Debates of May 17th, 2022

Opposition Motion—Subsidies for the Oil and Gas Sector

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I do want to remind members that the questions on the debate should be focused on the motion before the House. I will allow the hon. member to answer, but I do want to remind members that they are to make sure there is relevancy.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Madam Speaker, clearly the member was swayed by my speech because he is now changing the subject. I commend him for that.

He is right that we were stalled not only by the WE organization but also by the Liberal government in its unwillingness to be transparent. They moved heaven and earth to ensure that the secrets remain secret. I know that the member believes there was information the Canadian taxpayer deserves to know. The corruption that was alleged, and the corruption that was starting to be exposed, never got to see the light of day because of the work of the Liberal Party. That is why I am so concerned about the deal the NDP has struck with the Liberal government to keep the corrupt government in power.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, many Conservatives kind of live in the past, and we see that in their attitudes toward climate change. The member made reference to the idea of trucks. He gets into the truck, and he takes his drive. It is all that kind of stuff. He says that is what his constituents want.

I think that the Conservatives have the mentality of not really understanding the importance of the climate change issue. To get a lesson from Ford Canada, if we want to buy a brand new Ford half-ton truck that is electric, we will be waiting for four years. Even his constituents realize that the need for transition, change and going to hybrids and electric vehicles is there.

When does he believe the Conservative Party is going to catch up with the rest of Canadians in regard to the transition?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is the kind of disrespect and disgusting behaviour of “Ottawa knows best” that we see in the House. Saying to my constituents to turn off their pickup for the next four years and wait until there is an electric truck available to them, and suggesting that they are living in the past because they will not immediately transition to a vehicle that is not yet available to them, is disgusting and despicable. The member should apologize.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Speaker, let us come back to the topic at hand. In his speech, my colleague mentioned that, although the oil industry is heavily subsidized, it also brings in a lot of revenue and that that money is used for other things. The figure he mentioned was $20 billion a year.

Did he forget about the $10 billion that we are paying into the industry? Did he forget about the $10 billion invested in Trans Mountain? Did he forget about the $2.4 billion the government just promised for carbon capture, a technique that we know does not work? Most importantly, did he forget about how much climate change is costing? We only have to think about what happened in British Columbia last year.

At some point, the government needs to start getting serious and move forward in the right direction. It needs to stop name-calling and saying that there are dishonest people.

I understand that members work for their constituents. We must continue to put money into those ridings as we are doing now, but that money should be used for the energy transition. Is it not time to do that?

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Madam Speaker, I hate to imagine that the Bloc has joined the course of MPs and parties that want to drive up fuel prices at a time when we are seeing record high fuel prices.

I have come here today to fight for my constituents who are finding it impossible—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Madam Speaker, the NDP is heckling me, because I am asking for fuel prices to be reduced—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is amazing. The NDP is heckling and suggesting there are record profits. Do members know who is enjoying record profits from the high price of fuel right now? It is the Government of Canada and governments across this country, and those are being invested in health care, our roads and the infrastructure across this country. The NDP does not suggest for a second that those should be reduced. They are just saying—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

We have run out of time. I have allowed for more time than was permitted.

I would like to remind members again that heckling and sharing their thoughts out loud is disrespectful when someone else has the floor. I would again ask members, because it has happened a lot this morning, to please hold onto their thoughts or write them down so they do not forget them. They will be able to ask a question or share their comments during questions and comments.

We will resume debate with the hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate being able to get up and speak to the motion the NDP has put forward. However, as I was drafting my speech, I had to ask myself where I could start here today.

When I look at the motion, in the preamble it says, “(i) Canadians are paying almost $2 per litre of gas at the pump,” which is true. They do pay that. It then says, “(ii) oil and gas companies are making record profits,” and we will analyze what that actually means. The preamble then continues, “(iii) Canada spends 14 times more on financial support to the fossil fuel sector than it does for renewable energy,” which is complete hogwash, and I will address that item first.

The preamble itself is a mulch of misinformation, and the NDP is very good at that. The NDP is very good at putting misinformation on the table and saying, “Here's what's going to happen here.” They then repeat a narrative that is completely false. I tried to participate last week at a forum hosted by my colleague who put this motion forward. I noticed that my party was the only party that was not invited to that forum, and that is because the other parties in the House have members who buy into this nonsense narrative about the way the transition happens.

Now, my party and I have very good ideas about how we actually transition and decarbonize our economy, all of which are based on reason and outcomes, and none of which I have seen from the Liberals, the Bloc, the NDP nor the Green Party. Getting somewhere on the environmental equation is essential, and none of the other parties have presented anything that advances the environmental equation for the world. All they do is kneecap the Canadian industry.

I did some research after that forum. I went to look for where this figure came from of subsidies in Canada for our oil and gas industry being 14 times more than what we fund for our alternative energy industry, and it comes from a group called Oil Change International, which is a proxy organization for Greenpeace. Its leadership comes from Friends of the Earth, and it is funded by the Tides Foundation. It is a splash of the same voices producing louder and more dissonant narratives about how we can actually decarbonize the world.

Frankly, I will take licence on this, Madam Speaker, and you may have to slap me here, but it is a lie. It is something that this misinformation is based upon, and frankly, it needs to be called out for what it is whenever we see it here. As parliamentarians, our job here is to speak the truth and only the truth. When we foment misinformation by repeating lies from the Internet, we are going towards that confirmation bias, which we buy into and which our people buy into. We must get the real facts on the table here. We must ignore these groups, such as Oil Change International, which are just rent-seekers putting money in their own pockets at the expense of Canadians.

I actually asked if there were—

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point or order. I followed the member for Calgary Centre as closely as I could. He expected to have his wrist slapped, and if I understood him correctly, he called this motion from one of the hon. members of this place a “lie”, which is the same as saying that the hon. member for Victoria is a liar, unless I misheard him. Perhaps he can clarify.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I believe when the hon. member is asking for clarification it is actually more of a point of debate. I want to remind members to be judicious with the words they are selecting.

The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to speak to the point of order that was raised. To be clear, I was listening as well and I do not think there is any reason why the member for Calgary Centre should have expected to have his wrist slapped at all. He did not call any member of this chamber a liar; rather, he brought attention to the fact that lies are repeated, and that is a—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I actually ruled that this was not a point of order. Now it is becoming more a point of debate. The hon. member mentioned that he thought he might get his wrist slapped, which I did not do because of the way it was said, so I want to indicate that what is going on right now is more a point of debate.

The hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is the first time I have used that word in the House. I was wondering if it was a usable word in the House or a three-letter word that disguised a four-letter word. Thank you for the clarification.

Yes, the information being fomented by Oil Change International is a lie. I will repeat that in the House, because it is the truth.

Let us go back to the analysis and look at the real numbers. I have been looking at the oil and gas industry and how much it has contributed to Canada over the past 21 years, which is $505 billion. That is more than half a trillion dollars it has given in economic rent to governments across Canada. That $505 billion is even a number in the real Liberal world, when it runs its deficits. Let us look at what that buys. How much health care does that buy? How much schooling and old age security does that buy? That buys the lifestyle Canadians have enjoyed for decades here, thanks to a prosperous natural resource industry led by Canada's oil and gas industry. The GDP number I have here is $128 billion, and $120 billion is our trade surplus in the oil and gas industry. That is balanced by about $30 billion of imports, so it is about a $90-billion surplus we are talking about for this industry, and 522,000 jobs.

I know the New Democrats would like to see those 522,000 workers have their legs cut out from under them and not be able to provide for their families, but I do not think they understand the impact that has on families, because the impact it has on families—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby is rising on a point of order.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, when we speak in the House we have to have at least some connection with the truth, and the member is straying far from any semblance of relying on the truth here.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, my focus was somewhere else at the time. I will have to review what the hon. member said and come back to decide whether or not this is an actual point of order.

I want to remind members to make sure when they are debating that what they say is relevant and that they hopefully provide factual information.

The hon. member for Calgary Centre.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is the first time that anybody in the NDP has actually challenged me on the truth because the motion they put on the table here is riddled with misinformation, so let us get to the heart of the matter. Do we realize the cost when we lose 522,000 jobs in Canada? It would be devastating for families across this country and there would no longer be any social support provided through that industry, which funds our country more than any other industry in Canada right now.

My colleague pointed out that $20 billion was supplied by this industry as economic rent to governments across Canada last year alone, in not that prosperous a year for oil and gas companies in Canada. That $20 billion would be in addition to the $52-billion deficit, plus all of the economic dislocation that would happen if we actually tried to change this industry more than it is actually already changing itself.

Industry has its own job to do and it is doing it very well. I am going to move to where we are actually looking at this whole notion of profitability. There is something called the reinvestment ratio. When the government came to power, the reinvestment ratio, which is the amount of money the oil and gas companies were spending to drill and develop new resources versus the amount they were actually paying back, was 1.82. That means for every dollar that they earned, they put $1.82 back in the ground to develop a future resource for Canada. It was a development industry.

That number now, members would be surprised to learn, is actually down to 0.29, so 29% of the money that comes through the industry actually gets put into development. That is because there is no line of sight on what happens to the money in the future, and that is a result of extremely poor policies from the government. There is no line of sight. Yes, the government has had to step in and buy infrastructure that should have been built by the private sector, but its policies punished those private sector organizations by asking how we invest in a country where there is no line of sight on how we actually earn money on our investments.

Government investment is fine. Private sector investment actually looks to make sure it gets a return on its investment. It is a concept most of my colleagues, in all four parties in the House, have almost no concept about: a return on investment. That is required around the world, not just in Canada.

Let us talk about the environment a bit. Let us talk about carbon capture, because my colleagues here will know it is one of my premier pieces about how we actually decarbonize the world. Somebody referenced the International Energy Agency. The International Energy Agency, an international organization, of course, says that 7% of our decarbonization will come from carbon capture, utilization and storage over the next 20 years.

However, 7% is not enough. Let us find more ways to decarbonize this industry. When we think about methane reductions in Canada, we lead the world on our environmental practices and how we are actually getting to a better environmental outcome for the world. The industry's production of hydrocarbons is down 30% in its carbon intensity over the past 15 years. That leads every Canadian industry in its decarbonization.

That leads every country in the world, as far as oil and gas industries go. The only two countries we need to compare ourselves with in this regard are the United States and Norway. They are our only two peers. We are far better than the United States and we are on par with Norway, both of which have better carbon capture regimes than we do. We need to do better and make sure that our environmental practices match those of the most advanced countries in the world. We need to be the most advanced country in the world on these decarbonization initiatives.

I am going to deviate now, because I think in the spirit of productivity and in actually working with my colleagues across the aisles, I am going to propose an amendment to this bill where we add at the bottom:

(c) the Government of Canada identifies and eliminates inefficient energy industry subsidies by 2023. It should clearly identify, quantify and phase out programs for the Canadian energy sector that subsidize compliance with existing regulations.

1. Inefficient subsidies shall be deemed as those government grants or payments below market, provisions of capital, contracts for differences, social financing, unequal capital cost allowance allocation differentials, trade access, program funding and expenditures to reduce delayed taxation, such as flow-through financing mechanisms, as provided by all levels of government;

2. Further, “inefficient” shall be interpreted to mean the incentives granted under such programming shall result in fewer funds being provided to all levels of government as a result of the programming. That is, the economic rent received by the various levels of government must be less than that received had the subsidy not been implemented;

3. In addition, as energy is an essential input to society and human development, and the source of the energy is fungible with respect to its social utility, the common measurements be applied across all energy sources that receive any government subsidies or programming from all levels of government. Common comparison elements must include full cycle costing, including purchase and disposition of capital equipment and common depreciation schedules, capital cost allowance rates and accredited capital costs. The level of comparison in costs and benefits is essential to determining relative efficiency of subsidization;

4. Such inefficient allocation of government resources shall not be applied to programming that aims to obtain societal objectives beyond the aim of sourcing safe, secure, affordable energy for Canadians, specifically programming applied for scientific advancements in environmental technologies to better the outcomes—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I'm sorry, I think there is probably a problem with interpretation.

The hon. member for Shefford.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, the interpreter said that she did not receive the member's amendment, so it is harder for her to provide an interpretation of it.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It seems that the interpretation did not get a copy of the amendment ahead of time, so I would just maybe ask the hon. member to slow down.

I invite the hon. member to repeat point number four.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, 4. Inefficient allocation of government resources shall not be applied to programming that aims to attain societal objectives beyond the aim of sourcing safe, secure, affordable energy for Canadians; specifically, programming applied for scientific advancements in environmental technologies to better the outcomes of energy sources that are by design inefficient, particularly at the early stages of development, which is when government action through programming is most importantly applied to derive better societal outcomes.

It is an amendment that is meant to allow the government the ability to fund these new environmental technologies that are always more expensive for industry at the front end and actually continue to kind of compare a base level about what the subsidy is in this industry versus these other industries where the government is shovelling money out the door right now, to try and say this is more important for us than others. I am hoping—