Madam Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Timmins—James Bay to discuss tonight yet another plan from the Conservatives for tax incentive support, financing the oil sector.
One of the things that concerns me is that there is a conspiracy being run by the Conservatives that this incredible sector is being attacked by Greta Thunberg, by young radical environmentalists and by the Prime Minister. The reality is that the economic investment sector of the world is pulling out of Alberta because of the absolute refusal of the Alberta government and the federal government to get serious about climate change.
This is a truth that needs to be told. I say that because I come from a resource region. I remember being at the Stanleigh uranium mine underground just before we lost 5,000 workers, and that devastated our communities. However, there was no point telling those workers that it was the big bad government that was trying to take their jobs away. Everyone knew the market had changed, and when the market changed, the best thing we could have done was be there to support the workers in the transition.
I remember when we lost the silver and iron mines in Cobalt, and it devastated our workers. The support for the transition never comes until it is too late, and that is what the damage is. We have a long line of this. We know the market is changing. We know we need to make changes.
Many friends from my region work in Fort McMurray and Fort St. John. They fly out and they fly back. They are very concerned, because they know the environment is changing. They talk to me about their fear of the future, and they fear the economic insecurity. There is no point in lying to them, pretending there is some conspiracy to deny them their future. We need to start saying that we cannot let any region of the country fall behind, and that means we have to put some plans in place
Under the Liberals and the Conservatives, $18 billion in subsidies went to the oil sector in 2020. Imagine what $18 billion would have done in any other sector. Would it have created jobs? It would have created enormous jobs, if we put $18 billion of subsidies into the arts, or into a national renovation program or into the plans that we need to meet the move to a new energy future. That $18 billion in subsidies would be transformative.
I have met with energy workers in Edmonton who are training themselves for the energy future. Every one of them said that Stephen Harper said energy would be a superpower, but he just did not know what energy would be the superpower. The number one location in the world today to have a solar green economy is south central Alberta.
Germany has thousands and thousands of jobs, but it has nothing on the kind of clean energy potential we have in western Canada. We need to stop lying to the workers and blaming central Canada or Greta Thunberg. The market is changing.
The Swedish bank pulled out of Alberta. Its largest pension fund pulled out of Alberta. The Société Générale of France pulled its investment. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund pulled out because it saw no action from the Alberta government and from the oil sector on getting serious about emissions. BNP Paribas group pulled out. Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager, pulled out. The Conservatives pretend it is some kind of conspiracy.
When the HSBC pulled out, Jason Kenney said he was going to boycott HSBC, just like he was going to boycott the Bigfoot cartoon. Remember how Jason Kenney's people held press conferences denouncing the technical inaccuracies of a cartoon about Bigfoot? It made Canada look ridiculous, a laughing stock. When the New York Times reported on the investment houses that were pulling out of Alberta, Jason Kenney's people accused the New York Times of anti-Semitism. Nobody is taking that guy seriously anymore. He has become this angry international clown. He cannot just keep blaming all the big banks, all the investors, all the media and everybody for the fact that the market is changing.
The biggest insurance companies have laid it down; they are not going to invest. Again, I come from mining country. We cannot get a mining project off the ground unless we has investor confidence and it knows that project is good in the long term. If it does not have that confidence, it is walking. It will never be there.
AXA has pulled out. Zurich Insurance Group has pulled out. The Swiss Re Group has pulled out. ExxonMobil and Chevron have had a massive shareholder revolt. I think the Conservatives will pretend they were radical ministers from the United Church and a couple of hippy kids. However, the people who ran the shareholder revolt are the biggest capitalist investors. They are saying there is no future there. Unless companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron get serious, they are out.
Now the Dutch court has called out Shell, and the decision against Shell is the first of many.
Investors are pulling out. They are not hearing the Conservatives' vision to adapt and transition. They are hearing conspiracies and about another set of tax incentives on top of the $18 billion. The international community knows that the more the current government puts into the oil sector, the more the international funds will pull out of Canada, and it will affect us all.
The single biggest thing is with respect to the F-150. That truck brings in more money than all the sports teams in the United States put together. It brings in more money than McDonald's. The F-150 is going full electric. We know that when Ford is willing to make its number one vehicle electric, the big macho truck on the market, the market has already changed. We are well past the economic tipping point. Canada is falling behind.
As my colleague said earlier, we are a petro-state; we just never say it. The Liberals and Conservatives, year in and year out, continue to subsidize it and hold it up without recognizing the market has already changed. Once the F-150 goes electric, the entire market will move very fast. Where is Canada?
When I look at my Conservative friends, they are angry factory of typewriters. They stand up with their typewriters, saying they will never give them up. I do not mind them because they do not destroy the planet. The International Energy Agency, which is no friend of environmentalists, is saying the taps are off, that no more new projects should come forward in coal, even though Jason Kenney figures he can still blow the tops off the Rocky Mountains to get at it. Mr. 19th century Jason Kenney has not entered into the 20th century with oil. We are in the 21st century. The International Energy Agency has said no more, so investors will not go there.
My Conservative colleagues can denounce cellphones and digital. They can hold up the typewriter. They can say we need to invest more in them. Imagine if we put $18 billion into typewriters. I am sure we would need to hire many people to make those typewriters, but there is no market for them. Once the market is gone, it is not coming back. The Conservatives do not understand that. They believe in big government spending. The Conservatives do not believe in the market; they believe the market has to be created for their friends.
The market has changed and we need to be truthful, because we cannot leave workers behind. We need a transition plan. Having seen it first-hand, if we do not have that in advance when it hits, it is going to be really brutal. To be fair to all the workers, my friends who work in that field, we need to be truthful. Enough with adding more tax incentives to support the industry. Let us start building the transition.
