Mr. Speaker, let me say off the top that I will be splitting my time with a great new member, the hon. member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas.
Since this is my first time speaking for a substantive length of time since the election, please allow me to thank the hard-working, industrious people of Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North for the honour of being their voice and their servant and for carrying their hopes and dreams to this place. While I have lived and worked in other places in North America in my career, I have always felt and known that the communities of Flamborough—Glanbrook—Brant North are my true home, and home is where the heart is. It is the honour of my lifetime to serve these great communities. I want to thank my campaign team, including Simon, Mona, Jordan, Wendy, Jim and hundreds of volunteers. Above all, I thank my wife, Tracy, without whose love and support I certainly would not be here today. I will now go to the matter at hand.
Canadians are struggling, not because we lack talent and not because we lack resources, but because we are too often being held back by red tape, gatekeeping and a government that over-promises and under-delivers. Nowhere is that clearer than when it comes to getting big projects built or trying to move goods and services and workers across provincial lines in our own country. These barriers do not cost us only time and money; they also cost us opportunities, investments and jobs.
That is why Bill C-5, an act to enact the free trade and labour mobility in Canada act and the building Canada act, is such a missed opportunity. It claims to deliver free trade and fast-tracked projects, but the reality is it would deliver bureaucratic theatre; it is a showpiece of announcements without the substance to back them up.
Let us start with part 1 of the bill, the free trade and labour mobility in Canada act. The premise is good. Canadians should be able to work and trade freely across the country without unnecessary federal barriers. However, the scope of this section is minuscule. It would affect a tiny subset of goods and services. In fact, during government briefings on the bill, one of the few examples offered was clean energy labels on washing machines, which is certainly underwhelming.
There is no comprehensive list of affected items. There is no plan to deal with the biggest trade barriers, no mechanism to assess progress and no timeline. There is no effort to create a blue seal licensing standard that would allow skilled immigrants and professionals, such as doctors, nurses and engineers, to work in the province next door, despite meeting rigorous national standards. Therefore, this was a missed chance to unlock the talent that is already here in this country.
There is also a missed opportunity to incentivize the provinces to remove their own barriers. The most effective governments are those that find ways to align incentives, not those that just issue guidance and hope for the best. That is why Conservatives have proposed a real solution to offer financial bonuses to provinces for every interprovincial trade barrier they eliminate. It would be a win-win-win. It would boost GDP and increase federal revenues. In fact, economists estimate that removing interprovincial trade barriers could add as much as $200 billion to Canada's economy; yet, instead of seizing that opportunity, Bill C-5 takes a baby step. It scratches the surface when Canadians are looking for bold, transformative reform.
Part 2 of the bill is the building Canada act. The most revealing part of this section is not what it proposes but what it omits. It is an admission by the government that its own laws are the problem and that Liberal legislation, such as Bill C-69, the shipping ban and the energy cap, are laws that have tied our economies in a knot. The Liberals know it, investors know it and workers know it. The bill is the Liberals' workaround, a way to admit failure without fixing the root of the problem. The bill tries to create selective escape hatches for a few lucky projects, but it would keep all the red tape in place. It is a patchwork solution for a broken process.
There is no clarity on which projects would qualify, no defined criteria for what would constitute the national interest and no certainty for investors or communities. It is just another layer of bureaucracy and a lot of discretion left in the hands of ministers. Even with the promise of a two-year timeline, provincial vetoes would remain, and the sunset clause would limit the use of these powers to just five years. How is anyone supposed to plan long term?
Here is the most frustrating part. The Liberals are essentially picking and choosing which projects get exemptions, without fixing the laws that block everything else. If they can fast-track one project, why not all deserving projects? Why not fix the system for everyone, not just the politically connected few? Canadians do not want political favours. They want fairness, they want clarity, and they want to build. That is why Conservatives support real reform, one-and-done approvals, a national energy corridor and shovel-ready zones with clear timelines and firm standards. We believe all worthy projects should be able to proceed, not just the ones that win favour from this week's minister. We have the people and the expertise in Canada. We have the resources. What we need is a government that believes in Canada's potential again.
Let us talk about the broader context. Canada has posted the worst growth in the G7 over the last decade, yet we have all the national resources in the world. We have everything the world wants. At the same time, we are selling our energy to the United States at a discount. Our farmers, miners and builders are being boxed in by the federal government. Global demand for energy, food and raw materials is surging. Other countries are stepping up, but Canada is standing still. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce said it well: “internal trade barriers still act like a [self-imposed] 21% tariff.” What did we get from this bill? We got a couple of washing machines.
Meanwhile, U.S. tariffs have turned a simmering problem into a full-blown crisis. Canadian workers and exporters are caught in the middle, and the government has no answer. Dan Kelly of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business summed it up when he said the spirit of this bill may be positive, but in practice, it will not move the needle.
We could be leading the world. Again, we have everything the world wants. Eighteen LNG projects, as has been mentioned, sat on Trudeau's desk awaiting approval. Germany, Japan and other countries came looking for our LNG. We could have been helping get the world off coal and replacing European dependence on Russian natural gas, yet the Liberals turned the German chancellor away and said there was no business case. Will this be more of the same?
This is not just about economics; it is about sovereignty, national unity and building a future where Canada leads in so many sectors as we are capable of doing. It is about restoring the Canadian promise to generations that feel abandoned by their government. Conservatives will not stand in the way of the minor progress of this bill, but we will not pretend the bill would deliver what it claims. We will work in committee this week to strengthen it, seek real amendments and keep pushing for solutions that go beyond optics and tackle the root cause of stagnation. Canadians do not want more red tape and more process. They want paycheques, they want purpose, they want projects to get built, and they want to be proud of this country and what it can do, once again.