Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in the House to speak to Bill C-17.
I was a member of the aboriginal and indigenous affairs committee when we started to finish up the initial bill, which was through the Senate, Bill S-6. I understand concerns were raised. However, I have heard many times in the House today from the other parties about this lack of consultation.
There was a great deal of consultation as we moved through this process. Again, that was highlighted by my colleague's previous comments with the fact that of the 76 elements of the legislation, 72 had strong support and consent. There were four areas that needed to be discussed and were discussed. There was a great deal of consultation. Our committee even travelled to Yukon to meet face-to-face with government officials, industry, and representatives from indigenous communities. It was a process done in partnership with the communities, which is important to note.
I raised some concern with dismantling some of the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, YESAA and the precedent the Liberal government was setting. I am very concerned with the future economic development opportunities of the Yukon and other territories if we take some key elements out of YESAA, such as the moratorium on Arctic drilling and the tanker ban off B.C.'s northern coast. Now there is a carbon tax. It seems that limits will be put on communities in Canada's north over and over. They rely heavily on natural resource development and the economic opportunities that brings to those communities. They will be further restricted, not only by taking some of these elements from YESAA, but part of the bill would also add additional bureaucracy and red tape to the approval process.
In my home province of Alberta, more than $50 billion in capital investment have left the province. A big part of that was the downturn in oil prices, but we have been through that before. The most significant impact has been the federal carbon tax, provincial carbon tax, and axing the discovery of well tax credit. All of these things are having an impact, and we have seen the devastating effects this has had on Alberta. I fear the next areas to start to feel this and the implications of these Liberal policies will be Yukon and some of these other northern territories.
However, Bill C-17 would change four key areas. I mentioned that we had near consensus on 72 out of 76 elements of YESAA. Now we want to address time limits on the review process; in fact, removing these timelines. My colleague in the New Democratic Party, who I respect a great deal, talked a little about why it was important to remove these timelines. It is because we need to discuss these issues long term. I think he was saying that we were looking at 500 years down the road.
We are not going to attract investment from the energy sector. We would not have large private-sector companies, maybe in partnership with the public sector, municipalities, provinces, and territories. They will not invest in a project if they do not see a clear goal or clear timeline to approval or denial. If they see there are no timelines in place or very limited timelines on the review process, they will not take that chance. They will take their investment dollars and put them in jurisdictions where they know they have a chance to succeed, or at least a very clearly defined process on how to get to that place. They will take their investments, as we see right now, to the United States, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other countries where they will have a much better ability to get a return on their investment or at least see their project be approved. However, by eliminating those timelines, we will not be making our territory or jurisdiction attractive to capital investment, especially when it comes to the natural resource sector.
When we were in government, looking at Bill S-6 and making these changes to YESSA, we wanted to empower Yukon, the territories and the communities in these jurisdictions to make these decisions for themselves. That was a key element to this. We wanted to ensure Yukon and the communities in Yukon had a level playing field that was comparable to the rest of Canada. We wanted to ensure the regulatory process and the review timelines were the same for Yukon as they were in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario and Atlantic Canada. We wanted to ensure there were no obstacles or detriments to attracting new capital investment to Yukon.
That is one of the reasons why Bill S-6 was so important. It was intended to make the northern regulatory regimes more consistent with other provinces. The key to that was to ensure Yukon would not be at a competitive disadvantage compared to other jurisdictions. We wanted to ensure these reforms also gave northern communities greater control over their future. They would have more impact and more say on what resource development would happen and what economic growth opportunities would be available.
We wanted to ensure there was predictability with these projects. We wanted to ensure there was certainty for proponents, regulators and governments, as well as aboriginal and indigenous communities. When they are making these decisions, we want to ensure they have all the information available to them, including timelines, and predictability. The process of getting those to conclusion is also very important.
The removal of these timelines as part of the review process shows we were introducing unnecessary delays in the approval process. We see the impact that has with other infrastructure projects across Canada when it comes to our energy sector. We want to ensure Yukon has an opportunity for economic development.
A good example of that is when I was at the PDAC conference in Toronto earlier this year. I had an opportunity to meet with stakeholders from the mining industry in the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut. They talked about the importance of the mining industry in those remote northern communities. We also did a mining study at the natural resources committee. Certainly, a very high priority was not only their ability to do business and work with their indigenous communities, but also the importance of having that strict timeline as part of the regulatory review process.
The stakeholders at the PDAC meeting told me that the carbon tax on its own would cost their two companies combined about $25 million. These projects may not even go ahead because of that tax. How can we have new economic opportunities in these northern and remote communities that need it if private-sector companies do not see a friendly government at the federal level, which wants to embrace these opportunities for the northern communities?
When stakeholders of two major projects in the tens of millions of dollars are now questioning their future, their ability to be successful, and may move out, other companies will follow. When we add the ban on Arctic drilling, the moratorium on tanker traffic off the coast of northern B.C., a carbon tax, and now red tape and bureaucracy to the regulatory regime and review process, they simply will not go ahead. Rather, they will look for other areas that they feel are more business-friendly and more friendly to economic and resource development.
The key there is that Yukon was one of the most attractive territories and jurisdictions in Canada for mining companies and for mining projects and to invest in new opportunities. Yukon very quickly fell down that chart not only in Canada, but around the world because of the regulatory regime in place. Bill S-6 was an attempt to clean that up to ensure Yukon would not be at a competitive disadvantage. We wanted to ensure Yukon remained in that top five as not only a jurisdiction that was welcoming, had willing partners, and offered great opportunities, but also had a regulatory regime in place that allowed these things to happen.
Therefore, Bill C-17 is a step backward with respect to resource development and economic opportunity in Yukon. We have to be extremely concerned about that.
