Mr. Speaker, as the member for Edmonton—Strathcona, it is my pleasure to rise and speak to the motion tabled by my leader.
I will focus my particular remarks on the leader's call for the federal government to show leadership in bringing all of the governments of this country together at one table to reach consensus on the future of our country. I will also speak to his call for a shift toward a more balanced 21st century economy.
Yes, as I would say to all of my constituents when I go door to door, Canadians do want a strong, stable, sustainable economy, but an economy for whom? That was usually a wake-up call for them. They had a dilemma during the election: “Oh, who do we vote for? Who would have thought? New Democrats or Conservatives?” They were concerned about the economy. However, when I would simply ask them who that economy is for, they would say, “Well, you're right. We're not convinced that the direction that this government is going is actually considering our interests. They're considering some people's interests, but not necessarily ours.”
As many in the House have said, we now have the highest household debt in history and a 15% rate of unemployment for youth. In my riding, there are three universities. That is a lot of youth struggling to find summer jobs so that they can pay their university fees. There has been a net loss of more than 300,000 jobs over the last few years.
Mr. Speaker, I apologize; at the outset, I should have said that I will be sharing my time, and I am pleased that I will be sharing it with the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.
As I mentioned, it is an economy for whom? We still have far too many first nation communities in our country struggling just to have the basic amenities that other Canadians take for granted, and worst of all, a mounting environmental debt. That is a growing legacy. It is an economic cost that the government has chosen to download onto future generations.
Why would we call on the federal government to show leadership? This country is a federation, and the Constitution clearly sets forth mandates for the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It clearly sets out shared powers for economic development, for environmental protection and for our social system. Therefore, it is critical that the federal government show leadership in convening all of those orders of government. Frankly, that should also include our municipalities and our first nations, something that the government is completely remiss in reaching out to.
Over my career, I have had the privilege to sit at many consensus-building tables where the federal and provincial governments, industry, farmers, first nations and the public have sat and discussed major critical issues, including standards for our energy industry, and reached consensus together, all hearing and receiving the same information and hearing the voices together. It was not divide and conquer; that is what is divisive: meeting one by one behind closed doors.
Not only should the Prime Minister accept the invitation of the premiers to join their economic summit; he should instruct his ministers to start showing leadership for national action in job creation, particularly for our youth and our aboriginal communities. He should encourage the ministers to show leadership in innovations in strengthening public health care.
That is what Canadians are concerned about. We can just look at the polls. I welcome members to come to Alberta and see the number one concern: it is the continuation of public health care. Albertans are asking what the federal government is doing to protect our public health care.
Where is the leadership on a clean energy future? While this government claims to have shown leadership, it has marred the country's reputation by not only downgrading environmental laws, contrary to international commitments, but it has also backtracked on international laws and agreements.
As I mentioned earlier in a question to one of the Conservative members, I had the privilege of working with the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. That is the entity under the side agreement to NAFTA. Canada signed on and committed that it would balance economic development and environmental protection. There are a myriad of provisions in there that the government is not obeying as it downgrades and shreds our environmental laws and our environmental review processes.
Whatever happened to the U.S.-Canada clean energy dialogue?
I remember a former minister of the environment in the government who was very proud of that agreement and regularly stood in the House to talk about the discussions that he had with his counterparts in the United States. When my colleagues tried to go to the United States to continue that dialogue on clean energy, they were castigated. They were called “un-Canadian”.
This is what trading partners normally do. They get together and they discuss issues in common, and that includes, hopefully, the move by this country toward a cleaner energy future. I commend my colleagues for pursuing that dialogue.
Whatever happened to our commitments under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation? As I mentioned, under that agreement and under the U.S.-Canada clean energy dialogue, there was a commitment by the current Conservative government to work with the United States to invest in a clean, smart energy grid. Where is it?
It is possible, and I say this as a proud Albertan and a proud Canadian—I am a third-generation Albertan—to exploit our natural resources and protect the environment at the same time. It is pretty simple, yet the government just does not seem to get it. It thinks that only one is possible. It thinks it is fine to downgrade our environmental laws, it is fine to shred laws worked on over the last four decades, it is fine to deny first nations and local communities the right to be heard at the tables where we are discussing these major projects.
Yet that is a complete violation of the commitments under the North American agreement and again a violation of its commitment never to downgrade its environmental standards for an economic advantage. If we look at trade agreement after trade agreement that has come forward from the current government, it has seriously downgraded the environmental provisions that were in NAFTA.
I am encouraged that the Premier of Alberta, to her credit, has joined the call for a Canadian energy strategy. I am hopeful that she will soon expand what she is proposing in an energy strategy to include a dialogue with all Canadians so that we will bring first nation governments to the table, we will bring local communities to the table, we will bring the provinces and the territories to the table We will all be at one table to move forward to develop a clean energy future for the country.
Regrettably, under the current government's leadership, the dialogue has been very narrowly focused and behind closed doors. I need only mention the scandal around Bruce Carson. We do not know what has happened since then—what has happened to the investment of those millions of dollars, supposedly, toward a clean energy strategy for Canadians. We are still waiting.
Therefore, I call on the government today to follow and take heed of the call of my leader. Let us start that dialogue with Canadians on a clean energy future for Canadians.
To their credit, the CEOs of most of Canada's energy corporations have taken leadership. They have called for a price on carbon for their own industries. That would put us in that direction and force the investment into cleaner energy production.
Why does the government not get it?
To my dismay, a few days ago in this House, one of the Conservative members actually castigated the CEO of Shell for daring to call for a price on carbon that would ensure that we develop the resources in Canada in a cleaner way. I thought they were the friends of the oil and gas sector.
To ensure genuine competitiveness, we have to put environment into our economic policy. Our trading partners are waiting for us to do that, and many of our trading partners are well ahead of us. Germany, for example, has made a major transformation from a major polluting nation to one of the cleanest nations in Europe and a major exporter of clean energy, as have many of the Scandinavian countries, and as much as the government likes to say it wants a trade deal with China, it castigates China for emitting carbon when China is investing billions in cleaner technology.
I therefore encourage the government and all parties in this House to support a move toward a cleaner energy strategy. Albertans are behind this. They support the idea of a dialogue. They want to be at the table.
I encourage the government to stop the divisiveness, bring everybody to the table, and let us move forward toward the 21st century.
