Rick Perkins

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

No, Mr. Speaker, it was not withdrawn, as a member said, by the company. It was cancelled, and that company now has shut down.

At the time when this happened last year, the CEO said that the company put in $60 million and five years of work into the turbines, which were the first to return power to the Nova Scotia electricity grid, and DFO actually shut it down anyway. As I said, Sustainable Marine shared a video with a news organization that showed the tidal power working and how it was connected into the Nova Scotia grid.

The CEO said, “We’re the first ones to actually deploy and put power onto the grid and actually receive payment from Nova Scotia Power for power.“ He said, “so it's quite bizarre” in relation to what DFO has done. He continued, “We don't know how they've made that determination despite the fact we’re using very conventional technology and there’s over 20 years of experience with this technology internationally, and no one’s ever seen a single marine animal or fish harmed in any way, shape or form.” DFO shut this company down.

In the era of puffery and imagery of the government, it brings in input, but when it comes to actually executing on it, it lets a department like DFO shut it down. That is before this bill. Let me explain now how bad it gets with this bill, because if the system that gave DFO this power now was not bad enough, this bill would give DFO way more power.

This bill would give DFO the power, if it thinks at some point in the future it might want to do a marine protected area in the ocean in an area where there might be a development of oil and gas or a wind energy project, to veto without having to talk to anyone. It could just veto the project. It would give more power for DFO to shut down projects in the ocean.

However, this bill includes four sections from the Impact Assessment Act, and those four sections are designed to slow down energy projects. They were designed by the Liberals to stop energy projects from happening, to delay to the point where mines take 15 years to get a permit in Canada. That great success rate is what the government wants to impose now on offshore wind. Why would it impose a process on offshore wind that has been so detrimental to the energy industry out west and think that somehow the result of how it would be implemented in the ocean would be different?

I will give an idea of some of the projects in Atlantic Canada going through that particular process. The Tilt Cove exploration petroleum drilling project in Newfoundland in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin was started in 2019 and has been extended for a couple of years. It is already five years through the process, with no end in sight and was extended on the latest phase out to 2025 for more study.

The Cape Ray gold and silver mine in Newfoundland, which started in 2016, is now eight years through that process, with no end in sight. The Joyce Lake direct shipping iron ore mine in Newfoundland is now 11 years through the process, with no end in sight. These keep going on. The Fifteen Mile Stream gold mine, which I believe is in Nova Scotia, has been six years in the process. The Beaver Dam gold mine in Nova Scotia has been nine years in the process.

Anyone who thinks this IAA process works in an expeditious way has not actually looked at any of the impacts of the process on getting energy projects actually approved through the system. Taking that great success of five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 or 11 years to go through a project, the government wants to put that success into offshore wind. If anyone believes the offshore wind projects off Nova Scotia are going to be done before Centre Block opens again in 2035 after construction, they are living in a different world.

Our opposition is not an opposition to “technology, not taxes”, as some members seem to always imply, and they abuse the line. It is our line. We believe that we can do these things. We just think they actually have to get done, and that imposing unconstitutional provisions in the act, and enforcing and pushing those down on the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, would only lead to failure.

We are a party that believes in success and that we have to get these projects done. The government seems to actually believe that the process it has put in place will actually get things done. I do not believe that the Liberals believe that, but they seem to spin it. However, getting things through in 10, 11 or 12 years is not getting them done. Fifteen years for a mine is not getting it done; that is driving capital to other places.

Every year in Newfoundland, the Newfoundland offshore petroleum board, whose mandate the bill would amend, does a call-out for bids for exploratory oil and gas drilling wells off Newfoundland. Every single summer, it gets bids, and people explore. Companies from around the world explore. I understand how expensive it is to do exploratory drilling in the ocean. It is $100 million to $200 million-plus per drilled hole, minimum, to do that, so these are big global investments that happen. Every single year, the board has had bids for them.

The bill before us was introduced in 2023, in late May or early June. The Newfoundland offshore petroleum board went out with its bids. Guess how many bids it got last summer? Colleagues would be right if they said none. There was not a single bid. Year after year it got bids, but the bill got introduced, and the very threat of the IAA on the offshore petroleum business in Newfoundland sent the money elsewhere.

Guess where the money and the drilling permits went. They went to the Gulf of Mexico, because the mere idea that the process would be imposed sent capital elsewhere in the world. That is what it would do to offshore wind. The offshore wind money that is being proposed now, for the most part is not coming from Canada. It is coming from elsewhere to be invested in Nova Scotia, and it will fly away just as quickly as a Liberal promise. As soon as the bill were to come into effect, it just would not happen under the process. That is what we object to: a process that would not work.

Liberals believe in the output but have not even actually read the bill to understand what the four provisions are from the IAA that they have put in it. I would like all of the Liberals whom I can see from the vast number of them on the benches across from me to raise their hand if they can cite the four sections that have been pulled out of the impact assessment thing. I hear nothing. I do not see a hand going up. This is a very awkward silence indeed because I can cite the provisions if they like.

I will inform the members which sections are there. Clauses 61, 62, 169 and 170 are all from the Impact Assessment Act of the government. All of those are the clauses that would impose the IAA on offshore wind approvals in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in the energy industry out west. The outcome of those will be exactly the same for offshore wind, and that is why we oppose the bill.

We support the technology. We support offshore wind. We support using the Bay of Fundy tides to generate clean electricity. Unfortunately, the government does not, because it vetoed the only real functioning project. By the way, there is no offshore wind project or windmill anywhere in Canada up now, but we had one that was going to use tidal Bay of Fundy energy, and the government shut it down.

We will continue to oppose bad legislation that would bring in anti-capital processes that drive investment out of Canada, which is what the bill before us would do.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight with respect to Bill C-49, which would amend, in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, the offshore petroleum board's mandate from petroleum to regulating overall energy. We have proposed an amendment at this stage to deal with the fact that parts of this bill would implement elements of the Impact Assessment Act, IAA, that have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

I would like to start by addressing some of the concerns that I have heard over the last few weeks from Liberal members from my part of the world in Atlantic Canada. One of them, the member for Kings—Hants, has an agriculture riding, so he is expert at spreading manure. He has very much pushed the envelope on what this bill is about. It almost makes us believe that maybe he had not read it.

I am going to talk a bit about the issue of tidal energy to start, which was mentioned a little earlier by one of my NDP colleagues. The good news is that the first North American tidal project that was able to produce actual electricity without being destroyed by the tides of the Bay of Fundy worked. The bad news is the project is dead. Why is that project dead? It is dead because of the natural virtue-signalling tendencies of the current Liberal government; the Liberal government killed it, if members can believe it.

Sustainable Marine Energy started developing the alternative energy project in the Bay of Fundy. If members do not know, I will tell them that the Bay of Fundy's tides, every day, push more water in and out of the Bay of Fundy than all other rivers in the world combined in their flow in one day. That is the power of the Bay of Fundy. Many attempts have been made to put turbines at the bottom of the ocean, millions and millions of dollars in the Bay of Fundy, and within about 48 hours they are blown apart by the actual power of the sea and those tides that rise 48 feet and drop 48 feet every day. They are the highest tides in the world.

Sustainable Marine Energy developed a different approach, basically put the turbines on the top of the water, and that energy project in the Bay of Fundy was licensed in 2012. Who was the government in 2012? I think it was the Conservatives. The first energy tidal project producing clean, renewable energy was approved by the Conservative government in 2012. That is when the green energy bonanza, which could have been a bonanza, was started in Atlantic Canada. What happened? The tidal project would have provided nine megawatts of clean, green energy to Nova Scotia's electrical grid and could have generated up to 2,500 megawatts while bringing in $100 million in inward investment and eliminating 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is the equivalent of taking 3,700 cars off the road. It sounds pretty good to me and it sounded pretty good to the Harper government, and that is why it was approved to go ahead with the experiment.

If the Liberal government really cared as much about combatting climate change and about green energy as the Liberals claimed to, one would think that they would have continued to license this project, to develop it and to draft this offshore power that we have. However, they did not; one would be wrong.

For its trail-blazing efforts, this is what happened to Sustainable Marine Energy. It was awarded, I would say, a red tide. In the ocean, a red tide kills everything. A blue tide, everything lives in; and the red tide in the ocean actually kills all fish. The company was awarded a red tide of red tape from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. For those familiar with the energy projects out west and the power of DFO in preventing energy projects in western Canada, the government of course decided to use this in the ocean as well when it came to Sustainable Marine Energy. The government repeatedly delayed the permits and rejected permits, even after being provided reams and reams of science about how the fisheries were not impacted by this project.

The last project, which is the straw that broke the camel's back, was last year. After five years of the regulatory challenges by DFO, the project in Digby county, and I know the Speaker is very familiar with it since Digby county is in his constituency, that would have gone a long way to fighting against climate change was cancelled by DFO.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the speech by my colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, with whom I serve on the fisheries committee. I know that she has a deep understanding of the region, since she was born in Newfoundland and raised in Newfoundland.

I would like to ask her if she is aware of the projects that are going through the IAA process in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia right now, and the fact that most have taken more than seven years and still have no end in sight, and how she thinks applying that process to offshore wind is going to get any offshore wind built in any timely manner in the next decade or two in Atlantic Canada.

[Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, not to be outdone by my colleague, I would say that given the numbers on the other side, the member for Calgary Nose Hill who might be tilting at windmills in terms of having members listen.

This bill would bring, as the member pointed out, four sections from the Impact Assessment Act into it. I wonder if the member could comment on how effective those have been at getting capital projects done in western Canada, because it would bring that same speed, I expect, and same diligence to getting things done to Atlantic energy projects.

[Privilege, May 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is amazing how the member for Winnipeg North is so partisan that he defends a partisan Speaker with such veracity.

I will ask a similar question to the one just asked by my friend from the Bloc about this. There really are only two opposition parties, because the third one is in a coalition with the government. Last December, basically, the Bloc expressed no confidence in the Speaker because of the partisan nature of what he did with the video. He did it a week later in Washington; the list grows. Apparently for a Liberal, generally, as we know from the Prime Minister, who sets the standard, saying “I am sorry” countless times makes up for all of one's mistakes, whether one breaches the Conflict of Interest Act or anything else, and there are no consequences.

What is the consequence to the Speaker, consistently, at least once a month now, it appears, for making partisan statements and for being part of partisan organizations, many of them about himself and some on behalf of others? What is that number? Is it 10, 20 or 30 apologies before the Liberals recognize that the neutrality of the Speaker has been destroyed by the Speaker?

[Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The premier of the province never appeared in the committee—

[Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it was very comical to hear that the Liberal government actually listens to provinces; that will be a first for them. Let us talk about Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and New Brunswick. All four premiers are asking the government to get rid of the carbon tax. It is not listening to them very much when it comes to that.

I would ask this member if he knows what the levelized cost of energy is for offshore wind without subsidies. It is 15¢ a kilowatt for offshore wind right now, and it is 4.5¢ for coal in Nova Scotia. Who is going to pay that two-thirds difference, ratepayers?

[Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, May 27th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, what Bill C-49 would do, which the member articulated very well, is bring the no capital bill, Bill C-69, into offshore energy in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. To give an example, every summer, as the member for Avalon would know, the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board puts out a call for exploratory licences, and every summer it gets applications. This past summer, four weeks after this bill was tabled in the House, how many applications did Newfoundland get? It got zero, because of the provisions in this bill already on the IAA, which is driving capital into the Gulf of Mexico, where all of those capital investments went.

I would like the member to tell us a bit about the experience he has had with how the IAA elements, the environmental review elements, of Bill C-69, which are now in this bill, have shut down jobs in his part of the world.

[Canada Labour Code, May 24th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the interventions from the NDP-Liberals are interesting. They go about an inch deep on a lot of issues.

Let me provide a little more colour and give the member an opportunity to do this on the particular issue of foreign replacement workers in Stellantis.

Canada's Building Trades Unions has condemned the government for its use of foreign replacement workers for non-proprietary jobs at Stellantis, such as forklift driver jobs. They have over 138 members sitting at home, unemployed, in Windsor, while the government allows Stellantis to bring in over 900 construction workers, most of them in non-proprietary positions.

Could the member comment on why she thinks that the government talks out of one side of its mouth when its members are in the chamber on legislation, but when it is administering the law, it actually does the opposite?

[Canada Labour Code, May 24th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard a lot from the illiterate Liberal economic policy on the other side with regard to this and other things.

One thing I find fascinating is that the Liberals take one position but do something else. While they have expressed themselves about the bill, they are allowing foreign replacement workers at the Stellantis plant in Windsor. They are so afraid to prove how they have protected Canadian jobs that they will not release their contracts and prove us wrong. They clearly have not protected these jobs, since we have foreign replacement workers. I have read their contracts.

What is the member's view on foreign replacement workers in relation to the bill?