Debates of Feb. 25th, 2021

Environmental Restoration Incentive Act

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on this very important issue, which my colleague for Lakeland has proposed.

I have listened to the debate so far, and as an Albertan, I am disappointed to hear that other members will not be supporting a piece of legislation that is good for the environment. I have heard people say that it is good for oil and gas companies, but this is about the environment. The member for Lakeland has proposed a means for the private sector to contribute additional funds to remediate oil and gas wells that are basically at the end of their useful life.

I do not know how many members have done this, but I have walked along a well line that was successfully remediated and got its environmental certificate from the Government of Alberta. As far my eyes could see, I could no longer see where the drill pad had been. It was restored to a state of nature, where animals and everybody else could walk and use it on an everyday basis.

This is the result of an inevitable shift from conventional oil and gas to unconventional oil and gas production, which is mostly the bitumen oil sands, SAGD operations and in situ operations. What we sometimes see, ridiculously presented as what happens in the northeast corner of Alberta by, say, the National Geographic, is the open-pit mining, which is the way of the past. Those are very old mines that will be decommissioned in 10 to 20 years.

However, members can look at the legislative costing note provided by the Parliamentary Budget Officer for Bill C-221. It is flow-through shares, and this is the solution for decommissioning costs. Yes, there are a lot of oil sites, as the previous member mentioned. The Orphan Well Association is a repository for a company that goes bankrupt or into receivership and returns its energy leases to the people of Alberta when it can no longer operate. There was a fund set up in order to pay for these things.

I hear a member chirping away and disagreeing with me, but it is a solution for private-sector dollars to be put towards an environmental goal. It is not offsetting all of a company's costs. We are talking about wells that produce the equivalent of 100,000 or fewer barrels per day. I think this is what we want. We want the private sector to be more involved in remediating environmental costs associated with production.

In my riding, where Imperial Oil has its headquarters, a lot of oil and gas workers are unemployed, and this would put them back to work. There is a very slight time window that these flow-through shares would work for, which is basically between 2019 and 2026. We are talking about a very small group of wells that would be eligible for this. Companies could use this to offset some of the costs associated with it, but it is for the environment.

The bill before us has an excellent goal behind it. Why would we not support it? It would get people back to work with jobs. It would improve the environment, our landscapes and ecosystems. It offers an opportunity for us to do something that we are going to have to do anyway, which is fix up these well sites, which are all over Alberta, usually on people's properties. They will need to be remediated either way. Again, this is not for companies. It is for the environment.

To me, the downside is that it would cost $264 million by 2026, according to the PBO's cost estimate. However, it would get people who have great technical skills back to work and back out in the field. An excellent way of putting people back into the field is remediating these oil and gas wells.

The industry is the best in the world when it comes to this type of environmental work. There are wildlife biologists, people whose expertise is in rough fescue, which naturally grows in the foothills of Alberta. They are ready to go and do the work required for well remediation sites.

It was only a few years ago when some of the major Suncor sites were being remediated. What used to be an open-pit mine was completely remediated. We now have bison roaming again. It is a natural environment. One would not be able to tell what had been there, if it was not for the giant sign at the front of the site saying it used to be an open-pit mine. We have these large-scale industrial sites all over Canada.

I have known the member for Lakeland for a very long time, even pre-politics. We were in different provincial political parties. I am sure she would admit, and she would probably laugh at this, that we were probably each in the wrong political party. We likely would have identified as being in another one, should we have discussed it then.

However, she has been working at this for a long time. This type of proposal, had it been in place a decade or two ago, would have been able to support the sector and jobs in Alberta. We would not have to just wait for the Orphan Well Association to help remediate the sites for companies who can dig deep into foreign sources of capital to pay for remediation.

This would have been available for the smaller oil and gas companies in Alberta. It would have been available for the private sector. We say we have an ESG goal, say in a hedge fund or an equity fund, and we want to meet those. We have environmental and social goals that our fund investors want to meet. There is an opportunity right there. It would put tens of thousands of people back to work improving our environment and our landscapes. What could be better than that? We are using the Income Tax Act to do it, to offset some of the cost, not all of the cost, of this proposal.

I just do not see a downside to passing such a piece of legislation when the goal behind it is not subsidizing oil and gas companies but improving our environment. I just do not understand why other members of this House who had been in there originally will not support a piece of legislation like this. When we thought about this originally, it was just a total win on both sides. We would achieve a private sector goal, which is obviously to make a profit; and we would achieve an environmental goal, which is the remediation and improvement of our environment and the restoration of it to the condition it was in before industrial work was done on the property.

There is a Yiddish proverb that says, “he that cannot pay, let him pray.” Madam Speaker, I know you enjoy the Yiddish proverbs as much as I do. However, that is the case here.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thoughts and prayers for oil and gas.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I hear the same member chirping away again. I am sure it is a different condition out there in Hamilton and the regions that he comes from, but in my neck of the woods, in the southeast part of Calgary, I have a lot of oil and gas workers who have been out of work for years now.

Their severance pay has run out, they have no more space in a home equity line of credit, they are at the limit of what they can afford and the outlook is grim. For many of them, their kids, spouses, friends and former co-workers have moved to the United States or Algeria or South America to seek work, because there is a booming industry worldwide for oil and gas development. That might be hard to believe, but it is still going on. One of my neighbours is an LNG specialist, and he spent time working in Venezuela.

I have a lot of family members who moved out west specifically for work opportunities. Lots of those have dried up, and in connected industries the same thing is happening. We know in Alberta that oil and gas is not going to bounce back to the same as it was before. We have been through this before. Albertans are extremely resilient. This is not the first bust that we have experienced, frankly, and there will be other booms and other busts in the future. We have adapted, every single time, by changing our legislation, changing our regulations and looking after the environment. That is what we do best. That is what this piece of legislation proposes to do.

Through this, I see an opportunity to harness the power of the private sector to invest in things that it cares about. I see these hedge funds and equity funds out there, all over North America, looking toward investing in projects that have environmental and social goals behind them. ESG is the way of the future. Many of them are looking at things like carbon net-zero investments that they would like to make.

My riding is home to one of the most efficient gas turbine electricity-producing power stations in North America, with something like a 98% to 99% efficiency, producing half of the city of Calgary's electrical power. It is hyperefficient. There are barely any people working in that facility, and it has now added on a carbon capture and carbon utilization system as well.

Projects like this are how we are going to get to our environmental goals. Changes like this to the Income Tax Act would help the private sector achieve the environmental goals that we all share in this House. Climate change is real. We have to address it. This is a way to get there because, as I said, “he that cannot pay, let him pray”.

We are done praying. There is an opportunity here to make sure that the private sector pays for these types of costs.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-221, which seeks to amend the Income Tax Act and establish a tax incentive for the closure of oil and gas wells.

I want to acknowledge the work of the member for Lakeland, with whom I am fortunate to serve on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

I can say in no uncertain terms that, unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois does not support this bill for one very simple reason that my colleague from Repentigny already pointed out: Bill C-221 is inconsistent with the polluter-pay principle.

What is the polluter-pay principle? It is a basic environmental policy principle supported by all those who believe that the environment is a priority. The Bloc Québécois therefore wholeheartedly supports it. This principle stipulates that companies need to assume the costs of any environmental damage they do.

It is simple. If a party causes environmental damage, then it must pay to fix it. If it cannot be fixed, then the party pays to compensate for the irreparable harm it has done to nature. It is not up to the government or taxpayers to absorb those costs. That would be unfair and illogical. That would mean collectively agreeing to pay to fix the environmental damage caused by oil and gas companies, while receiving no collective benefit from the profits.

That is the problem the Bloc Québécois has with Bill C-221. If this bill were to pass, oil and gas companies would be given a tax credit for assuming their responsibilities. In other words, if we say yes to Bill C-221, we are saying yes to more funding for an industry that we know is harmful to the environment, rather than increasing funding for the energy transition. That reasoning does not hold water in 2021.

Obviously, it is not as if the oil and gas industry was the poor cousin in Canada. As a matter of fact, in April 2020, less than a year ago, the federal government provided $1.7 billion in financial assistance to clean-up and decommission orphan wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia.

It does not stop there. Alberta already funds hundreds of well reclamation projects within its jurisdiction. That province offers loans to oil and gas companies, and the payment of interests is secured by none other than the federal government.

They will say that this support is needed in a pandemic and that workers in western Canada need support. We agree with helping workers and companies in times of crisis, but taxpayers already absorb much of the environmental costs from the oil and gas industry.

Moreover, it seems to me that the pandemic has become an excuse for a lot of things, much too many things. The present environmental crisis cannot be swept under the rug under the pretense that a public health crisis is raging. That kind of rhetoric no longer holds water in 2021 either.

The scientific evidence is too compelling on the cause and effect relationship between the destruction of the environment in the past decades and the pandemic we are living through. We cannot afford to legislate only to potentially hold oil and gas producers accountable. We must enshrine in law the requirement to start the energy transition, and yet, Bill C-221 would have the opposite effect.

Do we believe that oil and gas companies would change their ways if the government compensated them for their environmental mistakes? I think I know the answer: not a chance. Using taxpayer money to pay the environmental costs of an industry that damages the environment, puts communities at risk and compromises our climate future is completely irresponsible.

The member for Lakeland, who introduced this bill, says that it is not up to Alberta's taxpayers to assume 100% of the cost of decommissioning orphan wells. She is quite right, but I am sure she would agree with me that it is not up to Quebec taxpayers to pay for it either.

The Bloc Québécois recognizes the urgent need to deal with orphan wells, and we are prepared to support pragmatic solutions to this problem. However, these solutions must meet certain conditions. They must respect the polluter pays principle, they must contribute to an overall effort to make the energy transition, they must come with regulations and, last of all, they must help Canada meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets.

The Bloc Québécois is willing to discuss amendments to Bill C-221 in order for it to meet the conditions I mentioned. In this debate about orphan wells, it is important to have a broader conversation and to be aware of the importance of tackling climate change without further delay. More and more people are insisting that we, the elected members, address this issue.

A 2017 study by the C.D. Howe Institute showed that of some 450,000 listed oil and gas wells in Alberta, about 155,000 were no longer active but had not been completely cleaned up. In the spring of 2020, the Pembina Institute estimated that there were 164,000 abandoned wells in the province. The institute reported that these wells carried risks and expenditures that had not been borne by the owners, even though the owners benefited from the wells when they were active. The same study showed that for Albertans, the potential costs of cleaning up these abandoned wells could be as high as $8 billion, and that was in 2017. Of course, today, the costs would be even higher.

In fact, official estimates by the Alberta Energy Regulator, the only regulatory body for the energy sector in the province, value oil and gas liabilities at over $30 billion. However, internal documents estimate the total cleanup costs of Alberta's oil and gas sector, including the oil sands, at $260 billion. Should Albertans pay the price for the oil and gas sector's environmental carelessness? Should all Quebeckers and Canadians foot the bill? The answer is obvious.

We know that the economic downturn Alberta has faced for 10 years pushed many oil companies to bankruptcy. The province was left with thousands of wells left unattended by companies that did not bother to clean up their mess. That is a huge environmental problem, but it is also a public health and safety issue. These abandoned wells can contaminate the water and the soil, release greenhouse gases and put nearby houses at risk of exploding. It is a growing problem that companies keep sweeping into taxpayers' backyards. So much for being good corporate citizens.

A lawyer from Ecojustice, a Vancouver-based group of lawyers who specialize in environmental law, said that the best way for the province to address the problem of abandoned oil wells is to require companies to make a security deposit before drilling. That would be a more forward-looking solution than Bill C-221. We need to fix the mistakes of the past first.

The issue of orphan wells needs to be addressed, but there need to be strict conditions to warrant having the public cover the cost. Any financial assistance associated with environmental risks, such as the decommissioning of orphan wells, must be done in conjunction with changes to the environmental regulations. Preventive measures must also be taken to stop perpetually aggravating this problem.

We simply cannot vote in favour of a bill that sustains an industry that is causing environmental degradation. Alberta and the other oil- and gas-producing provinces have the power to make regulations that would require the industry to take care of its wells. The pandemic must not be used as an excuse for deregulating the environmental protection sector. There are ways to prevent more orphan wells from popping up in Alberta. There are ways to avoid making the public pay astronomical bills.

Environmental trusts exist precisely to allow producers to share the risk among themselves in case one of them goes bankrupt. Oil and gas companies should be required to maintain enough assets to cover the costs of dismantling and cleaning up their facilities. In the event of bankruptcy, the law should require companies to fulfill their environmental responsibilities before having to pay off their creditors. To avoid bankruptcies, governments should modify their criteria to require companies to finance the end of life of their wells upfront. In short, laws and taxes should be used to prevent problems, not to fix them after the fact.

In conclusion, investing public money to fix the problem of orphan wells would only be justifiable if it were part of a comprehensive, ambitious plan for an energy transition. If such a plan existed, the investment necessary for closing down these wells would have the dual impact of protecting the environment and supporting energy sector workers and their families during the transition.

The Bloc Québécois has proposed a green recovery plan, with concrete solutions for a successful energy transition. In its plan, the Bloc suggests, among other things, that the unused funds from the Trans Mountain expansion project be redirected toward renewable energy projects to create jobs, a large part of which could be earmarked for Alberta to support its green transition.

However, we are still waiting for the Liberal government's comprehensive strategy for a green recovery. Without stricter environmental regulations, measures like the tax credit proposed in Bill C-221 amount to little more than a new kind of subsidy for the fossil fuel industry.

The economic recovery policy should include powerful incentives to encourage companies to move away from fossil fuels and invest in clean and renewable technologies. The Bloc Québécois cannot support a bill that would make taxpayers bear the staggering costs of Canada's dependence on oil. The Bloc Québécois is prepared to stand in solidarity with the taxpayers, workers and families of western Canada on condition that laws and regulations are put in place to end the Canadian economy's dependence on fossil fuels from the previous century.

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

Resuming debate.

I invite the hon. member for Lakeland for her five-minute right of reply.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the debate on my PMB, Bill C-221, the environmental restoration incentive act, which is one part of what must be a multipronged approach to a current and future risk that needs resolution.

There is rarely a single perfect public policy remedy to a complex real-world challenge. Exponentially increasing orphaned and abandoned wells are mainly a result of major bankruptcies and a widespread economic collapse, caused in part by Canada's own anti-energy federal government and the 2019 Redwater decision that prevents struggling small oil and gas developers from getting private financing when nearing bankruptcy with outstanding remediation liabilities. The federal government can take real action while provinces do their part.

My bill exclusively focuses on the most financially challenged small and medium-sized oil and gas businesses and fairly proposes to include this tool that is currently available to other sectors, such as exploration development in mining, fabrication of metals and other technologies such as wind turbines, geothermal energy and fuel cells. Before 2017, flow-through shares could be used by oil and gas producers for drilling and exploration too. It makes sense to extend it to the smallest, most at-risk energy businesses in Canada, which cannot secure private sector financing due to their precarious economic positions and liabilities, specifically to encourage the remediation and reclamation efforts that they were doing under normal financial circumstances.

It is a no-brainer. Why should flow-through share provisions be limited to the extraction and production fees of resource development and not be available as an environmental remediation tool? South Okanagan—West Kootenay's NDP MP said he accepts the use of flow-through shares for mining extraction. I wonder why we cannot all agree that they should be used to stimulate private sector financing for restoration as well.

What is very odd is that the MPs who like flow-through shares for production but not remediation also offered support for a colleague's intended bill for qualifying environmental trusts. I supported it also, but the fact is that it would have immediately helped only the largest producers with the advantage of cash on hand. My Bill C-221 helps the smallest businesses on the edge of bankruptcy, businesses that cannot get financing and cannot or will not access the federal government's predatory payday style LEEFF loans or the BDC's co-lending and mid-market programs.

Some colleagues say my bill is a subsidy. I have explained extensively why it is not and I will not revisit that question, but I must emphasize that my intent is to protect taxpayers in the long run and limit public liability. My bill is a discount for Canadian taxpayers.

Canada’s oil and gas sector contributed $493 billion in revenues to governments in Canada between 2000 and 2018. That is $26 billion per year. The PBO says my bill will cost $264 million in total, ending in 2026. It could potentially cost taxpayers everywhere $70 billion for all 130,000 active and inactive wells in Canada today.

Davenport’s Liberal MP talked about the need to support measures that help companies avoid bankruptcy and support our environmental targets. Bill C-221 does exactly those things, but deliberately limits the use of public funds by enabling the lion’s share of financing, specifically for remediation and reclamation, to come from the private sector.

Bloc MPs urged the polluter pay principle. Yes, the Conservatives enshrined it in law, but the fact is that voting against my bill goes against that principle, ignores the realities of small and medium-sized oil and gas businesses and workers on the edge of total devastation, and leaves either a lack of remediation or only taxpayers liable.

My bill is real action, not just rhetoric, on the polluter pay principle to help the most vulnerable energy businesses—

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

I have to interrupt the hon. member for Lakeland.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands is rising on a point of order.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think we heard the member say that her Internet connection is unstable.

For the benefit of the member, I know a lot of work goes into a private member's bill, and she does have the right to respond. I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow her to restate the last 30 or 45 seconds. We did not hear that, and I think she has a right to be heard.

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

Does the hon. member have unanimous consent?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

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

Can the hon. member for Lakeland start about 30 seconds back in her speech, please?

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the generosity. I do not know where I was. I think I am frozen—

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

Are you still having issues with your Internet connection? Your frame keeps freezing and your voice stops.

We can hear you now.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I am out in rural Alberta. I promise I am wrapping up, but I want to thank all members for helping me do this.

The Liberal member for Davenport talked about the need to support measures that help companies avoid bankruptcy and support our environmental targets. Bill C-221 does exactly those things, but deliberately limits the use of public funds by enabling the lion’s share of financing to go specifically for remediation and reclamation by the private sector.

The Bloc members urged the polluter pay principle, which, yes, the Conservatives enshrined in law, but the fact is that voting against my bill would run against that principle, ignore the realities of small and medium-sized oil and gas businesses and workers on the edge of total devastation, and leave either a lack of remediation or only taxpayers liable.

My bill is real action, not just rhetoric, on the polluter pay principle to help the most vulnerable energy businesses; not big oil and not major multinationals, but literally the little guys. The NDP MP said that Canadian taxpayers should not foot the bill and I agree. However, inaction, doing nothing, defeating this bill, would help guarantee they would.

Frankly, the objections have been mostly ideological and geographical, with no real alternative proposals. This is a challenge across Canada in most provinces. In Alberta alone, most wells are on private land. Financially forced abandonments are magnets for rural crime, but there are tens of thousands of wells on government land, on Crown grazing leases, and thousands on indigenous reserve lands too. What happens to all of them when companies go bankrupt?

Since 2015, Canada’s energy sector has lost $200 billion and 200,000 jobs while orphan and abandoned wells have increased 300%. That is not a coincidence, but a consequence. That was before 37% of oil and gas companies had to make permanent layoffs to stay alive at the start of last year. There is little light at the end of the tunnel.

I passionately support Canada’s oil and gas workers. The sector is the most environmentally and socially responsible in the world. It is crucial to the whole country’s economy and future. Bill C-221 can help continue its unmatched stewardship, clean-tech investment and innovation exceeding standards, while protecting farmers, municipalities, land owners, indigenous communities, the environment, taxpayers, and creating badly needed jobs. I hope MPs in all parties will actually walk their talk and support this bill.

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

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

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

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

I see the hon. member for Saskatoon—Grasswood rising.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Madam Speaker, I request a recorded vote.

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

Accordingly, pursuant to an order made on Monday, January 25, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, March 10, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

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

Women and Gender Equality

[Jenica Atwin, Green, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am raising an issue today in our adjournment proceedings that I originally raised on December 3 during Oral Questions.

Almost a year ago, the UN Women issued a statement calling violence against women and girls the shadow pandemic. This should come as no surprise and it should not have taken COVID to expose the ways our society perpetuates this violence.

The data tells us that half of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. Approximately every six days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. Despite decades of research and community activism across the country, violence against those identifying as women, girls or two-spirit people persists as a manifestation of misogyny, objectification and discrimination.

Women from all walks of life are victims and survivors of various types of physical, sexual and psychological violence inflicted by intimate partners: people they trust and often share their homes and lives with.

In 1982, MP Margaret Mitchell prompted a ruckus in the House of Commons that sparked national awareness of domestic violence. She told the House that 1 in 10 Canadian husbands regularly beat his wife. The male MPs erupted, laughing and shouting. She furiously replied that this is no laughing matter.

It has been almost 40 years, and things have changed in the House. No MP would laugh at that statement today, but not enough has changed in the houses of the women of this country. The violence persists.

I know there is room for enhanced leadership from our federal and provincial governments. I think of the recent government-funded, victim-blaming ad campaign in Montreal that showed an image of a young girl with a bag over her head, as though it was her fault that sexually explicit images of her were being passed around by anonymous men and boys on the Internet. This is unacceptable and adds to the hesitancy to report such abuses for fear of backlash.

In my home province, a group of survivors of sexual assault have gone public this week saying that they have been manipulated by the provincial government, and their experiences and research are being used as a way for the government to create the illusion of wanting to help. We need government leadership and allyship that goes beyond illusion.

We know the statistics are worse for indigenous women; Black women; queer, non-binary and two-spirited women; newcomer women; women with disabilities; and women who are otherwise marginalized. Our approach must centre on an intersectional lens to address the unique and specific challenges of those facing the highest rates of gender-based violence. I will use this opportunity to remind the government of its responsibility to put forward the action plan to address the findings of the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.

The challenges of COVID-19 cannot be an excuse for the delay. As I have outlined, the urgency has only increased, and we must respond. No more stolen sisters. No more brights lights snuffed out in the night. We need to act. We need a cultural shift. I believe it can start with leadership, and it starts with our generation here and now.

As the mother of young boys, I teach my children to respect all people, to find the right language to address their emotions and talk about the ways they may be struggling. I talk to them about tough subjects and the hard truths in this world, but I also teach them about the opportunity to change it. I empower them to do their part and trust their abilities. I am proud that my children are also young indigenous boys, Wolastoqew, who will be encouraged to end gender-based violence, and to lift up and protect the women in their community.

I look forward to hearing the member opposite discuss the role her government can play in combatting this shadow pandemic in Canada.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Fredericton for her hard work and advocacy on this important subject.

Since 2015, our government has been working to prevent gender-based violence, to address the root causes, and support long-term solutions. We have worked with women's movements and organizations on the ground who have been doing this work for decades, even when the government before us left them underfunded and undermined for 10 years. We know that the experience and knowledge of these groups is so important.

Ending gender-based violence does not happen overnight, but I can confirm that our government will continue to be collaborative, persistent and committed to sustainable change. Thanks to the investments of our government in women and gender equality, six million people benefit each year. In 2017, we announced the first-ever federal strategy to prevent and address gender-based violence by bringing together all federal efforts to prevent GBV.

Think about that: It took 150 years for a federal strategy to be created and designed to prevent GBV. Through the federal strategy, over $200 million has been invested to expand and align federal efforts against gender-based violence. Through that strategy, we have supported innovative projects and programming with a whole-of-government approach.

Here are a few examples: Developing a framework to address gender-based violence in post-secondary institutions; creating and testing innovative practices to prevent teen dating violence; supporting the Canadian Centre for Child Protection; addressing gaps in supports for indigenous survivors of GBV across the country. Building on the foundations laid by the strategy, we are now working with provincial and territorial governments and indigenous leaders to advance the national action plan to end gender-based violence.

The key word there is “national”. In January, just a month ago, federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for the status of women came together over a few days with a joint declaration on a commitment to a Canada free from gender-based violence. This is such a significant milestone. This plan will address root causes to prevent gender-based violence and ensure that anyone facing GBV has reliable and timely access to protection and services, no matter where they live.

However, our work does not stop there. We announced $22.4 million in new funding to organizations providing supports for at-risk populations, including survivors of violence, as part of the national strategy to combat human trafficking. In December, we announced our government's support for 63 organizations engaged in this work.

We are also actively working to provide crucial support to those most vulnerable in the COVID-19 pandemic. We are providing up to $100 million in funding to shelters, sexual assault centres and other organizations working to support those experiencing GBV at this difficult time.

We believe strongly that, by acting quickly, by listening to experts and advocates and by engaging all levels of government, working closely with our partners and by investing in the most sustainable approaches, we will be on track to end gender-based violence in all its forms.

[Jenica Atwin, Green, Fredericton, NB]

Madam Speaker, I am reminded of my experience in my first year of university during orientation. I was given a rape whistle. I was shown the dark paths not to go down and told stories of the women who had gone before me. Here is a thought: instead of arming women with rape whistles, and instead of removing responsibility from the perpetrators, how about we tell young women all the ways that we will support them and focus on their safety; that we will educate them and their classmates about consent; that, should any problems arise, they should contact authorities without hesitation; that we will believe them and that their offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law?

We do not say these things, and in many ways we cannot yet, because of the ongoing failures of our system. How about we also direct-fund organizations, particularly those supporting women fleeing domestic violence and those providing mental health services, meeting women with open doors instead of a lack of options? How about a guaranteed livable income, so that women are not financially dependent on their abusers?

I know that our generation has the power to put an end to gender-based violence. We require ongoing leadership and dedicated funding from the government to do it.

[Gudie Hutchings, Liberal, Long Range Mountains, NL]

Madam Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the member opposite, and I was so delighted to be in discussions with the federal, provincial and territorial ministers, when education was such a vital part of that conversation, and it is how everything has to start.

We know that GBV is a pervasive problem, but we are working quickly and actively to end it in all its forms, and we all have to do this together. Since the early days of the pandemic last year, we have engaged over 1,000 individuals, representing organizations working in the GBV sector across the country, on priorities and the next steps on that plan. That plan is going to be devised by people working with all levels of government from the ground up. We know some people and populations in Canada are more likely to experience violence, and many are facing unique barriers and challenges that put them at particular risk of gender-based violence. That is why applying an intersectional lens to development of the national action plan continues to be at the heart of all of our efforts.

I commend the member opposite. She sounds like an amazing mom, and I am glad that she is starting her young boys out right.

Ethics

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to join the adjournment proceedings this evening to speak about an issue that we see reported in the papers today. That is the question of lobbying during this time when we have so much money flowing out from the federal government.

Of course, helping Canadians is paramount during these unprecedented times. We need to make sure that we are getting funding to support individuals, families, seniors and people who are living in at-risk situations and are marginalized. We need to make sure we are supporting small and medium-sized businesses, and that the provinces have the funding they need to fulfill their health care obligations.

When the federal government spends money there are questions to ask. Who is keeping an eye on the cash that is leaving the register? Who is making sure that it is being done in a fair and transparent manner? Of course we have independent officers of Parliament who are given the responsibility to make sure that things are done in an ethical manner. We have our Ethics Commissioner. We have our Lobbying Commissioner as well. When requests or interventions are made, where people are looking to do business with the government or do business with Canadians on behalf of the government, there are rules that need to be followed.

We are going to see the WE scandal back in the news in the coming days as we have more witnesses testifying at the ethics committee. Of course, this is an issue born out of a situation where Canada's Prime Minister and Canada's now former finance minister failed to recuse themselves from awarding a contract worth half a billion dollars to an organization that employed the immediate family members of the then finance minister and that had paid members of the Prime Minister's family half a million dollars.

If that is not enough to raise flags that perhaps there is a conflict of interest, or a need to recuse, or an obligation to consult the Lobbying Commissioner or the Ethics Commissioner, I am not sure what would. However, while originally we were told that nobody in the Prime Minister's family was paid by the WE organization and the two could not be farther apart, we later learned that, of course, that was not true. Half a million dollars was paid to members of the Prime Minister's family. During its heavy lobbying of the government, the WE organization even included pictures of the Prime Minister's family working for them in its brief to the federal cabinet, just to make sure it sealed the deal and that everyone at the table knew who was who in the zoo.

Even today, we read in Blacklock's Reporter that a lobbyist with a group here in Ottawa had emailed the procurement minister's office last March, seeking a contract for their son. The response from the minister's chief of staff was that she had vouched for the individual and forwarded the email for preferential treatment. Was that contact reported to the Lobbying Commissioner? I think colleagues know the answer to that.

We have seen this pattern with the government. What we are looking for is transparency. We are looking to hear from the government if it will finally co-operate with the independent officers of Parliament, give them the unfettered access they need and waive cabinet confidences. That is what we are looking for.