Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be here on behalf of Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I have not had the chance to do this, so I would like to thank all the people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the EDA for all its work and all my supporters and volunteers. I would especially like to thank my family. I have been doing this kind of work for 20 years, as a councillor, chief councillor, an MLA and now an MP, and it takes away from family life. My wife is in Ottawa today. I got her to come and join us. It is quite the accomplishment to get our spouses to join us.
I would not say it is timely that we are talking about emissions and major projects in Canada. As I said, I have been doing this for 20 years. I have heard all the reasons from all the different members, and none of the reasons have changed for me, but for some reason, the Liberal government has woken up to listening to the people of Canada and what Canadians want.
Back in my region, in my province, Canadians and first nations have been asking for this for 20 years. If we think about the LNG projects in B.C., there were 18 major projects in 2018. All but three have left Canada with all the investment. One major project was $40 billion, and the next one in Kitimat was $30 billion, and the $30-billion project left B.C. That is lost investment.
As a first nation community, we had to learn about environmental assessments, permitting and economics, but it never escaped us that our people needed a future outside of the Internet. Those who have not experienced poverty, exclusion or the Indian Act have no idea how important a job is to somebody who has never experienced one, let alone a group of people who want a better future. First nations leaders have gotten it from both ends. They have gotten opposition from a Liberal government that has not wanted to entertain oil and gas projects over the last 20 years or have gotten it from environmental groups that oppose them, yet the simple, fundamental underlying factor is how to address poverty and the violence of poverty. I have not heard an in-depth conversation in either this House or the provincial legislature about how bad that is.
We talk about crime, drugs and violent crime, and that is what first nations leaders have been trying to address. We have this new aha moment of listening to Canadians and first nations, but when the Liberals imposed the tanker ban, their treaty partner, the Nisga'a people, opposed it for the reasons I just outlined. Plus, they thought they had a partner in Canada to breathe life into the treaty. Lax Kw'alaams opposed it because it had not been fully consulted and thought the tanker ban was going to put a limit on the future of its people.
People only need go to Kitimat. If they want to talk about emissions, permits, environmental assessments and the quality of life, they should go to Kitimat Village. We have talked about these issues for the last 20 years, and it is a hard conversation given the opposition from political parties and environmental groups. A first nation has to talk not only about air impacts, which is what we are talking about today with the emissions cap being imposed, but about impacts to water and land. If anybody can talk about that, it is Kitimat Village, because it has had industrial development for 70 years.
One would think that a territory that has been so degraded by industrial development would say no to development. In fact, it is the opposite. It engaged to make the standards and regulations higher, and it did so to uplift not only its people, but all the other first nations along the pipeline route that were experiencing tanker traffic down channel and the non-native communities that surrounded it. As a judge once said, and I am paraphrasing, we are all in this together and none of us is going anywhere.
I am not sure if members are aware, but we do not have services on reserve. We do not have hospitals. A lot of us do not have water. We depend on non-native communities for services, so it only stands to reason that we would want to see our own communities and our non-native communities succeed, for those medical services, those highways and those schools.
I think this is a relevant conversation, given the nation-building conversation that we are currently having and the existential crisis that the United States has put us in. We have a lot of work to do, not only in emissions, but also in what we are leaving for future generations.
We are addressing affordability. We are trying to address that. We are trying to address housing, but I ask what is in it for the next generation, when we are exporting all our product, all our services and all our jobs to the United States. In B.C., they shut down the log industry. That means a number of mills all across B.C. closed down. Where did they go? They went to the United States.
These big corporations can come and go at their will. It does not matter to them. They have different interests in different countries, but the worker has to find a different employment income. The family has to think about whether their children will graduate from the school that they grew up going to. The municipality has to think about its tax base. Everybody else benefits because of bad Liberal policy.
We are talking about an oil and gas emissions cap, and somehow we are in a new era with a new Liberal government, but everybody in Canada has known for years that over 90% of oil and gas product goes to the United States at a discount. What does the United States do? It uses that product for domestic and export purposes. The United States is an energy superpower. The United States never thanks us for supplying it with a good-quality product at Kmart prices.
Poland was smirking at us, almost laughing at us, regarding how we export our oil and gas to the United States. I do not know about anyone else, but when another country laughs at us because of our policies, our legislation and our regulations, I would say that would actually contribute to our conversation about nation building and emissions caps.
Germany came here for LNG because they are in a crisis of their own, given the war in Ukraine. What did we do? We said, “No, there is no business case for LNG, but we will sell you hydrogen.” That is what Germany left with.
The world still needs energy. It still needs and wants resources, and Canada is rich in energy and resources, but we have artificially restrained our exports, not only for the international market, but also for our own domestic needs.
There are a number of projects in the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that propose using natural gas to produce electricity. They have been there for years in energy-deficient areas. Given that B.C. imports electricity from the United States, we should be looking at this seriously. The United States uses natural gas and coal to produce electricity, but with B.C. having a clean, green record, we import electricity.
We are not going to become an energy superpower if we put more limits, such as the industrial carbon tax, on Canadians, because they will trickle down to Canadians. We will not become an energy superpower if we put unreasonable limits on emissions. We have good, robust regulatory standards, but there has to be a balance of what is good for the average Canadian and first nations, what is good for our country, and what is good for the environment.
We have not had that conversation yet. I am hoping to have that here today.
