing consensus that we have to follow this global trend.

Fortunately, Canada is ideally positioned to get there and to lead the way. Energy is one of our greatest strengths. We have been blessed with a diversity of energy assets that make us the envy of the world. We are the world's fourth-largest producer of oil and sixth-largest producer of gas. These companies have, for years, been the largest source of green tech investment in Canada, pouring money into research to reduce their own emissions and emission intensity, while also diversifying into low- or non-carbon sectors.

Along with this asset, Canada is third in the world for hydroelectricity, a leader in everything from solar and wind power to biofuels, one of only five Tier 1 nations for nuclear energy, a front-runner in clean hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, a supplier of choice for minerals critical for powering a clean-energy future, and a global powerhouse in smart grid storage technology and carbon capture.

All of these world-class energy assets combine to give us a natural advantage during this energy transition to power our cities, heat our homes, transport our citizens and produce tomorrow's goods and services.

The question is, how do we do all of these things and keep growing our economy while producing fewer greenhouse gas emissions? That is the challenge and the opportunity of our post-COVID recovery. First and foremost, it is the right thing to do in the face of an urgent climate crisis, but also it is the surest way to strengthen our economic competitiveness, attract new investments and create good, sustainable jobs for Canadians.

We recognize the frustration of the industry and the provincial government, and we are saddened by these job losses. We will do everything we can to support the workers and communities impacted by this. One of the ways we can help this industry is to work co-operatively with, rather than antagonize, our number one trading partner, our number one client and closest ally.

Together, our two great nations can help revive the global economy. We can confront and defeat this pandemic. We can build a clean energy future that leaves no one behind.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the frank reality is that the hon. members' rhetoric and the government's approach on this file are fundamentally dishonest.

They talk the language of wanting a strong energy sector and addressing environmental challenges at the same time. Conservatives also believe in a strong energy sector and in addressing environmental challenges at the same time. The problem is that the rhetoric just does not sync with the government's actions. The Liberals have killed multiple pipeline projects on Canadian soil. They passed Bill C-48 and they passed Bill C-69, which prevent projects from going forward. We had the Teck Frontier project, a project that would have been carbon neutral by 2050, yet was killed through active lobbying against it by various people in the Liberal caucus.

On the one hand, Liberals profess to understand the important role that the energy sector is going to play going forward, but if we look at the reality of their record on energy, on pipelines, on Bill C-48, on Bill C-69, on Teck Frontier and so many other projects, it is clear that they are talking out of both sides of their mouths on this.

After having killed so many energy projects here in Canada, it is no surprise that the Liberals seem indifferent to the fate of Keystone.