Blake Desjarlais

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, this would have been an important study nine years ago. It would have been an important study 20 years ago. This would have been important when the country was founded. It has taken until today. Now the Conservatives are smelling blood in the water and want to take a partisan approach to this issue. That is the only reason we are debating this now.

I hear the member when he talks about the procedures of this place, but I respectfully submit that we should have been debating this a long time ago. When indigenous people began to be a part of our economy, which was always, we should have been asking the question of how they best fit in.

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank all my colleagues for this important discussion today on the economic barriers that are leading to detrimental impacts on indigenous communities to better serve themselves, their community and all Canadians.

It is not too far in our own history that we looked to indigenous innovation for immense solutions to everyday problems. For example, the baby jumper is something that was invented by an indigenous woman right here in Canada. It is a significant contribution that most indigenous and non-Indigenous children would have access to. Indigenous entrepreneurs and indigenous economic motivators are critical to the success of Canada. However, that being said, there are immense barriers to these kinds of achievements by indigenous people, which is why it is so often the case that they find themselves in difficult circumstances to keep their businesses and operations afloat.

The indigenous and northern affairs committee was asked to study the barriers to indigenous economic development and highlighted a few key aspects of what that could mean within the report. However, I would like to focus today on what we find in the recommendations and speak to some of the challenges we are seeing here in Ottawa. For example, there is the infrastructure gap, and I will be touching on this important deficit, which is largely contributing to indigenous people having less access to our economy. Let me put it into perspective.

Within the immense supply chain in our country there are, for example, railroads, two bands of steel right across the country, but this kind of economic infrastructure in the supply chain is very difficult for indigenous people to participate in when they are so far from infrastructure inputs to get their product to market. Indigenous communities make up an immense part of the economies in northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba and northern British Columbia, but they are still finding the lack of infrastructure a critical barrier. For example, the deficit for infrastructure is over $350 billion for first nations communities and $75 billion for Inuit.

There is a $2.5-billion deficit for infrastructure, and indigenous people have been simply left behind for generations. It is time we catch up. We need a government that is willing to invest in infrastructure to see these communities truly flourish.

Another topic I would like to address is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is true that although economic development in Canada has largely taken place without the consent of indigenous people, we are now on a path that would see indigenous people participate better in the economic development drivers of our country. However, there are still immense barriers to this.

We see, time and time again, that when a first nations, Métis or Inuit community says no, the government ignores it. Indigenous people have fought tooth and nail to see the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples truly adhered to. This gives indigenous people the great ability not just to say yes to projects that benefit them, but to also say no. This is the biggest contrast and challenge that indigenous people have, particularly with Conservative and Liberal governments. Time and time again, indigenous issues and indigenous people are only important when it is convenient to them.

This particular case is another one of those instances where indigenous people have now taken the floor of the House of Commons to speak to the very interesting and deep challenges related to economic development. However, it is against the backdrop of an important moment in our House of Commons where we are being stalemated, because of several instances of concurrence in this place to slow down government legislation, which I understand completely. However, I also understand, and want to point out, that this debate today is critical and should not be taking place on the backs of other critical pieces of work and legislation. This is an important topic, and we have a moment now to speak to it. I would hope that the government representatives are listening.

We have a serious issue with the final topic I will address today, which is indigenous procurement. To back up a bit, procurement for indigenous people is done through a federal program called PSIB, the indigenous business support program, which allows indigenous people to bid on procurement items. When the government is looking for talent acquisition, it would create an offer, have indigenous people bid, and then the successful indigenous company would administer that program. It sounds wonderful. It is a great thing for indigenous businesses, should they be allowed to fairly participate.

There is no framework today that would put the indigenous procurement strategy of the government to a higher standard, one that would not be forcing the Assembly of First Nations to call for real reform within procurement. It would not be that the victims of the lack of procurement are those indigenous businesses, which are the real victims here. It is the indigenous businesses that have done everything right, that played by the rules, that signed all the papers and that got the congratulations and a pat on the back for incorporating their company, only to be met by a system that is rigged by the government and that has benefited, in this particular case, someone named Randy.

This is an obvious instance that requires the government's immediate attention. We need to get directly to the bottom of what has been taking place in the indigenous procurement processes of the government. It is time for someone to be held accountable for the pretendianism that continues to propagate right across this country. Whether it is in social media, in traditional media, in businesses or right here in the House of Commons, there are people who are falsely claiming to be indigenous.

I had a conversation with my sister when the story came up, and she smiled at me and she said that if people want to be indigenous so badly, they should also suffer the consequences. What a thing to say. Today, the lack of access to indigenous business support is the consequence. Being disproportionately impacted by poverty is the condition indigenous people are in.

Can members imagine how much of a slap in the face it is when there is a member of the cabinet claiming to be indigenous for the purposes of accessing an indigenous procurement strategy? That is the issue pertaining to indigenous procurement today. It requires the immediate attention of the government. The AFN, indigenous leaders and, as someone made mention, Métis people are also calling for justice. How can anyone have faith in a system that allows for non-indigenous people's applications to even be heard, let alone eventually accepted and part of the government's procurement process? It is very serious indeed.

I want to speak to the important and critical aspects of the report as it pertains to indigenous self-determination. Indigenous people in Canada have always been subject to a unique relationship. Ever since the onset of colonization in North America, it has always been one of economic coercion. Economic coercion is the story and history of Canada.

We do not even have to look all that far. In my own lifetime, I have heard stories from elders who remember the days of the crooked and greedy Hudson's Bay Company. It was a monopoly here in North America that took such great advantage of indigenous people that there are horrific stories, whether of the delivery of small pox blankets or whether of the fact that indigenous people had to trap so many furs, up to the height of a rifle. That was the cost of it. There was extreme greed by the companies.

What is a shame to hear today is the fact that companies continue in that tradition, whether they are huge, immense, giant natural resource companies that say they would rather sue the nation than work with it, like we have seen in northern Alberta, or whether it is governments getting in the direct way of indigenous people trying to get access to real economic benefit, like what is taking place in Alberta.

In southwest Calgary, Canada's largest first nation development, the Tsuut'ina Nation, is building a master-planned community on 1,200 acres of its land. The $10-billion, mixed-use project will feature 17 million square feet of real estate, including more than 6,500 residential units. However, there are issues related to the ability to permit it by the provincial government.

Now the nation is waiting. It has been waiting and waiting for the government to give it the green light, when it is the nation of those lands. Original stewards have always built homes on their lands since time immemorial, and today a province is saying no. That is limiting economic business and economic opportunity for indigenous people, just as much as pretending to be indigenous for the purpose of trying to access capital. Over and over again we see instances of indigenous entrepreneurs being sidelined, whether in the case of provincial governments, as I just mentioned; in this case, with a federal government program that was meant to help indigenous entrepreneurs in procurement; or in the case of upholding indigenous people's rights.

We often talk about economic reconciliation, a buzzword from my Conservative colleagues, who most particularly want to talk about access to natural resources. I understand this very well, coming from a natural resource community myself, an area that I worked in for quite a long time. I know how these debates go with companies. When companies come in, they are hoping to get a $3,000 barbecue so we do not have to talk about beneficial ownership. I know exactly what it means when a company comes in and says it is going to use our roads and not pay for any operations or maintenance. I know exactly what it means when a company says it is going to give us a sweetheart deal today and walk out 10 years later, leaving the community with a mess to clean up costing billions of dollars.

These are the real economic barriers facing indigenous people, and these are issues we do not talk about. We do not talk about them because of the deep desire to see a partisan benefit. Anytime we talk about indigenous issues in this place, with the Liberals and the Conservatives, it is always about how they can score one on indigenous people. We have to end this. We have to be critical of these issues. Hopefully, we can unite as a House toward a process that deals with indigenous people as the rightful and beneficial owners of their lands and come to a real conclusion, a united conclusion, in the House saying that Canada must respect fundamental rights.

I would like to speak now for a moment about the importance of treaties. Canada undertook, in the 1870s and 1880s, until the late 1920s, a process of historic treaty-making. For the better knowledge of my colleagues, there are several eras of treaties we can delineate. For the topic of this discussion, we are talking about the numbered treaties. For the numbered treaties, one of which I am from, Treaty No. 6, benefits were allocated throughout treaty negotiations and for the treaties themselves. However, the government, as soon as it signed these treaties, walked away and said, no, it knows better and that since it had the land, it is going to legislate these people, put down the Indian Act and never hear of the treaties again.

Today, we are in the courts. The Liberal government and the federal Conservatives have had a whole lifetime of lawsuits against indigenous people based on this decision. There is the clean water legislation, for example. Having clean drinking water would fundamentally increase indigenous people's access to the economy. A federal piece of legislation on that was struck down by the courts when the Conservatives tried to defend it. A Conservative piece of legislation that was struck down for being unconstitutional is now being replaced with another piece of legislation by the Liberals that is barely an improvement.

These are the issues we are talking about. This incremental justice results in massive injustices for indigenous people while we wait and wait and children go by without anything. That is why it is so critical that we speak to the real challenges facing economic development for indigenous communities.

Part of the real issue is capital. The Indian Act, for example, delineates very small, postage stamp pieces of land. For indigenous people to truly be stewards of an economy that is for their own people, their land must grow. The fact that we have reserved them to small, postage stamp pieces of property is an abomination. We must end the apartheid that exists in Canada. We must end the racial legislation that exists under the Indian Act. We must empower indigenous people toward their own destiny.

For thousands of years, indigenous people have traded up and down the St. Lawrence, up and down North America, all the way from Mexico to Tuktoyaktuk, bringing goods and services to people right across this great place. However, the ugly horrors of racism and discrimination clamped down on Canada as the boats of Europe arrived.

Europeans limited indigenous peoples' dignity by saying that they were savage. Today, we reject this term in the hope that we can see indigenous people like me, and like those right across this country, as the true stewards of this place. They are the ones who understand this land and who will hopefully save it from a climate crisis that continues to ravage the world and, most importantly, indigenous people, who are on the front lines of much of this.

There is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a meaningful framework, first ushered in by one of the greatest advocates in Canada, an Alberta first nations chief by the name of Dr. Wilton Littlechild, who is a fantastic and remarkable living giant from Alberta. The nations he serves are largely nations that are in the resource-rich provinces, including my home province.

We have never, at any point in time, have had to delineate between the unfortunate dichotomy that now exists between resource development and resource non-development. These kinds of questions presuppose indigenous peoples' interests. Perhaps indigenous peoples' interests are for their land mass to grow, for example. How do we get to the point of having conversations with indigenous people about their desires? Instead, we have a government that continually wants access to indigenous peoples' resources and lands, and it is finding every single way to do it, even though the courts and the international community have been clear that indigenous people have a fundamental right to their lands and a say in its use. That includes the right to say no.

These are fundamental rights that would ensure clarity for industrial partners. That is what I have been hearing from resource development companies, in particular. They just want clarity. If they can find a way to get clarity on who has those consultative rights, then perhaps those companies, including those of indigenous people, would not have to settle these disputes in court. This would require a government that would be willing to understand and implement treaties in a number of treaty areas. It would also require the government to act in earnest in areas where there is no treaty, fully recognizing that they are indigenous lands.

When we do not recognize this, there is a cost and a consequence. As a matter of fact, we saw this cost and consequence manifest during the last Parliament, when we saw one of the most historic instances of indigenous people saying no. That was in the Wet’suwet’en uprising in British Columbia. They had simply said no to a project, and it resulted in what we are again seeing today: immense violence, such as police officers with chainsaws ripping down doors. There is no reason for this violence in our country. The days of burning indigenous people off their lands are over.

It is time now to respect indigenous people for our perspectives, our knowledge and our ways of being, not simply for having to play defence for the Liberals or the Conservatives any time they bring up an issue concerning indigenous people for their own partisan benefit. That is the only time we debate these issues in the House.

I am asking my colleagues to rise to the occasion, to rise to the true dignity that Murray Sinclair called us to, and there are those who have already invoked his name. He called us to reconciliation because, without it, we will have resistance. Those words live on in my head and in the minds and hearts of indigenous people right across this country. They demand better. They demand reform and demand that these issues be taken more seriously and be given more credence.

I want to make a final comment in the last point I will make today, which is on indigenous procurement. I understand that there have been numerous discussions related to who is indigenous and who is not indigenous. This is a serious issue that has touched the hearts and minds of Canadians and those across North America. It is in the media, in academia and in this place. There has never been a time more important than today to work with indigenous people, to understand indigenous people and put indigenous people in the leadership role in developing a framework that would see indigenous identity truly respected and taken care of. I call on the government to immediately audit the existing list of businesses, strike down any that are ineligible and create a framework with indigenous people that gets to the bottom of this and ends British imperialism in procurement across Canada.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for what is oftentimes a very partisan speech. I do appreciate it, though, because we get insight into the many logical fallacies that exist within the Liberal Party's framework when it comes to preventing some of the worst disasters in our country.

In particular, I think about last summer when we had a severe wildfire season. First nations, the Auditor General and the Environmental Commissioner published this report and were very confident in their assumption, statement and recommendation that more needed to be done to support first nations in the prevention of some of these major disasters. Worst of all is the fact that the government knew there was flooding of a particular set of communities, which continues annually.

What is the member's message to first nations leaders who are going to be witnessing this debate, and the obvious absence of commentary from the member and the fact that there is a historic underfunding for emergency services for these communities that has been decades in the making?

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Kingston and the Islands rose on a point of order to note that we should utilize points of order for valid points of order. Less than five minutes ago, he interrupted you and the proceedings of this place, so if you are going to apply a ruling to this, I hope it is applied equally and fairly to all members, including the Liberals.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the member would do right by having more serious concern for this issue. Young people are watching. I have given a very clear example of where the Liberals have failed on this. I will not bring up the personal record of the member, but to be serious, the Liberals cannot tell one region that it is exempt for political reasons to save their party and then tell the rest of the country to pay.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we failed a whole generation. We signed the Paris accord a long time ago and the Kyoto accord. So many accords have been signed, giving hope to a generation that maybe the biodiversity that so many generations have experienced, with the beautiful air, the clean water, the immaculate forests and the right to live, would continue into the future.

What we are seeing now is a catastrophic reality. We are seeing the highest rate of extinction of species, which is simultaneous to the loss of clean water on top of global economies feeling the pressure of a climate crisis that is not being taken seriously. From floods to wildfires, we are seeing the direct impacts today. In Fort McMurray, $9 billion in assets were lost.

I am ashamed that the government has failed to respond appropriately, both to the commitments made by the international community, our international partners, and to Canadians here at home. COP is coming up soon. It is time for Canada to get serious about the reality facing our planet and our species, and have the courage to know that as one of the largest countries on earth, we face and will face the largest impact.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from Winnipeg Centre is a stalwart for residential school survivors; she is championing a very important bill to deal with denialism. She also champions the very real impacts faced by indigenous communities in resource development areas, particularly the direct connection with women. The impacts of resource development on women are often very harmful.

In relation to the impacts that are made by the lack of payment by these oil corporations to rural municipalities, we cannot actually finance or address serious issues such as the violence faced by women who are living around a resource development sector. We can imagine solutions in little communities. Even in Fort McMurray, there is a women's centre that has proposals to support women in that community to recover from what are higher rates of domestic violence and sexual assault than found in almost any other region. That member sat at the committee for women, which studied that very important finding. Such organizations could be supported if these oil companies paid their fair share and paid their taxes like everybody else.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, my unequivocal answer is that, yes, of course we support a consumer price on pollution. How the Liberals have done it, though, has been to divide the country. For example, we just recently saw a carbon exemption for the eastern provinces. What does that mean for the western provinces and other provinces? It means that they have citizens who are concerned about the unfair application of what was supposed to be a unifying process for the country.

I agree that we need to have a different process for carbon pricing. I believe that is a serious solution to a serious problem. However, we have to make more certain that those who pay should be those who pollute. The Liberals got that wrong.

Let us assume the better nature of the Liberals here and that they wanted to do the right thing in this case. What they did was to flip-flop on their own policy, which is something they accuse everybody else of. The Liberals have broken the consumer pricing mechanism in Canada on carbon prices.

As my hon. colleague knows, Erin O'Toole ran on a carbon price as well. Therefore, I would ask the same question, but I am confused about whether he agrees with his own platform or if he agrees with the statements he has been making in the House.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to consider that fact very seriously. The reality Canadians are facing right now is that our House of Commons is deadlocked, meaning that solutions such as those for the climate crisis cannot come to the floor. That is a shame, but what is a greater shame is the fact that we have a very serious motion relating to the breach of the privilege of parliamentarians.

The majority of the House of Commons has come together and said that we must release documents pertaining to the very severe and extreme instance reported by the Auditor General of the breach of trust by SDTC, Sustainable Development Technology Canada. When a breach of trust takes place by one of our colleagues, particularly in the House, we must seriously consider what will relieve that breach of trust. The Conservatives brought forward a motion seeking to remedy that serious breach of privilege, with which I agree. I was the member who studied SDTC on behalf of New Democrats, and both the issue and the condemnation of it have been severe.

I agree with my fellow party members and the House of Commons, including the Bloc Québécois, that we should unite towards the release of these documents, which will give light and transparency to the reality of what happened. However, I take full note of the member's concern about the delay in the House.

[Committees of the House, November 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleagues for what is a very important debate on the climate crisis that everyone across the globe is facing. We share this planet. We share a future. Our children, of course, will have to share the consequences of decisions made in this place, but also decisions made in all of our lives. In this report, the environment commissioner has made it very clear that we are approaching a detrimental future. I would like to quote from the report. It states:

Despite commitments from government after government to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the past 3 decades, Canada has failed to translate these commitments into real reductions in net emissions. Instead, Canada’s emissions have continued to rise. Meanwhile, the global climate crisis has gotten worse.

This is a serious warning from the independent commissioner of the environment for our country. Canada is one of the largest countries in the world. If the climate crisis is one that impacts land, we are to be greatly impacted. In the north Arctic regions, we see issues of melting ice that are dramatically impacting the ecosystems there, making it so that generations of Canadians may no longer ever get to see a polar bear. Right now, indigenous hunters are in the season of trying to find moose in my part of the country and they are finding it more difficult to because of the rapidly changing environment. People in urban centres have been choked by smoke at increasing rates, something that generations before had not experienced.

I hope this question unites all of us as colleagues: What do we do about this rising concern? What I have heard from the Liberals is that things are fine. Meanwhile, a planet is on fire. They are giving billions of dollars to oil resource companies and most of them are foreign owned. That is in addition to a Conservative Party that wants to wield power, and is using the climate crisis and the rejection of the science as a way to get there.

New Democrats are often found in this tough position of being brokers of a better morality in this place and I hope a better future for all of us. We pose that question in the hopes of an optimistic reality or future and I think, given the circumstances of all of us being in the same place, if we could put aside our partisan differences, this would be one of the issues we would do it for. That is my greatest hope in this debate. I think Canadians will continue to judge us on the remarks we make in this place for many generations to come.

There will be a moment in our history when our children look back at the transcripts of when we debated these things, including today. Everything that we say will be quoted by generations in the future. That could be generations who are suffering from the reality of an impacted climate in which they cannot breathe, cannot find clean water or are having difficulty paying for food because the cost of living would increase so greatly. This is because of the mysterious but very present reality of the impacts of climate change that continue to unfold in front of our eyes. We still have not even faced the greatest consequences of this immense challenge.

On top of all this is the question of affordability. There seems to be a conflation in our country, brought on largely by partisan politics that are trying to achieve an environment and a future with low emissions, simultaneous to a healthy environment, clean water and honouring the treaties we have made with indigenous people to protect this place. There are also the very real and tough discussions around how we can create and protect good jobs, and how we make certain that Canadians continue to put food on the table.

People, particularly in Alberta, and particularly Conservative politicians, are attempting to put people at odds with one another on this question. They attempt to put at odds a worker's future to bring in a paycheque, with the fact that if they do agree with climate change, they are going to impact their own industry. This kind of false dichotomy hurts workers, and it hurts our children most.

I am a former oil and gas worker, and I know this sector very well. I grew up in the northeast part of Alberta working in the Cold Lake oil sands. I know exactly what it is like try to get a paycheque to feed a family. I know how difficult it is for thousands of northern Alberta workers, thousands of indigenous people, and, of course, our children who are asking questions of when or if we will stop, and whether or not their future is truly worth it. This is an area where workers have to take a central role. Workers' jobs and their livelihoods need to be protected. It is very clear. This is the most important priority in this work.

If we are to truly address the climate crisis, we have to address a few major topics related to this crisis. My number one point today will be on the financialization of natural resources, publicly owned resources, of megacorporations that are depriving Canadians the opportunity for a better future and, of course, better jobs. The question I want answered is: Who is benefiting from the extreme fossil fuel development in Canada?

In Alberta, at one point, we had a very noble premier, I think one of the most popular ever, and his name was Peter Lougheed. Peter Lougheed created Crown corporations. When Texaco came to Alberta and threatened Albertans by saying it would pull out all of its assets if Albertans did not let it absolutely destroy everything it wanted without having to clean it up, he said no, Albertans would do it themselves. He created some of the lasting Crown corporations we still have today.

Unfortunately, consecutive Conservative governments would sell off those oil companies. Even worse, at the federal level, we saw Stephen Harper green-light the largest purchasing of a foreign state-owned entity of a Canadian asset, which is the Canadian natural resources takeover by Chinese-owned Nexen, green-lit by Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

The question is: Who is actually benefiting from our oil production? It is certainly not the rural communities that have much of the development in their backyard. I know that from experience. My dad, a worker in the oil sector, died. He got killed on a lease site because of the lack of safety or concern by some of these oil companies. We see municipalities in Alberta still today being deprived of basic taxation. I am a Canadian taxpayer and, as my colleagues in the chamber would know, if I do not pay my taxes, I get a phone call from the CRA and it makes sure I pay. Those penalties are swift, brutal and severe. However, an oil company in Canada, not even owned by Canadians, gets a pass in Alberta. It gets a pass on surface taxes that are owed and the dues paid to rural municipalities.

If I had the opportunity to canvass my colleagues, I would ask whether anyone knows the amount of unpaid taxes and tax liability owed to Canadian municipalities. Whether it is the Fishing Lake Métis Settlement; St. Paul, Alberta; Two Hills; High River; Paddle Prairie; or even larger municipal centres like Grande Prairie, we are seeing huge debts building up because the oil companies do not want to pay their fair share. They owe a quarter of a billion dollars in unpaid municipal property taxes to date.

Guess what a quarter of a billion dollars could have gotten those rural municipalities? It probably could have gotten them better roads and better municipal services. They could have maybe held a festival or a fair. They could have even tried to challenge the very real reality that is facing municipalities when it comes to homelessness. However, instead of those resources being paid by oil companies going to municipalities that desperately need them in our small rural communities in Canada, that money is being pocketed by oil barons and CEOs who have made record profits.

I want to back up a second. In Canada, we often talk about the oil sector as if it is in great need of Canadian support and more financialized public dollars when they are making the largest profits they have ever made in their entire history, in an oil boom that is unseen and unmatched. The fact that these companies, in addition to making record profits, are unwilling to invest that money back into communities is a shame. Worse yet, they are taking first nations to court and, on top of that, not even helping workers.

l will give an example. In Alberta, the Labour Relations Board held a hearing alleging unfair labour practices by a company enjoying the fruits of massively profitable oil and gas products. The president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 said, “They’re asking for concessions when [the oil and gas sector] is making record profits—we’re not going to take a $7 rollback when inflation is at six per cent.” That is a shocking reality. If people talked to workers, they would find that some of these companies are attempting to reduce wages. People who make less than $20 an hour were asked to take a $7 rollback. When those workers said no, that they deserved a fair share from the labour that they were doing on behalf of this country, the company fired them. Can colleagues imagine? It is shameful that the company would fire every single person at that camp because they would not accept a $7 cut in their wages on top of the fact that inflation is at 6%.

Are first nations being served by these massively foreign-owned oil companies that were sold off by Stephen Harper? No, they are not either. We are seeing some of the worst environmental catastrophes in Canada's history taking place right now. For example, in Fort McMurray, the 2016 wildfire cost us $9 billion in direct and indirect financial, physical health and environmental impacts, including being a regional hub for first nations. Many families are still reeling from this. The first nations then lacked the important goods and services that they relied on. Moreover, 80% of majority indigenous communities in Canada are located in fire-prone regions. This is something we have to consider as we plan our future.

We know that, between 1980 and 2021, 16 communities in Canada were evacuated five or more times. All but two of those were first nation reserves. This is a serious situation that is being faced annually, predictably, by community members, whether we are in a rural municipality or a first nation, including workers. They are just not working for regular working Canadians.

We have the largest profits in this sector that we have ever seen, but we are seeing the worst outcomes on our streets. In the last three years, we have had the highest price of oil that we have seen in many decades. We would think that if we saw high oil prices, we would see huge investments in new jobs, hospitals, roads and social services. However, we are not seeing that. What we are seeing is that the companies, rather than investing in production in Canada, are at a time when they must pay out their shareholders. They have admitted this; the six major oil companies have all said that. All of their profits are being paid out to the shareholders, many of whom are foreign shareholders, no longer Canadian. It is a shame.

The Liberals have made this even worse. On top of the fact that we have this major profitable oil sector that is not giving good jobs, increasing wages for our workers, cleaning up the mess it is making in first nations communities or paying its taxes, the Liberals are giving it billions of public dollars. The billions of dollars given to a profitable sector could otherwise go to health care, housing or an enhanced employment insurance program. It could otherwise be invested in helping support a diversified economy. We need jobs in our country, but we also need jobs with companies that pay well; that are not going to give us a $7 rollback when they do not need us anymore; that are not going to say “too bad, so sad”, but they will not pay municipal taxes to our little community so that we can have a seniors bus; and that will not say no to cleaning up the mess when they pollute huge water reserves.

What do we say to companies that say this to Canadians, that are bullying Canadians out of $7 an hour or out of taxation amounts that would be used for supports in their municipality, in their little village or hamlet? What do we say when they tell first nations they will go to court rather than discuss their rights? These are all facts related to this very problematic industry.

It is true that workers have to be put first in this process, which is why the Alberta Federation of Labour, for example, has proposed an industrial strategy. As a country, during the post-World War II era, Canada had to learn how to retool our economy following war. When we had to fight fascism overseas in Europe, we retooled our economy. By the way, we still have to fight fascism today; its evils persist across our country and across the globe, and we must continue to fight. However, we planned our economy. How did we do it? We raised the largest merchant navy on the globe. Canadians did that.

Remembrance Day will be here soon. It is time for us to remember that. As Canadians, a small little country, we raised the largest merchant navy on the globe.

Right here at home, the governments of our country worked together. They built hundreds of Crown corporations and put every single man and woman to work in our country. We produced stuff. We built factories. We invented stuff the world had never seen before. Canadians did this because we had planned properly for the kinds of needs that our economy had to meet. Right now, our economy does not need to make more profits for billionaires.

Our economy needs to return value to every working person in this country. In doing so, we must fight the climate crisis and unfair labour practices. We must protect the rights of first nations communities to see their lands and their resources developed in a way they see fit, which includes the right to say no.

It is important that, as we think about the climate crisis, we speak to young people right across this country who are demanding justice. They are right behind us. If we do not speak to young people today, right now, we will suffer their anger. We will rightly suffer their accusation of inaction. We will greatly betray a generation that is yet to come because we did not act sooner and, as honourable members of the House, could not put aside our partisan differences to see what is a national challenge ahead of us. This challenge will take every single one of our children's breath if we do not act. It will take their future from them.

I would argue and suggest that we must endeavour to look at all solutions at this time. Solutions proposed by all hon. members in the face of this crisis are needed; they are worth debate in this place and, even better, implementation. We have to have hope.

I have hope that we, as colleagues, can come to a position where we bring together labour, management and those most affected by the climate crisis. I hope that we bring them together in a great coalition towards ending this unjust future and that, together, we build a process that protects jobs and brings in the workers most affected. I was laid off when I was in the oil sector and things got tough. Rather than letting the many workers we have in the resource sector get laid off, we ought to work with them to make certain that workers' skills, which are the best skills on earth, are put to good use. They should not just be getting and fighting for a good paycheque but also fighting for our future, for their kids and for all of us.

That is what workers want. Workers want to be part of the solution. They do not want to be part of the problem. Right now, we have companies that are controlling, exclusively, the labour that is greatly needed to transition to a diversified economy that would create future jobs for everyone. What I mean by this is that we need these companies to see the workers they employ just as I see them, as the key and solution to having better paycheques, to having a better economy and to combatting the climate crisis.

We need to do the work of making certain that we have the best skills; I believe my province has them, and a lot of hon. members in the chamber may say the same thing. I deeply believe that Alberta has the best labour force around the globe. We have the skills, the technology and the training. Precision drillers, for example, drilled many of the wells right across the province to make certain that homes are heated.

However, times are changing. It is time for such groups as precision drillers to expand their work, to use the skills they have gained over the course of history and the production of oil toward the production of new, innovative technologies. These will bring wealth, prosperity and good, stable jobs to Canada.

That is the power of our labour in Canada. We can build that future. We can build that reality. We owe it to our children, to workers and to each other in this place to treat each other with more dignity when it comes to a very serious challenge that every single one of us is facing.