Adam Vaughan

[Pipeline Safety Act, March 9th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I am old enough to remember there was a radical wing of the New Democrat Party called, of all things, the Waffle, which is perhaps an appropriate name.

I am trying to understand this. When the members on the government side of the House fail to understand climate change, we criticize them for failing to understand science. However, when they talk about pipelines being safe, they suddenly embrace science and we get nervous about it.

At the same time, the NDP members talk about why we should believe scientists on climate change, but that we cannot trust scientists to build good pipelines. Why?

[Pipeline Safety Act, March 9th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the role of the federal government is not just to make decisions but to build consensus around decisions to make sure that what we do benefits as many people as possible, in the most efficient way possible, while protecting the environment. They are not exclusive dynamics. They are dynamics we actually have to keep in balance.

One of the things that concerns all of us as we see the pipeline issue get raised is the “my way or the highway” attitude of the government. Listening and learning from one's critics is the best way to improve a policy. The absence of that consensus, the absence of reaching out to create partnerships that work, is a huge challenge. It is as big a challenge as arbitrarily saying that we will build a new refinery on the east coast and create jobs. If the market is not there, if the capacity already exists and we try to replicate that capacity in Canada, we are offering false promise to the east coast. We are not telling people in central Canada the truth, because there is not necessarily a market or a way of getting it to the east coast. At the end of the day, it is not something that will necessarily get buy-in if we are going to simply tax the resource to pay for the downstream expansion.

We have to work in partnership. The absence of that collaborative process and perspective and the inability to listen in committee are the hallmarks of the government. One of the reasons it is not getting progress on this file, and so many other files, especially on the international front, is that it refuses to collaborate. We can see it in the cities of this town and in the capitals around the world. A failure to collaborate is hurting the Canadian economy, and ironically, and sadly, it is defeating the interests of the very province that seems to elect nothing but Conservatives.

[Pipeline Safety Act, March 9th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, this is an evolving issue. I think one of the things that has happened in the last 15 years is that the rate of change within the oil fields has been very hard to keep pace with, so the scope of the challenge has grown.

If we look at rail alone, in 2011 there were only 68,000 carloads of resource coming out of Alberta and moving through the rest of the country. Within two years, it doubled to more than 120,000 carloads. The rate of increase, the technological change, and what is being shipped is changing. Looking back 20 or 15 years does not provide a blueprint for the future.

We know that the product is more volatile than it used to be. We know that the direction it is moving is changing as we speak. We know that the rate of extraction and the rate of shipment has multiplied by at least double since the start of this decade. Going back and asking us what we would have done in 2008 or 2009 is not the issue.

The challenge in front of us now is that so much of this is moving by rail. We could shift to pipelines, but the pipelines do not have the capacity and are not technically sufficient in their structure to carry it. With that volatility now in play, it requires a response.

Looking to the future is where we need to focus. Looking backwards in time is not going to resolve the issue we have in front of us today.

[Pipeline Safety Act, March 9th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of the bill. I think it is important, when public safety issues are before us, that we get them to committee as quickly as possible. I think we all have faith or hope that the committee process will improve safety issues when there is a discrepancy or a concern that they are too soft. However, we also recognize that the government on this measure is attempting to correct a problem that has been left long standing for far too long.

The issue of moving volatile substances safely through this country will be with us regardless of which side of the climate change debate we end up on, regardless of which side of the pipeline debate we are on, and which side of the rail lines we come down on because of one simple fact: moving resources to market requires us to manage some difficult chemicals and some difficult substances. Getting it right gives us peace of mind but also protects people. It also protects the environment if we do it properly.

The concerns we are starting to hear about the bill are not so much about the intent. We support that. They are not so much about the provisions to strengthen our already lax laws, as we can see from past pipeline incidents; the concerns are about oversight.

This parallels another conversation that is happening in this building, which is again about public safety. Oversight works when it is independent and when it is vigorous and when it is well supported by research, facts, and investigative powers but also with accountability models.

The concerns at present about the bill reach those same areas I just listed. For me, who represents a riding in the city of Toronto where the rail lines move through at the south end and the north end of the riding, getting pipelines right is extraordinarily important for the safety of the residents I represent and am speaking for today.

Every one of the derailments that has been listed in this House during the debate, including the one that happened over the weekend in Gogama, the second derailment this month, would have made it through the heart of the city of Toronto but for the poor luck to have happened where they did. They could have happened in one of those densely populated parts of Toronto, one of the most densely populated parts of Canada, and the impact would have been beyond catastrophic. I do not think there is a word to describe what the scenario would have looked like.

We have huge issues, and it is precisely because of the lack of public oversight and of independent oversight over these public safety issues that even though we support the general intent of these sorts of bills, we get shy about them. We get very nervous about them. We can start to hear the corrections we think, if tabled and accepted, would make it a better bill. If we start giving voice to those suggestions, hopefully they will be heard inside the parliamentary committee.

In particular, on rail, if we do not move volatile chemicals by pipeline, they will move to market by rail. Quite clearly, accident after accident, allowing the industry to self-regulate and diluting the accountability models is having a devastating impact on the quality of transportation and the quality of our resource management system.

It is precisely because of the way we have walked away from enforcement, regulation, and accountability, in particular around oil, in particular around pipelines, that our trading partners, in particular the United States of America, have moved away from trusting us to manage these files properly. As a result, even the most enthusiastic supporters of the oil sands now cannot get that product to market efficiently. With the rail accidents right now, there is actually no way of getting it to the east coast.

It is thought that somehow not providing good government, not providing good oversight, and not providing independent accountability models is going to make things better. It has made things worse.

While we watch this pipeline proposal move through the House and on to committee, this is exactly the time and exactly the opportunity the government should be seizing to show us that it can listen, that it can take the good ideas coming from industry, the environmental movement, parliamentarians, and ordinary citizens, and actually craft legislation that gives people peace of mind that there will not be a major accident, and if there are accidents, that containment strategies are in place, and if containment strategies fail, that accountability is there.

Losing the drinking water for a small town, or losing the capacity to manage the environment for the long term because of a catastrophic spill, is an unacceptable outcome of economic development. Surely in this day and age we are smart enough to manage the resources more effectively.

Part of it is about exploring upstream possibilities for refinement. I hear members of the opposition party talk about doing all the refining in Canada. We know that the refining capacity of North America is stronger than the supply right now. The challenge is that unless we are prepared to subsidize the oil and gas industry to provide new forms of refinement and new forms of downstream processing, there is no way of realizing the vision they have placed on the table as an alternative to pipelines or rail.

Therefore, with the economic reality staring us in the face, with the understanding that the resources are going to move to market, the issue falls to us to find the right balance. Refine what we can, absolutely. Move it when we have to; we must accomplish this. To move it safely is the issue.

The challenge we are having with the legislation again comes down to oversight. If we take a look at the National Energy Board, it has become a de facto rubber stamp for decisions that have already been made by the government. The quality of the people appointed is not sufficient to give us the sense of confidence that if there is an issue that needs to be addressed we are going to get a response in both a timely and proactive fashion but also in an accountable way. That is the issue that concerns us.

Therefore, as the bill, with our support, makes it to the parliamentary committee, please do not do with it what has been done with so many other bills: refuse to listen to opposition ideas, refuse to listen to expert opinion, refuse to listen to the concerns of ordinary Canadians, and refuse to act in the interest of all of us together in concert. Please, hold meaningful hearings, change the accountability model, create independence in the accountability model, and go forward.

I think we will find that all of us can support moves like that that would strengthen the capacity of the current government to do what it is supposed to do, which is not just to stand back and eliminate government but to in fact push government forward into a position where it can be effective and can deliver the economic results we all want it to.

[Infrastructure, March 9th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, under the former government of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, the premier of Ontario and the mayor of Toronto stood on the shores of Lake Ontario and committed to transform the waterfront of our great city.

It is time for the next investment. The province is ready. The city has set aside its money. But where is the federal government? Three hundred and twenty-five million dollars is needed, and much like the budget, the finance minister is hiding under his desk and will not come forward.

Will the finance minister please commit this money, fund the flood proofing that is needed in the Lower Don Lands, fund the transit, and get the Unilever site off to the races? Will the federal government please commit to the city of Toronto and the province—

[Respect for Communities Act, February 26th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the problem I am having with this is that the government seems to suggest that public hearings are for listening and not for responding. Simply holding public hearings, for other levels of government, means that people get to actually have an impact on a decision. However, when it comes to parliamentary hearings, when it comes to committee hearings, simply running out the clock and presenting a series of statistics on how many hours, how many meetings, or how many minutes of debate were held somehow constitutes a democratic process.

Can the minister highlight one change, a single change, to the bill that was accomplished through the public hearings the government conducted?

[Infrastructure, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, we have heard that answer before. In fact, we have heard it countless times.

What the government needs to understand is that the program it has put together is not working for cities. It does not work in cities. In fact, the program is back-end loaded. That is the problem.

What we have seen is a 90% cut in infrastructure spending. What has happened is that it was $2 billion two years ago; it is $200 million now. This is hurting cities across this country.

The question is very simple. Municipalities cannot wait. Cities cannot wait. Canadians cannot wait. Why will the government not fix the program now and spend the money now so that cities can get back to building infrastructure that we need in this country now?

[Infrastructure, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, what do the following cities have in common: Kitchener, Vancouver, Burlington, Sydney, Markham, Montreal, Cambridge, Ottawa, Halifax, Toronto, Mississauga, and Regina?

I have talked to the mayors of those cities, and what they have in common is a very simple thing: none of them got any federal infrastructure money last year, and they don't expect to get any money this year because of your government's policies. In fact, none of them are getting any money.

Do you understand that? None of them are getting any money. Can the minister explain why he is spending $29 million on billboards but not a penny on new infrastructure in these important cities?

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit that it is disappointing to see complexity raised as an issue and a barrier by a party that continually invokes closure on complex issues.

We have the capacity and the responsibility to act together. The courts have asked us to do that. Canadians ask us to do that, and they send us to this chamber to do just that. On an issue like this, where there is quite clearly such a rich treasure trove of personal experience, it is perhaps the one issue that we can and should act quickly on.

I agree with the member's comments. This is so important that we need to stop and not do something so that we can understand how to do it more slowly and respond more quickly is the most complicated response to urgency that I have ever heard in my life.

I think we have a responsibility to govern here as parliamentarians. We have a responsibility to reach out across the aisle, to reach out across our life experience, to listen, to include, and to move forward.

As I said, every day this is delayed, we are extending someone's suffering. Every day this issue is undefined by Parliament, we sow confusion and distrust among those people whose rights need to be protected by new legislation.

Now is the time to act. Now is the time to govern. Now is the time to come together to give Canadians an answer, as the Supreme Court has asked of us.

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the deadline is next February and between now and February there will be an election. The motion today proposes that we unlock a process and move it forward. It would start with consulting widely with Canadians and bringing forward the necessary evidence from all interested parties so that the executive branch of government would have the context and the basis and the information necessary to act and to present legislation, which the new Parliament, if it has to, would respond to and act on in time to meet the Supreme Court deadline.

The reason it is so critical to get moving on this issue it that it requires, above all, a new approach by Parliament. It requires Parliament to reach out to more Canadians and embrace the complexity and the compassion that is being asked of us. To wait until the next Parliament, and to pretend that we cannot act outside of Parliament as parliamentarians, would really limit our understanding of democracy and the parliamentary system. We have the capacity to act. The motion sets the first stage of that procedure. We can follow from there with good advice from Canadians.