Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to join today's opposition day debate. This is a really important topic about how we can drive national projects of importance forward while also maintaining a climate competitiveness lens to what we do.
I look forward to getting into that, but I know you will permit me about 60 seconds to mention something. Members will notice that today I am wearing an Acadia University tie. This morning, I was in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where we made an announcement alongside the provincial government for 104 child care spaces, in partnership with Acadia University. It is great news for the local community. I give full credit to Minister Maguire and our local MLA in Kings South. It is a great example of federal and provincial co-operation.
I did not have the opportunity to talk about the Hon. Ken Dryden, a great Canadian, as the Prime Minister and many parliamentarians highlighted in their remarks last week celebrating his legacy of accomplishment. I cannot help but think that Ken Dryden would be proud of that announcement in Wolfville. It matters for affordability for families, it is important for children and, of course, it is sound economic policy long term to make sure we have the next generation of leaders. I will get to the debate, but I had to make sure we had a moment to talk about how proud of an announcement that is.
We are here today to talk about the opposition day motion. I thoroughly enjoy debating and bringing forward positions, whether of the government or my own, on opposition day motions. Today's is in relation to the government's emissions cap on the oil and gas sector in this country.
I want to start by saying that Canada is an energy superpower. The Prime Minister has made that clear. We as parliamentarians should take great pride in this country that we have what the world wants, whether it is conventional energy, renewable energy or critical minerals. The hon. member for Sudbury and I have conversations often about the importance of the mining sector in this country, because at the end of the day, if we are going to get to a clean future where we are able to reduce emissions, it is critical minerals that will be so important to that pathway. They are going to be mined out of places like Sudbury, places in northern Ontario and places up north. There is tremendous economic potential for the regions of this country. I want to give credit to the member for Sudbury; she is a great champion in this regard.
It is important to highlight this to Canadians. It should be a great source of pride, and it is on government benches. I am from the province of Nova Scotia. It was not that long ago that I graduated proudly from Hants East Rural High, a rural high school in Hants County. About half of my graduating class, particularly the male cohort, who wanted to get into the trades or skilled labour went west or went to the Atlantic offshore in Newfoundland and Labrador to pursue their future through the oil and gas industry. This was 2009, and our province was not in great economic shape at the time.
It is important to recognize that Canada is the fourth-largest oil-producing country, fifth in natural gas, and we have the cleanest natural gas in the world. That should be a source of pride for all Canadians. That is something we should embrace, and we need to make sure we support that sector. Frankly, despite the fact that we hear from the opposition benches that the previous government did nothing in this sector, there has been a lot of success in it. Moving forward, that sector has a bright future because the world needs Canadian energy, and this government and this Prime Minister are hell-bent on making sure that happens.
That is why we have seen the introduction of legislation like Bill C-5. It is to make sure we can have major national projects advance, and not just in the oil and gas sector. I note that LNG phase 2, in British Columbia, when it is fully realized and goes through the regulatory process we are looking to expedite, it will be the second-largest LNG facility in the world and the lowest-emitting, employing thousands of Canadians in British Columbia and from all across this country. It is not just British Columbians. I know there is great pride in that province, but this is a Canadian national project, and it is providing energy security around the world. It is Canadian energy, and it is zero-emission at its production base.
I know members of Parliament in this place will talk about it being a transition fuel and say we have to look at and continue to push harder on renewables. That is fair. We are going to continue to do that work, but this government is of the view that we have to do both at the same time. We have to explore projects all across this country, whether in conventional or renewable energy. If we look at hydrogen, there are great opportunities in Atlantic Canada. This government is focused on building major projects that are going to drive our economy.
This is a critical issue, because the world has fundamentally changed. Given that the U.S. administration wants to reconfigure its free trade relationship with countries around the world, it is absolutely crucial to focus on the resilience of free trade and Canada's relationships around the world.
I support the work of the minister responsible for free trade, the Minister of International Trade, whose goal is to forge international bonds.
We saw this in the pragmatic way the Prime Minister approached the G7. Of course, we invited our friends, our long-standing allies of the G7, to have important conversations, but we also invited other world leaders who would not always be invited, those on the margins of the G7, to have these very pragmatic conversations about what the future looks like and how Canada can have relationships with countries that we may not always agree with on every single thing, but with which we want to find the sandbox of co-operation so that we are able to find partnership in a world that is ever-changing.
I have been in and out of the chamber, and I have listened to some of the debate on the opposition motion today. We understand this, and the government is going to have a pragmatic approach to how we tackle major economic imperatives, such as major projects that matter for regional economies and the national economy, but we are a government that is also focused on climate competitiveness because it does matter. I was speaking to the hon. member for Winnipeg North just before this debate. I hope to be proven wrong by my opposition colleagues when it gets to questions, but in my six years in this place, I do not remember a single time that I have heard the opposition advocate for an initiative or a project that pairs economic competitiveness with reducing GHG emissions. I know that right now, the economic imperative is clear: We need to move forward and build up Canada's economic sovereignty. However, I have never heard it, and I am going to go through a few examples that I thought were pretty good examples.
The member for Lakeland, from Alberta, will perhaps give me some examples of where that comes in, but I want to remind the member for Lakeland that when the last government introduced programs that would help individuals who were in energy poverty or energy insecurity in Atlantic Canada and across this country revert to more eco-friendly options on heating homes and reduce energy bills, the Conservatives were against them. In Atlantic Canada, just shy of 40% of the homes in Nova Scotia still use home heating oil. Instead of just railing on about the carbon price, the last government actually removed the carbon price and introduced a program to help people transition. It was a thoughtful approach of not just dealing with the short-term objective but thinking longer term about energy security. The Conservatives stood against those programs.
There were $20,000 loans given to anyone below the provincial median income in Nova Scotia, and the Conservative Party said it was a bad policy. Single women seniors in my riding would call my office and say that without this program, they would not have been able to make the transition to a more affordable way to heat their homes. Of course, the environmental impacts were very clear and pronounced, but the Conservatives were against it. They called it a bad program. I do not understand that. This is one clear-cut example of a program that my constituents at home can point to that helped countless individuals, thousands of households, and the Conservatives said no to it.
How about biofuel policy in this country? There is a policy where we mix in ethanol, which can be sourced from western Canadian farmers, to help reduce emissions and help drive price points, and the Conservatives were against it. The Conservatives are saying they introduced the policy in 2008. Well, we do not hear a whole lot of support for it right now.
I was just in China with Premier Moe. We are going to engage with the Chinese to see if there is a pathway forward. We are going to engage with other markets in countries that need and want Canadian canola. However, there is a domestic policy lever as well, which is a biofuel policy that this government has supported. This government has actually augmented it to try to drive more demand at a time when pricing is extremely important, but the Conservatives say they are against that too. That policy could reduce emissions and also directly support rural businesses and farmers in western Canada, and the Conservatives are against it.
I listened to the leader of the official opposition on CBC with Catherine Cullen, and he said that he is an “environmentalist”. What policies would he point to? Again, I am not saying the priority should not be on economic projects, but when do the Conservatives ever have a lens that considers how we can match both? How can we chase both and think long term? The member for Lakeland will stand up proudly, I am sure, in about 16 minutes and tell me exactly what those policies are.
Particularly on LNG, this is where we differ. We see the Conservatives trying to paint our new Prime Minister as similar to the old one, but this is a different government, and Canadians have picked up on that. This is a Prime Minister who has different priorities. This is a Prime Minister who is going to protect some of the social infrastructure that was introduced that I would hope all parliamentarians agree with. This is a Prime Minister who is going to be different.
In fact, there are a number of constituents in my riding of the Progressive Conservative ilk, moderate Conservatives, who say a government led by this Prime Minister, the hon. member for Nepean, is more in line with their thinking than the member for Battle River—Crowfoot, who represents a different ilk of Conservative. We can notice how the Conservatives are trying to paint him as just another Liberal. Yes, he is a Liberal prime minister, and we are proud of the work we are going to do in the days ahead, but this Prime Minister is fundamentally different.
For example, we are going to pursue LNG projects in this country. The Prime Minister was in Europe just a couple of weeks ago. We are focused on what we can do to get LNG to Europe. I just mentioned LNG Canada in British Columbia. These are examples of where we are willing to be pragmatic.
When it comes to the emissions cap, the Liberals reject the premise that the cap is a production cap. I know the Conservatives want to make that out to be the case. We believe there is an ability to partner with the provinces and industry to reduce emissions in our oil and gas sector, which absolutely matters to this country.
It is also about being able to maintain and protect extremely important jobs that matter not just in western Canada, but also in Newfoundland and Labrador and all across this country, including in Kings—Hants, to go back to the example I just gave, which was about the individuals from my riding who transit back and forth across the country proudly supporting this sector. We support it too in terms of what it represents.
The government is a pragmatic government. What I do not see in the opposition day motion is any mention of work with the provinces. This is an important element. If the suggestion is to just throw out a federal policy, what thoughtful public policy would replace it? How would we offset the fact that the policy is not there? What would we do differently?
This is where I go back to the point that it is an economic imperative. There is zero lens, zero thought and zero mention of anything to do with emissions reduction. This is a very serious threat. Climate change is real. We have seen the impacts across the country. Do I think this government is going to be more pragmatic and do I support that more than I did with the last? Yes, I do, but we are still going to have a lens on the competitiveness of our climate objectives, because it matters for trade and matters for relationships around the world. The European Union wants to see products coming from countries that are taking this question seriously.
If we were under a Conservative government, it would have no answer to what the European Union would be asking for as it relates to trade, because the Conservatives put zero thought to that on the floor of the House of Commons, except if we look to the Conservative platform, which said to spend more taxpayers' dollars. To them, we should not have any policy that encourages the private sector to reduce emissions and drive their competitiveness. We are just going to plow on more government spending, apparently more than the last government. That is how the Conservatives would get their outcome.
I would ask the hon. member for Lakeland, or any other member on that side, where the conservatism is in that. That is not actually Conservative policy, because carbon pricing, an industrial policy, at its core was actually introduced first by Conservative governments in this country. It baffles me a bit that while we are talking about policies that are inherently small-c conservative, we have an opposition that either does not talk about this at all or, when they do talk about it, talks about pouring on government spending and larger government programs. That seems to run contrary to how Conservative principles ought to play out on that side of the House of Commons, but again, I am sure the member for Lakeland will have an answer, and I look forward to that back-and-forth.
In terms of industrial pricing, Conservatives want to get rid of it. Premiers in Alberta and Saskatchewan actually support the idea of having an industrial price, because if we are even remotely serious about balancing economic questions with some form of emissions reduction, what are the other policies? What are the objectives? Again, it is a huge, massive spot on the agenda of the Conservative Party on this point. I believe in what our Prime Minister is doing, which is meeting the moment right now in terms of big projects that matter to the national interest, with the understanding that Canada's energy has to be unleashed. I believe this is going to be part of our foreign policy.
I was listening to the Prime Minister speak at the United Nations General Assembly while I was on the way up to Ottawa this morning. He was talking about how Canada can deliver not only on food security, and we should be proud of our farmers, but on energy security and on critical minerals that the world needs. I think of our Minister of Foreign Affairs, whom I have a close relationship with. She is a good Kentville gal. That is where she grew up. We are proud of her in the Annapolis Valley. When she goes out and has these conversations with her counterparts around the world, she is talking about how Canada can deliver on the energy security that the world needs at a lower-emitting dynamic, and that does matter if there are two alternatives.
People want price and the security of the source, and if we have a lower-emitting source, that is going to matter when people are comparing two different places they can source that energy from. We hear none of that talk from the Conservative Party and none of it in this opposition day motion. There is nothing about working with the provinces or about keeping any element of public policy that blends the economic imperative of the moment with the need to continue to move down the line toward a more sustainable economy. It is just simply not there.
I go back to the point about Conservative policy to date. I hope the Conservative members will correct me if I am wrong that the policy to date is the platform of the Conservative Party of Canada vis-à-vis April 2025, which was the election. That is the foundation that I can go look at. There was actually a lot of policy about spending more government money to be able to reduce emissions: way more. How does that jive with the questions that I hear from the opposition benches about the need for fiscal discipline, which this government agrees with?
This government is going to be working toward balancing the operational spending of the government within the next three years. I would expect that the Conservatives would support that. I would hope they would, but I ask how it jives that the Conservative policy would actually be to spend more than the last government on incentives toward emission reduction. It is not Conservative policy, and it is certainly not fiscally responsible in this environment. We have to have some regulatory policies that help work alongside the private sector to be able to move forward.
It is important, when we have these conversations, to look at what this government is doing. The government is serious about building nation-building infrastructure and working alongside indigenous communities, the provinces and the private sector to build in this country. We think that is extremely important.
We are a pragmatic government. This is a new Prime Minister, as much as the opposition would love to have the old guy back. They had a lot of obsession about that. This is a new Prime Minister who is popular in this country. Canadians across the political spectrum, from the left to the right, are seeing his pragmatic nature and his decorum about how he is bringing the country together. This includes premiers who do not always agree and have not always agreed with Liberal governments in Ottawa. They are saying that they like what they are seeing from the Prime Minister.
We will continue to take that approach on a case-by-case basis, working alongside the provinces and working alongside industry, to make sure we can be smart about growing the economy at a critical time, building out Canada's economic sovereignty and looking at our climate competitiveness at the same time. We do not see that level of sophistication from the opposition benches. That is why we are here, and that is why we are going to continue to be here in the days ahead.
