Greg Rickford

[Regional Economic Development, October 30th, 2014]

First, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for his generally positive tone and the effective interaction he has had on Ring of Fire, up until that question was put. The president's remarks are indeed regrettable.

While Cliffs has taken a business decision regarding its operations in the Ring of Fire, industry proponents, communities, including first nations communities, the Government of Ontario and our government are quite optimistic about the prospects for the Ring of Fire. We will continue to work collaboratively to ensure that we maximize the enormous economic potential of the Ring of Fire and the infrastructure that is required to support those projects.

[Business of Supply, October 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I would just chime in on this fascinating debate.

I appreciated most of my hon. colleague's speech. I just want to catch a couple of points.

His colleague with whom he shared his time mentioned the northern gateway, and it is true that based on science and fact, we accepted the recommendations of the National Energy Board to impose 209 conditions on that project in order for it to proceed. In fact, 50% of those would have to be completed before shovels could be in the ground.

There is a bit of a discrepancy here. I would call it cherry-picking. They have a certain amount of enthusiasm for energy east, which has not even gone into the environmental assessment process, yet they reject the science- and fact-based position of an independent organization, the National Energy Board, on the northern gateway project.

I am just wondering if that member can reconcile what appears to be a competing claim on a project-to-project basis.

[Natural Resources, October 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has a secure, responsible and reliable source of energy that can make a growing contribution to global energy security. We support the intent to reduce transportation emissions. Any directives to that effect for implicating energy products should be based on science and facts.

That is why our government will continue to advocate for Canada's interests and Canadian jobs in new energy markets.

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Souris—Moose Mountain for his advocacy on this world-leading technological advancement in energy production going on in Estevan, Saskatchewan, the energy city.

We were proud to support the research and development of carbon capture and sequestration, and see the technology developed through commercialization at the Boundary Dam project, a technology that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions at that facility by 90%.

We remain committed to growing the economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions with world-leading technologies. I congratulate Estevan.

[Forestry Industry, September 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to thank the member for Cariboo—Prince George for two decades of leadership in forest policy for our caucus and in this place.

We will focus on supporting innovation and pursuing new export opportunities for Canadian wood products. That is why last week I signed a memorandum of understanding in Korea to enhance our forestry co-operation on technology and innovation and in keeping with our free trade agreement with Korea, creating more opportunity for export of our forest products.

We will continue to showcase, celebrate and give Canada's forest sector the support it rightly deserves.

[Energy Safety and Security Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I can let the member know that I have been here since 2008, have sat on several standing committees, and have participated at great length on a number of matters here in this place. It is a source of pride for me that I understand and put great emphasis on what parliamentary debate means, so I will take no lessons from him on that.

However, I can say that Canadians gave our government the mandate to focus on job creation and economic growth. They expect our government to make decisions that are in line with its commitments, and that is what the government is doing with this bill.

[Energy Safety and Security Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question, for the nature of our fairly regular conversations on a number of issues, and for the candour and thoughtfulness with which he puts questions to me. I hope my responses live up to that standard.

I can say that we also deal with continual attempts by the opposition to delay and obstruct certain bills, this one in particular. Further to his more substantive question, beyond time allocation but sort of addressing it, I can tell him that as he will well know, this bill was studied at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources for an amount of time that was agreed to by all members. Furthermore, I would suggest to the member that if he reflected on the testimony contained in those processes, he would see that there was input from a broad group of witnesses, including department officials, industry, and environmental groups, including testimony from Greenpeace and Ecojustice.

In particular, the nuclear portion of this bill has been studied extensively in past Parliaments. That should not get in the way of an absolutely modern, up-to-the-minute debate about this issue, and that debate has taken place quite recently. It is time to move forward with this modern piece of legislation.

[Energy Safety and Security Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the member does not get to get me on that one. Obviously, we are well aware of the federal government's responsibility with respect to nuclear liability in the sector as a whole. I can assure him of that.

His question earlier, if he reflected on it, dealt with the operations of some specific plants and what impacts they may have in his community. I simply encouraged him to engage his constituents more meaningfully. I am happy to receive reports and correspondence from him in those regards.

[Energy Safety and Security Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that sounds like a member of Parliament who is not just focused and disciplined on becoming a subject matter expert on key components of this, but who has also engaged his community, or his communities, with some deference to what that means to his constituents.

He was right to point out Fukushima as a template for some of the discussion in terms of the elements of this legislation.

A post-Fukushima review by a task force created by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission confirmed in October 2011 that Canadian plants were robust, had a strong design relying upon multiple layers of defence, safety measures were being augmented based upon the review to further reduce the likelihood of an incident from external events and to increase the effectiveness of emergency management measurements.

I agree with the member that the NDP is on a pretty consistent fact-free diet when we put these debates out on the floor. However, those important facts suggest to me that not only is this legislation important, responsible and reflects the modern reality of nuclear energy in Canada and around the world, but it has been done very thoughtfully in a scientific factual basis that respects and understands the state of nuclear energy in Canada.

[Energy Safety and Security Act, September 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak to that pattern. It sounds like that party has a member of Parliament who is not engaged with its issues and, furthermore, that he may lack a basic understanding of provincial and federal jurisdictions with respect to these.

There are 19 commercial power reactors in Canada, some of them located in a higher concentration in Ontario. Part of his question would be well-suited for our provincial counterparts. I am sure they would be happy to respond to some of that awareness piece, and I am sure he could facilitate a round table with his constituents who are focused like a laser on these issues.

However, we do agree on something. Because I am a consensus builder, I look thematically from each and every question where we agree. We seem to share one prevailing important piece, and that is the profile, the exercise of building public confidence is tremendously important. It means, particularly where it is relevant to his particular riding, assuring Canadians that the government is taking the right steps forward with legislation that reflects a modern regime for liability and for safety, in the case of offshore nuclear, for the purposes of this debate, and a whole host of other legislation around pipeline safety, marine safety and the like. We see the alignment, see how it is world-leading in many element's and celebrate that.

If there are more focused group discussions from his region and they are relevant for a debate in the context of this chamber, being the federal government, I would be happy to talk about those.