Paul Lefebvre

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, let me remind the member, who has probably already forgotten, that in the fall we approved NOVA Gas, the NGTL.

The Conservatives never asked for an emergency debate to celebrate the Trans Mountain pipeline that was finally going forward. There was no emergency debate on that success.

As well, on the LNG pipeline—

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell.

As I was saying, we recognize that Keystone XL would have played an important role in that recovery by creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs and ensuring North America's energy security.

As was said before by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Natural Resources, we are deeply disappointed by President Biden's decision to revoke the project's construction permit. We are also concerned about the thousand workers being laid off as a result of this decision and the communities that have been impacted, including indigenous communities.

The public record will plainly show that this government has supported Keystone XL since taking office in 2015, not just through public engagement but also through submissions in the regulatory process. It was one of the first issues that the Prime Minister raised during his congratulatory call to President Joe Biden in November. We have continued to press our case with the incoming administration's top officials since then. In fact, our government and Alberta have worked shoulder to shoulder in the U.S. capital to appeal to the incoming administration to change its mind.

This was always going to be President Biden's decision. This is, after all, a huge infrastructure project on U.S. sovereign territory and President Biden did make an election commitment.

Many things have been publicly said about democracy, in connection with the U.S. election. This is democracy in action and it leaves us with only one option, which is to respect the new president's decision to keep his top election promise.

While we accept this decision, we will not waver in our support for Canadian workers, especially those in our four petroleum-producing provinces: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. I think I need to remind members that Canada is still the single largest supplier of energy to the United States, contributing every single day to America's energy security and economic competitiveness.

At this time, we must look to the future and not to the past. We must stand tall, work with the new administration to fight against COVID-19, face the challenge of climate change and do everything we can to ensure a sustainable recovery for all.

I believe that the energy sector must and will play a vital role in this recovery. Despite the challenges of the past year, the sector remains a powerful national economic engine. Not to oversimplify it, but the late Jim Prentice, a good friend to many of us in the House, used to say that energy is our family business. It is something that we are really good at and because we are good at it and because our petroleum industry innovations have led to extraordinary wealth, we have been able as a nation to fund schools, hospitals and much more infrastructure, generating jobs in rural communities and advancing indigenous reconciliation.

Right now, this part of our economy is struggling. People and communities are hurting through no fault of their own. The oil sector has been particularly hard hit by the double shock of an oil price war and a pandemic that has strained global demand through most of 2020.

Our support has included an injection of billions of dollars in much-needed liquidity. We brought in a 75% wage subsidy that has helped support as many as 60,000 energy sector jobs in Alberta. We injected some $2.8 billion directly into the oil and gas sector to create and protect jobs while also strengthening the industry's environmental performance.

I know that some of my colleagues have expanded on these programs this evening, but I want to focus on something else. One year ago, the Minister of Natural Resources delivered back-to-back speeches that highlighted Canada's changing economic reality. They were delivered a few weeks before the pandemic turned our world upside down.

In his first speech in Vancouver, he spoke at the Globe 2020 and CleanTech conference, the largest gathering of its kind in North America. He told the clean-tech enthusiasts something that maybe some of them were surprised to hear. He said there was no way we could get to net-zero emissions without our oil and gas industry, its ingenuity and resources and the wherewithal it provides to fund and support the necessary breakthrough solutions to get us to net zero.

The next day in Calgary, he delivered opening remarks while co-hosting an innovation summit with his Alberta counterpart, energy minister Sonya Savage. In the heart of Canada's oil patch, he told an audience of petroleum industry executives that there was no future for them that did not include getting to net zero.

These messages are two sides of the same coin. It is the same two-sided coin that applies to all of Canada's industries, not just energy, but mining and forestry, manufacturing, transportation and every other part of our economy. As Canada's executives, including those in the oil patch, recognize that, investors from around the world are making clearer choices.

They are investing their money in businesses, industries and jurisdictions that take climate change seriously, and they are withdrawing investment from those that, in their opinion, are not taking adequate action to address climate change.

This recognition crosses party and jurisdictional lines. It was just last October that Premier Jason Kenney told his party faithful that Alberta could no longer stick its head in the ground or pretend that the aspirations behind the Paris Agreement were not hugely influential in how capital is allocated and how market access decisions are made. There is a growing consensus that we have to follow this global trend.

Fortunately, Canada is ideally positioned to get there and to lead the way. Energy is one of our greatest strengths. We have been blessed with a diversity of energy assets that make us the envy of the world. We are the world's fourth-largest producer of oil and sixth-largest producer of gas. These companies have, for years, been the largest source of green tech investment in Canada, pouring money into research to reduce their own emissions and emission intensity, while also diversifying into low- or non-carbon sectors.

Along with this asset, Canada is third in the world for hydroelectricity, a leader in everything from solar and wind power to biofuels, one of only five Tier 1 nations for nuclear energy, a front-runner in clean hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, a supplier of choice for minerals critical for powering a clean-energy future, and a global powerhouse in smart grid storage technology and carbon capture.

All of these world-class energy assets combine to give us a natural advantage during this energy transition to power our cities, heat our homes, transport our citizens and produce tomorrow's goods and services.

The question is, how do we do all of these things and keep growing our economy while producing fewer greenhouse gas emissions? That is the challenge and the opportunity of our post-COVID recovery. First and foremost, it is the right thing to do in the face of an urgent climate crisis, but also it is the surest way to strengthen our economic competitiveness, attract new investments and create good, sustainable jobs for Canadians.

We recognize the frustration of the industry and the provincial government, and we are saddened by these job losses. We will do everything we can to support the workers and communities impacted by this. One of the ways we can help this industry is to work co-operatively with, rather than antagonize, our number one trading partner, our number one client and closest ally.

Together, our two great nations can help revive the global economy. We can confront and defeat this pandemic. We can build a clean energy future that leaves no one behind.

[Keystone XL Pipeline, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be here. I was actually in the House earlier today to open it with everyone and was very pleased to be there. Then I drove to Sudbury in the last six hours to make it back for the debate, and I listened to the debate all the way there. It was quite interesting to hear all of the very interesting debate going back and forth.

I want to first acknowledge that right now I am speaking from the Robinson-Huron Treaty territory of 1850 and from the traditional lands of the Atikamesksheng Anishnawbek and of the Wahnapitae First Nation. As we say here, meegwetch.

All members of the House share the same goals, namely to keep all Canadians safe and sound during the second wave of the pandemic and ensure a strong economic recovery that leaves no one behind. Our determination to encourage this recovery is what brings us together tonight. We recognize that—

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a) of the question, following the announcement by the Minister of Natural Resources on July 10, 2020, Natural Resources Canada consulted stakeholders and finalized the implementation plan for this initiative. This program will provide up to $30 million to small and medium-sized forest sector operations to offset costs associated with the implementation of COVID-19 health and safety measures.

With regard to part (b), contribution agreements with participating provinces and territories have advanced, with most expected to be completed in early January. Provinces and territories were allocated base-level funding, supplemented by a top-up increment that is based on a combination of each jurisdiction’s share of total forest sector employment and each jurisdiction’s share of total trees planted. Once agreements are in place, participating jurisdictions will compile and submit claims for reimbursement to the federal government. Once claims are validated and paid, this will enable provinces and territories to reimburse eligible small and medium-sized forest sector businesses, likely starting in early 2021.

With regard to part (c), eligible costs will have been incurred by companies between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021. Payments will be made on a retroactive basis and participating jurisdictions will report which firms received support. As this program is ongoing, there is insufficient information available to answer this question.

[Government Response to Petitions, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 253 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.

[Sudbury Women's Centre, January 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the Sudbury Women's Centre is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a 40 years, 40 days, $40,000 fundraiser from January 27 until March 8, which is International Women's Day. Since August 1981, the centre has been working to provide a safe place for women to seek help and refuge when, at times, there is nowhere else to turn.

The pandemic remains a major challenge for survivors of gender-based and domestic violence and the organizations that serve them. Since last April, the centre has been assisting clients with basic needs like food and hygiene items through delivery and curbside pickup. It offers peer support over the phone, and still delivers such programs as Self-Compassion and Collective Kitchen. The centre enables women to reclaim their self-worth and drive.

On average, more than 9,000 women use it each year. Before the pandemic, an average of 150 to 250 women visited the centre each week.

I want to thank the workers and volunteers of the centre for their continued leadership in our community.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville for her speech.

She spoke about health transfers. The federal government has transferred more than $20 billion during the pandemic. That is more than the existing transfers planned between the provinces and the federal government. Of course, the additional transfers need to be financed.

My question is very simple. How should the federal government finance this extra spending? Obviously, there are only a few ways to do that: either increase Canada's annual debt, raise taxes or cut programs.

I would like to know what programs the hon. member would be prepared to cut.

[Economic Statement Implementation Act, 2020, January 25th, 2021]

Happy new year, Madam Speaker. I am happy to be back in the House.

I want to thank my colleague from Carleton for his lesson on the economy and on debt financing. It is quite clear from the tenet of what he is proposing or certainly saying that the situation we are in is untenable. Certainly in all the investments we made in Canadians in the past year, there was a choice to be made. On this side of the House, we decided to invest in Canadians, and he is deriding us for accumulating debt.

I want the member for Carleton to comment on the fact that we have invested too much in Canadians. Why did we accumulate debt? It was to help Canadians weather this storm and weather the worst pandemic we have faced as a nation during our lifetimes.

The government has brought forward a lot of programs, including the CERB, the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the mortgage deferral payments, the support for indigenous communities, the CEBA loans, the regional relief and recovery fund, and the billions of dollars of transfers provided to the provinces to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. Which program would he have not brought forward?

[Natural Resources, December 11th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, certainly we are committed to making sure that we have the cleanest oil in the world being produced in Canada and being supported from Canada. That is why we have supported the TMX pipeline. We have supported the workers who are creating that pipeline, as well as Line 3, Line 5 and LNG. We are supporting western Canada, western jobs, and are continuing to make sure we have the highest standards so that when we export, we make sure we have the highest standards in the world.

[Employment, December 11th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, we approved TMX, with 7,000 jobs created so far. We approved the Line 3 pipeline, with 7,000 jobs created. We are supporting Keystone XL on the Canadian side, with 1,500 jobs created. We approved NGTL 2021, with thousands of jobs to be created. With respect to LNG Canada, there are thousands of jobs there. We have invested $1.7 billion in orphaned and inactive wells, with thousands of jobs created in Alberta and Saskatchewan. With the wage subsidy, more than 500,000 workers kept their jobs during the pandemic in Alberta alone.

That is our record. We will keep working to make sure people are working in western Canada.