Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this great House and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Kingsway.
It is important that we discuss the economy in the House. Jobs and our economic vision are fundamental obligations. That said, I have to say that this opposition motion by the Conservatives kind of looks like a dog's breakfast. I can tell we are almost at the time of the House's rising, because this is where they stuff as many things into the hopper as possible, hoping that one of them will stick. It is kind of like a Black Friday sale for backbenchers and right-wing privatizers and privateers, hoping for a flat earth and demanding government intervention in the economy. They get to jump and up and down on carbon tax for the afternoon and then they will go home feeling that they have done their job.
That said, there are some important things in here and I am going to try to go through them so we can actually have a conversation. This is very long. If I read the whole thing, I might not get to make comments.
The motion states, “the House...recognize[s] the severity of the looming job crisis in Canada caused by the failed economic policies of the Liberal government”. That is an interesting point because we are certainly seeing across Canada the rising levels of precarious work, with workers on perpetual contract and suffering from massive levels of student debt. We have a finance minister who is the finance minister of the 1%, along with his former company, Morneau Shepell, which has privatized pensions across the country. With the minister saying in his position as finance minister, his company has taken over files as pensions have been failing, and the government has refused to step in. Therefore, the issue of the crisis facing workers is important.
In my region, we are seeing a very interesting time in the economic development of the resource sector. I will point to Kirkland Lake Gold, which has made a more than $300 million shaft investment in the community, which will pay dividends for decades to come. However, we are also seeing many issues concerning our need for immigration, new families and job training. I would like to see all that in here.
As I read on, none of that stuff is here. What is the issue? Oh wait, it is the, “workers in the energy sector impacted by the Liberal carbon tax”. It is fascinating that the Conservatives raise this today when Rachel Notley stood up and finally said what everyone should have known all along, that the resources of this country belong to the people of this country. Rachel Notley stood up and started to call for a cut in oil production because Albertans were not getting their best share. The Conservatives' response is always to throw more money at the industry, but we have seen that if that industry had invested in upgraders and refineries over the years, it would be in a much better position, like Imperial and Husky and Suncor who did that work. The Conservatives are always wanting a handout without saying that we need to get more efficient. I want to compliment Rachel Notley for saying that we have to take action now in this crisis. It is a much more coherent response than the Conservatives' one of saying, “carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax”.
The Conservatives want a “ban on offshore oil tankers”. For the workers on the B.C. coast, where the coastline is worth billions of dollars in economic power, the Conservatives believe that if we just allow tankers up the coastline, it is going to resolve the crisis in the energy sector. It is kind of like this “flat earth” mentality, where two plus two equals one. It just does not make sense.
Let us carry on with the motion, where it refers to “workers in the auto and manufacturing sector”. Certainly that is a good issue to raise after GM walked away. What is the cause of this problem according to the Conservatives? Oh, it is the carbon tax. I find this fascinating, because we have sort of capitalist socialism here, where the Conservatives gave $14 billion to GM and Chrysler with no strings attached and then allowed them to walk away from even paying that back. We saw that when GM walked away from paying its debts, it was threatening its workers at the plants. The CAMI plant is the most efficient plant in North America and GM was still threatening to ship the jobs to Mexico because it knew that the current government and Prime Minister would never stand up for Canadian workers. It does not matter how productive and profitable they are because, as long as GM executives can find a third-world jurisdiction to go to and can pay lower wages, the know they have a government that has their back.
If we are going to spend $14 billion on the auto sector, why was there no auto strategy and commitment, so that when GM said it was going to develop electric cars, which I think is a very positive move, it would benefit Canada? It is just as we saw in the oil sector, when we bought ourselves a $4.5-billion, 65-year-old pipeline because a bunch of Texas investors threatened to leave the country. I would say goodbye, move on.
That $4.5 billion spent for that pipeline could have done amazing work in either upgrading our energy sector or starting us on the transition. However, it is not just that. There are going to be $350 million in capital costs and $2.6 billion in operating costs for three years to buy the locomotives and railcars to help industry move product.
There are other incentives of $2.1 billion to upgrade the petrochemical sector and another $1 billion investment in the feedstock infrastructure program.
Meanwhile, there have been no commitments by the federal government at all to work with Alberta on diversifying the energy economy. The number one place in the world to have green energy is Alberta. Indeed, after talking to workers in the oil patch, where many people from my region work, they are already training and getting ready for a new solar economy. It is happening in Alberta. The federal government is not there.
In Ontario, there are the new, great economic theorists for the right-wing Doug Ford. The first thing he did was cancel a whole bunch of energy projects and then say the province was open for business while watching the massively growing green sector move to other jurisdictions.
I am not finished. There is a whole bunch of other stuff the Conservatives have thrown into this motion. There is the issue of workers in the steel and aluminum sector being impacted by the Liberals' failure in the NAFTA negotiations to have the tariffs removed on those products. That is a good issue to discuss in the House: why upward of half a billion dollars has been collected by the finance minister and there have been no efforts to stand up for workers affected by the countervailing duties on steel and aluminum. It is not just the small business manufacturers across southern Ontario. In my region, both are being hit relentlessly. They are paying the finance minister and no money is coming back. That is something we could certainly talk about. How the heck did the government think it was a good idea to sign this agreement with the United States without standing up for the steel and aluminum workers? That alone was a good thing for us to be discussing.
I will support the Conservatives on their next point, the softwood lumber dispute and the absolute failure of the government to talk about workers in that industry. In my region, the EACOM mills in Elk Lake and Timmins survive because they are incredibly competitive. They are having to be extremely competitive because they are going up against the unfair duties being imposed on them, and the government has shown no interest in the sector. There has been no talk by the Prime Minister on the crisis facing workers in the forestry industry.
I will certainly support those elements in this Conservative dog's breakfast of a motion, but then they refer to all workers impacted by the toxic medley of carbon taxes, taxes, taxes, taxes. What do they say we should do? We should call on the Liberals to repeal the carbon tax and Bill C-69. That bill, for the folks back home who do not know, was the result of the Supreme Court's tossing of the plan for pipeline development by Stephen Harper and the Conservative government because they failed to consult indigenous people. They figure that if there is a motion in the House that says we can ignore indigenous people and constitutional obligations, suddenly the economy is going to move ahead. That is not how it is going to work. However, I certainly support the Conservatives' push on the softwood lumber dispute.
On carbon taxes, the problem with the Liberal government is that it seems to be establishing carbon taxes based on favours and friends. We learned that a coal plant in New Brunswick is only going to pay 92¢ a tonne for pollution. That is not any kind of credible weight to bear when ordinary people are going to be paying a carbon tax. Why are we talking about a price on carbon? The Conservatives believe that if they say it long enough, climate change will go away, but Canadians pay the cost. For example, the $47 billion in abandoned wells in Alberta have been downloaded to the ranchers, farmers and citizens because industry did not pay its share. We have to start addressing the price of pollution, particularly since the latest report shows that the three great outliers in the world right now are Russia, China and Canada. To anyone who thinks that the Liberals just saying nice things will get us there, I say that it will not. We need to invest in a green energy economy and work with the workers in the sectors being affected so we can start the transition. Talk alone will not do it.
When I look at the motion overall, I see a real opportunity to talk about jobs, but a complete failure, because the Conservatives are playing to the Conservative base without providing a credible response.
