Debates of Oct. 7th, 2026

Building Canada Strong Act

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about disinformation. I would like to clarify the facts regarding Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act. In division 1, which amends the Impact Assessment Act, clause 53 states: “The Minister may amend a decision statement issued by the Minister under section 65, including to add or remove a condition, to amend any condition or to modify the designated project's description”.

What this means is that if the minister designates a project as being of national interest, he can remove any conditions he wants under the Impact Assessment Act, including conditions related to the environment.

My colleague says that the government is not trying to circumvent existing environmental laws. If that is the case, then why is the government creating a loophole that allows conditions under the Impact Assessment Act to be removed? I would like my colleague to explain that to us first, and then we can talk about disinformation.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I understand correctly and we are talking about clause 53, it includes the following language: “the Minister is not permitted to amend the decision statement to change the decision included in it.”

Again, I believe that some of the allegations being made about what this legislation could do is not supported by the facts in front of us.

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague works with the Minister of Industry. He started his speech by talking about the situation with our neighbour to the south, but businesses have long been calling for projects to move faster. Often, they want to invest, but the process takes too long, and there is no predictability.

I would like my colleague to briefly explain what kind of predictability Bill C‑39 will provide to our businesses to encourage them to invest more in their growth.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think there are two aspects. There is the type of project that companies can participate in, but there is also the aspect of participating in the environmental economy and the economy as a whole by assessing the impacts. There are companies that can participate that way.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I had more than 10 minutes to deal with this. I will do my best, but this omnibus bill, Bill C-39, represents an extremely large threat to this country and to our economy, because it would allow billions of dollars of tax money to be thrown at projects that would not have to clear even the most basic cost-benefit analysis before being declared projects of national interest.

I want to first of all clarify that this bill is enormous and I will not be able to give equal attention to all parts of it. In terms of part 3 and the threat it represents to collective bargaining and respect for the trade union movement, I want to make it clear that the Green Party completely supports the concerns of the Canadian Labour Congress, and wants to work hard to see part 3 substantially amended.

Part 1 of Bill C-39 and part 2 of Bill C-5, the so-called Building Canada Act, are built on fallacies without evidence. This is a fundamentally important point, because all our debate takes place in a dream world where everyone accepts a bunch of fallacies without evidence. The primary fallacy is that moving fast is desirable and smart. Sometimes old truisms are actually true. Haste makes waste.

If we want something that is not built on fallacies but has abundant evidence, I recommend to government members a book by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner called How Big Things Get Done. They had a database of, believe it or not, 16,000 megaprojects that they studied, and most of them failed. Why did they fail? Small projects often succeeded. Bigger projects failed. When I say “failed”, I mean that they were not just a little bit over budget but something like 300% and 400% over budget and years late. I will just very quickly summarize what the book tells us: Most projects fail because people rush into execution with weak plans, optimism bias and political pressures. Does that ring any bells around here? The authors' advice is “Think slow, act fast.”

What we have here is a rush to get things done, without examining how and why. As a matter of fact, if anyone looks at How Big Things Get Done, they would look at Bill C-5 and Bill C-39 and say we had better pull the plug on those before we make massive mistakes that will leave us deeper in debt and without getting progress for our economy, while certainly leaving the environment and indigenous rights in tatters.

The fallacies are really important to at least talk about before we once again rush through a process to pass a piece of legislation that, like Bill C-5, is based on massive political discretion, decisions made in cabinet with no transparency and without even the kind of evidence one would need for a business case or a cost-benefit analysis. In the case of Treasury Board guidelines before regulations, the cabinet directive for cost-benefit analysis for regulations would give the government a template one would need to know.

We have, in our first example of a project referred to the Major Projects Office, as designated by cabinet as the first since Bill C-5 passed in late June of last year, the first time cabinet has said this is a project in the national interest. There were not any criteria in the legislation to guide them, and then they said they would let us know what the criteria were later, but they have approved the project with no cost-benefit analysis and no information.

I mentioned earlier tonight that in the Canada Gazette, the government actually mis-characterizes the project in the description, which is not long. The description the government put on the Gazette website for Canadians to respond to claimed that the project is a pipeline to deliver crude oil. It may not matter to people in the PMO what the difference between crude oil and diluted bitumen is, but in fact, they have very different markets in different countries. Some refineries can handle some, but most cannot. In any case, there is a very significant difference in the kind of hazard that diluted bitumen represents. If the Liberals cannot describe it right when they put it out for public consultation, it does not inspire a lot of confidence that they know what they are doing at all.

On top of that, we had no cost-benefit analysis, no further information as to why the project is in the national interest. I remember that on the floor of the House in June last year, the Minister of Energy said it would not be politicians deciding what projects are in the national interest. There would have to be a private sector proponent. If there is a private sector proponent, the projects are going to make money. There is no private sector proponent for the first project the government picked out of Bill C-5. It is the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta and a company called Pembina Pipeline, which is willing to maybe stake 10% of the whole project.

We are on the hook for this, and it is going to plow through and bulldoze through some of the most sensitive marine ecosystems on the coast of British Columbia, but that is okay, because the Prime Minister's Office press release says that we are avoiding ecologically sensitive areas. Again, this provides no confidence whatsoever that the government even understands the basics of what it is supposed to do as a responsible government.

I am going to go back to Bill C-5, because it is really important to understand. Again, to point to my friend, the member for Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, go back to Bill C-5 and look at the exemptions that are listed in subsection 21(2).

I know I do not have a lot of time, but I have to read them so the public understands that cabinet is not authorized to make exemptions under the following acts: Access to Information Act, the Canada Elections Act, the Canada Labour Code, the Conflict of Interest Act, the Criminal Code, the Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act, the Investment Canada Act, the Lobbying Act, the Official Languages Act, the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, the Indian Act, the Auditor General Act, the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Trade Unions Act, the Explosives Act and the Hazardous Products Act.

Guess what laws are not on the list that the government cannot make exemptions to. It is the laws that would also be amended in C-39, and I will tell members how they would be amended. They are the laws that I specifically tried to have added as amendments to Bill C-5, which were rejected by the Liberals and the Conservatives, to add that exemptions could not be made under the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Species at Risk Act and others of that nature.

We absolutely know that the Liberals thought about it and decided no, that they wanted to be able to run through those with a bulldozer. That is okay. They are going to do that, because they have done that in Bill C-5, and I sometimes feel like I am watching a soap opera and everyone forgot season one. Season one was Bill C-5.

We are now in a Möbius loop, where we are still talking the same fallacies with no evidence, but we are in season two. In season two, it is more of the same, only worse, because they are really hoping that people were so bedazzled by the drama of season one of the soap opera that they are not keeping track of the cumulative impact of two omnibus bills with so radically different titles that we should be able to keep them straight: the Building Canada Act and the build Canada strong act.

What the Liberals have done in Bill C-39 with the Species at Risk Act, the Impact Assessment Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act, the Fisheries Act and others, is to add for the first time that governments, when adding conditions to approvals of projects, would have to consider whether these conditions are economic, feasible or practical.

The previous transport minister, my friend whose name I will say because it gives the time context, was Omar Alghabra. When the government did the wrong thing and approved Roberts Bank, he said not to worry because they had 320 binding conditions that will protect the environment. Everyone knew they would not protect species at risk, but they were supposedly binding conditions.

With Bill C-39, if it passes, there would be no such thing as binding conditions because the proponent could come back and say, “Wait a minute. I don't see evidence that the minister considered that we can't afford to live up to your conditions.” They cannot be managed. That is why Bill C-39 would further erode laws that the government has already done in Bill C-5 as discretionary if they are in the way of building some big thing with no evidence it is going to make sense.

I really do think that deep geological disposal of nuclear waste actually happens to be one of the projects that the government has talked about, which is actually specifically referenced in the book I mentioned, How Big Things Get Done, as where we never want to be: developing a prototype for something that has never been done, such as, for instance, deep geological disposal of nuclear waste.

My God, are the Liberals not embarrassed? Can they read legislation? I am sorry, but I can. I went to law school. I learned legislative drafting and statutory interpretation. They would get an F on this in law school if they submitted it as a term paper. It cannot be tracked. It cannot be read. We cannot keep track of what one goes to the other. Is anything defined?

It is a pile of political discretion and spin. It is fiscal recklessness disguised as economic wisdom. I suppose it is something that only the current Prime Minister could get away with.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate my fellow British Columbian, the member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and her intervention today. I know she is very passionate. She is a parliamentarian because she cares about this place. Part of the tradition of this place is making sure that there are reasonable expectations on the executive and she talked about the massive powers the Liberals justified in Bill C-5 that gave them essentially the ability to exempt almost any law. At the time, they justified it under an emergency, so Parliament set a five-year sunset clause on it. Clause 102 in Bill C-39 removes that stop, giving future governments complete access to all of those powers from there on in.

What does she have to say about those expanded powers for the executive at the expense of Parliament?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, honestly, I was shocked because not only is this bill is badly drafted, it is also deceitfully drafted. Usually when we look at the summary of a bill and what it says it is going to do in the front few pages it would say that it is amending Bill C-5, although it is not called Bill C-5 anymore, the Building Canada Act, in the “following ways” or “including the following”. We would think the important things are going to be listed when we do A, B, C, D, but the Liberals forgot to mention repealing section 5.1 of the Building Canada Act, which is the exact point my friend has raised, which is repealing the sunset clause without any effort to draw anyone's attention to it. It is absolutely shocking.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands' indignation. She provided an excellent summary of the bulldozer that is Bill C‑39. As she explained, Bill C‑5 allowed certain laws to be set aside for a period of five years. Bill C‑39 would make that change permanent. However, the Prime Minister is not just anyone: He is the former United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.

What is he doing through Bill C‑39? He is permanently repealing or amending environmental legislation. Do members see the hypocrisy? It is the same individual, but he is no longer advocating the same cause. His role has changed.

I would like my colleague to explain how she sees this hypocrisy. What does she think of the fact that a person who once championed environmental protection is now granting himself extraordinary powers to circumvent environmental safeguards?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. I would add that the word “hypocrisy” may actually be a little too kind.

There is one thing that troubles me. During last year's debates, Liberal members argued that the five-year sunset clause could be problematic because a future Conservative government might use these extraordinary powers improperly. At the time, the bill contained a provision that would have limited those powers to five years. Under this bill, however, these powers would remain in the hands of the Prime Minister and cabinet indefinitely, regardless of which party forms government.

[Karim Bardeesy, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech and intervention. I want to draw her attention to a part of the bill that I think she is also aware of, which is the inclusion of offshore wind and electricity transmission projects as the kinds of projects that might benefit from some of the processes that are outlined in the bill. I know she has a lot of concern with respect to the processes outlined in the bill. I wonder if, upon reflection of the inclusion of offshore wind and electricity transmission projects, whether that changes her view at all.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as the first project recommended to proceed being a dilbit pipeline running through the most sensitive ecological areas of my riding, with objections from indigenous nations throughout coastal British Columbia, I would love to see some wind-powered projects, but not at the expense of destroying the Salish Sea, the wild salmon and the southern resident killer whales. No way.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, what a great evening we are having.

I have a question in mind that we may not have addressed in our debates. We have indicated that we will be voting against the bill, but I think there is an important question to consider regarding Bill C‑39. Who benefits from this legislation? According to the bill's title, it aims to strengthen the economy. Does the bill achieve its objective? Who does it benefit?

I ask that because, this evening, I have heard some of my government colleagues talk to us about national interest and tell us that it is important to diversify our economy in the context of a tariff crisis. I would like to come back to this concept of national interest. I do not know whether my colleagues understand it very well, because it is a term that is generally used in international relations. I am drawing from my past life as a political science teacher. It is a term that is used in international relations and that is mostly based on the public interest.

Domestic policy involves the public interest. Foreign policy involves the national interest. Public interest usually refers to all specific interests in a nation. That is the public interest. An effective policy, such as a health or education policy, meets the needs of the entire population. It is not meant for a tiny segment of privileged people in a society. As a rule, when we talk about public interest, we always think in terms of a rational state that works in accordance with its interests.

The same goes for the national interest. When we talk about that, we are thinking of a state that wants to ensure its security, its economic development and its collective wealth. Ultimately, when we talk about the national interest, we are talking about a government that is trying to act in the best interest of its people. That is what makes me laugh, because I wonder whether the government's nation-building projects are really in the interest the people of Canada and Quebec. I am not so sure.

Let us ask ourselves a few questions. Take the Pacific link pipeline project, for instance. Is this a project of national interest aimed at the well-being or economic development of the people of Quebec? I am not so sure. Let us ask ourselves two or three fairly simple questions. If Pacific link is built, it will cost $43 billion in public funds. That is a huge amount. We also have to factor in that $36 billion has already been put into another pipeline. Let us think about that. It is a massive use of public money to feed the greedy oil and gas industry. If I were one of my Liberal colleagues, the first question I would ask myself is where these energy exports are going.

If we look at this more closely, in 2024, we exported $197 billion in energy. Of that $197 billion, $147 billion came from oil alone. Roughly speaking, Canada exports between 75% and 80% of its energy to the United States each year in all forms: gas, oil and electricity. However, when we look at oil exports alone, 91% of all oil exports in 2025 went directly to the U.S.

I do not understand the magical thinking that somehow by just building pipeline infrastructure, we are going to export more oil to Europe. There was even talk of Asia earlier. Certain members said that this evening. I heard the member for Halifax and the member for Guelph answering questions and saying that we are going to export more oil. I do not know how they are in a position to say that, but the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers appeared before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources this week and said that, no, our main market will always be the U.S.

The Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation said the same thing earlier. He said that if we export more oil, we will be able to sell it at a higher price because, right now, we are selling it at a discount to the Americans. No one supports that. Even the deputy minister of international trade, whom I saw this week, cannot say whether the government has a target.

Does the government have a target? Does it want to reduce oil exports from 91% to 40% or 50% by diversifying our markets? No one in the government can tell us whether there is a target.

Therefore, when I ask myself where our energy exports go, the answer is without question the United States. Furthermore, when it comes to oil, 91% of our exports go to the U.S.

Why build a pipeline? Why undermine certain environmental regulations, as we see in section 3, to ensure the Americans' energy security? How is it in Canada's national interest to ensure the Americans' energy security? I find this completely outrageous.

Next, we can ask ourselves another question: Who owns the oil companies?

When we look at the ownership structure of all the major players in the Canadian oil and gas industry, we see that, while 80% of these major companies are owned by foreign interests, 60% of them belong to American interests, so the major oil and gas companies are mostly American-owned. I would remind members that oil is one of the only consumer goods that we export that is not subject to tariffs. There are no tariffs on oil. Ninety per cent of Canada's oil exports are sent to the United States tariff-free, and the owners of the major oil and gas companies are American.

From 2021 to 2024, these people made $131 billion in profits. That means that they sent $80 billion in dividends outside Canada. That is a capital flight of $12.5 billion a year that leaves Canada and mainly goes to the United States.

We asked ourselves two very simple questions. Where are our oil exports going? Who owns the oil companies?

In both cases, I have yet to find anyone here who was able to show me that it is in Canada's national interest to put $44 billion into a pipeline. We are certainly not the ones who will benefit from it. We are helping to keep the Americans energy secure and helping them make more profits, and it is Quebeckers and Canadians who are paying for that.

I was saying that dividend profits totalled $80 billion from 2021 to 2024. The latest figures are even worse. This past summer, in July, Cenovus said it was going to post record profits in the second quarter. We are in the second quarter now. It made $2.8 billion. That is four times more than it managed to earn in 2025.

When I look at this, I really do not see how anyone can argue that this legislation will strengthen the Canadian economy, when it is actually about undermining environmental laws to give Americans greater energy security and provide American companies with more revenue, even though those greedy companies have made record profits in recent years.

Worse still, what is even more shocking is that the major unions that came to see us at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources told us that the increase in oil production does not come with an increase in jobs. The government often says that the oil sector is important because it supports so many jobs. The unions tell us that this does not translate into more jobs, because companies are investing in automation. They do not want to invest in their infrastructure. It is sheer idiocy. The government is destroying the environment so that, during a tariff crisis, American companies can rake in more profits on oil while ensuring American energy security.

Can any Liberal member explain the logic to me? I would appreciate that. Otherwise, I would ask them to forever hold their peace. There we go.

[Bienvenu-Olivier Ntumba, Liberal, Mont-Saint-Bruno—L’Acadie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague gave a fine speech about the opinion of his political party.

Can he explain to me how he would do a better job defending the benefits of this bill? This bill does not remove standards. Instead, it sets out guidelines to fast-track the implementation of projects so that Canada can be the master in its own house.

My colleague argued at length about his opposition to the pipeline, while Canada is diversifying its markets so that it is no longer dependent on a single market, the American market. Why would he not want to support this bill?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would encourage my colleague to do a bit of research and take a look at the information that is out there. Where do our energy exports go? Who owns the gas and oil companies?

I always find it amusing when Liberal colleagues talk about being masters in our own house. This has nothing to do with that. When Quebec decided to buy hydroelectric power to secure its future, that is when we became masters in our own house.

The government is not buying our oil resources; it is leaving them in American hands and paying for the infrastructure. To me, that is being subservient in our own house, not being masters.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my Bloc Québécois colleague made an excellent point in closing. We are not masters in our own house because, as he said, U.S. companies own the oil sector. The market is in the U.S. The latest spring economic statement indicated that 90% of our fossil fuel exports go to the United States. We have no market diversification.

Why does he suppose the Liberals are unaware of this reality, of our role? We are not owners; we are serving U.S. companies.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot fathom why. I cannot understand why the Prime Minister, who is supposedly a genius when it comes to international trade, fails to grasp the fact that we do not collectively own oil resources; we exploit them primarily for the benefit and profit of Americans.

I do not understand why the government is putting all our eggs in the oil sector basket at a time when our relationship with the Americans is in crisis. As I said off the top, the national interest demands that we be aware of our own interests. Liberal Party members are clearly unaware of their interests. In that sense, they have the mindset of a colonized people.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague did a thorough job of showing that this proposed pipeline will not benefit us and is not in the national interest.

Is it also in the national interest to fight with unions and violate their rights when businesses depend on workers? How is it in the national interest to alienate workers?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. At the beginning of my speech, I asked who will benefit from this legislation. It is certainly not the workers.

Worse still, as I have said, we experienced first-hand what happens when an oil and gas project is turned down. That is what happened in Quebec with GNL Québec. When the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement said no to GNL Québec, the company turned around and sued the Canadian government. It is not hard to imagine how much trouble a piece of legislation like this could lead to.

Imagine how many lawsuits will be filed against the federal government if the Pacific link project is rejected on environmental grounds. This is all completely irrational.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight to speak to Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act.

This debate is about what kind of Canada we want to build and about government priorities. We all agree that Canada needs to build. We need housing. We need clean energy. We need transmission lines. We need public infrastructure. We need good union jobs, and we need to plug economic leakages. We need to diversify our economy and stand up to the economic threats coming from Donald Trump, but we do not want to stand up to Donald Trump by using Donald Trump's policies. A bill like Bill C-5 would not even have come forward from Stephen Harper.

Someone from the Conservative bench said earlier that this is like using a bulldozer and a sledgehammer. Bill C-39 is asking Canadians to accept an enormous transfer of power in the name of speed: more power over workers, more discretion over environmental protections and accelerated timelines for decisions affecting indigenous rights. My colleague from Vancouver East said that beneath this bill “are serious questions about who gets power, who gets certainty and who bears the risk.” We are going to talk about that.

Let us start with the workers. The Canadian Labour Congress commissioned a comparative legal analysis that found Bill C-39 would give the federal government “broader unilateral power to end a legal strike than exists in any other G7 country.” Think about that. Even in the United States, the president cannot simply end a national emergency strike and oppose a permanent binding settlement, as the Liberals are proposing here today. There are legal thresholds, court involvement and limits on intervention that would stop this from happening, yet the government wants to give a Canadian minister, any minister, extraordinary power when a strike is deemed to adversely affect what they deem is in the national interest.

A strike is supposed to create economic pressure. That is the point. Workers do not have the power of a multinational corporation. Their power comes from standing together when necessary and, if needed, withholding their own labour. If the government can intervene whenever that pressure becomes too effective, employers have less incentive to bargain fairly.

We have heard from the CLC, CUPE, Unifor, the United Steelworkers and other labour organizations that have raised serious concerns about these changes. Instead of dismissing those concerns, the government needs to listen to the people who actually represent those workers. It needs to listen to those labour unions. The Liberals keep saying that they are friends of labour. Why are they not listening to them?

The same principle needs to apply to our environment. Environmental assessment is not red tape. Asking what happens to our water, our climate, endangered species and human health before approving a project is basic due diligence. A one-year deadline does not make nature move faster. It is not acceptable to first nations. We cannot undo extinction. We cannot simply restore contaminated water or destroyed habitat after the fact. Environmental organizations have specifically warned that the provisions in Bill C-39 could weaken protections for species at risk, including the critically endangered southern resident killer whale, which my friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands has raised repeatedly.

Indigenous rights cannot simply be squeezed into a government project management schedule. Meaningful consultation requires time, resources and genuine participation before decisions are made. Is it the government that is going to decide when a consultation is complete? Is that how it is going to work moving forward?

We want to build Canada, but let us build Canada where workers have the power at the bargaining table, where indigenous rights are respected, where environmental protection is part of the national interest and where communities do not carry the risk while corporations collect the rewards. Building Canada strong cannot simply mean building Canada faster. It must mean building Canada better, building Canada fairer and building Canada together.

My riding, Courtenay—Alberni, is about a 10-hour trip door to door. My riding is 7,900 square kilometres and represents 34 communities. There are 184 elected officials in my riding, and we are tired. We feel like we are not being heard. It is crazy that I am going to refer to Brian Lilley, but he highlighted that Alberta has 5.1 million people, and it has six senators. We know that they need to be heard. That is clear.

I come from Vancouver Island. We know that we are better off and stronger together. Absolutely, separation is not something we talk about, but on the other side of the Rockies, we know it is harder to be heard, and on Vancouver Island, I can tell this House what it is like. We have not had a Senate appointment since 1970. Brian Lilley highlighted that Alberta has six senators and Atlantic Canada has 30. We have not had a single Senate appointment since 1970. What does that mean? It means we do not have a Senate seat on the fisheries committee at the Senate. Why is that important? I am going to talk a bit about that.

I am talking about building Canada strong. Building Canada strong includes rural communities. Wealth starts in rural communities, but it leaves rural communities. That is what we are used to. When Liberals talk about regions of national interest, why are they not talking to regions and making us part of the national interest?

They promised to fix our fisheries. On the east coast, they fish it or they lose their quota. They do not have foreign ownership of their quota. They do not allow it. We also know who owns their quota. On the west coast, there is no public registry, we allow foreign ownership, and we allow concentration of licences.

A lot of my friends in rural Canada, a lot of people in my riding in coastal British Columbia, go out fishing. They lease from people we call “slipper skippers” who represent the corporate interest that owns the quota. We do not even know who they are. A lot of them could be from Russia or China, could be our adversaries or organized crime. It is unbelievable that this is allowed. In 2018, a study at the fisheries and oceans committee unanimously supported changing it so we could come up with an independent fishery model that reflected the east coast. Nothing has changed. For decades, we have seen this happen.

I am going to quote Dan Edwards, who wrote this week in his Substack, “The value of that asset can rise while the security of the person doing the fishing declines.” That is exactly what is happening. Another thing he said was, “Government policy helped produce those losses. Government has a responsibility to help repair them.” What happened to fast-tracking in dealing with that issue?

When they want to talk about building Canada stronger, what about us on Vancouver Island? Here is what I hear from first nations when they hear about fast-tracking projects: What about fast-tracking their treaties? What about fast-tracking their agreements? How come the government is not prioritizing that? Is that not nation building?

We have 65,000 homeless people in this country, including in my riding. It would cost $14 billion to house them. The Liberals can find $45 billion for a pipeline that increases our GDP by 0.6%, but when we look at the impact on people who are homeless, it is much greater than that. The Mental Health Commission did a study and said unaddressed mental health is costing us 5% to 6% of our GDP, $200 billion a year.

The PBO also did a study and said it would cost $4.9 billion to ensure we had parity with mental and physical health, that we could make mental health an insured benefit, based on my bill, under the mental health parity act, but the government chose not to do that. These are economic leakages and economic opportunities, but they impact every home, every community, including in my riding.

We can talk about ferries. Colleagues have heard me talk about this repeatedly. Right now, the east coast gets $182.5 million for operating its ferries. We get $38 million in B.C., despite the fact that we move 22 million passengers and the east coast moves 365,000. Let us go back to Confederation. When we joined Confederation, Vancouver Island had 15,000 people, while P.E.I. had 97,000 people. Today, Vancouver Island has more people than Newfoundland and P.E.I. We get six dollars per capita for ferry operating costs; they get $125. If the government wants to build back stronger, it needs to include the rest of Canada and make sure we have fairness and equity. That is all we are asking for.

When it comes to shipbuilding, ship recycling and ship repair, we can build back better. We can look to Norway, where they take small communities, places like Port Alberni, underused deep-sea ports, and make them shipbuilding, ship repair and ship recycling facilities. We could lead the world since we have the longest coastline in the world.

We are tired of being ignored. If we want to build back stronger, we need to make sure that places like Vancouver Island are included in building back stronger, that the government actually takes the time to listen to us, that we have proper representation from Vancouver Island that reflects that, and that we get acknowledged and not dismissed when we bring forward ideas of unfairness and inequities or when we feel that the government is not acting on the things it has promised to do for too long.

[Steeve Lavoie, Liberal, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate speech.

I have a question for him, but I also want to add to what he said at the end of his speech. He mentioned Norway, which I had the opportunity to visit this year. As we know, Norway is one of six countries in the world that has no debt and that is developing its resources in order to shift toward electrification, for example. In fact, 100% of the cars sold last year were electric. Norway is a good example in many ways. It develops its resources and sells them abroad.

I sit on the Standing Committee on International Trade, where the word that comes up the most often is “predictability”. That is what Bill C‑39 provides. If my colleague is not in favour of Bill C‑39, what other ideas does he have for speeding up projects, providing predictability for businesses, encouraging investment and ensuring that projects in Canada move forward, as is the case in Norway?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague talking about Norway, because Norway, as my colleague knows, also has a sovereign wealth fund. They have taken a portion of finite resources from their oil and gas industry, and they have created a fund that is $1.7 trillion right now. In terms of royalties alone, they earn over $200 billion a year off those royalties. They have taken leadership on EVs. What did the Liberals do? They rolled back their commitment on the EV mandate.

They created a sovereign wealth fund, but they did not fund it with an excess profit tax or by taking royalties from oil and gas. They are letting them have a free ride. I keep bringing it up in the House. We have this generational opportunity right now. Oil and gas are posting record profits. Carve off some of those profits, invest in future generations and invest in projects for the future, like clean energy and like a transmission line. Instead, they are just letting it flow to CEOs and their investors. That is exactly what this bill is like.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it feels like quality time with other British Columbians tonight because I get to ask the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni a question. I know that the NDP members, as well as many labour unions, have raised issues with Bill C-39 when it comes to workers' rights. The government likes to claim that it is the party of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Liberals constantly talk about how they respect the charter. They could start by respecting the charter and by respecting this place, because under subsection 4.2(1) of the Department of Justice Act, the Minister of Justice is legally required to table a charter statement for every single government bill. That means that the Department of Justice would give its legal opinion on the constitutionality vis à vis the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 2(d).

Does he believe that the committee that will be studying this should have that document before its study begins?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate working with my colleague as a fellow British Columbian. He is absolutely right. Not only are they fast-tracking the bill, they are trying to fast-track everything: fast-tracking rights, fast-tracking the duties and responsibilities of this place, and fast-tracking over environmental organizations, over local communities and over first nations. Again, Stephen Harper would not even think of bringing forward legislation like this and moving at this speed. The streets would be full.

This is unacceptable. It is time for the government to take a step back, listen to labour, listen to environmental organizations, listen to first nations, and make sure it is listening to government lawyers and doing what is responsible and what we have done traditionally in this place.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from Courtenay—Alberni for his speech.

It is clear that the government wants to move quickly, but it is also doing things that run counter to workers' rights. For example, the proposed amendments to section 107 of the Canada Labour Code could potentially prevent the use of strikes and job action.

Quebec was an innovator. It successfully enacted anti-scab legislation. We have been waiting for years for this to happen at the federal level.

I would like my colleague to explain why he is concerned about the proposed amendments to section 107 and the right of workers to use job action in a dispute with the employer.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague asks excellent questions in here. I will highlight this, that when we talk about section 107, we were actually pushing the government to get rid of it so that it stopped overriding the rights of workers. Instead, what are the Liberals doing? They are making it even worse. I completely agree with my colleague. The government needs to sit down with labour. It is ignoring their requests, completely ignoring them. It is ignoring so many other stakeholders when it comes to the legislation. It is fast-tracking and ramming this through. It is like Bill C-5 repeating itself.