Mr. Speaker, it is always great to speak on behalf of the people of Chilliwack—Hope in the House.
Today we are speaking to a Conservative motion that basically calls on the government to stop speaking out of both sides of its mouth. That is what we have seen over the last number of weeks. This is a government that goes to Alberta to say one thing to Danielle Smith, then comes back to Ottawa, or goes to B.C., or talks to people in other parts of the country, to say something completely different. That is what we have decided to seek clarity on today with our motion. It acknowledges the MOU that was signed by the governments of Canada and Alberta, but it also seek clarity on where the government actually stands, because we are not getting the same message, depending on which member we talk to.
When the Prime Minister was trying to get a standing ovation at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, he talked about how much he supports pipelines. That is very interesting considering the record of the government he now leads. The Liberal government cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, a pipeline that was approved to go from Alberta to northern B.C. The proponent, Enbridge, spent over a billion dollars working its way through the approval process. It had been approved by the regulator. It had a number of conditions attached to it. It had aboriginal equity partners. I think this is a tragic part of this story that often gets overlooked.
I knew some of the negotiators on that. My father, Chuck Strahl, and the Hon. Jim Prentice, who were both Indigenous Affairs ministers and respected in British Columbia and Alberta, worked with those nations to help them to benefit from the economic development that would have come from the development of the northern gateway pipeline. They had an equity stake in that pipeline worth $2 billion. The Liberal government came in and, with the stroke of a pen, ripped that out of their hands.
At the time, we asked the government if it had consulted with the first nations and the indigenous communities before it stripped away 2 billion dollars' worth of economic development from their communities, and these are often communities that had not had anything close to that sort of economic development for generations. This was an opportunity for them to realize the potential of the hundreds of millions of dollars that was going to be poured into those communities to improve infrastructure, education and the outcomes for the people who live there. It said that it did not have to because it was just cancelling it. Therefore, when the government was taking something away from indigenous communities, when it was ripping money out of their hands for generations to come, it did not even bother to let them know. Now we have the current government pretending to respect indigenous communities through this MOU.
We just heard from the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley about how the government had been working on this for eight months and did not consider talking to first nations leaders, first nations communities or indigenous communities in British Columbia or Alberta. It was a complete afterthought. Now, it retroactively stands up and tries to virtuously tell us how committed it is to section 35 consultations and how respectful it is.
The Minister of Natural Resources went on TV and said that maybe he would have a Zoom meeting with them, dismissively insulting first nations communities and telling them that, if they want to consult with the Liberal government, they should just jump on a Zoom call. This is outrageous disrespect from a government that holds itself pretty high and mighty when it comes to dealing with indigenous communities.
When Justin Trudeau declared that the Great Bear Rainforest was no place for a pipeline, as if it was some sort of magical forest that could not have a pipeline, there were already, I believe, 207 conditions for the building of it. The work had been done. The engineering had been done. The agreements had been reached with the communities along the route.
When Justin Trudeau declared that it was a pipeline that should not be there, Canada sent a message to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, many of whom are still here, still getting up after every speech to ask questions time after time. It is the same government with a new leader. When the business and investment communities are told that, even though $1 billion was put into a project, and everything was done right, with every t crossed and every i dotted, but the government can just rip away that approval, what happens to investment in that country, a jurisdiction that would allow that? It evaporates. Since that decision by the Liberal government, we have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars that have gone elsewhere because the Liberal government does not foster an environment where things can get built.
When the Conservatives left office in 2015, there were at least four major pipelines. I am sure I am forgetting some of them. I am sure the Speaker knows the ones that I do not know. There was the energy east pipeline, which was proposed to deliver Canadian oil to the Atlantic provinces. That was, by the way, proposed by a private company, TransCanada Energy. There was the Keystone XL pipeline. Again, it was TransCanada Energy that proposed to send Canadian crude to the gulf coast. There was the northern gateway pipeline, which I have talked about, by Enbridge and the Trans Mountain pipeline by Kinder Morgan. We should notice the common denominator. When Conservatives were in government, private sector investors were prepared to put their own money forward to invest in big projects in this country, billions and billions of dollars.
Just a couple of short years later, those were all gone because of the regulatory environment that the Liberal government put in place. It made it so difficult to build anything and invest in the country that TransCanada abandoned both of their projects, changed its name entirely and moved its operations primarily to the south. It is now TC Energy because TransCanada Energy, after the debacle of the Liberal government, did not sound as attractive to investors as it once had. Enbridge abandoned its project after getting a $1-billion kick between the pockets. Kinder Morgan's project was so risky, after the Liberal government took over and changed all the rules and regulations, that it completely abandoned the project and the government had to buy it. Bill Morneau had to pay taxpayer money to get something that, under the Conservatives, the private sector was willing to do.
We have heard that the Liberals have suddenly seen the light and that they are super in favour of pipelines, but we have the comments from the Prime Minister himself. Apparently, he told the B.C. caucus about the pipeline and said, “If BC doesn’t want it, it’s not going ahead.” The member for Vancouver Granville said that the pipeline must have B.C. and first nations consent and “we will all work to ensure our B.C. coast is protected.” The member for Fleetwood—Port Kells said that the pipeline must have the consent of the Premier of British Columbia. David Eby has apparently been promised a veto by the Prime Minister.
Forgive us if Conservatives do not take these guys very seriously when they talk about how pro-pipeline they are, when every one of their members stands up to talk about how they are going to give consent to the B.C. NDP premier and that, if they do not have consent from David Eby, it is not going ahead. That does not sound like much of a commitment to me.
This motion provides an opportunity for clarity. The Liberals can declare whether the Prime Minister, when he speaks in Alberta, is telling the truth, or when he speaks in Ottawa, is telling the truth. They can declare whether Liberal members of Parliament from B.C. are the ones expressing the views of the government or whether the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources is. It is very clear. It is laid out in the motion, which came, by the way, from the Liberal MOU. The words are drawn straight out of that memorandum of understanding.
Conservatives want to see pipelines built. We want to see Canada prosper, and we want to see people get back to work so that we can all prosper as a nation, build our infrastructure, build our schools, build our education system, build the country that Canadians expect us to build and not have a government that stands in the way of that progress.