Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in favour of jobs, the environment and the prosperity and dignity of our indigenous people, and to speak against the wrong-headed decision of the Liberal government to ban the shipments of clean, green Canadian energy off the northwest coast of British Columbia.
Before I begin addressing the specifics of this export, I would like to address some of the falsehoods that have been espoused by numerous members of the House, including the preceding member, that have been used to destroy the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of Canadians, including our indigenous people, over the last five years.
Let me start with the first falsehood that has been used to justify this attack on our clean green western Canadian energy sector, that the reason our energy sector is suffering is the world is moving away from oil. That is just the way the world is going we are told. That is factually wrong. In fact, this week the IMF reported that oil prices will rise 20% this year over last. The International Energy Agency projects that oil consumption will average 100 million barrels per day, every day, for the next 20 years. That is not a reduction. The agency predicts that, even if all of the most draconian anti-energy, anti-carbon policies were put in place by all of the governments of the world, for the next two decades the globe will still consume at least 60 million barrels of oil per day. That is why the U.S. oil sector has doubled its production in the last 13 years while our sector has been in full-scale collapse. The question is not if the world will use oil; the question is how and, more importantly, whose oil?
The member for Regina—Lewvan brought to the world's attention an interesting point recently. He said that the trendy anti-development hipsters who are constantly telling us they buy fair trade coffee are not concerned in the least whether or not they are consuming fair trade oil. They see no problem with Canada importing millions of barrels of oil from countries that engage in monstrous human rights violations to produce their oil. At the same time, they denigrate the production of ethical clean, green Canadian petroleum.
That brings us to the next falsehood that opponents of this bill and the energy sector in Canada have espoused, which is that their policies are attempting to help the environment. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Let me first address the tanker ban this bill proposes to remove.
There are some exceptions to the tanker ban in Canada that the Liberal government put in, with the support of the NDP and the Green Party. Those exceptions include that petroleum products can be shipped in northern British Columbia waters. Liquefied natural gas, gasoline and jet fuel can pass through those waters. Of course, all of those fuels are foreign-produced fuels. The ban only applies to ethically produced Canadian oil being shipped out of Canada, but not unethical and environmentally degrading foreign oil being shipped off the coast. The ban has nothing to do with protecting the coast from shipping, as it allows shipping; it just does not allow the shipping of Canadian products. When the Liberals brought in their bill, they only banned Canadian energy from being shipped off the northwestern coast, not the passage of foreign energy through our waters. Obviously, it has nothing to do with protecting the waters or protecting against spills, but has everything to do with shutting in Canadian energy production.
Finally, on this point about the environment, we have the most environmentally friendly oil sector in the world. In fact, if we were to displace a world barrel of oil with an Alberta or Saskatchewan barrel of oil, we would reduce global emissions, because our emissions per barrel are lower than the global average. In fact, some Canadian oil companies are not only proposing to go carbon neutral, but there is also one, Whitecap Resources, a Calgary-based oil company, that is the world's first carbon-negative company. It presently takes more carbon out of the atmosphere than it puts into it. It has found a way to do this by storing carbon beneath the earth, from where it originally came. This is perhaps one of the most promising emission-reduction technologies on earth. In fact, Elon Musk announced just in the last two weeks that he would pay $100 million to the best carbon capture and storage initiative that a company can invent. I hope that Mr. Musk, whom I am sure is listening to this speech, takes a careful look at Whitecap Resources and gives $100 million to that company to create more jobs taking carbon out of the atmosphere.
The next falsehood that opponents of Canadian energy spread is that they are doing this for indigenous people. That is a total and absolute falsehood. In fact, when the Liberal government, under the current Prime Minister, cancelled the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would have shipped western oil to the Pacific and onward to Asia, a statement in response was issued by 31 first nations and Métis communities:
We are profoundly shocked and disappointed by the news that the Federal Government has no intention of pursuing any further consultation and dialogue with our communities on the important issue of the Northern Gateway Project. We are also deeply disappointed that a Prime Minister who campaigned on a promise of reconciliation with Indigenous communities would now blatantly choose to deny our 31 First Nations and Métis communities of our constitutionally protected right to economic development. We see today's announcement as clear evidence of their unwillingness to follow through on his promise....
The economic benefits from Northern Gateway to Indigenous communities are unprecedented in Canadian history. As part of the opportunity to share up to 33% ownership and control in a major Canadian energy infrastructure project, the project's Aboriginal Equity Partners [would] also receive $2 billion in long-term economic, business, and education opportunities for their communities.
All of the left-wing members, the Greens, the New Democrats and the Liberals, who claim that they believe in reconciliation, had no problem vaporizing that $2-billion worth of educational, economic and business opportunities for those communities. They had no problem bulldozing over the constitutional rights of indigenous communities to be consulted before energy and resource decisions are made with respect to their lands, because these parties actually do not care about reconciliation; they care only about using first nation communities as an excuse, a false and dishonest excuse, to block energy sector development and to play to a far left ideology that does nothing for this country. Therefore, it is another falsehood to claim that any of this is being done for the indigenous people.
Next, there is a claim that this sector only matters to western Canada. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Canada's number-one export is oil. It is far greater than auto parts, which is a distant second, and far greater than any other export. Since the attack on our energy sector that began in 2015, Canada has had a trade deficit in every single year. That means we are buying more from the world and are borrowing from the world to pay for it. That is a recipe to indebt and enslave ourselves to foreign lenders, who lend to us so that we can buy from them. They get the money, we get the debt, and forever after we work to pay their bills through interest payments. That is not a future. Our future should be one of energy independence, of reaching foreign markets, getting world prices and getting big powerful paycheques for Canadian workers, especially indigenous workers, to defeat poverty through powerful new job opportunities for pipe fitters, welders, engineers and others.
This is the way that we secure jobs, secure our economy and secure our future.