Richard Cannings

[Foreign Affairs, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, with all the talk of tariffs against softwood lumber, border taxes, and potential trade wars with the United States, I would just hope that the government would take this issue as an important opportunity to build some goodwill and commence renegotiation of this treaty with the new U.S. administration. It is a win-win for both sides.

The current situation brings a lot of uncertainty. I understand that our government cannot do much about the uncertainty created by our friends south of the border, but it can control the uncertainty that it has created by being so quiet on this issue in Canada.

It has been months since the United States first made its intentions known, even if they might have changed somewhat now. We have had silence from the Liberal government. Right now my region needs reassurance from the government that it is serious about renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty and listening to the interests and concerns that have been registered by local consultations.

[Foreign Affairs, February 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, my original question was precipitated by a visit to my office by local mayors from my riding. They were concerned that the Columbia River Treaty needed to be renegotiated, that their communities and many others in the region have spent a great deal of effort consulting with affected and interested parties about this critical issue, and that the federal government remains silent on the status of negotiations.

The original treaty was enacted in 1964 and has had a huge impact on southeastern British Columbia, with 600 square kilometres flooded, over 3,000 properties expropriated, and 1,380 people were forced to move. First nations' rights and title were completely ignored. Wildlife habitat was devastated.

On the positive side, the treaty has provided electric power for many parts of B.C., and the north and western United States. The Canadian entitlement has been a financial benefit to the B.C. government.

The treaty is set to expire in 2024, and we are in a period where renegotiation should be taking place. Some of the important issues are, of course, indigenous rights, which were completely ignored before, and continued compensation for Canadian services and impacts. My constituents continue to be impacted by the dams and reservoirs created by this treaty.

Americans will want more services and water, and will ask for a reduction in compensation. They will want more water for domestic, industrial, and agricultural purposes. Constituents in the Okanagan are concerned that the American orchard industry has gone up 100 times since the original treaty, because of the irrigation.

The future of flood control in both countries is up to question. This includes ecosystem values, including the possible reintroduction of salmon into the upper Columbia River; and improved co-ordination of water levels in the Koocanusa reservoir and the Arrow Lakes. People in Nakusp feel like they are living next to a bathtub, the water goes up and down so much. They want stable water, and full-pool levels in the summer when they need it for tourism and recreation.

We want to know where the talks stand between Canada and the U.S. on this critical subject. The previous American administration said on October 7 that it was ready to start talks with Canada. However, since December 2, when I first rose on this question, much has changed in the political landscape of the United States.

The new foreign affairs minister met with Secretary of State Tillerson this week, and now we hear that the Prime Minister will be visiting Washington next Monday. I would hope that he will raise this issue. It is one of the agreements that is of mutual benefit for both Canada and the United States.

[Job Losses in the Energy Sector, February 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I obviously think it is a good idea for governments to work together, to have a plan, to institute that plan, and to carry it out as expeditiously as possible. We have heard all the wonderful things that Albertans stand for and what they are good at. I have had well drillers come into my office and ask for the opportunity to go out there, that the technology exists now where they can use those abandoned wells for geothermal projects. Let the government provide some incentives to that industry. We have all the knowledge and know-how in Alberta to work on those projects, to get jobs again, to create energy in a new way that does not rely on the price of oil.

Those are the kinds of things we have to look for. When we talk about innovation, let us be innovative. Let us think of new things.

[Job Losses in the Energy Sector, February 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, as an ecologist, I would challenge the statement. If they have an economy that is brought to its knees by the change in price of one commodity, that is not a very diverse economy. It may be doing lots of different things, but it is reliant solely on one product. That is not a good thing.

The member talked about forestry. In British Columbia, we felt the effects of the same kind of thing about 10 years ago when we lost 40,000 jobs in the forest sector in British Columbia. People in British Columbia know what it is like to have communities that are hollowed out, with a number of mills just vanishing. We are facing that again with the softwood lumber agreement. With an annual allowable cut in British Columbia that is now set to decrease over the next few years, people will suffer there as well.

It is because we are reliant in Canada in far too many places on this rip and ship economy of just being hewers of wood. It is good to be hewers of wood, but we have to do other things with that.

[Job Losses in the Energy Sector, February 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the energy sector has long been an important source of jobs and wealth in Canada, and will continue to play that role for years to come. The oil industry is central to that sector. As we all know, the reason for this debate is that there has been in a serious downturn for the past two years because of low world prices for oil. Tens of thousands of workers have lost their jobs, especially in Alberta.

The natural resources committee recently completed a study on how the government could support the oil and gas industry to bring back those jobs. At the heart of this challenge is the fact that Canadian oil is expensive to extract and refine, since it is almost all in the form of bitumen and oil sands.

While we heard a lot of testimony at committee on the very innovative work the industry is doing to reduce costs and reduce the environmental footprint of the sector, many of the industry witnesses admitted that most of those innovations would not be built into the extraction plants until the price of oil was over $70 a barrel. There is little indication in world energy markets that this price is likely to be seen in the near or medium future. We cannot afford to sit back and wait for oil prices to increase significantly to create jobs in the energy sector.

One strategy would be to provide more initiatives to produce value-added products in the oil and gas sector. Refining our bitumen before we ship it would benefit both the economy and the environment. More of our abundant natural gas reserves could be used to produce the building blocks of plastics and other materials with a fraction of the carbon footprint compared to similar processes using oil.

As the natural resources critic, I travelled with the minister last year to the clean energy ministerial meetings in San Francisco, often described as the implementation arm of the Paris climate agreement. The mood at those meetings was positive and upbeat, because speaker after speaker reported that we had passed a tipping point, and the world was shifting quickly, more quickly than anyone had predicted, away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. I heard exactly the same message this past Monday at the Energy Council of Canada meetings.

One of the obvious paths forward is for Canada to take bold steps to build the renewable energy sector in this country. Global investment in renewables has been skyrocketing and now outstrips investments in fossil fuels. Canada needs to catch up. I have tried unsuccessfully to have the natural resources committee study how the government can help Canada join this shift to renewables. I have talked to many workers in my riding, welders, electricians, and carpenters, who are working or who have worked in remote camps in the oil patch, but would rather live full time in their homes in southern B.C. They would welcome the opportunity to work in a distributed renewable energy industry, whether in solar, wind or geothermal, where they could go home every night to their families. This downturn, this crisis, offers an obvious opportunity to make significant investments in renewable energy.

Another point that I heard at the clean energy ministerial meetings was that the best new fuel is efficiency. The federal government could take one simple step, which is to reintroduce the eco-energy program to provide incentives to homeowners to retrofit their houses to be more energy efficient. This program was so successful that the previous government cancelled it in 2012 before it ran its course. When I talk to construction groups, such as the Canadian Home Builders' Association, they would be ecstatic if such a program were reinstated. It would bring good jobs to communities across the country, and reduce our carbon footprint at the same time.

We cannot wait for oil prices to rise another $20 or so to let the market revive the oil industry in Canada. We may be waiting a long time for that to happen. We should provide incentives to refine our bitumen here in Canada, and we must take bold steps now to diversify our energy sector and create jobs across the country, joining the rest of the world in the shift to sustainable renewable energy.

[Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, many Canadians are deeply concerned over the investor court provisions in trade deals, which give foreign corporations more rights than those enjoyed by Canadian companies or ordinary Canadians. Does the member believe that the Canadian court system is not equipped to handle complaints from European companies?

[Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, we heard from the minister earlier about how all these trade agreements are about the people of Canada. I just want to ask the member how significant increases in the price of prescription drugs for Canadians would benefit the people of Canada through CETA.

[The Environment, February 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, a Yukon judge has slammed the federal government and issued a wake-up call to Canadian taxpayers. The site of the Mount Nansen mine is now a toxic mess, and the company responsible filed for bankruptcy in 2004.

Judge Veale of the Supreme Court of Yukon said the company is guilty of “raping and pillaging” the land. Now it is up to taxpayers to pick up the tab, which could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. What is the government doing to offset the costs for this site and others so that polluters pay, not the taxpayer?

[December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, agriculture is certainly one of the most important industries in Canada. We hear more and more about eating local produce, about supporting our local agriculture for health reasons, for economic reasons, for climate action reasons, and for reducing the cost of transporting these products. It makes real sense to make sure that our local agricultural industries are well supported.

Agriculture is a large part of my riding. It is mainly fruit, grapes and wine as I have mentioned. There are real issues with trade around these products.

We want free trade but it has to be fair trade as well. It cannot make the trade imbalance larger. My colleague from Regina—Lewvan mentioned the effect that would have. I talked about wine. If we make it easier to import and export wine without other measures, the Canadian wine industry may suffer as wine imports increase. The same goes with the dairy products my colleague mentioned. We have to be careful about keeping the playing field level.

[December 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague mentioned, when the Liberals were in opposition in the previous parliament, they were very concerned about CETA and asked for more studies. Now we are presented with a bill and a trade agreement. The Liberals accuse the New Democrats of being against all trade agreements. We just wanted to look at this and look at the details to find out how this would help Canada. We did not want to say yes to a deal we had not seen. Now that we have seen it, we would like time for Canadians to comment on it and for industry to comment on it. I am still getting comments from people and from industries in my riding about their concerns. We have to take the time.

There are good things about this bill. There are good things about this agreement, but there are some things that are deeply troubling and certainly are not very progressive. We talked about the investor-state provisions and the intellectual property extensions that would raise the price of drugs across Canada. Those are things that are not progressive and that we would like to see changed.