Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources. It is a very odd relationship, but we are here as a team tonight.
It is a pleasure to be here to speak about this very important issue. Throughout the debate tonight we should be talking about the jobs crisis in the energy sector. Specifically, we have talked a lot about Alberta. However, our colleagues on the other side in the Liberal government, tonight their discussion has been about what they have done to improve EI. They have talked about trying to diversify Alberta's economy, like Alberta is really excited about not having jobs.
The key for Albertans is not to have extended EI. We appreciate when we work here together to come forward with a plan to address the unemployment situation in Alberta, but what Albertans want are jobs. What sets us apart from other parts of Canada, in my own opinion, is our entrepreneurship, our risk-taking mentality. That is what drove the oil sands, a very unique industry in the world.
We have also talked about diversifying Alberta's economy tonight, as if all it has is oil and gas. Alberta has one of the most diversified economies in all of Canada. To talk about Alberta, we should talk about our coal industry, our forestry sector, our agriculture sector. There is a reason that everybody knows about Alberta beef. We have an incredibly diverse economy.
What we have seen over the last year and a half is that Alberta entrepreneurship, that Alberta advantage being sucked dry by a provincial NDP government, which has implemented a carbon tax, increases to minimum wage, increases in taxes on small businesses and entrepreneurs, and a federal Liberal government that is doubling down on that. Despite a very difficult time in our energy sector, they are plowing ahead with additional carbon taxes on Alberta's energy industry. Not only is it Alberta's energy industry but it is an energy industry which is a nation builder. It impacts every province across this country.
I spent several days in Nova Scotia earlier this year, and it was amazing how many people came up to me and said that we needed to do something to get energy east up and running. They said that they were depending on that. Their friends and family had been flying back and forth to the oil sands in northern Alberta, but now there was nothing there for them. They are back in Nova Scotia, but there are no jobs in Nova Scotia either. They need those energy sector jobs.
To say that this is an Alberta-centric issue, I appreciate that, and it is true that we felt it maybe more than other people, but this is also a pan-Canadian issue. Energy workers across the country are feeling the pinch of what is going on right now.
What makes it that much more frustrating tonight is we have a Liberal government that is saying that it has increased EI, and that it has approved three pipelines. Let us be clear on what has actually happened in the last year and a half. The Liberal government did not approve three pipelines. The government approved two pipelines, which were already in the system. The National Energy Board approved those pipelines. They are not new. They are expansions of existing pipelines. For the government to say they have actually been built and those jobs have been created is disingenuous. We have a long way to go before we get there.
The one pipeline which I think should stick out the most for us is Northern Gateway, which was approved and put forward by the Conservative government under the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was approved by the National Energy Board. It should have been one of those three that were approved.
However, the Liberal government made a political decision to say that it does not like that pipeline, and despite it being passed by the National Energy Board, it was not going to go with that. What that has done to the industry is it has caused a lot of uncertainty. If I am an investor and I want to invest in Canada, I am not going to do that, because there is a carbon tax, but also because there is no certainty for me to know where the approval is. I could meet every National Energy Board regulation, every environmental standard, which are the best in the world, but when the time comes, the Prime Minister and his cabinet could say no.
When energy east passes through the National Energy Board regulatory review, which they have delayed, will the government support it? Will the government support it or will it make a political decision, like it did with Northern Gateway, and deny it, putting Canada's energy industry further behind and causing more stress, when we have given them some great options to turn things around now?
