Jim Eglinski

[Business of Supply, October 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am asking for a couple of things. One is that the federal government step up to assist the province of Alberta, like it assisted the province of B.C. We know a lot more today than we did when the outbreak started in 1977 in B.C in the Spatsizi area of the province. Over the last three years, the Province of Alberta and the forestry companies in the area where the pine beetle have been coming through the parks have held them at bay, until this year, because we do not have the financial resources provincially or through the companies. They knocked down 40,000 trees last year and kept them at bay. This year it was 540,000 trees.

They are running rampant. Where did they come from? They came through Jasper National Park. I have been working with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and other groups to do some active burning there. We could have stopped them earlier on, but it was not done due to ecological integrity or something like that, I was told. However, if the government had taken some action, we could have slowed them down. We may have even been able to stop them, because we know a lot more about them today than we did when they attacked us when I lived in B.C.

[Business of Supply, October 19th, 2017]

Yes, I was, Madam Speaker.

[Business of Supply, October 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it will not take too long to answer that. There is no softwood lumber deal. You can talk, but unless you can talk the talk and walk the walk and develop a plan for the Canadian softwood lumber industry, you are not doing your job.

[Business of Supply, October 19th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup.

I am happy to be here today to speak about the softwood lumber situation, which directly affects my riding of Yellowhead. We are one of the largest areas of Alberta. Along with my colleague's riding of Peace River—Westlock to the north, we have mostly all of the logging in the province of Alberta, which employs well over 100,000 people. Therefore, I am very concerned.

Back on October 12, 2015, the softwood lumber agreement between Canada and the United States expired. It was an agreement made by the previous Conservative government. Here we are two years later with no softwood lumber agreement. Now, to add insult to injury, the U.S. is back to its old tricks of hammering Canadian forest companies with U.S. duties of 24.12%, which is pretty high, and some of those affect the mills in my area, such as West Fraser Mills Ltd.

When the Conservatives were in government, there was no softwood lumber agreement. They actually developed a softwood lumber agreement with the U.S. government in three months of negotiating. It was a softwood lumber agreement that was very good for Canada. It was a deal that saw the softwood lumber industry grow from coast to coast.

In fact, I was on the city council for the City of Fort St. John when this deal was ratified. I remember that, just prior to that, they were thinking of closing the mill in Fort St. John. The markets were poor and there was no chance of expanding. The mill just up the road from us in Fort Nelson closed after being open for many years. Then the softwood lumber agreement was signed. Lo and behold, we saw company owners looking at the future and thinking they could invest, modernize their technology, expand operations, and make money. In fact, shortly after that, two major companies in northern British Columbia came together. One was an American company. They built a new plywood facility in Fort St. John, employing close to 400 people.

This is what a softwood lumber agreement does for us. It gives companies security. It gives them a long-term forecast. We do not have that today.

Close to 400,000 jobs are at risk across Canada, because we do not have a softwood lumber agreement. The current government has failed Canadians and the softwood lumber industry. Now, the government is into NAFTA, trying to get it signed, but it still has this softwood lumber agreement in the back, and we are being hit hard by our U.S. counterparts. I am afraid that the softwood lumber segment of our country is going to hurt.

Close to 20% of Canada's GDP comes from Canada's natural resource industries, which are energy, mining, and forestry. Therefore, a big portion of the money that this country runs on comes from forestry.

Today I believe the Prime Minister is in Lac Saint-Jean, a community of more than 5,000. It is a softwood lumber community and region. Yet, to go back to the Prime Minister's letter of intent, he never mentions softwood lumber at all.

Does the Liberal government have a plan regarding softwood lumber? It makes me wonder, because two years of negotiations have failed to give us a softwood lumber agreement.

The three sectors I just spoke about employ almost two million Canadians. What is alarming is that all three are declining because of the current government, a government that states it is here for the environment and sustainability for Canadians.

I was at a breakfast this morning with the minister and I listened to her speak very eloquently about sustainability, Canada's future, and industry working to protect the environment. That is not happening. I do not think there is anybody in this room who can say that industry can survive without the environment. We know it relies on the environment. Industry in Canada has proven that we are probably the best example of stewards of the environment when it comes to industry anywhere in the world.

Industry can help Canada be sustainable. We know that. As noted before, industry is a large contributor to our GDP, approximately 20%, and it can do so well protecting the environment. It has proven that time and time again. Yet we have a government that has put hurdles in front of our companies, which make it financially not feasible for some of them to exist. Energy east has gone south. Northern gateway is in limbo, because there is a moratorium that says no ships can haul crude oil on our west coast, but they can do it on the east coast.

We must have environmental laws. The government must work with Canadians and industry to develop a sustainable economy. It cannot do it in a silo, making up all the rules itself, and then dumping them on Canada's society and Canada's industries and telling them what to do. We know exactly what happens. All we have to do is go back to Energy east. The government put in some rules in the middle, and the company closed its operations.

The Liberals are failing us in the softwood lumber industry. I fear for the 171 municipalities across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, that are directly derivative of the forest industry. These communities are already hurting and they will hurt in the future. I can go back to before our Conservative government initiated the softwood lumber agreement, and I remember when 15,000 people in the province of British Columbia, where I lived for 40 years, lost their jobs. I do not want to see that happen today.

The Liberals need to get their act together. Maybe they should take their partisan attitudes and spend more time talking to MPs on the Conservative side who have successfully negotiated deals such as the softwood lumber deal and NAFTA. After all, are we not all working here together for the betterment of Canadians? The Liberals could learn a lot if they just sat down and talked to the hon. member for Abbotsford about how to make international deals.

I am concerned even further when it comes to softwood lumber, because the Liberal government is failing in other areas. The Liberals are failing us.

I have been working for two years with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, to take some serious action with respect to the pine beetle in Jasper National Park. It has destroyed the forest there. It has now moved into the province of Alberta and, in one year—if the members across would listen—it has increased tenfold.

The government needs to take some action to support Alberta's forest industry.

The government needs to take a look at our caribou, which is now an endangered species. The government is doing nothing to work with the provinces to ensure that these animals are protected. If the Species at Risk Act goes into play, and if the Province of Alberta gets its way, it will close down close to 4.9 million acres of our forestry land due to the caribou.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, October 18th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I cannot disagree with what the member said. Northern gateway was approved, with 230 stipulations, which I believe industry was prepared to follow suit and comply with. The aboriginal communities along the northern gateway pipeline through the central part of British Columbia were looking forward to that economic development and the sustainability it would have given to the communities along the Yellowhead route going to Prince Rupert. However, it is not built and it will not to be. A multi-billion dollar port facility is not going to be built. Why? Because of the policies set by the government.

Energy east was the most recent pipeline to be stopped. Why did it stop? It is pretty hard for a Canadian resource company to tell government or be responsible for a product that it may sell to a third world country, or to China, or Russia, wherever the market is, if we delivered it to the ports. The Liberals want the company to be responsible, yet they are not responsible when we buy it from third world countries such as Venezuela, with its decrepit practices of getting oil from the ground.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, October 18th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, it is very important that government invests in sustainability. I encouraged that our committee report put a special fund aside to pick up land that may be very crucial for the sustainability of maybe the animals in the area, or maybe for industry that might be affected. We have a lot of concerns about the cariboo situation in a number of areas. However, cariboo, which is an endangered species in some areas, could be affected by industry. The government could work with industry, maybe to buy out the land it might have rights to. It is very important there is a fund to pick up more protected lands in Canada.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, October 18th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, using aboriginal communities to cull herds in specific protected spaces is nothing new. I grew up in a community called Chipman, Alberta. It is about 35 miles east of Edmonton. Elk Island National Park is there. It is famous for its buffalo herd. We moved there in about 1959. In 1960, my dad worked for Parks Canada. It had a culling program going on at that time. Some of the aboriginal communities were invited as were local farmers. They kept the herd down to a manageable size. There was only so much land, and as we know, buffalo take a large amount of land to roam, as do caribou and elk. Therefore, we need to look at conservation in these areas.

I have no problem in some of the northern parts of our country where aboriginal people are hunting to keep the herds culled to a manageable number to sustain the growth of the herds, etc. However, in the case I brought up, it was a traditional hunt, because their forefathers hunted in the park. It has nothing to do with culling the herd or anything like that. However, 12 different aboriginal groups claim rights to Jasper National Park and Banff National Park. If all 12 groups want to hunt, that becomes very serious. If we open the door, we have to be prepared for the flood.

Yes, I feed deer. Do I call it sustainability? Yes, because the mother keeps coming back with twins every year and the twins are starting to come back with young ones. I call that sustainability. The herd is growing.

[Federal Sustainable Development Act, October 18th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-57, an act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act.

I had the pleasure of serving as vice-chair of the environment committee when we studied the Federal Sustainable Development Act, a study that has resulted in some of the amendments before us today.

As had been noted before, the original act was an opposition private member's bill that was passed in 2008 under our previous Conservative government. Our Conservative Party recognized that sustainability needs to be included in every decision to ensure a balance between social, economic, and environmental factors. This type of policy-making ensures not only that today's generation will have a healthy and prosperous lifestyle but that we can pass health and prosperity on to future generations to come. I have 11 grandchildren and a great-grandchild. I am very proud of them. I want them to have a good life, as I have had. I want them to enjoy what I have enjoyed travelling throughout this great country of ours. I want them to appreciate the beauty of this land.

The importance of sustainable development is something on which all parties agree. This is proven by the fact that the report by the environmental committee was unanimous. While we are on that, a number of the aboriginal witnesses who came, from coast to coast to coast, to give evidence at committee also agreed that it was very important for them to be involved and that sustainable development was part of the agreement made between Canada and the aboriginal community.

Sustainable development is important to the future of Canada and our grandchildren. Not only should environmental factors be considered but social and economical pillars should be considered. For example, the National Energy Board's mandate is to promote safety and security, environmental protection, and economic efficiency in Canada's public interest and the regulation of pipelines, energy development, and trade. This ensures that Canada's pipelines are built to protect our environment while they create jobs and get our oil to foreign markets. This is one of the reasons the National Energy Board gives compliance conditions to companies, with literally hundreds of conditions on the list.

Given the board's commitment, as well as the commitment of companies, to build safe pipelines in Canada, it baffles me why the Liberal government has found it so hard to make progress on pipelines, such as the now dead energy east pipeline and the gridlocked northern gateway pipeline.

Our party is committed to sustainable development, because it is about protecting our kids and grandchildren. However, it seems that the current government is having a hard time implementing any of its policies.

In a recent report titled “Departmental progress in implementing sustainable development strategies”, tabled by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the minister and her government were given failing grades in applying a cabinet directive. The directive requires federal departments and agencies to consider environmental concerns early in the planning of policy and program proposals before making irreversible decisions. The commissioner concluded that the directive has not been applied to almost 80% of the proposals, which is a clear failure by the Liberals. If the Liberals were in school, they would not have received a passing mark and probably would not have gone on to the next grade because of such a failure. The same thing applies in 2019. This is a one-term government. It has failed Canadians and the environment.

In another report, titled “Progress on Reducing Greenhouse Gases”, the commissioner concluded that the minister's department did not make progress toward meeting Canada's commitment to reducing greenhouse gases. Just before me, the hon. member for York—Simcoe talked about the Lake Simcoe project and Ladies of the Lake. He asked that we judge the Liberals on what they have done and not on the talk they are giving. The Liberals are all about talk and no action.

I find it hard to believe when the Liberal government says it is championing sustainable development and protecting the environment. According to the last surveys, the Liberals are not doing that. They are not doing any of that, nor are they protecting Canadian jobs in the process. With all this considered, it concerns me how the government is planning to protect future generations, not to mention the mountains of debt that the government is piling on our grandchildren, or the massive new taxes being proposed. Liberals really need to rethink their policy.

Liberals always say they have a plan, but we never see any action on that plan. It makes sense that economic, social, and environmental priorities be advanced through an integrated whole-of-government approach. We cannot advance one of these priorities while ignoring the others. This brings me to a point where I have a lot of concern. During the past break week, Parks Canada announced a hunt in Jasper Park. It was allowing aboriginals from B.C. to go into the park and hunt deer, elk, and sheep. No one was told about this until it slipped out that they were allowed to go into a designated area to shoot. Many of my hunting and fishing constituents are very upset about us taking animals from our national parks.

We cannot advance one of these priorities while ignoring the others, yet this is exactly what the Liberal government did in allowing a hunt in our national parks. It did not take everything into consideration. Canadians expect that their government will consider all three priorities when designing policy and legislation. I do not believe that last week the Liberals took all those priorities into consideration. They were trying to please a small group of Canadians and ignored the interests, economic viability, and the environment in doing so.

The Liberals seem to forget about the economic aspect. If we are going to allow hunting in our parks, one of the largest attractions in our national parks are the animals. When I travel through the national park going to Jasper, which is in my riding, I love to stop on the side of the road and look at the elk and deer. In fact, I feed approximately 15 deer in my yard every winter. I love watching them in front of the house, and they stay there during the day. It costs me a little money, but I believe I am helping the environment and I am helping the deer.

We have a government that is allowing people to go into our national parks and to hunt there just to meet some of the Liberals' ideas. They think they are doing the right thing. However, they are not consulting with all the groups that should be consulted. I know that many people working within the parks were very upset when this was brought to their attention only days before the hunt started.

Instead of considering the economic component, the government has completely neglected our economy and the importance of small businesses across Canada. As Conservatives, we have confidence in the private sector and small and large businesses. They all contribute to the prosperity of this country, and they should be encouraged rather than punished for the risk they take. The government's approach to sustainable development and its policies seems very lopsided from the economic factors.

I was extremely disappointed this summer when I learned what the government proposed to do with the tax changes for corporations. I was very sad to hear two weeks ago about the cancellation of the energy east pipeline. Why? It is over-regulated. Liberals changed the regulations midstream, making it economically not viable for the company to proceed.The government is throwing in rules and regulations to make it not economically viable to retrieve natural resources from this country that help our economy, help develop jobs, and so on.

I have heard from small business owners, farmers, nurses, doctors, and accountants from all over my riding of Yellowhead, who tell me that the tax changes would endanger their businesses and family farms. In my riding of Yellowhead, which is in Alberta, the effective tax rate on investment income could be well over 70%, and new capital gains rules would make it more expensive to pass down a family farm then to sell it to a third party.

I was serving at a farmers appreciation breakfast on Saturday in the community of Wildwood. A couple of people came to me who were very concerned about their children taking over the family farm. They are third generation, and their fourth generation wants to take over the farm, but they are terrified by this tax. They are not sure which way to go, whether they should sell it to an outside concern or see their children struggle to try to buy it due to the unfair tax system that the Liberal government is planning.

A just and fair tax system should reward success and reasonable risk-taking. Most small business people take a tremendous amount of risk.

My son-in-law is a small businessman. He has a small oil company in the town of Edson. He has been successful. His company has grown. He employs over 100 people during the winter months. He is taking a large financial risk to employ these 100 people and to increase the economy of the town of Edson, the riding of Yellowhead, the province of Alberta, and the economy of Canada. He takes the risk, yet the government across from us wants to punish him for taking that risk. If he makes a little extra money and puts it aside, the government wants to punish him and take it. The government wants to tax it, up to 73%. Is that fair?

Going forward, I hope the government will honestly consider sustainable development throughout its departments when drafting new proposals. Again I go back to the commissioner's report, which said that the government failed. There are 80% of departments that did not comply with what they were asked to do. That is alarming. It is a total failure.

One of the amendments to Bill C-57 would require more departments and agencies to contribute to the federal sustainable development strategy, bringing the total to 90 departments and agencies. That is a lot of departments. Currently, only 26 departments are affected.

The bill would also require them to prepare strategies and to table progress reports on their implementation. If we go by today's figures, a failure rate of 80%, only about 18 departments out of 90 would possibly do what they are supposed to do. That would be if we follow what has been happening over the last two years with the government. That is sad statistical data.

We cannot continue to be so short-sighted in policy-making that we rack up billions of dollars in debt, and yet the Liberal government is doing exactly that. When the Liberals were elected, they said they would have a small deficit of about $10 billion, but that grew to well over $30 billion in the first year and the second year. We will probably be shocked at what it will be in the third year, but we have to wait and see.

I have four children, and we taught them when they got their first credit cards that they should not accumulate long-term debt in exchange for short-term unnecessary spending. We taught them not to spree and buy things they cannot really afford, that it might be nice to have a credit card, but if they cannot pay for them, not to buy. The current Liberal government is not setting a good example for my grandchildren; your grandchildren, Madam Speaker; the grandchildren of the secretary of state across there; and the hon. member directly across from me whose son is in the RCMP and is going to have to pay. We need to be cognizant of the money that the government is spending.

However, let us remember one thing. Sustainable development is a requirement in this country. This is an energy-producing country, and whether mining companies, oil companies, or gas companies, if a sitting government puts numerous hurdles in front of them that make it impossible for the companies to do economic research and development, where is the money going to come from to pay the bills of the government? Right now, the Liberals are blocking that. The oil and gas sector was one of the largest contributors to Canada's economy, and the Liberals have made it virtually impossible to take the natural products from the earth, the oil and gas in the provinces of B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan, and get them to an international market. The government members across think it is all right that we can just ship it down to the United States and we should be happy with that. That is one market. It is a big brother that controls us pretty hard. Will we get fair world prices on our oil and gas products? The country of Canada would be much better off if we could get our products, especially the oil and gas, to our coastal ports. Whether it be the east coast or the west coast, or even into the James Bay area, it would make it very reasonable.

We heard discussions yesterday about the ban on oil tankers on the west coast of British Columbia. We heard people standing up across from us, over to our left, talking about how unsafe it was to have oil tankers on the west coast of British Columbia. Under the pressure of the current sitting Prime Minister, they want to put a ban on oil tankers on the west coast. It is so bad, but it is okay on the east coast. Yesterday, one of the Liberal members was talking about how bad it was. I explained that when they go up the inlet into Stewart, which is about 130 or 140 miles, the line goes up the centre, so on one side of the inlet they can have a tanker, and on the other half they cannot. The Liberals are trying to tell us, logistically, that it is unsafe on one half of the inlet but it is okay on the other half. This is the logic that the current government is passing on. When we go back to the commissioner, and I brought her up a few times, it is obvious that same logic is being passed down hill to our bureaucrats, because we failed.

The Liberals have not reduced greenhouse gases one bit since they have been in government. I can stand here and say that when the Conservatives were in government, we did decrease carbon gases, in transportation and in coal-fired energy. They cannot say that. It is a failing mark. It is easy to talk, but when we walk the talk, it is much more difficult. Our former Conservative governments walked the talk. The current government just talks the talk, and there is no form of action.

Therefore, I am looking forward to this bill moving to the committee stage, so that it can be studied more and have more input and more evidence received.

[Committees of the House, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Edmonton West comes from another beautiful part of Alberta. When I was a young kid, I grew up there for a little while.

He is absolutely right. Just recently I moved from the environment and sustainable development committee to the industry, science and technology committee. We were studying intellectual property. My learned friend from Alberta was also on that committee last year. One of the first things I noticed when I was reading through a new report on intellectual property was the fact the Liberal government seems to think that everything can only be written, directed, and driven by highly educated people. I see this quite often. I also saw it in the report that we are trying to write at the environment committee.

There seems to be a strong favouritism towards the major universities. The government does not seem to want to recognize the technical schools such as NAIT and SAIT, and also the Drayton Valley eco mile, where clean air technology is being studied. I have to give credit to my Liberal counterparts on the committee for changing the wording with respect to intellectual property to refer to all post-secondary institutions, rather than universities specifically. I was appalled by that oversight in the past.

As I said earlier, I would sometimes listen to a trapper well before I would listen to a biologist, and I would listen to a farmer who has been on the land for 50 years before I would listen to someone who has just got out of agricultural school and has a wealth of book knowledge but not a lot of experience. I think we need to address all avenues of education: post-secondary, technical, and everything else.

[Committees of the House, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think we are talking about bitumen with respect to that spill. Let us take a look at the coastal community of Bella Bella. How does diesel fuel get to Bella Bella? It has to be brought there by boat. Bella Coola now has a road but I remember a time long ago when there was no road and everything was delivered by ship.

Let us take a look at the diesel fuel going to Masset, Queen Charlotte City.

We are always going to need to transport some type of fuel to coastal communities, whether they be on the west coast, the Arctic, or the east coast. None of us wants to see any mishaps, but they may happen. Do we shut down all of our economies, all of our communities because something may happen? This world was developed. This country of ours prospered. Our provinces grew. All of this happened because people ventured out and did things and modernized. We do not stop progress.