Mike Allen

[Combating Counterfeit Products Act, June 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, one of the statistics that we have been talking about is the value of this globally. I have sometimes seen a figure of $250 billion for counterfeit goods. I have also seen estimates of somewhere between $300 billion to $400 billion a year of counterfeit goods and of that 10% to 20% relates to organized crime.

Could the member comment on how a bill like this helps us identify issues like that and get at some of the organized crime elements behind counterfeit goods?

[Combating Counterfeit Products Act, June 12th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Halifax West for his comments on the bill. It is a very important bill, and he brought up some of the very good things in it with respect to the trafficking of goods and the pirating of goods.

One of the things he commented on was the compensation for goods that have been seized, or the storage or destruction of those goods. In the context of the government being open to amendments, proposed section 44.07 of the bill does talk significantly about the cost. The licence holder is the person who is responsible for the costs, and they are able to be compensated, for example, if a court action deems they were not seized legitimately.

I am wondering what he sees might be missing in the compensation of costs that is not in proposed section 44.07 now?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Yellowhead for his wise counsel on tonight's debate. As he said, as we go after these international markets with our trade agenda, which is going to be so important for the expanding of our economy, as we see with oil pipelines, they end up being a network that joins job centres together. A rail network is very much like that as well. It is a network that joins job centres together.

Would the member like to comment a bit about the positive impact on the Canadian economy as we pursue international agreements and we use our gateways, both in the east, in Halifax, St. John's, and other places, as well as the west? Could he talk about the positive impact of jobs for these rail networks?

[Fair Rail Freight Service Act, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, as part of our natural resource committee, we have been studying market diversification in the energy sector. I note that Jim Facette, the president and CEO of the Canadian Propane Association said this about the bill:

It contains all of the measures that the propane industry requested — the right to a Service-Level Agreement, an arbitration process should commercial negotiations fail, and consequences for non-compliance.

One of the things we did hear as part of that study and testimony was the propane industry's ability to potentially expand its markets to replace higher carbon fuels all across Canada.

As we know, rail is a good way to get into many of our rural areas.

I wonder if my colleague would comment on the possibilities of expanding existing businesses in Canada with strong, stable rail service?

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Chair, given that a significant portion of the west-east pipeline would travel through the Tobique—Mactaquac riding in New Brunswick, it is very important to constituents of mine that this be done in a safe manner.

Minister, in the estimates you noted there is $5.6 million allocated for heightened public safety awareness of pipeline safety. When we discussed the $5.6 million in our committee, it was said that the $5.6 million is really around $5 million which is going to actual operations and safety, and inspections, its actual work on the ground. About $600,000 of that amount is explaining this to Canadians, by enhancing the website and responding to various kinds of inquiries. However, my understanding was that the bulk of it was to be actual safety operations.

When you say “heightened public awareness”, what is your impression of what that means, and what provisions are in the main estimates to make sure we enhance that safety?

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Chair, many proposals have been made to expand Canada's infrastructure, among these, as I said, are the reversal of Enbridge line 9 and the possible conversion to natural gas/oil of one of the pipelines in the trans-Canada main line system, both of which would take oil to the east. The Keystone XL and Enbridge expansions would move oil south, and the proposed northern gateway and trans-mountain expansion would move Canadian oil to tidewater on the west coast. That said, independent regulators will conduct comprehensive, objective, scientific evaluations to determine whether any specific project passes regulatory muster and is safe for Canadians and for the environment.

The demand to move oil has clearly outstripped the capacity of the North American pipeline network, and as indicated, railways are filling some of this gap for now. However, there is no question that one of the safest and most reliable ways to move very large quantities of oil, as the minister pointed out, is through pipelines. With our plan for responsible resource development, our government has taken steps to enhance our pipeline safety. I know the line 9 reversal proposal is currently before our independent regulator, the National Energy Board, to review that.

Minister, we talked about the estimates for the NEB. Can you talk specifically about what expenditures are there to ensure pipelines are built that will adhere to a strict safety regime? With the NEB estimates and their responsibility for cradle to grave on the project reviews, is there any concern about the NEB being able to fulfill its mandate as a regulator?

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, May 21st, 2013]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today and participate in this debate. I plan on using the full 15 minutes to make a few comments. However, I also want to pose a few questions for the minister as well.

My comments and question will primarily focus on pipelines and specifically on our position on the economic potential brought by a west-east pipeline and the safety aspects of bringing oil to the east.

Canada is among the world's leading energy producers. We have the world's fifth largest producer of oil and the third largest proven reserves, estimated at 173 billion barrels, mostly in the oil sands.

As we heard at the natural resources committee, the global demand for crude oil is projected to increase for the next 25 years and beyond, especially in emerging economies. We are the third largest producer of natural gas, with marketable natural gas resources estimated to be as high as 1,300 trillion cubic feet. These are enormous resources and the development of these resources is supporting Canadian prosperity, as we heard comments previously.

Directly and indirectly, Canada's energy sector supports hundreds of thousands of jobs a year for Canadians. The oil sands alone support jobs for some 275,000 people, jobs right across the country in every sector of the economy, such as skilled trades, manufacturing, clerical jobs, the financial sector, everywhere.

The energy sector is also a key source of revenue for governments at all levels. For example, over the past five years the oil and gas extraction industries have added an average of $22 billion a year to government revenues.

Canada has the energy resources that the world needs. Our challenge going forward is being able to get these valuable resources, oil and natural gas, to tidewater and then to global markets. The solution is an expansion of Canada's energy infrastructure. The energy sector knows this and so does our government, and we are working to facilitate success for this vital economic sector.

Canada's crude oil pipeline system is integrated with the North American pipeline network and nearly all of our oil goes to the United States. Current maximum crude oil pipeline capacity out of Canada is 3.5 million barrels per day.

As western Canadian crude oil production has continued to grow, this production increase has overwhelmed existing pipelines. Canadian crude has oversupplied the local western Canadian market, driving Canadian crude oil prices lower than the prices of similar crudes globally.

Similarly, growing western Canadian and U.S. crude production has oversupplied the Cushing, Oklahoma crude market where West Texas Intermediate crude oil prices are set. West Texas Intermediate is also steeply discounted compared to the prices of similar crudes globally. This is important to Canada as most of our crude sales to the U.S. receive a price influenced by West Texas Intermediate.

What is more, Canadian crude oil production is still growing and pipeline capacity has not kept pace. Canadian crude oil producers currently need more pipeline capacity than is available.

I would like to remind members of the House that pipelines are not just an Alberta or western Canadian issue. Canada's eastern refineries currently have the industry's lowest profit margins. For example, the majority of crude oil consumed in Quebec comes from higher priced international markets and currently costs more than $100 a barrel as of May 6. We also know that the Irving refinery in New Brunswick, where I am from, also imports large amounts of its crude.

Over the past six months, I know the minister has done a fair amount of travelling. He has been to Saint John, New Brunswick to visit the oil refinery and the Irving refinery. He has also seen first-hand that Canadian refineries can process substantially more Canadian oil, generating more jobs and making our country less reliant on more expensive foreign oil.

Because of a lack of pipeline capacity, the Irving refinery and indeed Quebec currently import crude oil from foreign countries, some with much less stringent environmental standards. The Suncor refinery in Montreal is not currently processing western crude at all but crude from such far-flung sources as Africa, the Middle East and the North Sea.

The Irving refinery, in addition to offshore oil, is also bringing significant quantities of western U.S. oil to Saint John via rail. That could be upwards of 90,000 barrels a day coming into Saint John via rail from the western U.S.

I know our government supports the idea of a pipeline to the east that would bring lower cost Canadian crude to consumers and refineries in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. Such a pipeline to eastern Canada would create new jobs and economic growth across the country, particularly in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. According to Christopher Smillie, senior advisor of government relations for the Canadian Building Trades, even though direct pipeline construction jobs last on average three seasons, he said “the vast bulk of jobs created last for 50 years or more...pipelines link together jobs from one end of the production chain to the other...” That was in our natural resources report, which was tabled in the House on May 2, 2012.

This would allow Canadian refineries to process substantially more Canadian oil, making our country less reliant on more expensive foreign oil. Access to Canada's western crude would allow for lower prices than overseas crude and would help in maintaining the profitability of this refinery and other refineries in eastern Canada.

With regard to our May 9, 2013 committee on natural resources, I think it is important to say something for the record because it talks to the importance of bringing crude from west to east. I want to refer to comments by Mr. Daniel Cloutier in that meeting, when he was talking about the line 9, I guess we would call it re-reversal. He said:

We therefore believe that for the future viability of the Suncor and Ultramar refineries in Quebec, we need a reliable supply of affordable oil that will allow us to compete on equal terms. Maintaining the refineries is also indispensable to the petrochemical industry. The Parachem and CEPSA plants in eastern Montreal, for example, are very dependent on the survival of the Suncor refinery. Losing that Montreal Suncor refinery would, therefore, likely create a chain reaction affecting a number of other employers and threatening to cause a shut down as well. The Line 9 reversal project is currently generating the kind of excitement that has not been seen in eastern Montreal for years, a decade in fact. We now see a number of projects in preparation, with all the players positioning themselves. And we know right now that the reversal will lead to the investment in Quebec refineries, which will have to develop, among other things, units that can handle Canadian crude.

In addition, what was interesting today at our natural resources committee is that John Telford, director of Canadian affairs for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbers and Pipe Fitting Industry also talked about west-east being right after Keystone in his priorities. Sarnia, Montreal and in fact New Brunswick, would all benefit, and he said that New Brunswick definitely needs that help. Being a New Brunswick MP, we certainly would like to have the economic benefits.

The Saint John delegation, which included the hardworking MP for Saint John, was in Calgary last week to hear very positive news.

With regard to some of the things the minister has learned on export markets, could he talk about the position on east-west pipeline, specifically the benefits of not having more oil in the east refined at the Irving refinery, and maybe more specifically on the ability to get our product to deep water and the benefits of that to Canada?

[Hydroelectric Project, March 27th, 2013]

It's the biggest city in Newfoundland, exactly. With that in mind, projects like this allow an opportunity for our folks to come back. That is a tremendous opportunity for alleviating some of the strain on families and the challenges that the strain presents.

I have always said that folks are not going to come back for one or two years, but if there is a project that is going to take five or six years to build, and then hundreds of jobs are available in each of these stations over 30, 40 or 50 years, that represents long-term, stable employment in the region and a great opportunity for folks to actually come back to the area.

As I was indicating before, with the budget bringing in implementation to develop the skilled trades that are going to be so needed for all these different projects, this is a tremendous opportunity and lays the groundwork for some of the key work that is going to have to be done in the years to come.

I want to conclude by saying that Motion No. 412 clearly sets out the many benefits of this Lower Churchill hydro development. I prefer to look at this as the glass being half full. It not only offers tremendous opportunities to the many folks who are out west, but it also offers tremendous opportunities to the untapped potential of our first nations communities to participate in this in terms of employment and working with the governments to actually benefit the first nation communities.

With projects like the Lower Churchill and other hydro developments in Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia, we are a strong leader in the efforts worldwide to expand the use of hydro power as a way to reduce global greenhouse emissions. In fact, as members would know, Canada is the third-largest producer of hydro power.

We have an opportunity here to benefit the Atlantic region. We have an opportunity for all this power potentially being developed and going all through New Brunswick as a corridor, right down into the U.S., which is actually now starving for renewable power.

This is a tremendous motion for this House to get behind, because it helps the whole region. It helps Canada. I really want to thank the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming for bringing this forward to the House. It was a great job. I encourage all members to support it.

[Hydroelectric Project, March 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to have the opportunity to speak to the motion, M-412, brought by my colleague from Nipissing—Timiskaming.

We have a process in the House of Commons called an order of precedence. The last speaker talked about why someone from Atlantic Canada was not bringing this to the table. I would love to have brought this to the table, but I am number 231 on the order of precedence. I doubt in this four-year time arising that I will ever get a chance to bring a private member's bill to debate in the House.

I appreciate the member bringing forward this motion because it is important to Atlantic Canada and important to all of Canada, when we talk about the economy and the jobs that it would create. There is no question in my mind that this is a key project for Atlantic Canada. It is a key project when it comes to clean, renewable energy. That is why the governments of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia announced in 2012 that we had reached an agreement on the terms for the federal loan guarantee.

As the Prime Minister said, the agreement represents a promise made and a promise kept. That is exactly what that is, and I am proud that we kept our word to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that we would do this.

Last summer, we had a chance to be in Labrador for our Atlantic caucus meetings, and it was tremendous to fly over the site where the development will take place. What was even more important and interesting was that, as we flew over the town, we watched the development of the housing. What is going on in Labrador is incredible, not only with this project but the tremendous development and mining potential and export business for Newfoundland. Newfoundland and Labrador is booming.

The motion is important because there are four key elements. First, it is an important part of a clean energy agenda. It is an economically viable project that would create thousands of jobs and economic growth. It would be significant to the Atlantic region, which would benefit from a stable and sustainable electricity source for decades to come.

I will talk a little bit about that because my colleague across the way mentioned the pricing. This project would provide stable pricing, because when we look at the alternatives, such as the oil station at Holyrood, the price will only go up. It is also environmentally friendly with substantial greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The first point I will deal with is the economic benefit. This project would create 8,600 person-years of direct employment. Almost 3,000 people would be working on the project at peak employment times, and it would have a Canada-wide employment of 47,800 person-years. That is Canada-wide employment, and Canada-wide income to business and labour would be $3.5 billion on this project.

This is continuing a tradition of significant projects. We only have to look at the Churchill Falls project, which started in 1967. At the time it was the largest civil engineering project ever undertaken in North America, with 300 metres underground. I do not know if any of my colleagues in the House have been to Churchill Falls, but it is impressive. It is impressive to go down 300 metres underground. People with heart devices are not allowed to go down there because of all the generators. Their heart devices would shut off.

The system that they have to feed the power is just tremendous. We visited the project a few years ago with the natural resources committee and I was duly impressed. At the time it was the third largest hydro station in terms of capacity in North America, almost 5,400 megawatts.

This project is another great development for Newfoundland and Labrador. The $6.2-billion project that we are talking about involves the development of the Lower Churchill. It involves the lines to connect to the mainland and, as well, the line to connect to Nova Scotia.

This maritime link that is going to bring this power into Nova Scotia is going to be important in Nova Scotia's long-term plans to lower their greenhouse gases because, as we know, in Atlantic Canada there is a tremendous reliance on fossil fuel.

New Brunswick has coal-fired power. I know my friend from Nova Scotia is in the House here today, and he knows the tremendous reliance in Nova Scotia on coal-fired power. This represents a tremendous opportunity in terms of lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

I will just go to Holyrood for a minute. This is going to allow Newfoundland to retire the Holyrood station. It burns somewhere in the order of 6,000 barrels a day for every unit at the Holyrood station. It goes through 250,000 litres a minute of seawater, and 90,000 litres per day of fresh water.

Let us just imagine 90,000 litres a day of fresh water. I know all my colleagues in the House appreciate the water resource that we have. Using the water resource to generate electricity as opposed to using it for cooling and everything else that we need it for is a tremendous benefit to the region and to the environment. We cannot talk just about emissions on this issue.

As well, retiring the Holyrood station will make the Newfoundland system 98% carbon free, eliminating 96 million tons of emissions. These are great stats, great metrics on a project that is going to mean a lot to Newfoundland and Labrador and also to Nova Scotia.

What this does is start the development. It is the first station, 824 megawatts. Potentially, the next one could be 2,500 megawatts. When we look at these benefits and reflect on the recent budget of this past week, the thing we think about is the number of jobs that are going to be created and the specific jobs that will be created in trades.

The other great thing about this what we will call a bit of a social aspect. The folks who are in Fort McMurray realize that there is a tremendous number of Newfoundland and Labradorians who are actually in Fort McMurray now.

[Retirement Congratulations, March 26th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend I attended a retirement dinner for Brian Duplessis, who is retiring after 40 years with the Department of Agriculture in New Brunswick.

Brian is the consummate professional, giving his all to the industry. In this day and age when we tend to speak first and engage the brain later, Brian listened first, thoughtfully considered the situation and spoke with determination and kindness.

Anyone who knows Brian will say that he is deeply concerned about the industry and all producers. Brian travelled all over numerous rural regions in New Brunswick, and if a farmer needed to be seen, Brian was probably at that farm.

Brian could carry the serious messages from producers to government while applying the appropriate filters to keep the discussions productive.

He is a true gentleman, committed to his work, his family and his faith. Each tribute at the dinner provided a glimpse into a man who was well respected and valued for his contribution to the entire industry.

I want to extend my best wishes to Brian on his retirement and to him, Suzanne and the entire family our hope for many years of health and happiness.