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Results: 61 - 75 of 330
View Brian Masse Profile
NDP (ON)
View Brian Masse Profile
2021-05-10 17:09 [p.6979]
Madam Speaker, I will repeat that we are here for a reason. It is by design. It is designed for us not to take our aging infrastructure, in the oil and gas industry in particular, for granted while we focus on the new economy and sustainable energy.
As the vice-chair of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary association, and as the NDP critic for industry and the Great Lakes, I have seen that the United States has decided to move farther than Canada has on the environment. Often through the Democratic movement, but even under the Republicans, the U.S. has certainly had more strenuous environmental practices than our side has had over here.
We are faced now with a crisis that has come about over the last number of months not by accident, but by ignoring what has been taking place. We have not even learned anything during this process. Regarding Line 5 and its connection to the Great Lakes, Governor Whitmer has been clear on this for a long time, as she has on her concern about the Great Lakes and the environmental effects. There is no doubt that Enbridge, with its previous indiscretion at Kalamazoo, has broken trust in many respects. It was not just that one incident. There were many other places.
The pinnacle of the debate happening at the moment is that the budget that was just tabled and discussed did not even include the words “Great Lakes”. The United States are putting billions of dollars into protecting the Great Lakes, with a governor expressing concerns about a refurbished pipeline. The pipeline is something we believe is important and needs to be refurbished because of our connection to it and our dependency on it, as well as because of our lack of a commitment to develop alternatives to it. However, the government did not even mention the Great Lakes in the budget once. How is that possible, when members of Congress and the Senate have specifically written to the government asking about putting money together to work on the Great Lakes' environmental sustainability? The U.S. is putting billions of dollars into it.
The International Joint Commission of the Great Lakes binational treaty is one of the best in the world. It deals with water and the environment. It needs stronger legislation to allow it to do even better work. It is a part of the international agreements that we have and is something to be proud of, regarding our sharing some of the most important freshwater in the world, yet there is no mention of it in the budget. No one cared enough to throw a bone, so to speak, to the Governor of Michigan or to the other environmental concerns being expressed here. With all those billions of dollars being spent, there was no specific commitment to, or even a mention of, the Great Lakes.
Given that I am on the front lines of the Detroit River here, I can tell colleagues that there is incredible interest and opportunity to improve the environment, the ecosystem and energy alternatives. Detroit, Michigan, has spent over $10 billion on electric vehicles, other types of energy efficiencies and a new age of automotive production. Meanwhile, throughout Canada over the last four or five years, we have seen a paltry $6 billion spent not on greenfield sites, but on the refurbishment of plants. These refurbishments have come about because of collective bargaining opportunities from Unifor. We can thank Jerry Dias and the rest of the bargaining committee for opening the door for those types of investments. At the same time, in Detroit, Ohio and Indiana they have been receiving billions of dollars for their electrification and manufacturing industries.
The Prime Minister famously said in London, Ontario, that we had to transition out of manufacturing. We did that, and have seen how that served us through COVID in vaccine production, innovation and a response for alternatives. We are behind, and we are behind for a reason. We have decided to basically skate for many, many years. I have seen this in the House of Commons. In terms of signed agreements, whether the Kyoto agreement or others, Canada continually misses its targets. However, right in our lap, across the lake, a series of environmental movements are taking place for the citizens of Michigan. All we had to do was to engage our councils and trade offices. We have the connections and the people on the ground here who understand what is taking place. They understand that the governor and the commitment to shut down Line 5 have been front and centre, in many respects, for a long time. What did we do in response? We are just going to try to lobby what we can. We did not even offer something back in return.
We are now going to have to rely upon using tactics like invoking an international treaty on pipelines versus being a co-operative partner to improve the environment we share. We always talk about offsets. Why would the government not, at the very least, do an offset for the state of Michigan to show some support for, and the importance of, the Great Lakes system that we share, whether it be its fisheries or ecosystems? I am still fighting for a national urban park on a piece of property the Windsor port owns. The port is staffed by the citizens of our country. It wants millions of taxpayer dollars or it is going to bulldoze it.
I had an event in Windsor before COVID on building a national urban park. Members of the Michigan Department of Environment came in full regalia to be part of it. Representatives of the federal department came to a public meeting in the city of Windsor. They crossed the border because our ecosystems are tied together: the wildlife, the fish, the fauna and 110 different endangered species. For eight years, I have been fighting for the protection of that property. For the last number of years, I have been fighting the federal government to transfer this piece of property to the Ministry of the Environment instead of it having bulldozed, and there has still been no commitment for that.
In all of this, we do not even throw a bone to Michigan's concerns. We do not give the State any recognition that its concerns are valid, and they are. Let us look at Kalamazoo. How can we have a serious debate about this issue but not look at the consequences of what took place in Kalamazoo and at least give a nod that this has some serious issues?
Having said that, the government is back on the particular position that we are going to have to rely upon an international agreement or some arm-twisting from Washington on the State of Michigan, with us offering it nothing. It is a terrible proposition. There is no offset from us. There is nothing other than us trying to put ourselves in a strong position because of international agreements and obligations. As opposed to this, we could have gotten in front of this with some improvements and suggestions. Who is going to pay for this at the end of the day, if Line 5 closes? It will be the working people: The people doing the heavy lifting and hard work that is necessary every day to run our economy as we try to transition. We should transition, but we still need Line 5 for farms, the auto sector, manufacturing, gas for our cars, airports and all of those things.
One of the first things I did when I came to Parliament was table a motion for a petroleum monitoring agency to ensure consumer accountability. It was something that was put in place once before, but was never funded. What is the backup plan right now to protect consumers from being hosed by the industry if there is speculation or a potential reduction of service products such as oil, gas, propane and so forth? There will be no protection for them because the Competition Bureau does not have the capability to provide it.
Individuals across Ontario, and in other places eventually as well, will be completely vulnerable to the oil and gas industry and some of the pricing issues we have seen in the past. They have had to be dragged front and centre, but it has taken a long time. It has been expensive for a lot of people, and we still do not even have the basic supports or decency to provide reporting mechanisms that will protect consumers. We have no plan for that either.
Our plan going forward is not going to be anything significant or anything that will grant faith or some type of good gesture to the State of Michigan about this. That is what is backwards about this debate we have been having. It has been total neglect from the government. Let us look at infrastructure in the Windsor-Detroit region. I started working on a new border crossing and my first public meeting was in 1998. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is finally being built, but the infrastructure that supports this, and 38% of the Canadian economy, is about 100 years old. There is a tunnel for cars and trucks, a bridge and another tunnel for trains.
We are here for a reason. We have been on borrowed time, and if we do not do anything about it and address the issues from the State of Michigan, then all we can do is rely on arm-twisting. That is not being a good neighbour.
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-05-10 17:21 [p.6981]
Madam Speaker, first, I want to tell the member very clearly that I agree with him 100% that what has happened here is total neglect of the file by the government, which is why we are raising it in the House of Commons today, two days before the deadline is going to be imposed by the Governor of Michigan. She stated that publicly. I am straight on point with the hon. member.
I do want to ask about some of things he raised, including ignoring aging infrastructure. This is a pipeline company that has committed over $600 million to build a tunnel under this very strait, yet it has been thwarted. It cannot even get a phone call returned from the Governor of Michigan about how to mitigate it. As well, all kinds of processes are being added into it to build that pipeline.
Is this really recognized? It seems to me that it is actually doing something to mitigate the environmental concerns of the state of Michigan, but they are getting no ears on the other side.
View Brian Masse Profile
NDP (ON)
View Brian Masse Profile
2021-05-10 17:22 [p.6981]
Madam Speaker, quite simply, it is so late in the day. I have seen the program and what has been offered, and its abysmal record with Kalamazoo flies in the face of everything.
It should have been on bended knee to the State of Michigan about Kalamazoo, and it was not. All we have to do is talk to the NGOs of different organizations about the irreparable harm it did to the environment. It has zero credibility. It needed partners to actually bolster its credibility with guarantees that go beyond just the immediacy.
That is the problem. The pattern of behaviour has just been atrocious. It is no wonder we are in the situation we are right now.
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Madam Speaker, I would really like to thank the member for Windsor West for sharing his time with me. He is such a strong voice for the people of southwestern Ontario and he knows the effects that shutting down Line 5 will have on the thousands of workers in that part of Canada. He knows how serious this is for the environment of the Great Lakes. He knows Michigan because it is just across the river from his home.
Today, we are talking about Enbridge Line 5 again, this time through a concurrence debate on a report from the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States. While almost everyone in the House is concerned about Michigan's threat to shut down the pipeline, and I am happy to talk about why the NDP is concerned about the Line 5 situation, we did just have an emergency debate on Line 5 only four days ago, on Thursday night. I will reiterate today a lot of the points I made on Thursday.
I will start by saying, again, that this is a very different debate to the ones around expansion pipelines such as Keystone XL and the Trans Mountain expansion. These pipelines are expansion projects designed solely to increase the amount of raw bitumen exported from Canada at a time when world demand has flatlined and the climate crisis requires that it decline steeply in the future. Even the Canada Energy Regulator, the former National Energy Board, has reported that Keystone XL and the Trans Mountain expansion are not needed and that the Alberta oil sector will never be producing enough oil to need them.
Line 5 is a different story. This is a debate about the impending closure of a pipeline that brings western Canadian oil to eastern Canada, creating Canadian jobs. This is about maintaining the status quo and maintaining those jobs in the industrial heartland of Canada. The one similarity between this and the other pipeline debates is that at the heart of it, there is credible environmental concern.
Line 5 is an Enbridge pipeline that transports crude oil and natural gas liquids from Alberta through Michigan to refineries and other facilities in Ontario and Quebec. It is capable of carrying 540,000 barrels of oil per day. A similar pipeline, a sort of sister pipeline in the Enbridge system, Line 6B, also serves these markets with 667,000 barrels of oil per day.
Line 5 was built 68 years ago, and the Michigan section operates under an easement granted by that state. In November, the Governor of Michigan announced that she was revoking the easement for the pipeline through Michigan effective May 12, this Wednesday, two days from now. The governor cited permit violations and environmental concerns, especially regarding the section that travels through the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. For its part, Enbridge has proposed to enclose the underwater section in a tunnel to protect it from future accidents and has obtained some of the permits necessary to carry out that work.
What will the impact be if the pipeline is shut down? About 4,900 jobs in Sarnia directly rely on the supply of crude oil that Line 5 now supplies. One of the products those plants in Sarnia produces is jet fuel that supplies large airports such as Toronto Pearson Airport. The oil not diverted in Sarnia is carried onto refineries in Quebec. Therefore, the impact could be huge.
There is some debate on how alternate supplies could mitigate these impacts. Pearson airport has stated in a recent article in the National Post that it is not too worried about a shutdown of Line 5 as it has diversified its sources of jet fuel. The Suncor refinery in Quebec said it made arrangements to get its crude oil from another pipeline. Industries in Sarnia may be able to get some crude oil from increased flow in Line 6B, since it managed that way when Line 6B was ruptured in 2010. Then it got alternate supplies through Line 5.
It is clear that the petrochemical sector in Sarnia could be facing significant shortages that would have to be made up through transport by rail and truck. That is not an ideal situation and one that could result in direct loss of jobs in the Sarnia industrial complex and indirect job losses throughout the region. Therefore, we need to have a strategy to keep Line 5 going and protect those jobs. That strategy goes through convincing Michigan that it is in all our interests to keep Line 5 operating.
What are the environmental risks that Michigan is citing in its decision to cancel this easement? One of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history happened with the other Enbridge pipeline in Michigan, Line 6B, which also goes to Sarnia via Michigan, but goes around the south end of Lake Michigan instead of crossing under the Straits of Mackinac.
In 2010, Line 6B ruptured and sent about 20,000 barrels of bitumen into the Kalamazoo River just east of Battle Creek, Michigan. The spill contaminated over 50 kilometres of the river, took five years to clean up, and admittedly it probably never will be fully cleaned up. Line 5 itself has suffered a number of leaks over the years. Therefore, the people of Michigan are very well aware of what could happen.
The minister has always said that this is a demonstrably safe pipeline. I think the people of Michigan would tend to disagree. They have pointed out numerous violations of the original easement agreement, including the design of the support systems and the pipeline at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac. Recent assessments show that the underwater part of the pipeline is suffering from thinning walls and other stressors. A 2017 risk assessment found that a leak of Line 5 in the straits would contaminate about 1,000 kilometres of shoreline of the Great Lakes.
We need to protect the Great Lakes ecosystem and the thousands of jobs in Ontario and Quebec. The federal government needs to have a plan that would do both.
The Governor of Michigan made an election promise to shut down Line 5, so it should be no surprise that she is doubling down on this threat. If we are to solve the problem through diplomatic means, and everyone agrees this would be best, we will have to prove to the State of Michigan and everyone else who cares about the environment that Line 5 will not have a history similar to Line 6B.
We must point out the economic impacts this closure would have on Michigan itself. Michigan and the neighbouring states of Ohio and Pennsylvania also receive some of the fuels carried through Line 5, including over half of Michigan's propane supplies. Enbridge is counting on the 1977 transit pipelines treaty if talks fail, and right now it does seem that both sides are very far apart. We may see this stuck in the courts for a long time.
This pipeline dispute is very different from the others we have debated in Canada over the past decade or more. It is an existing pipeline that supplies oil to Canadian industry and maintains good jobs. It is an integral part of the economies of Ontario and Quebec.
We will be using oil and gas over the next three decades, albeit in declining amounts, as we transition to zero emissions by 2050. We will be using crude oil as a feedstock in our manufacturing sectors for years to come. Line 5 is an important delivery mechanism for those purposes.
This dispute has been a wake-up call. The public, both in Canada and the United States, is increasingly unwilling to accept the environmental risks associated with pipelines and the climate impacts of burning fossil fuels.
We in the NDP, and I think everyone in the House, are concerned about workers in the oil and gas sector, whether they work in Alberta or the industrial cities of Ontario and Quebec. We need a plan, not just empty promises, to provide good jobs for these workers over the coming decades. We need programs that will allow these workers to move on to jobs in building retrofits, electrification, electric vehicle manufacture, renewable electricity, batter technology and the myriad of other sectors that will provide good employment for decades to come. We need government programs to provide those jobs to prove to workers we are serious about helping them.
Getting this done will require strong public sector leadership that the Liberals and Conservatives have so far been unwilling to even discuss. While this transition takes place, we need to protect the thousands of jobs that Line 5 provides and we need to protect the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. The federal government must have a clear and effective plan to do both.
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Kingston and the Islands about Michigan's concern about the environment.
The governor made it an election promise that she was going to shut down Line 5, just like President Biden promised to shut down Keystone XL when he was running for president, and the Liberals and Conservatives seem surprised by this.
I am wondering what the government has been doing to allay those concerns. I am thinking, for instance, that we have a new energy secretary in Washington who is also a former governor of Michigan, someone with very close Canadian ties. I am wondering if the federal government has been speaking directly with the energy secretary and what her thoughts are on this matter.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, as indicated by the Minister of Natural Resources, he has been engaged in discussions with various stakeholders on both sides of the border and his counterparts on the other side of the border. I do not have the list of everybody who has spoken, so I cannot clearly answer with regard to that one specific person, but I will say to the member's first point, yes, I believe that the governor raised a very good point. When I hear some of the stuff that has been said by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands and other members of the House, including this NDP member, I see that there are some environmental concerns and I certainly want to see that they are taken care of.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-10 18:23 [p.6990]
Mr. Speaker, back when the Kalamazoo spill happened and 840,000 litres went into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, environmentalists were already flagging the problem with Line 5 crossing the Straits of Mackinac. I saw an underwater video of that pipeline flagging this issue way back then. Why did the Harper Conservative government do nothing about this? Why have we waited so long when we knew that this could be a potential problem? We need to hold companies, like Enbridge, responsible for their infrastructure, especially when we are reliant on that infrastructure for our economy.
Does the hon. member think we should have stronger regulations on these pipeline companies to make sure that they adhere to environmental standards?
View Leona Alleslev Profile
CPC (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the important question is what are we, as Canadians, going to do today. This should be a wake-up call for us. We have the highest environmental standards in the world and we hold our companies to a very high standard. If the rest of the world were to meet our standard, greenhouse gases would be reduced by a whopping 25%.
The question is not how we got here, but what are we going to do to protect the environment, energy security and Canada's own self-sufficiency so we are not vulnerable to decisions made in other jurisdictions.
View Sven Spengemann Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, on May 8, Sir David Attenborough celebrates 95 years on the blue planet, and I take the floor to wish him a very happy birthday.
David Attenborough has been a household name for decades for so many of us, and he continues to deliver nature's stories into living rooms, schools, hearts and minds around the world. His call for greater urgency in the fight against climate change and in the effort to restore biodiversity is one of the most relevant and important appeals today.
Sir David's work is so impactful that the collective response to the devastation caused by plastic pollution is known as the “Attenborough Effect”. He believes that we are one single, human civilization and that the greatest threats we face should unite us rather than divide us.
I ask all members of Canada's House of Commons to join me in wishing Sir David Attenborough a very happy birthday, and in thanking him for a lifetime of dedication to the planet.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-07 12:24 [p.6908]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present two petitions today that were initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith.
In the first petition, the petitioners are concerned that the British Columbia government has not followed through on promises, on an expert panel to protect old-growth forests in British Columbia. They are calling upon the government to work with the provinces and first nations to immediately halt logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems; fund the long-term protection of old-growth ecosystems as a priority for Canada's climate action plan and reconciliation with indigenous peoples; support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure that Canada's forestry industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second- and third-growth forests; ban the export of raw logs and maximize resource use for local jobs; and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
BQ (QC)
View Andréanne Larouche Profile
2021-05-07 13:14 [p.6918]
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
As my party's critic for status of women, I want to point out that we have been waiting a very long time for the government to implement the recommendations in the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. I hope this will not turn into an election promise, which is what many of the measures in the budget seem to be. I hope we will see concrete action as soon as possible in honour of missing and murdered indigenous women.
My colleague had a lot to say about the environment and investment. It is good for the environment, and the government recently committed to some demanding targets. The problem with Bill C-12 is that its targets are not associated with actual objectives or an independent entity to monitor whether those targets are being met. The government is also pumping more and more money into pipelines and offshore drilling. We had a debate about Enbridge's Line 5 just yesterday, in fact. I would like my colleague to comment on the concrete environmental actions that the government must take as quickly as possible.
View Dan Vandal Profile
Lib. (MB)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for this important question. Her intervention included a number of questions.
Our government has invested over $30 billion since 2015 through partnerships with indigenous nations in the areas of education, public health, justice, and child and family services. I believe that we have made excellent investments, but we still have a lot of work to do.
The highlights of this budget are children's services and education, in which we will invest $31 billion over five years. In addition, we will invest $20 billion over five years in the environment. In these times of environmental crisis, such investments are essential. In partnership with indigenous nations, we will also invest $18 billion to address their needs.
View Seamus O'Regan Profile
Lib. (NL)
Mr. Speaker, I am addressing this House from my home on the island of Newfoundland, which is the ancestral homeland of the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk peoples, and it is also one of Canada's three proud oil-producing provinces.
The importance of our oil and gas industry is not lost on me. The hard-working men and women who work in it are not lost on me. Every day I can see supply ships heading right out from the harbour here in St. John's, right through the narrows and out to the rigs over 300 kilometres from shore. Indeed, my province relies more on oil revenue than even Alberta or Saskatchewan.
I know that this debate is very important. It is about energy security; Canada's energy security, the United States' energy security and North America's energy security. That is precisely what Line 5 is and the Government of Canada takes this issue very seriously. I take this issue very seriously.
The opposition have claimed in the media and again in this House, and they will continue to say, that we have done nothing on this issue. That we sat on our hands, that we do not take this issue seriously, but that could not be further from the truth. It is misleading, it is irresponsible and it is politically self-serving. Leave it to the members of the official opposition to play partisan politics and seek to score some cheap political points on the backs of working Canadians, of Canadian oil and gas workers, and of Canadians who just want to heat their homes.
We cannot solve this issue with false bravado by beating our chests while simultaneously sticking our heads in the sand, like the members opposite so often do, by calling people who disagree with them brain-dead. That bombastic approach does a great disservice for our oil and gas workers and it does nothing to advance their cause. We are better than that and we owe it to the workers in the industry to be better than that.
These workers built this country. We are the fourth-largest producer of oil and gas in the world. We have the third largest reserves. We do not get there without the people behind it. This is our number one export, one of our biggest industries.
Tonight's emergency debate allows us to focus on something very important, something we do not see enough in Canadian politics. I am talking about the “Team Canada” spirit that unites the political parties, government and the private sector, in support of a critical piece of North American energy infrastructure, specifically a relatively small section of Enbridge Line 5. This section extends 7.2 kilometres across the Straits of Mackinac, a waterway between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.
I will say to this House what I have said to members of the committee: Shutting down Line 5 would have profound consequences for Canada and the United States. It is a critical energy and economic link. The heating of Canadian homes, the flying of Canadian jets, the operation of Canadian refineries in Sarnia, in Montreal, in Lévis, are non-negotiable. The jobs of those workers are non-negotiable: the 5,000 direct jobs and the 23,000 indirect jobs in the Sarnia region and the thousands of jobs in Quebec.
We have been clear from the start. We would leave no stone unturned in defending Canada's energy security. We have been looking at all of our options. We are working at the political level. We are working at the diplomatic level. We are working at the legal level. It is a full-court press.
We raised Line 5 directly with the President of the United States and members of his cabinet during the virtual Canada-U.S. summit in February. The Prime Minister also raised the critical importance of North American energy security in conversation with Vice President Harris.
I raised the issue with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in our very first call. I was frank and unequivocal in expressing how significant this issue was for Canada. The Minister of Transport raised Line 5 with his counterpart, Transport Secretary Buttigieg, whose department oversees the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the U.S. federal regulator for pipelines, which has consistently stated that Line 5 is safe. The Minister of Foreign Affairs raised this issue with his counterpart, Secretary of State Blinken. Ambassador Hillman has been making the case directly to Governor Whitmer. Meanwhile, in Detroit and in Lansing, Consul General Joe Comartin has been making the case to state lawmakers and members of the Whitmer administration.
Let me take this opportunity to thank Governor Whitmer, Consul General Joe Comartin in Detroit, the team at the Canadian embassy in Washington and all of our diplomats who have been engaging on this issue in Washington, Detroit and Lansing who defend Canada's interests there every day.
I have been speaking continually with Enbridge, as has my office. We are doing what we can to support them. I have also been speaking with labour, with the Canada's Building Trades Unions, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Canadian Labour Congress. Every day, we are working hard on this issue.
I have spoken with the member for Sarnia—Lambton, with Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley, given the criticality of this issue for the Sarnia region. Just before this debate tonight, I spoke with my counterparts in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, Ministers Julien, Eyre and Savage, as well as Alberta's special representative in D.C., a former member of this House, James Rajotte. I will be speaking with Ontario Minister Rickford soon as well.
We have been in constant communication on this issue since the fall. We have set up an officials-level working group to make sure we stay aligned and that we work together. It has been, and it will continue to be, a team Canada approach. Line 5 does not just affect one province, it supports this entire country. In the face of external challenges to our energy security, Canadians expect, rightfully, that their governments, federal and provincial, politicians of all stripes, act as one, to be united, and united we are.
MPs and senators in the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group held 23 virtual meetings with U.S. congressional lawmakers during a blitz of advocacy in March, raising Line 5 in every one of those meetings.
Look no further than to the special committee on the economic relationship between Canada and the United States that this House unanimously voted to create. I appeared before the committee, as did some of my colleagues. I would like to take a moment to thank the members of that committee for their efforts. I suspect we will be hearing more from them tonight.
There was no daylight between parties on the issue. The committee unanimously agreed that Line 5 is a significant aspect of Canada's economic relationship with the United States. The committee unanimously agreed, as their first recommendation, that the government should encourage Enbridge and the State of Michigan to resolve the dispute through a mediated settlement.
We know full well the economic impacts that a shutdown would have in this country. I have already mentioned the jobs, but it bears repeating. It is 5,000 direct jobs in Sarnia, 23,000 indirect jobs in the region, thousands more in Montreal and Lévis, 53% of Ontario's crude oil supply, four refineries depend on Line 5, all of the jet fuel for Pearson International Airport, 66% of Quebec's crude oil supply via Line 9, Suncor's refinery in Montreal and Valero's refinery in Lévis.
The United States depends on Line 5 as much as we do. No two other countries in the world have their energy sectors as closely intertwined as we do, 70 pipelines, nearly three dozen transmission lines, right across the border. A shutdown would have negative impacts on Michigan and the Great Lakes Region, to put it mildly. Sixty-five percent of the propane needs of Michigan's upper peninsula come from Line 5; 55% of state-wide propane needs come from Line 5. Michiganders heat their homes with the product that it delivers. In fact, when we saw extreme cold weather events wreak havoc on power grids in Texas, Michigan was protected from the same circumstances because of Line 5.
There are thousands of jobs at refineries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan that are at risk should Line 5 shut down. It supplies Marathon's refinery in Detroit. It supplies PBF Energy and bp-Husky refinery in Toledo, Ohio, refineries that have said they have very limited alternatives and would need to close down. Thousands of direct and contracted skilled trades jobs are at risk, and a loss of $5.4 billion in annual economic output. Line 5 powers Detroit's auto industry. It flies jets from Detroit Metro Airport.
Its impact cannot be overstated. It would cause a combined shortage of 14.7 million gallons a day in the region. Michigan, alone, would face a 756,000-gallon a day propane shortage.
We are hopeful that the court-ordered mediation process unfolding between Enbridge and the State of Michigan will yield a local solution. To the opponents of Line 5, I ask, “What is the alternative?”
The reality is that those energy molecules will still get to market, people will not be left out in the cold. As I have said, that is non-negotiable. The demand for the 540,000 barrels a day of oil that Line 5 transports will not go away.
We can either use a pipeline that is demonstrably safe, is efficient, is economical and, as a piece of critical infrastructure, is itself low-emitting, or be forced to put oil on trains, on trucks and on marine transport. It would take 800 rail cars and 2,000 trucks a day just in Canada. In the United States, the number of extra trucks needed could be up to 15,000 a day. That is unquestionably less safe and would increase emissions.
We do not need more trucks on the road jamming up the 401 and 403 in the GTA or the 40 in Montreal, or jamming up our already congested border crossings. Those idling trucks would be releasing their emissions in Governor Whitmer's back yard, in Michigan, while they waited to cross the border.
Let me be crystal clear. The protection of the environment of the Great Lakes is of vital importance. I do not think anybody in the House disagrees with that. The reality of the situation is that Line 5 is safe. It has been safe for 65 years, operating in the Straits of Mackinac without incident.
Enbridge is committed to making a safe line even safer. It has proposed the Great Lakes tunnel project, which would take the pipeline off the lake-bed floor and house it in a cement tunnel underneath the lake-bed, protecting it from anchor strikes and protecting the Great Lakes.
This is exactly what Michigan was looking for, and Michigan continues to issue permits to allow the project to proceed. As I said, we are looking at all our options. We are ready to intervene at precisely the right moment.
The 1977 Transit Pipeline Treaty remains in effect and we have other legal tools we can avail ourselves of should the situation require it, but let me reiterate we are encouraged by the mediation process that is unfolding and we encourage Enbridge and the State of Michigan to reach a local solution that maintains the integrity of North American energy security.
We are taking the same approach members of the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship Between Canada and the United States have asked us to, and the same approach Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Ontario have urged us to. It is an approach that says diplomacy first. It is an approach that says team Canada, with collaboration at the forefront with provincial governments and stakeholders.
Make no mistake about it, this is an irritant in the Canada-U.S. relationship, just as President Biden's decision on Keystone XL was deeply disappointing and hurt our workers, and just as the countervailing and anti-dumping duties on softwood lumber are unfair, unjustified, unwarranted and hurt our forestry workers. However, we cannot lose sight of the great opportunities and possibilities of the Canada-U.S. relationship.
There are opportunities to make this relationship even stronger, and it is a relationship that is bigger than one project or one piece of energy infrastructure. This new administration is more aligned with the goals of the Government of Canada than ever before, and not just with our goals. It is more aligned now with the goals of the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan than ever before. It is aligned on leaving no worker behind and putting workers at the forefront of building a low-emissions energy future. It is aligned on tackling the greatest challenge of our generation, which is the reality of climate change. It is aligned on securing North American energy security through the protection of critical energy infrastructure and resilient supply chains free of geopolitics.
The U.S. wants to work with us on critical minerals because we have 13 of the 35 minerals it deems essential, and we want to ensure resilient supply chains that prevent Chinese dominance. It wants to work closely with us on CCUS, speaking with a unified voice and seeing it as an opportunity to have oil and gas workers lead decarbonization efforts.
The Prime Minister and President Biden agreed in their February summit to work together to build our economies back better as we confront the climate crisis. North American energy security is a big part of this, and this was spelled out in their joint “Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership”. This formal document recognized the important economic and energy security benefits of the bilateral energy relationship and its highly integrated infrastructure.
The “Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership” presents us with a plan to protect our highly integrated energy infrastructure, such as Line 5, to maintain the security and resilience of supply chains like that of Canadian crude heading south.
It is a plan to renew and strengthen existing bilateral agreements on critical minerals, advance nature-based climate solutions, harmonize standards and regulations to increase competitiveness and provide an even playing field for our companies.
It is about people. It is about workers and ensuring that no worker is left behind, making sure that energy-producing regions or provinces such as mine are not left behind. We need the ingenuity, the determination and the hard work of our energy workers in our energy-producing provinces to build up our low-emissions energy future.
Let me conclude with where I began. This is an issue that impacts all of Canada. This government takes the issue of Line 5 and Canada's energy security very seriously. We have put forward a team Canada approach, working with the provinces, with Enbridge, with the unions and with the House. We are leaving no stone unturned in defending Canada's energy security and the workers who built this country.
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I was happy that other speakers, including the Leader of the Opposition, mentioned that this is a very different debate about pipelines we are having tonight because this pipeline is not an expansion project. It is not like Keystone XL, Trans Mountain or energy east. This is kind of a status quo pipeline that moves Canadian oil from the west to eastern Canada.
Like those other projects, it involves a credible environmental risk. The minister can say that it is demonstrably safe, but Michigan obviously does not think that. Michigan is concerned about the thinning of the pipeline. It is concerned about the pipeline's supports in the Straits of Mackinac. It is concerned that it has leaked multiple times on land, and it has also witnessed the Line 6B spill into the Kalamazoo River that basically destroyed over 50 kilometres of river. Michigan has had a bad history with these Enbridge pipelines.
If we are going to mediate this and use diplomatic processes to get through this, I would think we would have to demonstrate, beyond the idea of putting the pipeline in a tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, other measures that would really make this safe and give Michigan the sense that they could trust this project.
What further measures is the federal government working on that would really take the safety of the ecosystem of the Great Lakes into account?
View Seamus O'Regan Profile
Lib. (NL)
Mr. Speaker, I am certainly sensitive to the history. The hon. member brings up the history of the Kalamazoo spill. That was quite significant, as has been raised in this House, one of the more significant ones in North America.
It is important to point out, though, that what we are talking about essentially is the pipeline depth or distance in the Straits of Mackinac. That has a safe track record of some 60-plus years. Enbridge has put significant funding aside in order to make sure that stretch of the pipeline is even safer, clearly an acknowledgement of the environmental sensitivity of this area. It is a significant improvement.
If we were to go back in time and perhaps make representation of this to previous administrations or Michiganders who live around that area and say this is the intention, no doubt they would see that as good news. As it is right now, that seems to get lost, but it is very important to remember that what is being proposed here is a significant improvement in safety to an area that, as I said, in the Straits of Mackinac, has gone 60-odd years without incident. However, it is important and absolutely vital that we get that balance between the environment and the economy right. I believe that Enbridge is making the right investments to what is a very sensitive environmental area.
There is no question that there is an economic vitality that exists not only for Alberta and Saskatchewan, but also for Quebec and Ontario. It is vitally important that this issue is top of mind when we talk about energy security on our continent.
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