Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by reading an excerpt from the request for the emergency debate, and members will all understand why. It reads, “The Minister of Natural Resources has confirmed this one pipeline alone is responsible for 53% of Ontario's crude and 66% of Quebec's.”
Members cannot imagine how happy I was to hear the leader of the official opposition mention that 66% earlier. I was happy because I remember how, during the election campaign, the Conservative Party, with its much-touted energy corridor project, kept repeating that most of Quebec's oil comes from dictatorship countries or the United States.
Earlier I was blown away when the leader of the official opposition told us that was not true. I hope that this lie, which was repeated multiple times, will not come up again in the future. I must say I was somewhat offended by the answer that he gave me. The leader of the official opposition told me that the Bloc Québécois is not a party that supports the regions and that we stand up for urban centres. I was offended because the regions of Quebec mainly live off the forestry industry, not the oil industry. I have never heard a typical Conservative talk about forestry. I was therefore somewhat offended, but I am not vindictive, so I will quickly move on to something else.
Earlier this afternoon, as I was reflecting on today's debate, I thought there was a rather interesting connection with the pandemic we are experiencing. What does a crisis do? A crisis makes us confront our vulnerabilities. We went through this early on in the pandemic when we saw the gaps in our supply chains. Masks and vaccines come to mind. It forced us to confront our vulnerabilities. It showed us that we were not ready. We depend on exports, and I feel as though we are also dependent when it comes to our energy and our energy consumption. We are dependent on something, and we know what that is: oil.
Another major crisis that certainly lies ahead is climate change. Will we be ready to live through this climate crisis?
Based on what I am hearing tonight, I want to say no, because we do not seem to have learned anything from what has happened to us. Canada is still fundamentally an oil state that thinks only in terms of oil and for oil.
I believe the debate on Enbridge is an opportunity to revisit two fairly simple concepts: energy independence and the energy transition. I do find it surprising that it is the United States, or at least one U.S. state, that is asking us to take care of ecosystems. Let us be smart about this. We have to realize that the Great Lakes provide drinking water to 40 million people. We know there was a 3.2-million-litre spill in the Kalamazoo River.
I do not think it is appropriate for us to get a wake-up call from a U.S. state and for us to tell Enbridge today that it can go ahead, anything goes, it can do what it likes and we will put environmental considerations aside as long as the oil industry is fine and there are jobs. I think that we, by which I mean everyone besides me, must do some collective soul-searching about Canada's dependence on oil and gas, because I believe it is a terrible disease that Canada has been carrying around for over 20 years.
Why do I say that? I spoke earlier about the energy transition.
Concerning getting out of the crisis, the Liberal government announced to us that it wants a “green recovery”. We all remember that. Ms. McKenna and Mr. Wilkinson were involved, as well as Mr. Guilbeault. I thought that the green recovery was promising and that we could perhaps live—