moved:
That, in the interest of restoring Canadian economic sovereignty, the House call on the government to immediately introduce a Canada Sovereignty Act that:
(a) re-establishes Canada as a competitive resource-producing nation by repealing federal measures that block or penalize development, including,
(i) the Impact Assessment Act (formerly Bill C-69),
(ii) the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act (formerly Bill C-48),
(iii) the federal industrial carbon tax,
(iv) the oil and gas emissions cap,
(v) the federal electric vehicle sales mandate,
(vi) the federal plastics manufacturing prohibitions,
(vii) federal regulatory restrictions that impede communication and advocacy by Canadian energy companies;
(b) rewards provinces, businesses, and workers who build and invest in Canada by,
(i) introducing a Canada First Reinvestment Tax Cut to spur domestic industrial activity,
(ii) providing free trade bonuses to provincial governments that remove internal trade barriers and fully open their markets to fellow Canadians; and
(c) protects Canadian innovation by requiring the Minister of Industry to present plans to Parliament to keep Canada's inventions, discoveries and innovations from being sold off to other countries.
Mr. Speaker, as a first-generation Albertan and the daughter of a Newfoundlander, a very common story in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which is a place so near and dear to my fiery heart that glows strong and free like Alberta's wild roses, what an honour it is to split my time with a vibrant, kind, honest and happy woman warrior, the new Conservative MP for Long Range Mountains.
It is fitting that two MPs from two provinces on opposite sides of the country start debate today. Both provinces are relatively new in Confederation compared to most of the others, and we have built each other's homes to the benefit of the whole country for two main reasons: the resilience, tenacity and adventurous risk-taking of our people, and our natural resources.
Today, Canada is at a crossroad that has been visible and closing in for more than a decade. Canadians are vulnerable, struggling, worried about their futures and divided more now than ever before, because today, only press conferences and expansive rhetoric exist. There are no actual results for all the promises the Prime Minister made more than half a year ago about nation-building projects getting built at “speeds not seen in generations”.
What of today? More than 60 major projects with real proponents in every natural resources sector are stuck in front of federal regulators with no end in sight. More investment flows out of Canada into the U.S. than the other way around, which is a historical anomaly that started in 2015. I wonder what happened then.
It has gotten worse every single year since. There is no pipeline being built to anywhere now, because the private sector will not attempt it alone. The Liberals outright vetoed and approved one a decade ago, from Lakeland to the Pacific, for export to Asia to reduce dependence on the U.S. It was supported by the majority of indigenous communities, but the court said that consultation had to be redone, just as the Liberals would have to do on TMX. They did not; they killed it.
My first speech here in 2015 was in support of a west-to-east pipeline for Canadian energy independence and security, to bring Western oil to eastern refineries and for export to Europe. I have to note that the Liberals killed that promise, too, by moving goalposts and death by delay.
Those were the chances to make Canada united, self-reliant, affordable and sovereign, but when a company spent years and $1 billion trying to make it, the Liberals ignored its warning that regulatory uncertainty risked the pipeline, because that is what the Liberals wanted for politics in a province in the middle. After that happened, the company even dropped “Canada” from its name and built pipelines in the U.S.
After that and endless caps, bans, taxes, mandates and regulations, hundreds of thousands of Canadians lost their livelihoods and legacies, and many took their own lives as major private sector plans were shelved: $670 billion in major natural resources projects and $176 billion in 16 major energy projects alone have all gone, while the costs for energy, essential in Canada, have skyrocketed due to bad policies and uncompetitive taxes.
The Prime Minister claims to be different from the one he advised for more than the last half decade, but lots of rhetoric with no actual results is exactly the same.
While the Liberals did all this to Canada, the U.S., under Obama, by the way, and it just ramped up afterward, started crude oil exports outside of North America for the first time in four decades and vetoed KXL from Canada at the same time. American and other money funded campaigns to stop Canadian energy projects. Our biggest trading partner, the world's most important economy and still Canada's biggest customer just said that because of Liberal Atlantic and Pacific pipeline killers, it will soon get up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil to compete directly with its Canadian heavy crude imports and put billions of Canadian dollars and thousands of jobs at risk.
Meanwhile, our Prime Minister is clearly cozy with the regime he said was Canada's “biggest security threat”. That is also the position of the current President of the United States, but the Prime Minister has let them all in our backyard. Talk about letting all the foxes in the henhouse.
The Liberals have the gall to spend millions of tax dollars on ads about Canada being an energy superpower. They hated that when Stephen Harper said it, but the Liberals now want support, help, accolades, co-operation and compliments from the Conservatives. I would say the Liberals should take a bow, if they can do that with their elbows up I guess, but they need only look in the mirror for who is to blame for why Canadians now find themselves vulnerable to bullies everywhere instead of being self-reliant, sovereign, united and thriving, not just surviving like they are, as this country could and should have been today, with all our blessings, our people and our natural resources.
No matter the magical thinking one favours, here is the truth: Despite the Liberal decade of anti-resource and anti-private sector policies and taxes, in 2024, oil and gas still employed half a million Canadians. It is still Canada's largest private sector investor and top export, but almost all of it goes to the U.S. Natural resources are still, by far, the main driver to close the gap between the rich and poor, and the biggest employer of indigenous Canadians in the entire economy from coast to coast to coast, but the Liberals' words differ from their actions, which shows they still want to risk and break it all for their ideology.
It is our duty to oppose the government when necessary and to propose solutions to create private sector jobs and bigger paycheques and cut costs for every Canadian. This is why, today, Conservatives bring forward a Canadian sovereignty act to legalize and turbocharge Canadian energy development and construction everywhere.
The act points out seven anti-development laws that kill projects and jobs in Canada for repeal and reform.
Bill C-69 is the unconstitutional, divisive law that makes it impossible to build and blocks major projects across Canada, which the Liberals admit to with a workaround in Bill C-5. Right now, the Liberals pick politically recommended projects behind closed doors and refuse to define the national interest or fix the actual laws for anyone else.
Bill C-48, the shipping ban, blocks Canadian oil experts from the west coast, while foreign dictators' oil and U.S. oil tankers still pass through every other coast and canal.
The federal industrial carbon tax hikes the cost of everything Canadians buy across the supply chain. The U.S., Canada's biggest competitor, does not have this federally.
The ban on gas and diesel vehicles will hike prices by up to $20,000 for consumers, expose retailers to criminal charges and limit Canadians' freedom of choice. The U.S. does not impose this on itself.
The plastics ban hurts responsibly producing Canadian manufacturers and hikes the costs of groceries everywhere. The U.S. does not have this.
The Liberal energy censorship law stops Canadian businesses from talking about their environmental track record and innovation unless they match the government's talking points. It sounds a bit like that regime the Prime Minister waffles on about, does it not?
The Liberals also say they intend to make changes, but still have not actually axed the oil and gas cap, which is the only one of its kind in the world. It will kill 54,000 Canadian jobs by 2032 and cut $21 billion from Canada's economy, and they know it. Who can afford this?
Do not take my word for it. Last April, in an extremely unusual Canadian action, 38 energy CEOs told the Prime Minister to simplify regulation and scrap Bill C-69, Bill C-48 and the oil and gas cap to “Build Canada Now”, since the law impedes development, and existing processes are uncertain, as well as “complex, unpredictable, subjective, and excessively long”, as we and every single expert have been telling the Liberals for a decade. In September, 96 energy CEOs sent a follow-up. It is now almost February.
I do not know what the Prime Minister considers generational speed, although the Liberals know a lot about generational theft. Thousands of major projects have been built faster than this in our country, and still nothing is actually being built. Right now, the U.S. Department of Energy's emergency permitting procedures can approve oil, gas, critical mineral and uranium projects on federal lands in as little as 28 days. The weird truth is that the U.S. Department of Energy and the Department of Defense can build projects faster than any private sector proponent in Canada can dream of. The Liberals want Canadians to believe that a $246-million major projects bureaucracy will solve the problem they created, but it is still being set up and the process is still uncertain, complex and opaque.
Conservatives will give certainty to Canada, as we have always said we will. In addition to fixing the fundamentals, not ragging the puck with workarounds, we will create a Canada-first reinvestment tax cut to eliminate capital gains taxes on reinvestments in Canadian businesses and projects; create a free trade bonus that rewards provinces for removing interprovincial trade barriers; require the industry minister to table a comprehensive plan to prevent Canada's inventions, technologies, intellectual property and strategic assets from being sold to foreign state-owned or -influenced interests; and safeguard Canadian ownership and control of critical technologies to ensure Canadian economic sovereignty.
After all of those promises, nearly a year into the Prime Minister's term and 11 years into the Liberal government, Canadians do not need more grand speeches or photo ops; they need results. Conservatives want big projects built in Canada by the private sector, efficiently, safely and affordably, with the top standards and Canadian materials for Canadians' public interests. If the Liberals are truly serious about making Canada an energy superpower, they have to show it now. The stakes for our country are much too high to dither, debate and delay any more.
