Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Red Deer—Mountain View.
I rise in the House to speak to the natural resources committee's report on the future of Canada's oil and gas sector.
Oil and gas is very important to my riding of Yellowhead, a large region west of Edmonton that goes into the Rocky Mountains. Within my riding, there have been many discussions and comments regarding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, because it is of great importance to us. Most people do not realize that over one-third of the Trans Mountain pipeline, more than 300 kilometres of pipe, runs through the heart of Yellowhead. It plays a significant role in the economy of our region.
The constituents in my riding and Alberta rarely complain. We are hard-working people, and we have a diversified economy throughout the province. Beside oil and gas, Yellowhead has coal mining, agriculture, forestry and tourism. As I said, people do not complain much, and we are hard-working people, but we saw a lot of large protests dealing with the carbon tax, and I have heard from many constituents who have concerns about recent things that are happening with the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Just on the outskirts of my town of Edson, we have a massive area covered with pipe that is waiting to go into the ground. I know that I cannot use props here, but I would like my colleagues to imagine taking all of the property from the green lawn in front of the Supreme Court and justice department buildings to the Confederation building, the West Block, the building we are in, and the East Block all the way over to the Chateau Laurier, and imagine all of that land stacked with 24-inch pipe, four high. That is what we have on the outskirts of Edson. There are thousands of kilometres of pipe just waiting to be put into the ground. Then imagine on the side a line of picker trucks just sitting there waiting to load the pipe to take it to its destination. All of this has been sitting for quite a while corroding, wasting money, space and jobs.
Members can also imagine that when an announcement was made this summer when 290 kilometres of preliminary work was beginning, with the ground being flagged and cleared in preparation to lay pipeline, that people in my community celebrated. They had tailgate parties and barbeques. They were so happy to see themselves going back to work. People were excited to move into the area, buy new homes or vehicles and finally get back to a good, solid work base. Then we were absolutely devastated to learn that the Federal Court of Appeal had overturned the federal government's approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, including because the Liberals had failed to engage in meaningful consultations with first nations. After all the rule changes the Liberals had made and everything else, they had failed.
I heard from realtors who lost house sales and an automobile dealership who lost vehicle sales. Investment in the region immediately halted. Oil and gas development in Yellowhead is important, and I cannot stress enough the significant impact that the Liberal government's failure has had on our region.
Why have the Liberals failed? I think this report defines a pretty good outline as to why.
In February 2016, the Standing Committee on Natural Resources undertook a study on the future of Canada's oil and gas, mining and nuclear sectors. Since the Liberal government dominates committees, the resulting report failed to adequately represent the testimony presented by the witnesses unless it favoured the government's strategies or ideas. In other words, the government cherry-picked the information that would back up its own agenda instead of representing the full testimony of witnesses.
The Liberals refused to realize the reality of the situation we are facing. For example, the report as presented included testimony in favour of the carbon tax, but failed to provide the testimony that spoke about the adverse effects a carbon tax would have on industry and consumers across Canada.
One witness stated:
...unless it's aligned with trading partners, the price of carbon can cause a lack of competitiveness. This should be of concern to people concerned about the climate as well as people concerned about the economy, because if you're simply moving business to other jurisdictions, you're not actually reducing overall carbon emissions.
The ideal would be carbon pricing that's North American or even worldwide, which would prevent those kinds of....
We need everybody to buy into the scheme if we are doing it or not encourage anybody because people will just buy the oil and gas in third world countries, which are clearly a lot worse than we are here in Alberta or Canada.
Recommendation 5 of the report completely disregards this reality and encourages the carbon tax program in Canada, which will make us uncompetitive and continue to chase investment out of Canada.
By the way, under the Liberal government, foreign investment has plunged to the lowest it has been in eight years. Other witnesses' testimony conveniently left out of the report stated, “Canada contributes less than 2% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.” If we refer to China, it is about 28% and the United States is about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Liberal government's narrative against Canada's natural resource development has been predicated on the assumption that the current regulatory framework is broken and it needs to be changed to restore public confidence and the trust of Canadians, yet the government refuses to recognize that we contribute less than 2% of global emissions and that Canada's standards are the best in the world. That is not just a talking point. That is backed up by reports from many of the witnesses that gave testimony which was left out of the report.
As one witness stated, “Canada also has world-leading environmental regulations. Of the top oil reserve holders, only Canada is covered by world-class, stringent environmental regulations and oversight.”
Companies have worked under our environment framework for years with success. As stated by another witness:
...over the past 10 years, under NEB auspices, several pipelines have been built. Certainly the Line 9 pipeline was approved under the NEB process. The Access pipeline and the initial Keystone pipeline were built. There is a list of pipelines that went through the regulatory process under the NEB, that went through consultation, that went through environmental review, and that were built.
My point is that we had a strong process in place that was reliable, effective, and held the trust of Canadians, so why is investment declining? It is declining because the Liberal government has created regulatory uncertainty in its new assessment process for natural resources infrastructure projects.
For comparison, the original Trans Mountain pipeline was proposed in March 1951. Construction began in February 1952 and it was flowing oil in 1953. That is less than a year to move through that process. In 2004, Kinder Morgan began the process to add a second pipeline running parallel to the first. In 2008, the project was approved and completed. That is only four years to move through the process. Then in 2013, Kinder Morgan began the application process for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and now, five years later, we are back to the consultation phase, thanks to the Liberals' mismanagement of the energy file.
Why would other companies want to invest in a country where it takes five-plus years to go through the process, and even then there is no guarantee that the pipeline will be built?
It is unfortunate that the Liberals have cancelled and held up Canadian pipelines. Stopping pipelines in Canada does not speed up the development of alternatives to oil and it does not slow down the growing oil demand in emerging economies.
As stated by another witness in the study, “Transportation infrastructure is required to meet these growing energy needs, and pipelines remain the safest and most efficient and the lowest greenhouse gas-intensive way of moving energy over long distances.”
