Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to share time with the member for Calgary Centre, who did an excellent of job laying out the Conservative Party's frustration with this situation.
The potential shutdown of Line 5 has been on our radar since November of 2020 and, once again, the government has ignored a deadline or failed to manage to a deadline. We are now two days away from that deadline and we have not heard much from the government.
I find it quite interesting that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has declared a discussion on Line 5 and the tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost in Sarnia and other places, where workers are anxious, quite frankly, as to what is going to happen with Line 5, a waste of time. For him to declare that as a waste of time and for him to declare that the House should not consider this issue at every possible opportunity just shows the entire government's approach on this issue. The Liberals do not want to talk about it and they have not talked about it. As a result of their ignoring the issue and not pursuing it as a priority, we have a situation where we are two days away from a deadline imposed by the Governor of Michigan and we still do not have a resolution to this matter.
I am the vice-chair of the special committee, the committee that was created because of an initiative by the Conservative opposition. We saw Line 5 as a priority, we saw buy America as a potential threat to our country, so we took action and proposed that this committee be created to specifically hear from witnesses on this issue. We did, and every witness we heard from agreed that the pipeline should continue to operate and that the only way this would be resolved outside of a lengthy and drawn out court process was for the Prime Minister of Canada to get directly involved and elevate this to the level of President Biden. We have not seen that happen. We have not seen the Prime Minister take this up directly with the President. We have not seen this become a priority. We have not seen him making any noise on it, so we will make noise on it.
As the official opposition, we will continue to draw attention to the fact that the government is failing the workers in Sarnia and elsewhere along this route. This is an unacceptable dereliction of duty for the Prime Minister to have simply allowed this to go on. This is exactly the same approach we saw with the Keystone XL pipeline. The Prime Minister made some token efforts and said some token words about support for the Keystone XL pipeline, but when President Biden cancelled it and cancelled the tens of thousands of high-paying union jobs, the Prime Minister simply said that President made campaign promise so what could they do about it.
If only the Prime Minister of Canada placed the same weight on his own campaign promises, but he does not seem to care much for those. However, when President Biden says he will shut down a pipeline and kill thousands of jobs, the Prime Minister of Canada just simply walks away from the fight and the tens and thousands of jobs that have been lost.
That is, quite frankly, what our concern is. The Prime Minister has some token words. He said that he would like it to keep running, but no one believes that if he were in the position of the Governor of Michigan, that he would not have the same approach. The Prime Minister has shut down and cancelled approved pipeline projects on the flimsiest of evidence. He cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, which had gone through a massive approvals process, had met all the environmental reviews, had buy-in, a $2 billion stake for indigenous communities along the way. They would all be a key part of that pipeline and he killed it because he said, “the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline.”
That is the level of engagement, that is the level of scientific rigour that the Prime Minister will put on cancelling a pipeline. It is no wonder that he sits idly by while the Governor of Michigan threatens the pipeline. It supposedly threatens the Great Lakes even though, as my colleague from Calgary Centre has said, this thing has operated for decades without threatening the Great Lakes. The biggest threat to the Great Lakes would be additional rail, truck and barge traffic carrying that same 550,000 barrels a day from a safe pipeline onto those less safe, more emission intensive modes of transportation
I want to take a moment to thank the member for Sarnia—Lambton for standing up for her constituents. Today, the NDP have declared this debate to be a waste of time. The Liberals have declared this debate is a waste of time. The member for Sarnia—Lambton has been standing up for her community and the tens of thousands of jobs that are at risk.
We have heard from union leaders for whom supposedly the Prime Minister stands up. I guess he does not care too much for their jobs, but he likes their votes. They were very upset that the Keystone XL pipeline had been cancelled along with the jobs. They issued a direct request to the Prime Minister, a challenge.
Scott Archer from UA Local 663 in Sarnia said, “I'd like to issue a challenge to...[the Prime Minister] and the federal government. This is a call to action. [As Canadians, this] is non-negotiable. You need to take a stand to protect Canadian families, businesses and industry.”
I would submit that the Prime Minister has absolutely failed to take up that challenge. He has failed to make this issue a priority. He likes to go to the summits. He likes to give speeches with Selena Gomez. He likes to do all the high-profile stuff that brings him positive headlines. However, when it comes to actually getting down to business and standing up for Canadian workers who will be impacted not only in Sarnia but also in Alberta, we know exactly what the Prime Minister thinks about that industry.
He has said before that he wants to phase out the oil sands. He has said before that he is opposed to these types of pipelines. Albertans and Western Canadians know exactly what kind of advocate they have in the Prime Minister for their jobs, which is none. He has shown before that for political gain he is willing to sacrifice them and the industry they represent.
One would hope that the Prime Minister would take this up more effectively and more publicly, quite frankly, with President Biden instead of simply saying now that the bad man President Trump is gone everything is back to normal. There are still immediate threats on the horizon.
However, we hear nothing from the Prime Minister on those. He seems content to let President Biden do whatever he wants when it comes to the relationship with Canada. It does not matter how many well-paying union jobs will be killed. It does not matter how our energy sovereignty is threatened. It does not matter that tens of thousands of jobs in Sarnia alone will be impacted or that tens of thousands more trucks will come across places like Windsor and Essex, jamming up those crucial crossings and bringing petrochemicals onto our highways. It does not matter. The Prime Minister cannot be bothered to pick up the phone and make this into a matter that President Biden will take seriously.
We know Governor Whitmer was on the short list for vice-president. She has a strong relationship with President Biden and it is time for the Prime Minister to take advantage of that. It is time he take advantage of the supposed new-found friendship and relationship with President Biden and escalate this matter. All we have heard so far are pretty words and good intentions, but we have seen no action and no results.
The people who depend on this pipeline for their family supporting jobs cannot rely on the Prime Minister saying he has it under control when he has shown time and time again that he will fail to stand up for energy sector workers, that he will fail to stand up for Canadian pipelines, the safest way to transport petroleum products in the world. He will not stand up for those jobs. He will not stand up for that industry. He has failed them time and time before, and he is failing them right now.
The official opposition does not think that talking about Line 5 and the jobs it supports is a waste of time. We say shame on those in the other parties who have said this is a waste of time and shame on the Prime Minister for his failure to get this matter resolved diplomatically.