Madam Speaker, we in the Conservative caucus are united. We believe that Canada needs a pipeline to the Pacific and that we need to override the discriminatory anti-Canada ban on shipping Canadian energy overseas. We need this pipeline because it would make for stronger take-home pay, it would make for affordable living, and it would make for a sovereign, self-reliant economy.
Let us talk for a moment about the incredible benefits that such a pipeline would bring. It would allow us to move $30 billion a year of Canadian energy overseas to the 2.5 billion Asian customers who would then pay world prices for it. Thirty billion dollars would be the single biggest increase in overseas exports that any decision by this country could make. To put this into perspective, recently I pointed out that the Prime Minister, after running on the promise that we were in an existential crisis and needed to do the unimaginable at speeds not seen in generations, had not succeeded in removing a single foreign tariff on Canadian exports despite countless months of world travel. He snapped back that there has been a trade deal with Indonesia.
Well, forget the fact that it was the previous prime minister who negotiated that; something the current one has a bad habit of doing is taking credit for things he did not do. By the government's own projections, if that trade deal were to be as good as the Liberals promised, it would add $400 million to our exports. The pipeline to the Pacific would add 75 times more to Canada's exports overseas than would the only agreement the Prime Minister likes to brag about. There is literally not a single trade deal the government could sign and not a single government project it could fund that would come anywhere close to opening up the $30 billion of overseas, non-U.S. exports that this single project would enable.
It would mean thousands of extra jobs for Canadians in western Canada but also, potentially, in central Canada, which might be the region supplying the steel for this patriotic pipeline. It would mean communities on the route would have new life, as workers would be filling restaurants with their paycheques. Local vendors would be able to sell more clothing, more housing supplies and other goods to enable and rejuvenate communities all across the northern part of Alberta and British Columbia. Originating as it would in Hardisty, Alberta, in my wonderful riding, the best people in the world would therefore benefit from this incredible project.
I add that not only would it give paycheques. It would bring tax revenues that would allow us to fund more schools, hospitals and better policing and to increase social services not through higher taxes, as the Liberals so often favour, but rather through a booming economy.
Furthermore, when we export more Canadian goods abroad, we force other countries to buy Canadian dollars. That raises the dollar and therefore the purchasing power of our people. The cost of goods that are internationally priced becomes more affordable. There would be more affordable food, fuel and inputs to build housing. A stronger dollar means a more affordable Canada, and that is our ultimate purpose. The biggest problem in Canada today is that people cannot afford to live, after Liberals doubled housing costs, doubled costs at the grocery store, doubled lineups at food banks and doubled our national debt. One way to make life more affordable is to have a strong Canadian dollar that buys more food, fuel and housing.
All of these incredible benefits would be a no-brainer, and we should not even have to debate it. In fact, we would not have to debate it if the previous Conservative government's decision to approve the northern gateway pipeline to the Pacific had been allowed to go ahead. However, in a November 2016 cabinet decision, the Liberal government killed the northern gateway pipeline. The current Prime Minister, who was not in the cabinet at the time, went on to testify at the industry committee that he agreed with killing the northern gateway pipeline.
The current government continues to have a tanker ban in place that blocks shipping Canadian oil off the northwest coast of B.C. while allowing American tankers to move oil between Alaska and the U.S. west coast. Apparently, it is safe when the Americans transport oil through those same waters but not when Canadians do it. Clearly, that is an act by the government of economic self-harm and of discriminating against Canadians.
The Prime Minister suddenly claimed that he had reversed himself. He signed an MOU. To believe he is actually committed to the MOU, we have to believe he now says he was wrong about everything he wrote and everything the Liberal government did in the preceding 10 years. We have to believe he was wrong about the emissions cap, wrong about the electricity regulations, wrong about shipping oil through a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific and wrong about the tanker ban. He was wrong about all of those things, but we would have to believe he has accepted that wrong.
Let us give him the benefit of the doubt. Let us give him a chance to come in the House of Commons and vote in favour of what he promised. Conservatives brought forward a good-faith motion just to make sure Liberals meant what they said, to get them all in the House of Commons to vote on whether they want a pipeline to the Pacific and whether they are prepared to open up our waters to shipping energy overseas.
Now, the Liberals went dead quiet. I expected them to enthusiastically applaud this gesture of goodwill. They went dead quiet over the weekend, telling reporters on background they had no idea how they were going to vote on their own MOU proposal for a pipeline and an adjustment to the oil tanker moratorium. I even used wording right out of the Prime Minister's MOU to make it easy for them, but it still was not easy enough.
As we know with Liberals, they often start by making promises and then they go to making excuses. They have been generating a whole lot of excuses about why they have to vote against the wording in their own MOU. Let us go through some of the excuses. They said it did not mention they want to accompany the pipeline with a carbon capture project. They claimed it did not go far enough in spelling out indigenous engagement and ownership. They claimed it did not clearly lay out the plan to engage with British Columbia.
Let us forget for a second the obvious fact that if the Liberals are telling the truth when they say they support the whole MOU, then they should be prepared to vote for any part of the MOU. After all, it is their MOU. That obvious contradiction aside, we know the Liberals have made these excuses. I am going to help brush away those excuses for them. We are going to amend our own motion in order to include the things that the Liberals claim we left out.
We are going to amend the motion so that it will support green-lighting carbon capture and storage, green-lighting indigenous ownership in the project and engaging with British Columbia, in the spirit of good faith. We are removing all the Liberal excuses because we know what the Prime Minister's plan is. He wants to pretend that he supports a pipeline, like the majority of Canadians, just long enough to get through the next election, while he quietly whispers to his “keep it in the ground” caucus, “It will never happen. Do not worry. Just hang tight with me, and be quiet. We will kill it after the election.” To make sure he cannot play that duplicitous game, we are going to give him this amendment.
I move:
That the motion be amended by inserting after the word “including” the word “(i)” and by adding after the words “Indigenous peoples” the following: “(ii) Green lighting the world's largest carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project for the purpose of making Alberta oil among the lowest carbon intensity produced barrels of oil in the world.” (iii) providing meaningful opportunity for Indigenous rightsholders to participate in consultation processes and economic opportunities through Indigenous ownership, partnerships and benefits,
(iv) engaging with British Columbia immediately in a trilateral discussion on the pipeline project, and during the potential development and construction of the bitumen pipeline referred to in the MOU, and to further the economic interests of B.C. related to their own projects of interest that involve the province of Alberta, including interties, and Canada working with B.C. on other projects of national interest in their jurisdiction”.