Mr. Speaker, did I hear “zero”? Is there any dispute on the other side? They are dead quiet on the other side. The answer is “zero”.
How many permits have been issued by the new office? Zero. How many employees are working on those projects? It is zero, zip, nada, nothing, after 18 months, but do not worry. Today the Liberals have come in and announced another sweeping bill, which the media has regurgitated unfiltered, as though it were gospel truth, and this time the Liberals are repeating exactly the same promises.
It is not just that the Liberals have approved and built nothing. There are 500 projects, at least, waiting on the Prime Minister's desk. I say 500, because the Impact Assessment Agency has that number of significant projects, but there are also countless other projects at other departments, which are too dispersed among too many agencies for anyone to tell us how many projects the federal government is waiting to approve. Still, 18 months later, none of them are approved. Not a single Trudeau-era, antidevelopment law or tax has been removed. Not a single inch of oil pipeline has been built.
Remember, the Prime Minister said that we are in an existential crisis. That is to say that if we do not get it right, we will not even exist in his terms, that we are in a “war”. Is this the speed of war? Imagine this: If we had travelled at this speed back in the Second World War, we would not have gotten the Lancaster built in two years. In fact, the plane would not be off the ground even today.
There have been dozens of announcements, summits, speeches, signing ceremonies and other illusions. We have heard lots about this project or that, which will be designated, declared or listed. Pipelines do not go on lists; they go in the ground. Shovels do not go on designations; they go in the ground. Energy does not go in an MOU; it goes in a tanker to another market. Unfortunately, none of those things are happening. It is all talk, no results; all show, no go; and all theatre, no reality.
Here is the reality and the result: Gushing media headlines aside, there has been nothing in 18 months. The previous bill was called the Building Canada Act. It built nothing. Today we have a bill called the building Canada strong act, so in 18 months, the Liberals have managed to add one word. One word on a piece of paper is 18 months' worth of achievement. The only thing the Prime Minister has built is 14 new government agencies.
Now, here we go again. We have another bill, and it would not repeal Bill C-69, Justin Trudeau's antidevelopment law. It would not eliminate the industrial carbon tax, and it would not ultimately change the obstacles that are in the existing legal framework.
For example, let us take the administrative burden created by Liberal Bill C-69, Trudeau's antidevelopment law. Even if the bill before the House were to pass today, we would still have on the books requirements that anybody who applies for a project include analysis on “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”, as if that has anything to do with mines, pipelines or marine ports.
My favourite is that projects, even if the bill before the House today were to pass, would still have to take into account “any other matter relevant to the impact assessment that the Agency requires to be taken into account.” That means there is no limit on the number of things that the bureaucracy would consider before a project were approved. How can the Liberals even talk about regulatory certainty with that kind of ambiguity?
The Liberals are claiming that it will help get things built, but they promised this the last time, so we should not hold our breath. Does it reduce the number of vexatious or irrelevant obstructions from hard-core foreign-funded interest groups that have been killing projects for over 10 years? Well, the bill maintains a wide-open approach to consultation about projects that would allow literally anyone to have their comments and testimony included in hearings before a project can actually occur, so we could have American interests that want to keep Canada down, the ones that helped Justin Trudeau get elected with massive foreign funding in the 2015 election, fund antidevelopment groups against the interests of Canada to block things from happening. It is elbows up, indeed. That would not change under this law.
Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering if I can ask for a favour. Could you pause the clock so that I can speak for longer than 10 minutes but still come in under the 10-minute limit?