Hansard
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Consult the user guide
For assistance, please contact us
Add search criteria
Results: 1 - 100 of 330
View Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Speaker, the last two petitions, 11279761 and 11278785, note that indigenous peoples have rights and title to their traditional territories and have been stewards of these lands. As well, the climate crisis requires action, and old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits.
Old-growth ecosystems in B.C. are endangered, yet logging still continues. Of the remaining almost 3% of the original high-productivity, old-growth forests in B.C., 75% are still slated to be logged.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to, among other things, work with provinces and first nations to immediately halt logging of endangered, old-growth ecosystems and to fund the long-term protection of old-growth ecosystems as a priority.
View James Cumming Profile
CPC (AB)
View James Cumming Profile
2021-06-22 12:31 [p.8957]
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Essex.
Before I get started on the budget, this may be the last time I get to appear in front of you, Mr. Speaker, given that there seems to be a lot of chatter about an election. I want to take this time to thank you for your service to your country and say what a pleasure it has been to be able to serve with you. I wish you the very best in everything that you do into the future.
I am standing here again on a budget bill. Although much of this budget was important because it helped families and businesses ensure that they had some kind of income so they could manage through this crisis, it is also important that we talk about how it will potentially burden the future of many families and younger people as we have amassed this enormous debt.
This February, I was appointed as the shadow minister for COVID-19 economic recovery. It has been an incredible honour to serve in this role, because it has given me the opportunity to go across the country virtually and look at the economic impacts COVID has had on every sector, every region and every demographic of the country.
A strong economic recovery should be inclusive to all demographics, sectors and regions, ensuring that all persons and all areas of the country thrive and that we have specific objectives with measurable strategies for every sector to ensure that nobody gets left behind. It is impossible to implement a cookie-cutter plan, which is pretty much what I see in the Liberal budget. We will not get a full recovery unless we look at every economic sector to make sure it is successful.
The budget outlined how the federal Liberals proposed to rebuild the Canadian economy in a way that will bring Canadians along. This is another example of a lot of talk without a clear, precise, strategic and thoughtful action by the government.
If the government was actually interested in bringing all Canadians along, it would have laid out outcomes for job creation, growth and prosperity in this country's agricultural sector, maybe the energy sector, the forestry sector and the natural resources sector, just to name a few. There are millions of Canadians who work in these sectors. It is time that the government at least got honest about what it is trying to accomplish. Quite frankly, it seems like we are stuck in this never-ending cycle of spending more to achieve less. It is all talk and no action.
I hearken back to when I first had the opportunity to get involved as a contributor to the economy. I was able to buy into a business when I was 21 years old. I look back at those times and how I looked at the world as my oyster, that I would be able to do something, build something, grow something. Sadly, I do not hear that from youth anymore. I do not see that in this budget, which does not necessarily set people up for success.
A bunch of stats have come out of this budget, like the largest debt and deficit we have seen in the history of our country, and yet very little to show for it. We are certainly not moving forward. In fact, I often think we are moving backwards. It is important that we look at a few stats. Canada fell out of the top 10 ranking of the most competitive economies. We have fallen near the bottom of our peer group on innovation, ranking 17th, as stated by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Canada ranks 11th among G7 countries, among 29 industrial countries, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 33%, and Canada fell to 25th out of 29 countries. In other words, Canada has the fifth-highest level of total indebtedness. No other country experienced such a pronounced decline in its debt ranking. The debt-to-GDP ratio will rise from 31% last year to 56% this year. The Bank of Canada projects business investments to grow at 0.8% over the next two years, failing to recover to 2019 levels until 2023.
Consumption and government spending will represent about 80% of economic growth over the next two years, while investment and exports will be next to zero. An important industry like mineral fuels accounted for 22% of our country's exports, the number one exported product, which is something we should not forget about. We still have the third-largest proven oil reserves in the world and are the third-largest exporter of oil.
Just as the government continued to do since 2015, it has ignored the Canadian natural resource industry. There is virtually no mention of the energy sector, which is Canada's number one export. By ignoring the strength of Canada's resource, forestry and agriculture sectors, among others, the government has failed to recognize the impact these sectors would have on our battered economy. The world wants and needs more of our natural resources, so we should be thinking about expanding our market share, not hastening its decline. At the very least, we should be trying to develop policies that make sure we have an active role in these sectors.
There is an entire chapter in the budget dedicated to environmental initiatives aimed at net-zero emissions by 2050, which includes $18 billion in spending, but with dubious assumptions about the impact on economic growth. Rather than supporting a proven catalyst for economic growth like the natural resource sector to accelerate Canadians' recovery and get Canadians back to work, the Prime Minister has decided to continue the abandonment of this industry and hedge our future on uncertain technologies.
Conservatives are not opposed to developing and enhancing Canada's environmental-oriented sector. In fact I, along with the Conservative Party, highly encourage Canadian market participants in this sector to continue to grow and create more jobs and revenue while making sufficient contributions to the nation's ecological sustainability. I am proud of our industry. Our industry has been doing fantastic work and is a leader in the world. We should be proud of that and stand up for it. As we continue to combat this pandemic and the economic damage it would cause, we must unleash and utilize the capabilities of all profitable revenue streams. That includes green technologies and natural resources.
There are some vague references in the budget to growing green jobs and retraining the workforce for new jobs. It is very vague. Where and in which sectors are these jobs going to be created, and by when? Words are great, but actions speak louder. In the province I come from, people want to know, if they will be trained into a green job, where that job will be, what kind of income they will get and how they are going to be able to support their families in that new role. We have heard lots about retraining for these jobs that do not exist yet, but the need for tradespeople only happens if something is approved and built in this country.
What is it going to take? If the economy is going to grow, it has to be private sector-driven. The high cost of doing business in Canada, the red tape and the over-regulation make it almost impossible for small business owners. That has to change. There has been a real and visible impact on Canada's capacity to attract foreign investment. We need to be able to tell people they are welcome in this country and their investments are welcome. The perceived risk around investing in Canada's energy sector has to change.
What does the future look like? What is the trajectory? What does the country look like? We see inflation now. The target was 2% and it is running at about 3.6%. It is very concerning for people who are trying to live on a budget. My biggest fear for the country is that this budget will continue to invest massive sums of money into under-tested, under-productive schemes that fit the government's political agenda. The title is “A Recovery Plan for Jobs, Growth and Resilience”, but the federal government's budget contains very few details on specifics and a lack of measurables, and it really does not say how it is going to execute on this plan.
I am concerned this budget is far from resilient and far from sustainable. If it were resilience that the government was after, it would be asking itself how this federal spending is going to position the country for post-pandemic success. We need to ensure that any spending helps with productivity in this country and ensures we have long-term sustainability. The well-being of our people and our economy cannot afford to be stuck in this never-ending cycle of the government's scheme of throwing money into the wind and hoping something sticks.
The most important focus for our country right now needs to be investment and commitment to ensuring Canadians get back to work. That is why the Conservative Party of Canada would implement the Canada recovery plan, a plan that would recover the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the hardest-hit sectors. Canadians deserve strong leadership, inclusive leadership and a robust plan for not only recovery, but prosperity for many years to come.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-22 13:59 [p.8969]
Mr. Speaker, my congratulations to all the graduates of 2021. They are resilient, and I hope the challenges they have faced during their education will help them be flexible and creative as they continue on their life's journey. Enjoy the summer.
COVID-19 is not over yet. As we reopen, we need to remain vigilant to the threat that the variants pose to public health. It is also important to acknowledge that many people and businesses are still facing financial insecurity and the stress that comes with it.
The pandemic has shown us what is possible when we unite to face an emergency. We need that same approach to transform our economy, to put people and the planet before corporate profits. The climate emergency and biodiversity crisis demand nothing less.
I am committed to this work, and I pledge to work collaboratively to get it done. Together, we can do this.
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, first nations in B.C. are announcing their intention to take back control of resource stewardship on their traditional territories. Many of these territories contain ancient, old-growth rainforests and watersheds that are critical to our planet's biodiversity and are important in fighting climate change. The nature legacy program's budget and priorities are not nearly enough to support indigenous-led initiatives to protect ancient, old-growth stands.
Will the Minister of Environment and Climate Change commit to providing the necessary resources and work with first nations that wish to create a conservation economy that protects these critical ecosystems?
View Jonathan Wilkinson Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, this government has made historic investments in protecting nature. Over the course of the past number of years, both marine and terrestrial, we have piloted, in partnership with indigenous peoples, many indigenous conservation protected areas as part of that conservation agenda. It is extremely important on the path forward. We have committed to 30% protection by 2030 and are working very closely with provinces and territories, and with indigenous peoples across this country, to ensure that we are doing what science tells us we must, which is protect biodiversity and stop the decline that has been happening over the past number of decades.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-21 17:43 [p.8874]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to table a second petition on National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada. The petitioners note that indigenous people have rights and title to their traditional territories and have been stewards of these lands since time immemorial.
First nations and indigenous land defenders are calling for the protection of the remaining 2.7% of the original high productivity old growth forests in British Columbia, 75% of which are slated to be logged.
The petitioners call upon the government to work with the provinces and the 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 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 Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Madam Speaker, today I have the honour to present petition 114-11264. This petition was initiated by a young leader from the Kootenays and has been signed by many constituents in my riding. The petition notes that we are living in a climate crisis and that industrial activities have caused destruction to ecosystems around the world by activities permitted by law. The international community lacks a legal framework ensuring shared nation responsibility for humanitarian and environmental aid and, as a UN member state, Canada shares in a collective legal duty to promote social progress and better standards of life globally.
The petitioners call on the federal government to declare its support for, and to advocate international adoption of, an amendment to its own statute of the International Criminal Court to include ecocide as a crime, which would provide a simple, effective deterrent to large-scale ecosystem destruction for those in positions of corporate and financial responsibility, and mandate a duty to protect for government officials enforceable within existing criminal justice systems.
View Francis Scarpaleggia Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Francis Scarpaleggia Profile
2021-06-18 12:24 [p.8779]
Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, entitled “The Volkswagen Defeat Device Case and Enforcement of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-18 12:34 [p.8781]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present this petition today. This is part of a large stack I have, with over 15,000 signatures now. People are really concerned about the trashing of the last remaining old growth forests in British Columbia, with less than 3% left.
The petitioners call on the government to work with the province and first nations to follow through on our international commitments to protect biodiversity and to save these forests as part of our climate action plan and reconciliation with first nations; to refocus on second and third growth forests with value-added logging; to stop the export of raw logs; to stop the grinding up of whole trees for biofuel pellets; and to protect our old growth forests.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-17 10:28 [p.8635]
Mr. Speaker, on Vancouver Island, people are very concerned about the loss of endangered, old-growth ecosystems. In British Columbia, we are down to the last 3% of these magnificent forests.
The petitioners call on the federal government to work with the province and first nations to immediately halt the 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 Canada's forest industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second and third growth forests, something that many petitioners agree with; 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 Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-16 16:25 [p.8540]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table a petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith. It is the 29th petition of this nature.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about protecting British Columbia's endangered old-growth forest from clear-cut logging. They know that old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and cultural, recreational and educational value.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to work with the province and first nations to immediately halt the logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems, fund the long-term protection of old-growth ecosystems as a priority of Canada's climate action plan and reconciliation with indigenous peoples, support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure Canada's forestry industry is sustainable based on the harvesting of second- and third-growth forests, ban the export of raw logs, maximize resource use for local jobs and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-15 10:14 [p.8428]
Mr. Speaker, the second petition speaks to an issue that we have heard about in this House frequently in recent weeks, and that is the critical declining area of our forests comprising old-growth forests. The petitioners note that there are solutions to protecting what is left. Less than 2.7% of British Columbia forests, for example, are in old-growth condition. Old growth fosters biodiversity, and it is a major sink for carbon. It could be part of Canada's federal plans for protecting biodiversity, protecting carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere.
The petitioners note that solutions in value-added forest products, in collaboration with first nations, could create part of our path to reconciliation while preserving old-growth forests. In short, the petitioners call for a halt on all old-growth logging across Canada.
View Jody Wilson-Raybould Profile
Ind. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, recent rumblings over the Constitution are not without significance, causing some to ask if we are necessarily heading towards renewed constitutional talks.
If so, the environment must be top of mind. In 2008, Ecuador's Constitution gave nature legally enforceable rights to exist, flourish and evolve, the first country to do so. In 2014, Te Urewera, the home of the Tūhoe people, became the first natural feature in New Zealand to be recognized as a legal person with rights.
Like New Zealand, and prior to any possible constitutional change, will the government consider granting legal personhood to significant natural features in Canada?
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Speaker, our government has recognized the importance of preserving the environment, fighting greenhouse gas emissions and fighting global warming. It is a priority, as my colleagues in that ministry have put before the House, and we have fought that battle all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
We will look at all options. I am not going to commit to any specific thing suggested by the hon. member, but I thank her for her question, and we certainly will always consider all options that will help us advance the cause of fighting climate change.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-14 16:21 [p.8349]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to table two petitions today.
The first is petition e-3159, which has 10,984 signatures from people who are concerned about approved strip mines in the Alberta Rocky Mountains.
The petition states that strip mining in all its forms causes irreversible damage to the environment, puts watersheds supplying clean drinking water for millions of Canadians at risk of permanent contamination and threatens billions of dollars in revenue and tens of thousands of jobs in agriculture, recreation and tourism. Removing overburden exposes contaminated materials to the elements, destroys habitat and allows wind and water borne pollution to be spread for hundreds of kilometres. Finally, proper consultations with indigenous communities about these mines were not done before they were approved.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to impose an immediate ban on new or expanded strip mines in the Rocky Mountains.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-14 16:23 [p.8350]
Mr. Speaker, in the second petition, the petitioners are deeply concerned about protecting endangered old growth. They note that a number of first nations have asked for deferrals on old growth.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada 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 and partnerships with first nations to ensure 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 resources for use for local jobs, and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-14 16:25 [p.8350]
Madam Speaker, the second petition goes to another kind of ecosystem, namely the old-growth forests of Canada, specifically in British Columbia, where only 2.7% of the original old growth remains.
Old-growth forests are not renewable, and the petitioners make this point. They also point out that the federal government has an opportunity to assist by working with first nations governments, which have been increasingly raising their voices and asking for logging deferrals. The potential for federal action includes banning raw log exports and ending the use of forests as so-called biofuel for electricity.
View Patrick Weiler Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise virtually in the House today to present this petition. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to work with first nations to immediately protect endangered, old-growth ecosystems in British Columbia.
The petitioners, which include constituents of mine, know that less than 2.7% of old-growth forest remains in B.C.. they also know that old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, culture, recreation, education, food and more, and that most Canadians support the sustainable harvesting of forests, which does not include logging irreplaceable old-growth.
This call was echoed yesterday by the Squamish nation's call to halt all logging in the 78,000 hectares of their land, most of which is in my riding, so I also rise today to give them a voice and amplify their request in this chamber.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-11 12:22 [p.8285]
Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to table today.
In the first petition, the petitioners note that the climate crisis and destruction of ecosystems, or ecocide, is the result of many years of harmful industrial practices permitted by law with many risks having been known about for decades by the companies choosing to continue them and by the governments that subsidize those activities. Citizens and residents can and must take some responsibility for what is consumed, but it is industry, finance and government that make high-level investments and policy decisions.
As a member state of the United Nations, Canada shares a collective legal duty to promote social progress and better standards of life. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the House of Commons to declare its support for an ecocide law amendment to the Rome Statute and to advocate for its adoption internationally, in the knowledge that many countries must stand together for the long-term protection of life on Earth.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-11 12:25 [p.8286]
Speaking of ecocide, Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from citizens who are deeply concerned about the clear-cut logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems. They are calling upon the government to work with the province and first nations to immediately halt logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems, to fund the long-term protection of old-growth ecosystems as a priority of Canada's climate action plan and reconciliation with indigenous peoples, to support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure Canada's forestry industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second- and third-growth forests, to ban the export of raw logs and maximize resource use for local jobs, and to ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
I will note that over 200 people in British Columbia, on Vancouver Island—
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-11 12:26 [p.8286]
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured today to present a petition from many of my constituents who are concerned about the fate of old-growth forests in this country. Old-growth forests are increasingly endangered, yet they are not protected from logging. Although logging is under provincial jurisdiction, the petitioners link to first nations' interests the importance of shared co-operative planning and value-added in our forestry, banning the export of raw logs and banning turning whole forests into pellets. They are claimed to be a renewable resource, but are not renewable because, as the petitioners point out, only 2.7% of old-growth forests remain in British Columbia.
These petitioners urge the federal government to work with provinces and first nations to halt old-growth logging.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-08 10:51 [p.8071]
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to take the floor this morning to present a petition from residents of Vancouver Island who are deeply concerned with the fate of old-growth forests. Of the remaining forests in British Columbia, only 2.6% is old-growth.
The petitioners, in a particularly timely petition, call attention to the need to work with first nations to work toward partnerships in forest protection that focuses on harvesting only second- and third- growth forests; to work with first nations and provinces to develop deferrals and set asides for old-growth forests, preferencing instead value-added industries; and to ban the exports of raw log from Canada the conversion of standing forests to wood pellets as biofuels.
It is particularly timely given an announcement yesterday from the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht first nations of Vancouver Island calling for an end of the logging of old-growth in Fairy Creek and the upper Walbran Valley.
View Heather McPherson Profile
NDP (AB)
View Heather McPherson Profile
2021-06-08 14:45 [p.8109]
Mr. Speaker, Alberta's United Conservative government has opened up the Rocky Mountains for new coal mines. Fences, roads and drill sites are going up in areas designated as critical habitat for species at risk. Benga Mining has applied to mine the Grassy Mountain site without a plan for controlling selenium pollution, and more new mines that avoid federal oversight are being pitched to investors. This will have devastating effects on our environment, and we need immediate action.
Will the minister commit to protecting the Rockies and eastern slopes from these new coal mines that will destroy our mountains and water for generations to come?
View Jonathan Wilkinson Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, we certainly understand and have heard the concerns of many in Alberta with respect to the eastern slopes and other areas that are opened up for prospective mining. Certainly in the context of assessing them, that is exactly why we put into place the Impact Assessment Act to ensure that we are assessing, in a thoughtful way, all environmental impacts.
I agree with my colleague that the issues around selenium discharge are extremely important. We are working on them very actively with respect to coal mining effluent regulations.
We want to ensure that any projects are environmental sustainable on a go-forward basis.
View Tony Van Bynen Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Tony Van Bynen Profile
2021-06-08 14:46 [p.8109]
Mr. Speaker, for many generations, the conservation efforts of indigenous guardians have been essential for protecting our environment for future generations. When it comes to protecting and respecting our lands and waters, all of us have a lot to learn from indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge and experiences.
Can the Minister of Environment and Climate Change share with the House how the indigenous guardians pilot will help us reach our land and water protection targets while working toward reconciliation?
View Jonathan Wilkinson Profile
Lib. (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Newmarket—Aurora for his advocacy in this important area.
The indigenous guardians pilot recognizes the many lessons that can be learned from indigenous partners across the country, and relies on indigenous experience and traditional knowledge to ensure that lands and waters are protected for generations to come. Just last week, we announced funding for 10 new initiatives under the indigenous guardians pilot. These initiatives will enable first nations to monitor ecological health, maintain cultural sites and protect sensitive areas and species, while creating jobs.
We are committed to supporting indigenous leadership and conservation to protect ecosystems, species and culture for future generations.
View Tim Louis Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Tim Louis Profile
2021-06-07 13:59 [p.8012]
Mr. Speaker, I was proud to meet with Woolwich Healthy Communities, an organization in Kitchener—Conestoga that is doing outstanding work locally to help protect our environment. Woolwich Healthy Communities has several working groups that are dedicated to making a difference in our riding.
I spent a beautiful sunny day in Elmira this weekend, planting over 300 trees with my daughter Brooklyn and other volunteers from the group Trees for Woolwich. I thank all the volunteers who celebrated World Environment Day by helping to create habitat, supporting species at risk and biodiversity, enriching the soil and sequestering carbon dioxide.
Thousands of trees will be planted for this nature reserve, with benefits and rewards decades away. The shade of these trees will not be enjoyed by the volunteers who planted them, but rather future generations to come.
The selflessness and commitment to improving our community is what makes Kitchener—Conestoga such an incredible place to live.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-07 15:37 [p.8029]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table two of the same petition today, which were initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith. The petitioners are really concerned about protecting British Columbia's endangered old-growth ecosystems from clear-cut logging. They know these old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits in fighting climate change and in supporting biodiversity, as well as cultural, recreational and educational values. Over 160 people have been arrested trying to protect these forests.
The petitioners are calling upon the government to work with the Province of British Columbia and first nations to immediately halt the 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 people, 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 the resources for local jobs.
The petitioners are also calling for a ban on the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production, which is contrary to any climate action measures. It is really a horrible practice.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-06-03 10:16 [p.7862]
Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present petition e-3256. It is signed by nearly 900 Canadians who are calling for the House of Commons to act and ensure action in the case of an unprecedented threat to the Okavango Delta region in Africa. This region is on the border of Namibia and Botswana.
A Canadian company based in Vancouver called ReconAfrica has permits to explore over six million acres for oil and gas. The petitioners note it is of particular important to the San people, the indigenous people of the region. It is a UNESCO world heritage site because of the extraordinary biodiversity found within the region, particularly on the Botswana side of the border.
The petitioners call for the House of Commons to ensure adequate funding to the new office of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, to ensure a full investigation. There are many allegations of abuse for the people of the delta. The concern extends to the disruptive oil and gas activity, which includes potential fracking. The petition is urgent.
I would note for members as a side note, not in the petition, but the Canadian business pages of The Globe and Mail this weekend had a big exposé on this issue. This petition obviously predates that media coverage but this being an e-petition, it will be the one time that I am able to present it on behalf of the petitioners.
I hope the Speaker will accept that I have tried to summarize a much longer petition on a very urgent matter, so that we ensure that Canadian companies overseas do not violate the human rights of the San people, nor the extraordinary biodiversity of this region.
View Jenica Atwin Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Jenica Atwin Profile
2021-06-03 10:18 [p.7863]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and present petition 432-01021. It is concerning all of our responsibility to address the climate crisis and to think about the generations to come.
Considering the last protected intact old-growth valley on Southern Vancouver Island, Fairy Creek, is slated for logging, along with the upper Walbran Valley and other remaining pockets of old growth, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call 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 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 Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-06-03 13:58 [p.7896]
Madam Speaker, this government's so-called “climate accountability act” is climate action theatre. I have heard MPs say that this piece of legislation is better than nothing, patting themselves on the back for making meaningless changes.
The Canada Energy Regulator has reported that Canada will miss its Paris Agreement targets because of the oil and gas sector. Billions of taxpayer dollars continue to flow into the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Subsidies for fracking and fracked gas continue to increase.
Yesterday, to mark Environment Week, I put forward Motion No. 90 calling for a national ban on gas fracking in Canada. Fracking is a climate killer. Continuing to support and expand the fracked gas industry is incompatible with combatting climate change, protecting fresh water, maintaining a healthy environment and respecting indigenous sovereignty, rights and title.
Canada needs to stop engaging in climate action theatre and implement a national ban on fracking.
View Mark Gerretsen Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to take part in the debate on a private member's bill, Bill C-262. I would like to make to clear from the outset that our government fully recognizes the importance of deepening and accelerating the actions needed to fight climate change.
In this regard, we appreciate the intent of the proposed legislation that is the subject of our debate today. By capturing carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial facilities before they are released into the atmosphere, carbon capture, use and storage technologies will play an important role in helping Canada exceed its 2030 Paris Agreement emissions reductions target. They have the potential to significantly reduce emissions from heavy industrial processes where other emission-reducing alternatives may be limited.
That is why, as part of the strengthened climate plan we announced in December, our government is proposing to develop a comprehensive CCUS strategy and explore other opportunities to help keep Canada globally competitive in this growing industry. It is important that we do so in a way that is fair for all Canadians, takes into account the views of stakeholders and is effective in achieving its objectives. It is here, in this regard, that Bill C-262 falls short. As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. I would like to take a moment to consider some of the troublesome details apparent in this bill.
The tax credit proposed in Bill C-262 would be equal to the amount of captured carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide emissions in tonnes, multiplied by the price of the excess emissions charged for a carbon dioxide equivalent under Canada's output-based pricing system. As we know, the OBPS is part of Canada's carbon pricing framework that applies to industrial emitters, with charges set at $40 per CO2 equivalent tonne in 2021 and $50 per CO2 equivalent tonne in 2022.
Unlike the carbon capture tax credits in the United States, Bill C-262 would not impose time limits on the availability of the tax credit. What does this mean? It means that, because the value of the proposed tax credit is linked to excessive emission targets, its value could increase significantly if the OBPS excess emissions charge under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act were to increase as anticipated under our proposed plan to strengthen Canada's carbon pricing framework beyond 2022.
If the excess emissions charge were to increase by $15 annually from $50 per tonne in 2022 to $170 per tonne in 2030, this would lead to a situation where the government is very heavily subsidizing, or even more than fully subsidizing, certain projects that employ CCUS. This is the point at which incentives, if not properly designed, can become perverse and encourage an unproductive gaming of the system by businesses at the taxpayers' expense.
The bill also appears to be open to accommodating the international trade of physical CO2, as it refers not only to Canadian federal and provincial laws in this respect, but also to U.S. laws. This suggests the measure would allow for the import into Canada of physical CO2 for storage or use in Canada without requiring the capture of that CO2 to have been in Canada. This would clearly undermine the credit's ability to meet our government's objective of reducing Canadian emissions.
Bill C-262 also proposes that multiple types of use would be eligible for the tax credit, including storage through conversion, and use for any other purpose for which a commercial market exists. It is not clear how the use of CO2 for any proposed commercial purpose would reduce Canadian emissions. In fact, some commercial uses could result in CO2 being reintroduced into the atmosphere. What is more, the bill's definitions of “utilization” and “qualifying corporation” suggest the credit would be accessible to all existing and operating facilities, and not just those that are developing and expanding their CCUS capacities.
By providing a windfall for existing operations, which may have already received significant federal and provincial support, the bill does not fully leverage our capacity to encourage the adoption of these technologies to meet our CO2 reduction goals.
As I said, while the bill is commemorable in its objectives, it is severely flawed in its execution. It is in this regard that our government can offer a better way forward. Canada's strengthened climate plan, a healthy environment and healthy economy, proposes measures to cut energy waste, provide clean and affordable transportation to power, build Canada's clean industrial advantage and support nature-based climate solutions.
It also proposes to put a price on pollution through to 2030. The plan is supported by an initial $15-billion investment, which will create jobs, grow the middle class and support workers in a stronger and cleaner economy. This is in addition to the Canada Infrastructure Bank's $6 billion for clean infrastructure that was announced in the fall.
Under our plan, CCUS projects would benefit from credits that are generated under carbon pricing regimes and the clean fuel standard if projects reduce the carbon intensity for fuel suppliers. The plan also provides direct support that may be available for CCUS investments through the new net-zero accelerator, which will provide $3 billion over five years via the strategic innovation fund. The fund is expected to face high demand as it aims to rapidly expedite decarbonization projects with large emitters, scale up clean technology, and accelerate Canada's industrial transformation across all sectors.
Certain projects could also be complemented by funding under the $1.5 billion low-carbon and zero emissions fuels fund to increase the production in use of low-carbon fuels. As well investments by Sustainable Development Technology Canada will support advancement of pre-commercial clean technologies.
In conclusion, it is important that governments continue to work with stakeholders to determine the best approach to leveraging CCUS technology in Canada. It is also important that these efforts are advanced through the budget process, which enables the government to fully consider trade-offs, balance priorities and undertake new fiscal commitments only to the extent that they are effective, fair and affordable, and when no better alternative is identified.
As I have made clear today, it is precisely in these regards that Bill C-262 falls short. That is why the government cannot support it.
View Dan Albas Profile
CPC (BC)
Mr. Speaker, this is Canadian Environment Week, and it is a great time to remind ourselves that our country's natural beauty needs protection. That is why the Conservative Party released its plan, “Secure the Environment”.
This plan will protect our environment and uphold our commitments without pitting one region against another, the way the Liberal government does. We will ban the disposal of plastic in our oceans thanks to the bill introduced by the member for York—Simcoe.
Bill C-204 would ban the export of plastic waste to other countries to be dumped in the ocean and instead handle it here at home. Sadly, the Liberals oppose the bill and would rather see us export our plastic waste around the world.
The Liberal government sees the environment as a way to create divisions between Canadians. On our side, we will secure the environment and secure the future for all Canadians.
I wish everyone a happy Environmental Week.
View Jenica Atwin Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Jenica Atwin Profile
2021-06-01 10:07
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present petition 11279386 regarding the ongoing travesty of logging the last remaining old growth in Canada.
Whereas the climate crisis requires action by all levels of government and industry, old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, culture, recreation, food and more. Of the remaining 2.7% of the original high-productivity, old-growth forests in British Columbia, 75% are still slated to be logged.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada 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 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 Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition today on behalf of many residents of Vancouver Island.
As many parliamentarians will know, there have been many arrests recently at Fairy Creek, a valley that still has old-growth forests, of real importance and significance to British Columbia. The petitioners note that only 2.7% of British Columbia's old-growth forest remains, and it is being logged at an unsustainable rate.
The petitioners are asking the federal government to recognize the importance of old-growth forests in any climate plan; recognize the importance of old-growth forests for biodiversity; halt the logging of old growth and specifically halt the export of raw logs; and ban the practice of taking whole forests and converting them to wood pellets for biofuel alleged to be a climate policy, which is actually degrading the capacity of our forests for sequestration.
View Joël Godin Profile
CPC (QC)
Mr. Speaker, this week is Canadian Environment Week, which seeks to encourage us to help protect our environment. That is a subject that my Conservative Party colleagues and I care a lot about. The health and safety of our planet are at stake. We are talking about what we will leave our children and future generations. This is my responsibility as a father.
I would have liked to be able to tell the House that a lot of progress has been made under this government, but unfortunately, the Liberals' broken promise to plant more than two billion trees and their failure to respond to the urgent need to act now to help our environment are just a few examples of this government's lack of commitment and incompetence. Even Greenpeace is criticizing this government.
Tomorrow is Clean Air Day in Canada. Let us work together to keep our air clean. We cannot celebrate the government's achievements this year, but next year's Canadian Environment Week will be an opportunity to see that, with a new Conservative government and its environmental plan, greenhouse gas emissions will have been reduced with the help—
View Alex Ruff Profile
CPC (ON)
View Alex Ruff Profile
2021-05-31 15:23 [p.7631]
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present four pretty much identical petitions totalling over 3,350 signatures.
The petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to stop the TC Energy's proposed pump storage project on 4th Canadian Division Training Centre at base Meaford.
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Chair, with respect to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Chinese state-controlled development bank, has Canada been able to bring about any changes in policy with respect to gender equality, environmental policy, human rights or corruption?
View Karina Gould Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Karina Gould Profile
2021-05-31 21:00 [p.7685]
Madam Chair, as the member opposite will know from each time he has questioned me on this, this is actually under the purview of the Minister of Finance. I am not the governor for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, but we do recognize in Canada that it follows the same rules as other multilateral development banks, and Canada as—
View Garnett Genuis Profile
CPC (AB)
Madam Chair, I am happy to have a different minister answer the question tonight.
My question is this. Has Canada being at the table brought about any changes in AIIB policy with respect to gender equality, environmental policy, human rights or corruption? I expect that somebody involved in foreign affairs would know the answer to that.
View Karina Gould Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Karina Gould Profile
2021-05-31 21:02 [p.7685]
Madam Chair, as I have mentioned to my hon. colleague on several occasions, the governor for the AIIB is actually the Minister of Finance. That being said, Canada advances gender equality and environmental policies, as well as human rights and fighting corruption, in all international fora in which we engage. That is a consistent approach by Canadians in every single multilateral organization—
View Brian Masse Profile
NDP (ON)
View Brian Masse Profile
2021-05-28 11:12 [p.7552]
Madam Speaker, Ojibway Shores is a vital 33-acre green space and the last remaining undeveloped natural shoreline in Windsor-Detroit. Hundreds of endangered species rely upon migration through surrounding local parks for survival. These include Ojibway Shores, Spring Garden, Black Oak and Tallgrass Prairie Park, to name a few.
If connected, this area, including the Detroit River, could become one of North America's best treasures. It serves not only as a home for endangered species, but also provides flood mitigation for climate change and provides natural areas for our community to enjoy for healthy tourism and living.
Over the past several years, a consensus has developed among residents and local, national and international organizations to put all of these lands together into a national urban park. Tens of thousands of people have attended public meetings, signed petitions and written letters and emails. Even the Prime Minister says he is in favour.
The federal government should seize the opportunity and move on its goal to create more urban parks, as indicated in its fall economic statement. It is time now for Ojibway national urban park.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-28 12:26 [p.7566]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition today. It is initiated by Adrian Hough in Nanaimo—Ladysmith and has had more than 15,000 signatures with the e-petition and the paper petitions combined.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about the ongoing logging of endangered old-growth ecosystems, an ecosystem that has less than 3% of it remaining in British Columbia. Threatened screech owls have been found in the areas that are being logged. More than 130 people have been arrested, including first nations youth from the Pacheedaht First Nation, whose territory this lies within, and seniors who are lining up to be arrested as well.
The petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to work with the provinces and the 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 people; support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure 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, which is another thing that is happening in British Columbia and is not climate friendly at all.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-27 10:56 [p.7464]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about protecting British Columbia's endangered old-growth forest from logging. As of today, 128 people have been arrested protecting these forests in Fairy Creek, Caycuse, upper Walbran and Edinburgh Mountain.
The petitioners call on the government to work with the province 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 people; support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure Canada's forest industry is sustainable; based on the harvesting of second and third-growth forests, ban the export of raw logs and maximize resource uses for local jobs; and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-05-27 10:59 [p.7464]
Madam Speaker, I rise virtually today in the House to present a very critical petition. It is timely and many of my constituents are deeply concerned.
The petition was initiated by constituents within the riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith. It relates to the situation that is critical for old-growth forests in British Columbia. Of the intact old growth of this province, only 2.7% remains. The petitioners point out three-quarters of that is slated for logging.
Although the normal assumption is that forestry is provincial, the petitioners have identified those critical areas where the federal government has a role in protecting old growth for its critical role in stabilizing climate and its potential for value-added jobs, as well as its role for engagement with first nations communities and for the importance of protecting biodiversity.
The petitioners call on the government to ban the export of raw logs; to work with the province and first nations; to halt the logging where we have seen many arrests at Fairy Creek, the upper Walbran. These areas are in critical danger.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-05-27 17:04 [p.7521]
Mr. Speaker, I certainly totally agree that this legislation needs to be passed, but in the context of the debate today, I heard something of a fairy tale about a wonderful agency that works well and regulates to protect workers and protects the environment. The fairy tale says that this is the Canada-Newfoundland & Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. Unfortunately, we know from the Wells report that it should have been much more vigilant when 17 people died in the Cougar crash, but I want to focus also on the negligence of the agency in protecting the environment.
As I said earlier, it has a built-in conflict of interest in that its job is to promote offshore oil and gas. Many scientists, including Professor Ian Jones at Memorial University, whom I am sure the hon. member knows of, and a number of scientists within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, have lamented that the Canada-Newfoundland & Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board seems to have a fictitious approach to protection for marine mammals from seismic testing. Seismic testing causes noise levels of as much as 260 decibels 24-7 in the offshore.
I wonder if the hon. member would not agree that it would be better to have separate agencies protect workers and protect the environment.
View Yvonne Jones Profile
Lib. (NL)
View Yvonne Jones Profile
2021-05-27 17:06 [p.7521]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands for her always insightful comments into debate.
Obviously, in the oil and gas industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, when we look at the C-NLOPB, we look at it as something that was built in Newfoundland and Labrador. Very seldom in our history have we had autonomy or control over any resource development sector within our backyard. The C-NLOPB was the world-class regime that was created to do that. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Can it be improved? We all recognize that it can be improved, even going back to the recommendations of the regulatory review that was done. We are looking to try to make those transitions and to look at those improvements.
When it comes to the environmental protections, we did complete overhauls with regard to environmental regulations and legislation as it relates to Canada's resource development sector. That is governed by legislation. While many may feel that this process is too lenient, there are others who feel it is not lenient enough. There is always a crossover in terms of whether there is a happy medium here or not.
I think the only thing that really makes concrete sense is ensuring that we have environmental regulations that are well-thought-out, that look to the protection of the marine environment and the natural environment itself, and that ensure there is cohesion between resource development and the environment. Any time those targets are not being met, I think there is always room for re-evaluation and for further discussion.
We need to ensure that parties are always open to that and that these things are not done to the detriment of other interests.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-26 16:18 [p.7384]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about protecting British Columbia's endangered old-growth forests from logging. Recently, threatened screech owls on the species at risk list were discovered in these forests, but it is clear the B.C. NDP government does not give a hoot.
Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the government to work with the province 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 Canada's forestry industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second-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 Jenica Atwin Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Jenica Atwin Profile
2021-05-26 16:19 [p.7384]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to table this petition, which states old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, culture, recreation, education, food and more. The last unprotected, intact old-growth valley on southern Vancouver Island, Fairy Creek, is slated for logging, along with the upper Walbran Valley and other remaining packets of old growth.
The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada 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 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 Peter Schiefke Profile
Lib. (QC)
My constituents in Vaudreuil—Soulanges, all Canadians and billions of people around the world have had their lives turned upside down for more than a year by COVID-19. Many people have lost loved ones. Schools, day cares and businesses have had to close. Families have been affected by temporary and long-term layoffs.
The magnitude of this situation cannot be underestimated. This is the worst health and economic crisis that Canada and all of humanity have experienced in generations. Our Liberal government had to present a budget that reflected this reality, and budget 2021 does just that.
This is an important budget focused on three key goals: finishing the fight against COVID-19 and continuing to support families and businesses during the pandemic; investing in the economic recovery and in economic growth in the short and long terms; and, lastly, looking ahead by investing in building a cleaner, safer, stronger and more prosperous Canada for our children and grandchildren.
With respect to our investments to finish the fight against COVID-19, I will start by speaking about investments in vaccines, more specifically our domestic vaccine production capacity in the future.
COVID-19 highlighted the importance of rebuilding Canada's vaccine production capacity, which was lost over the past 40 years. Budget 2021 provides a total of $2.2 billion over seven years to re-establish a vibrant domestic life sciences sector. This amount includes a previously announced investment of $170 million for the expansion of a vaccine production facility in Montreal. These and upcoming investments will equip Canada to produce COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines that Canadians may need to combat future biological threats.
As we continue to navigate through the highs and lows of this pandemic, many sectors of our economy are still closed or operating at reduced capacity due to provincial health measures. As a result, many of my constituents in Vaudreuil—Soulanges are either out of work or are facing a reduction in income.
To ensure that they continue to put food on the table and support themselves and their families, budget 2021 extends the COVID-19 economic response support measures for individuals by another 12 weeks to September 2021. This includes the Canada recovery benefit, which will reduce gradually over time; the Canada recovery caregiving benefit; the Canada recovery sickness benefit; and it allows for more flexible access to EI benefits for another year, into the fall of 2022. This ensures that those in my riding of Vaudreuil—Soulanges, who are still heavily impacted by this pandemic, including our artists, restaurant owners, tourism operators, those working in the aviation sector and many more, will have the support they need to see it through.
We have also extended benefits for small business owners. Budget 2021 ensures that the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which has helped more than 5.3 million Canadians, will be extended until September 25, 2021.
The Canada emergency rent subsidy, which has already helped more than 154,000 organizations, will be extended from June to September 25, 2021.
Canada emergency business account loans, which have helped more than 850,000 Canadian small businesses, are still repayable by December 31, 2022, but the application deadline has been extended to June 30, 2021.
To help businesses reopen, budget 2021 includes several new programs, such as the Canada recovery hiring program, which offsets a portion of the extra costs employers take on as they reopen.
The objective is to help employers that continue to experience declines in revenues relative to before the pandemic. The program will be available for employees from June 6 to November 20, 2021.
Budget 2021 also includes an expansion of a worker support program that I know will have positive impacts on the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians in the years ahead who may find themselves diagnosed with an illness that will require them to take time off work, and that is the extension of employment insurance sickness benefits from 15 weeks to 26 weeks. During my personal battle with cancer, I know how important it is during and after chemotherapy to focus on one's well-being, on one's mental health and on healing.
Budget 2021 proposes funding of $3 billion over five years to deliver on our promise in 2019 to extend these benefits by almost three months. This extension would provide approximately 169,000 Canadians every year with additional time and flexibility to recover and return to work.
The extension of the support programs for families, workers and business owners to September 2021 is vital to the health and safety of many families and businesses in Vaudreuil—Soulanges.
We promised all Canadians that we would be there for them during the pandemic, and that is what we are doing with budget 2021.
We also promised seniors that we would be there to help them. Since 2016, our government has worked hard to do just that. We have already increased support for 900,000 of the most vulnerable seniors across Canada, made historic investments in affordable housing, and invested billions of dollars in mental health care.
In budget 2021, we are continuing on that track by offering a one-time payment of $500 for seniors aged 75 and over in August 2021, as well as a 10% increase in old age security payments starting in July 2022 for seniors aged 75 and over.
We also invested over $3 billion to improve long-term care and $3.8 billion to build an additional 35,000 affordable housing units for Canadian seniors.
For young Canadians who are anxious about their future job prospects in the coming months and years, budget 2021 provides the support they need to build skills, get on-the-job training and start their careers. This includes $721 million to connect Canadian youth with employers that will provide them with over 100,000 new quality job opportunities and a historic $4 billion in a digital adoption program to help 160,000 businesses make the shift to e-commerce, which will create 28,000 new jobs for young Canadians.
It provides $708 million over five years to ensure that we have 85,000 work-integrated learning placements and $470 million to establish a new apprentice service that would help over 55,000 first-year apprentices in construction and manufacturing Red Seal trades.
Finally, it provides an additional $371 million in new funding for the Canada summer jobs program in 2022 and 2023 to support approximately 75,000 new placements in the summer of 2022 alone.
Further, to respond to the mental health impacts of this pandemic, as part of an overall investment of $1 billion in the mental health of Canadians, budget 2021 proposes to provide $100 million over three years to support innovative mental health programs for populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, including health care workers, front-line workers, youth, seniors, indigenous Canadians and racialized Black Canadians.
Finally, budget 2021 includes unprecedented investments in the protection and preservation of nature and action against climate change. To enable Canada to reach the ambitious goal of protecting 25% of our nature by 2025, budget 2021 invests $4 billion for small and large-scale conservation projects and $3.16 billion to plant two billion trees across Canada by 2030. To help Canada not only meet but exceed our Paris agreement targets, budget 2021 invests $8 billion in the net-zero accelerator supporting green technology and renewable energy and creating well-paying jobs in the process.
It also invests $1.5 billion to purchase 5,000 electric public transit and school buses, helping to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, provide cleaner air and reduce noise pollution in our communities. In addition, to help communities like mine in Vaudreuil—Soulanges that have already begun to experience the impacts of climate change with two record floods in just the last four years, budget 2021 will strengthen climate resiliency by allocating $640 million to the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund for small-scale projects between $1 million and $20 million in eligible infrastructure costs. For communities like mine, with smaller municipalities, this change is going to make all the difference.
With that, I strongly encourage every member of the House to support the measures proposed in budget 2021 and in Bill C-30. These measures will allow us to—
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Lloyd Longfield Profile
2021-05-14 12:27 [p.7249]
Madam Speaker, we know good things grow in Ontario. The adoption of environmentally sustainable practices in agriculture is a priority for our government. We are proud of the Living Laboratories initiative that brings together farmers, scientists and other partners to develop, test and share innovative agricultural practices and technologies.
Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food tell us about our role in protecting important waterways and conserving soil health in Ontario?
View Neil Ellis Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Neil Ellis Profile
2021-05-14 12:28 [p.7249]
Madam Speaker, our government is investing $4.2 million to launch a living lab in Ontario. This will be the fourth of its kind, following similar collaborations in the Atlantic region, the Prairies and Quebec.
The research will focus on reducing runoff from agricultural land into Lake Erie, improving water quality, conserving soil health and increasing biodiversity. Those are the tools farmers need to set the stage for tomorrow's agriculture.
View Monique Pauzé Profile
BQ (QC)
View Monique Pauzé Profile
2021-05-13 17:33 [p.7217]
Madam Speaker, first off, is this 2021? I only ask because, after reading Motion No. 61 moved by my colleague from Edmonton Manning, I wonder if I travelled back in time.
This motion echos the language of another century. It illustrates the deep divide between a green, progressive Quebec that is ready to deal with climate change and an official opposition that, unsurprisingly, is digging in deeper and deeper in oil.
What part of “climate emergency” does the Conservative Party not understand? The Bloc Québécois is firmly against this motion, but I do not have enough time to raise every argument I have against this motion from top to bottom, so I will limit myself to paragraphs (i) and (iii) of the motion.
Paragraph (i) calls on the House to recognize that:
(i) replacing oil and gas with more environmentally sustainable options is not technologically or economically feasible;
I would like to come back to what a former Saudi oil minister said in 2000, “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” That is where we are right now.
By saying the transition is not feasible, the motion flatly denies the growth potential of renewable energy in Canada. It is just not true for Quebec, for Canada or for the rest of the world. It is so off the mark that I want to point out that the renewable energy sector has grown at an unprecedented rate, according to the International Energy Agency's 2020 report. According to the IEA, “Last year, the increase in renewable capacity accounted for 90% of the entire global power sector’s expansion”.
Earlier this week, Le Devoir reported on massive wind farms under construction in China. We may have legitimate complaints about China, but it has made huge strides in beginning its transition while maintaining its economic growth.
In the United States, the Biden administration has given the green light to the Vineyard Wind project, which will include 84 turbines producing 800 megawatts and supplying power to 400,000 households. By 2030, wind power projects that are currently under way could supply enough energy for 10 million households.
This transition is not only technologically feasible, it is already under way and is economically necessary. I do not want to dwell on that, so I will simply say that countless investment funds understand this already.
If the Conservative Party is determined to remain in the last century with this unfortunate and backward point of view that will deprive future generations of access to economic progress and prosperity, that is their choice. Just because the Conservatives refuse to consider the immense progress of renewable energy technologies and to recognize their potential does not mean that they do not exist. Willful blindness does have its limits.
Quebec's innovative and creative society, rich in clean energy and renewable resources, is eager to contribute to the post-pandemic world. Where do the Conservative members from Quebec stand on this issue? Do they not have a responsibility to promote the regions they represent? Repeating the same message over and over again, just with different wording, does not make it any more true.
Paragraph (iii) of the motion calls on the House to recognize that:
(iii) Canadian oil and natural gas are produced with the highest environmental standards in the world, and domestic producers are global environmental leaders and responsible corporate citizens;
Here is the truth. Even if Canadian producers complied with the highest environmental standards, we are talking about the standards set for their industry, which is an undeniably polluting industry. Complying with environmental regulations is not a moral accomplishment, nor is it an act of good corporate citizenship; it is a requirement.
Sure, producers make an effort to mitigate some environmental impacts by using technology that improves efficiency. However, the problem remains that greenhouse gas emissions associated with these industries are the primary source of emissions in Canada. These industries, from production all the way to the end use of this resource, account for 81% of our total emissions.
Even more worrisome, the technologies to make operations more efficient simply allow for increased production. There is not a single technology that is capable of reversing the very nature of this industry, which will forever be incompatible with the Paris targets. I remind members that the signatory states to this agreement committed to preventing the climate catastrophes that are threatening life as we know it now, not just for polar bears or belugas, but for humans as well.
Greenhouse gas emissions have reached troubling levels. Greenhouse gas emissions directly produced by energy industries have increased by 38.5% since 1990. In 1990, oil and gas emitted 106 megatonnes of CO2 compared to 195 megatonnes in 2017. In 1990, oil sands operations emitted 15 megatonnes of CO2, while in 2017 they emitted 81 megatonnes.
I remind members that Canada has 0.5% of the world's population and is responsible for 16% of all carbon emissions. I think that the worst phrase I have ever heard is “green oil”. I even am disgusted putting those two words together. The Canadian industry began using another phrase because “green oil” drew outrage. Now we hear “the greenest oil in the world”. No. The oil sands are an environmental disaster that has resulted in clear-cut forests, destroyed landscapes, air pollution and the contamination of water tables. All these sad realities and many others have been well documented.
You cannot develop the third-largest oil field in the world and think you are doing the planet a favour when it comes to climate change. That is not how it works. The Bloc Québécois will repeat this as long as it takes: The government must stop subsidizing fossil fuels. Our position reflects what Quebeckers want. We are proposing that we create wealth and avoid generating even more greenhouse gases.
The Bloc Québécois believes in the principle of a just transition. This involves recognizing that it would be unjust to expect workers and their families to make this transition happen overnight, especially since they are the primary victims of the crisis in the energy sector and of the challenges associated with climate change.
Our leader, the member for Beloeil—Chambly, has said more than once that the obscene amounts of public money, billions of dollars, invested in Trans Mountain should be put towards helping the workers out west through the transition and establishing geothermal, wind and clean energy sources in these areas. The parliamentary secretary was just saying that Trans Mountain shows that government can make a difference. That is true, but only if it acknowledges its mistake.
In a study published in March, Simon Fraser University confirmed that the pipeline will put taxpayers close to $12 billion in the hole. The facts are clear. The government must abandon the pipeline and invest in renewable energy. Even BP, Total and Shell are more lucid than the government. Believe it or not, given shrinking demand for oil, these industries and companies are moving their investments over to green energy.
As the saying goes, a fault confessed is half redressed. Is there any hope that the government will admit it made a mistake and start walking its constant talk about fighting climate change for real? The government loves to use the word “leadership”, it really does, but true leadership shows in actions, policies and responsible legislation. A government embodies leadership when it has the courage to make tough decisions and stick by them.
I still believe that the Conservative Party is not some monolithic organization. Conservative MPs are ready to consider that climate change is the challenge of the century. However I will tread with caution in these considerations because, apart from withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol, the 10-year reign of a Conservative government resulted in the review of the environmental assessment process for the sole purpose of reducing barriers for oil projects, major cuts to climate research, the muzzling of government experts preventing them from speaking publicly on topics related to their expertise, and, now, this motion asking members of the House to celebrate the existence of the fossil fuel industry. Members will forgive the play on words, but it is high time Conservative members pulled their heads out of the tar sands.
I will close with the following words, which are just as important. The current government should stop saying one thing and then its opposite. It should seize, immediately and firmly, the opportunity presented to it, namely to be responsible, diligent and consistent regarding its commitment to put climate action at the centre of all its governmental and environmental decisions.
Other countries have done it. What is the Canadian government waiting for?
View Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, it is obviously always a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois and my constituents in Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
Honestly, I do not even know where to start after reading the terms of the motion. I am certainly not the first to do this, but I still want to use these seven minutes to break down this motion together.
The member for Edmonton Manning is calling on the government to recognize that “replacing oil and gas with more environmentally sustainable options is not technologically or economically feasible”.
I see a huge problem right there, because we have many reasons to believe that the opposite is true. It is possible to replace oil and gas with more environmentally sustainable options and it is technologically feasible to do so. In fact, this is already being done in Quebec and in other places. Furthermore, scientists say that oil is a finite fossil fuel energy resource and that we will eventually need to learn to live without it.
Many have already replaced this energy source with electricity produced by wind energy, for example, which is a renewable energy. Wind will always exist, but the same cannot be said for oil.
I would even add that I find it absolutely deplorable that a company like Enercon has to close its Matane plant because wind energy is not valued as much as oil is. I find it absolutely deplorable that a company like Marmen, also in Matane, has to lay off more than half of its employees because it has no work to offer them. The company is not getting enough contracts to produce wind turbine blades because our governments do not place enough value on renewable energy projects.
Instead, the federal government continues to provide subsidies to the oil and gas industry, knowing full well that it will never meet its greenhouse gas reduction targets if it continues to do so.
For the benefit of those who say it is not economically feasible, I reiterate that there are several indications to the contrary. Last June, the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization with 161 member countries, reported that more than half of the renewable energy capacity added in 2019 was cheaper than any other available option on the fossil fuel side.
The best part of all this is that solar and wind energy prices are going to continue to drop dramatically, which means there is a golden opportunity here to stimulate the economy while doing good for the environment.
With all due respect, the first item of this motion simply does not hold water. It is not only possible but actually necessary to replace oil and gas with greener options, and this is feasible, both technologically and economically.
I would add that the energy transition we must make is fundamental. We must change the ways we produce and consume energy to eliminate our dependency on oil. We can move to a low-carbon economy by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies. By stating that the transition is impossible, the motion clearly denies the growth potential of renewable energy in Canada. That is just not true, for Quebec and for Canada.
Coming back to the economic argument, it has to be said that the oil and gas industry is primarily responsible for pollution, which is very costly. Greenpeace estimates that it costs approximately $50 billion a year. Besides the economic cost, there is also a cost in terms of human lives. Air pollution contributes to the premature death of approximately 21,000 people in Canada every year.
Therefore, we absolutely must not deny the fact that burning fossil fuels impacts our health and our economy. Decarbonizing the economy helps reduce the economic costs associated with non-renewable energy.
Renewable energy sources are definitely profitable, according to Desjardins and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, who are increasingly investing in them. The Desjardins Group announced in 2020 that its 17 SocieTerra funds and portfolios would completely move away from oil and pipelines. The investment in fossil fuels went from 5% to 0%. That speaks volumes. Even investment firms think it is time to walk away from oil.
That being said, on top of wind power, hydro and solar power both have a future in Quebec, as do geothermal energy, offshore wind power, tidal power, bioenergy and forest biomass.
In Quebec, the more we power our industries and transportation with our own clean energy, the less we need to import oil and gas, which will do wonders for our trade balance. We will be less dependent on oil and we will pollute less.
I realize that this motion contains several elements and that I will not be able to go over all of them in detail. I certainly had a lot to say on this point. If I may, I would like to quickly address the third part of the motion, which asks the government to recognize that “Canadian oil and natural gas are produced with the highest environmental standards in the world, and domestic producers are global environmental leaders and responsible corporate citizens”.
My colleague from Repentigny said it best, in her brilliant way. According to her, the truth is that even if oil and gas producers meet the highest environmental standards, they are meeting the highest standards set for their industry, which is still a polluting industry. Complying with environmental laws is not a great moral accomplishment, but rather a requirement.
The oil and natural gas producers of Canada are heavily publicizing their measures to minimize environmental impacts, and that is the same talk we hear from the Conservative Party. Even if producers are making efforts to mitigate certain environmental impacts or if they invest in technologies to improve efficiency, the fundamental problem remains: greenhouse gas emissions associated with these industries are the biggest source of Canada's emissions and they are incompatible with meeting our Paris targets and reaching the Liberals' much desired net-zero by 2050.
It is unfortunate to have to say it, but the main objective of producers remains to produce more, to sell more and to export more. I am perhaps in agreement with the part of the motion that says “using Canadian resources creates Canadian jobs”. Indeed, harnessing the power of water to produce hydroelectric energy creates many jobs for many Quebeckers.
The Conservatives often forget that the oil industry is not the only job creator. If renewable energy sources were developed more and if we moved away from fossil fuels, it would certainly create jobs for people who might have lost theirs in another sector.
I also want to say a few words about the fifth point of the motion, which asks the government to recognize that “First Nations involved in Canada's oil and gas industry experience significant and profound positive economic effects, including higher rates of employment, higher incomes, and improved health and educational attainments”.
I assume that the first nations' deep attachment to their lands and the fact that building a pipeline on their lands without their consent is completely unacceptable was purposely omitted. The Conservatives seem to have quickly forgotten about the Wet'suwet'en nation's opposition to TransCanada's Coastal GasLink project since 2010. Their resistance came to a head last January, when the Wet'suwet'en feared a violent repression by the RCMP after an escalation of tensions surrounding the pipeline. I would not be so confident about claiming that first nations fully support of the oil and gas industry. I think we should ask them first.
As for the part of the motion that says that “Canada's oil and gas industry from Western to Atlantic Canada is essential to the well-being of the nation and should be celebrated”, I would just like to note that journalist Andrew Nikiforuk's book Tar Sands was published in French with the subtitle “Canada's shame”. The tar sands certainly do not deserve to be celebrated.
I will close by saying that the Bloc Québécois believes Quebec's future lies in ending our dependence on oil, using our electricity in our transportation, increasing the development of our renewable forest resources, and trying to develop a zero-emission plane.
Balancing the economy and the environment is not a constraint. Rather, it is an opportunity to create wealth. With all due respect to my Conservative colleagues, I think they should start considering this angle instead of clinging to an energy source that belongs in the last century and that is going to disappear one day anyway. That is the only way we will meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets and contribute our share to the global effort.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-12 16:39 [p.7122]
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about the B.C. government failing to follow through on an expert report and an election promise to protect British Columbia's endangered old-growth forests from logging.
The petitioners call upon the government to work with the province 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 people; support value-added forestry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure 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 Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-05-10 15:36 [p.6966]
Mr. Speaker, I move that the first report of the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States, presented on Thursday, April 15, be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time today with the member for Chilliwack—Hope.
Today is May 10. In two days, on May 12, the Governor of the State of Michigan has stated that she will shut down Enbridge Line 5, which provides 540,000 barrels of oil per day to Canadian refineries in Sarnia in southern Ontario, and further feeds facilities in Quebec. It is estimated that 30,000 jobs depend on this important international infrastructure in southern Ontario alone. Today, we are debating concurrence of the report of the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States, which was presented to this House on April 15. That was 25 days ago and still there are no signs that the Prime Minister is engaged on this file.
How much of Canada's petroleum needs will be disrupted? In fact, 540,000 barrels per day equates to about 25% of Canada's daily consumption of oil. That shortage will fall on the backs of two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, as it will represent approximately half of the supply of this vital energy feedstock to its economic output as the products refine into inputs for petrochemicals, plastics and textiles, and much more that is at the heart of Canada's manufacturing sector, to heating homes, driving cars and getting goods like food and supplies to markets efficiently and quickly.
In short, cutting off this infrastructure will result in a disastrous outcome for Canada. Tens of thousands of jobs in the supply chain that feeds our economy and a manufacturing sector that has been built on and depends on this critical infrastructure, all waiting, with their fingers crossed, for the outcome. It is safe to say that the closure of this energy infrastructure represents a national energy security emergency. Two days away, yet Line 5 has been threatened with closure since November 13, 2020. Six months have passed. I spoke about this matter needing resolution quickly at that time, but the government frittered its time away.
Enbridge, one of Canada's great companies, has actively engaged with the governor's office, and moved the matter to the U.S. federal court where it seems to belong, yet the governor wants the matter heard in a state court. Nevertheless, the federal court did instruct the parties to enter into mediation discussions, which have been ongoing. It should be noted that the governor would not even return calls from Enbridge on the matter prior to the federal court judge's instructions. Although seemingly a productive exercise, the governor has insisted during mediation talks that she would be shutting down Line 5 on May 12, whatever the process, timing or outcome of mediation discussions. This is hardly a productive or a mediatory stance.
Why is the Governor of Michigan taking on this posture, as unreasonable as it seems to a friendly trading partner, international security partner, energy security partner and environmental progress partner for a line that is an energy lifeblood for her state and other neighbouring states, as well as Canada? Ostensibly, for the safety of water in the Great Lakes Basin, they will shut down a pipeline that has never leaked, in which the company operating it is actively going through state regulatory processes to make it even more secure with an underground concrete tunnel.
The outcome of this misguided approach will move that product to trucks, railcars and barges on the Great Lakes. All of those outcomes have larger environmental footprints and greater environmental risks, even to the Great Lakes, than the intrinsically safe pipeline option. By clear analysis, there are other reasons. The governor is a politician, so it must be politics. For whose benefit, we can speculate, but at whose cost it is clear: Those parties dependent upon this energy infrastructure for their livelihood, their jobs, their farms, the goods they produce, and the heat for homes and barns, so that our food supply is safe; and an international trade relationship between two of the world's most friendly trading nations. This is the fallout of what is really at stake.
The economies of our two countries, Canada and the U.S., have prospered over decades, better than economies elsewhere in the developed world because of our strong trade links and the rule of law that governs our institutions, including our trading relationships. The backbone of this mutually beneficial trade relationship is our infrastructure and the fundamentally most important part of that infrastructure is our energy infrastructure. Previous governments, of all stripes in Canada and the U.S., have recognized this importance.
In 1977, our two governments signed the Transit Pipelines Treaty to ensure that the energy transportation and trade between our two nations did not suffer because of political whims or short-term self-interest at the expense of our joint long-term prosperity and security and, yet, here we are. A state government is acting unilaterally, seemingly in direct contravention of our international treaty. It begs the question as to whether there is any meaning behind the words in that treaty or we have a trade partner that recognizes a Canadian government that either does not want to stand up for Canada's energy security or perhaps does not know how. Surely it cannot be because the Government of Canada does not recognize the importance of the infrastructure and the associated energy security.
It follows on our country's disastrous showing in renegotiating the new NAFTA, CUSMA, and a negotiating strategy where Canada did not show up with the real issues to be discussed for our benefit until too late. At one point, we were excluded from the trade discussions because the other parties did not take us seriously. No one was there to solve the emerging issues between our countries. In the end, we ended up with far less in the trade agreement than we had in the previous agreement, and our elected officials were relieved to sign it because it could have been so much worse. A victory is now defined by the current government as doing worse, but not losing completely. The bar is being lowered.
Since then, the U.S. has continued to ignore the trade treaty's terms on steel and aluminum and now is pursuing a buy America policy in which Canada is an outsider. So much for preferential access to our markets. So much for free trade. So much for trade treaties. So much for Canada's standing up for the terms it negotiates in these agreements. The current government will roll over on any trade issue. We need to get serious.
View Mark Strahl Profile
CPC (BC)
View Mark Strahl Profile
2021-05-10 15:52 [p.6969]
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to share time with the member for Calgary Centre, who did an excellent of job laying out the Conservative Party's frustration with this situation.
The potential shutdown of Line 5 has been on our radar since November of 2020 and, once again, the government has ignored a deadline or failed to manage to a deadline. We are now two days away from that deadline and we have not heard much from the government.
I find it quite interesting that the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader has declared a discussion on Line 5 and the tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost in Sarnia and other places, where workers are anxious, quite frankly, as to what is going to happen with Line 5, a waste of time. For him to declare that as a waste of time and for him to declare that the House should not consider this issue at every possible opportunity just shows the entire government's approach on this issue. The Liberals do not want to talk about it and they have not talked about it. As a result of their ignoring the issue and not pursuing it as a priority, we have a situation where we are two days away from a deadline imposed by the Governor of Michigan and we still do not have a resolution to this matter.
I am the vice-chair of the special committee, the committee that was created because of an initiative by the Conservative opposition. We saw Line 5 as a priority, we saw buy America as a potential threat to our country, so we took action and proposed that this committee be created to specifically hear from witnesses on this issue. We did, and every witness we heard from agreed that the pipeline should continue to operate and that the only way this would be resolved outside of a lengthy and drawn out court process was for the Prime Minister of Canada to get directly involved and elevate this to the level of President Biden. We have not seen that happen. We have not seen the Prime Minister take this up directly with the President. We have not seen this become a priority. We have not seen him making any noise on it, so we will make noise on it.
As the official opposition, we will continue to draw attention to the fact that the government is failing the workers in Sarnia and elsewhere along this route. This is an unacceptable dereliction of duty for the Prime Minister to have simply allowed this to go on. This is exactly the same approach we saw with the Keystone XL pipeline. The Prime Minister made some token efforts and said some token words about support for the Keystone XL pipeline, but when President Biden cancelled it and cancelled the tens of thousands of high-paying union jobs, the Prime Minister simply said that President made campaign promise so what could they do about it.
If only the Prime Minister of Canada placed the same weight on his own campaign promises, but he does not seem to care much for those. However, when President Biden says he will shut down a pipeline and kill thousands of jobs, the Prime Minister of Canada just simply walks away from the fight and the tens and thousands of jobs that have been lost.
That is, quite frankly, what our concern is. The Prime Minister has some token words. He said that he would like it to keep running, but no one believes that if he were in the position of the Governor of Michigan, that he would not have the same approach. The Prime Minister has shut down and cancelled approved pipeline projects on the flimsiest of evidence. He cancelled the northern gateway pipeline, which had gone through a massive approvals process, had met all the environmental reviews, had buy-in, a $2 billion stake for indigenous communities along the way. They would all be a key part of that pipeline and he killed it because he said, “the Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline.”
That is the level of engagement, that is the level of scientific rigour that the Prime Minister will put on cancelling a pipeline. It is no wonder that he sits idly by while the Governor of Michigan threatens the pipeline. It supposedly threatens the Great Lakes even though, as my colleague from Calgary Centre has said, this thing has operated for decades without threatening the Great Lakes. The biggest threat to the Great Lakes would be additional rail, truck and barge traffic carrying that same 550,000 barrels a day from a safe pipeline onto those less safe, more emission intensive modes of transportation
I want to take a moment to thank the member for Sarnia—Lambton for standing up for her constituents. Today, the NDP have declared this debate to be a waste of time. The Liberals have declared this debate is a waste of time. The member for Sarnia—Lambton has been standing up for her community and the tens of thousands of jobs that are at risk.
We have heard from union leaders for whom supposedly the Prime Minister stands up. I guess he does not care too much for their jobs, but he likes their votes. They were very upset that the Keystone XL pipeline had been cancelled along with the jobs. They issued a direct request to the Prime Minister, a challenge.
Scott Archer from UA Local 663 in Sarnia said, “I'd like to issue a challenge to...[the Prime Minister] and the federal government. This is a call to action. [As Canadians, this] is non-negotiable. You need to take a stand to protect Canadian families, businesses and industry.”
I would submit that the Prime Minister has absolutely failed to take up that challenge. He has failed to make this issue a priority. He likes to go to the summits. He likes to give speeches with Selena Gomez. He likes to do all the high-profile stuff that brings him positive headlines. However, when it comes to actually getting down to business and standing up for Canadian workers who will be impacted not only in Sarnia but also in Alberta, we know exactly what the Prime Minister thinks about that industry.
He has said before that he wants to phase out the oil sands. He has said before that he is opposed to these types of pipelines. Albertans and Western Canadians know exactly what kind of advocate they have in the Prime Minister for their jobs, which is none. He has shown before that for political gain he is willing to sacrifice them and the industry they represent.
One would hope that the Prime Minister would take this up more effectively and more publicly, quite frankly, with President Biden instead of simply saying now that the bad man President Trump is gone everything is back to normal. There are still immediate threats on the horizon.
However, we hear nothing from the Prime Minister on those. He seems content to let President Biden do whatever he wants when it comes to the relationship with Canada. It does not matter how many well-paying union jobs will be killed. It does not matter how our energy sovereignty is threatened. It does not matter that tens of thousands of jobs in Sarnia alone will be impacted or that tens of thousands more trucks will come across places like Windsor and Essex, jamming up those crucial crossings and bringing petrochemicals onto our highways. It does not matter. The Prime Minister cannot be bothered to pick up the phone and make this into a matter that President Biden will take seriously.
We know Governor Whitmer was on the short list for vice-president. She has a strong relationship with President Biden and it is time for the Prime Minister to take advantage of that. It is time he take advantage of the supposed new-found friendship and relationship with President Biden and escalate this matter. All we have heard so far are pretty words and good intentions, but we have seen no action and no results.
The people who depend on this pipeline for their family supporting jobs cannot rely on the Prime Minister saying he has it under control when he has shown time and time again that he will fail to stand up for energy sector workers, that he will fail to stand up for Canadian pipelines, the safest way to transport petroleum products in the world. He will not stand up for those jobs. He will not stand up for that industry. He has failed them time and time before, and he is failing them right now.
The official opposition does not think that talking about Line 5 and the jobs it supports is a waste of time. We say shame on those in the other parties who have said this is a waste of time and shame on the Prime Minister for his failure to get this matter resolved diplomatically.
View Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I do not know whether I should thank my colleague, since no one asked for the debate we are having today. I remind members that we held an emergency debate last week on the same topic. We do not have any choice in the matter, though, so here we are.
I have a simple question for my hon. colleague. Is he worried about the safety of Line 5? I ask this because a problem with this pipeline could compromise the drinking water supply of millions of people.
When someone says that Line 5 has never had a problem, I cannot help but think of the people of Pompeii. They would have said that Vesuvius had never been a problem, but we know what unfortunately happened next with that volcano.
Does my colleague not think there are safety issues with Enbridge's Line 5?
View Mark Strahl Profile
CPC (BC)
View Mark Strahl Profile
2021-05-10 16:04 [p.6971]
Madam Speaker, the proof is in the pudding. Line 5 has operated safely without major incident for 68 years. Enbridge has proposed additional safety measures to improve the safety of an already safe pipeline. Yes, there are constant measures, world-leading measures. Any time there is a Canadian pipeline, we know it will be the safest in the world, built to the highest standard and have the highest levels of monitoring.
However, I have a question for my colleague. This pipeline provides 50% of the propane that goes to Quebec. Is he really saying that we should not be concerned about this pipeline continuing and providing the energy and materials on which his province relies?
Of course, we want to see it done safely. Line 5 is proven to be safe and it should continue to operate. The Prime Minister should get on the phone and demand President Biden intervene to ensure it continues to operate, as it has, safely, for the last 68 years.
View Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Profile
BQ (QC)
Madam Speaker, I am participating in today's debate as the Bloc Québécois's representative on the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States, where I am one of the vice-chairs.
Just a few weeks ago, the committee spent a few meetings studying concerns about Line 5 and the potential impact if it were to close. I would venture to say that unanimity ruled. Every single one of the witnesses said the same thing: closure would be catastrophic. However, none of the witnesses were able to put any figures on anything related to jobs at risk in Quebec.
I asked every witness the same question. Have any studies shown that we have reason to fear? None of them had any such studies handy, nor could any of them clarify anything about Michigan's claims. The witnesses' verdict was clear: The governor of the U.S. state was simply wrong. Nobody even suggested or raised the merest hint of even the slightest possibility that everything was perhaps not entirely unfounded.
I want to inform the House that the Bloc Québécois is well aware that a shutdown of Line 5 would have consequences for jobs in Quebec. There is a chance that Line 5, an Enbridge pipeline that supplies a good number of the refineries in Quebec, could be shut down, which raises legitimate concerns that require informed responses.
I want to stress that our position may sound ideological, but it is not. We recognize that Line 5 is not as bad as tanker trucks, for example, which come with their own dangers. We recognize that it is not as bad as shipping oil by rail, and we experienced the hazards of this mode of transportation with the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, caused by deregulation in the sector by successive federal governments.
I remind members that in 2013, a train filled with oil exploded in the middle of a small town called Lac-Mégantic, killing 47 people and destroying some 40 buildings in a massive fire. Inadequate regulation of the transportation of oil by rail is part and parcel of Canada's economic vision. Ottawa has cut the number of inspectors for rail cars and the railways themselves.
This issue speaks to my constituents because a few years ago, members of an activist group in my riding known as Convoi citoyen, ventured onto the tracks not far from the Saint-Hyacinthe station and took several photos of uncovered wires and tracks that were sitting on wet earth instead of cement. We are not stupid. We know that Line 5 is better and less dangerous than rail transportation.
It is also clear that Line 5 is better than using tanker ships to transport oil. Quebec, and specifically the St. Lawrence, has become a key part of the geopolitics of Canadian oil. Quebec unfortunately has no jurisdiction over the waterways, seaways, railways or airways that cross our territory, other than the ones that exist exclusively in Quebec. Canada is entitled to act as it sees fit, in spite of protests from local communities.
In 2014, the riverside municipalities of Sorel-Tracy and L'Isle-aux-Coudres complained about the fact that the width of the supertankers had increased from 32 to 44 metres, but the municipalities that received them had not been consulted, nor had the emergency plans been adapted. We know that just 5% to 20% of oil spilled in the river can be recovered.
The case of Lac Saint-Pierre, designated an UNESCO world biosphere reserve in 2000, is striking. Pressure to ban the transportation of bitumen on that part of the river has been totally ineffective despite the publication of a study showing that an oil spill would traverse the entire lake in just eight hours.
Again, we are no fools. If we look a little more closely—on paper, to be sure—line 5 is a lesser evil in comparison to trucks, trains and ships.
Unfortunately, we would have liked to hear a more critical point of view on pipelines. The witnesses at committee were unanimous, as were our colleagues. All the federal parties kept referring to “team Canada”. Today I am talking on behalf of “team Quebec”.
The Bloc Québécois is focused on the 21st century economy, or the energy transition.
We applauded the U.S. President's intention to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, whose only objective is to create new markets for oil from the oil sands.
Citizens are sharing their concerns with us about the environmental safety of pipelines, particularly with regard to waterways, but also about the potential economic impact of shutting down those pipelines. We are not stupid. We want to keep jobs but not at any price, because we do not want to put our waterways at risk. We also understand the concerns many people have about the gas prices at the pump because the cost of energy and transportation is taking a toll on the wallets of Quebec families, who are already struggling because of everything that has been going on this past year.
It is important to make the distinction between the Keystone XL pipeline and Enbridge Line 5. While Keystone XL seeks to further develop the oil sands, Line 5 was built in 1953 and essentially carries light crude oil and natural gas liquids to refineries in Quebec. It passes through the United States, mainly the much-talked-about State of Michigan.
Line 5 was approved under U.S. State Department regulations and not by presidential permit as was Keystone XL. Line 5 is protected by the 1977 Agreement between the Government Of Canada and the Government of the United States Of America Concerning Transit Pipelines. Therefore, there are still legal avenues to be explored.
We should also ask ourselves whether the repercussions of a potential shutdown would be as catastrophic as we are hearing for the price of gas at the pumps for Quebeckers. We know that Quebec refineries also have other possible market supply sources and that the shutdown would be problematic primarily for Ontario. We are aware of that.
However, we should remember that Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's third-largest producer. If Enbridge's Line 5 is shut down, it would still be possible to consider Canadian supply from that region. For example, if people wanted a nearby source, one inside Canada's border, Newfoundland and Labrador could be a source of supply.
Let us move on to environmental safety. As I mentioned earlier, during our study, each and every witness we heard told us that the State of Michigan was way off base every step of the way. No one was willing to consider that the concerns were legitimate, and yet, we know there was a leak in 2010 that resulted in an oil spill in the Kalamazoo River, in southern Michigan. It seems to me that we can also understand that Michigan is worried about the risk pipelines pose to waterways. At the time, the people from Enbridge said not to worry, that they would really strengthen their safety measures. That is fine. In that case, the burden of proof lies with them to show that real measures were taken.
I think everyone agrees that every accident is one too many, and each is a collective failure to protect ecosystems. Because Line 5 has had leaks, perhaps the idea of retrofitting it should not be excluded. Perhaps the status quo is untenable. Unfortunately, we are not hearing anyone in this place speak about this possibility.
We must now come at the oil issue another way because Canada, as we know, has the third-biggest oil reserve in the world. According to official statistics, it has 172 billion barrels of extractable oil, of which 166 billion are in the Alberta oil sands. Canada is ranked fourth in global production and fourth in global oil exports.
I certainly recognize that, when we talk about transition, it does not mean that we should celebrate and hope to wake up tomorrow morning with no more oil. It is not that simple. That is the very definition of transition. However, we need to have a plan.
Let us agree, however, as scientists do, that 80% of oil must stay in the ground if we want to take an environmentally responsible approach. Furthermore, 96% of Canada's oil comes from the oil sands, which means that only a very small amount does not come from that source. Oil from the oil sands is among the most polluting in the world. The Natural Resources Canada website touts the technological advances that are leading to less greenhouse gases per barrel. That is also the argument put forward by the Montreal Economic Institute.
It is true that the oil industry has been rapidly evolving. Just 50 years ago, offshore drilling was done by humans. Today, robots are doing the job. Nevertheless, from an environmental standpoint, between 1990 and 2018, greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands development have increased by 456%.
Exclusive dependence on this one source of energy is also a major economic problem. Historically, this phenomenon has been referred to as Dutch disease, which is the structural dismantling of the manufacturing sector and possible ensuing deindustrialization resulting from a strong commodities export sector. The development of natural resources is therefore closely related to the decline in the manufacturing industry of the country in question. Does that remind my colleagues of anything? It makes me think about the loss of over 100,000 jobs related to the increase in the Canadian dollar as a result of the increase in oil exports.
The term “Dutch disease” was coined in the 1960s when the Netherlands had a major increase in revenue following the discovery of natural gas deposits. The country's currency appreciated, which made the export of non-gas products less competitive. Dutch disease serves as a necessary reminder that a country must not depend solely on its commodities sector.
Canada's economic development centres on the extraction of raw materials. That is a paradigm that has existed since the beginning of the Canadian experience, when the Canadian colony specialized in bulk commodities, agricultural products and extractible materials for export. These products do not require a lot of processing and their market is mainly centred around international trade.
Canada's history has been shaped by the search for products that already have a market, by the state, and by capital to extract those products. Basically, it was the easy way to pay Canadian workers and import the goods consumers needed. Canada's economic growth was therefore closely linked to demand in the industrialized countries with which it did business.
Political life in Canada has been heavily influenced by our reliance on exports because political power and wealth are concentrated in the hands of the elite who, historically, combined the two. Geographical realities also explain all this, of course. The state has had to supply capital that the business world did not have the means to provide.
However, focusing on exporting raw materials has a significant influence on public policy. To keep the country competitive, politicians have had to provide infrastructure and adjust their environmental and health regulations.
Exploiting these resources did not require particularly sophisticated technological expertise if they were not being processed in any significant way, though. Essentially, Canada was just an outpost used to supply raw materials for use in processing industries in ways that supported the economic development of the industrialized nations and Canadian companies involved.
The expectation was that the supply of resources dedicated to supporting these exports would continue expanding forever. It was an infinite growth model. The railway, which is what led to the creation of Canada in the first place, had to be paid for by transporting resources, and that helped stall the exploration of new technological opportunities. Ultimately, the system ended up reinforcing our reliance on unprocessed materials. It was a vicious cycle. Increased reliance on raw material exports created a need for greater investment in transportation infrastructure, and that meant less money available for other economic sectors.
This system underpinned colonial history, but the Canadian economy has diversified and become more complex since then. It cannot be summed up as Quebec's forests, Saskatchewan's farms, Ontario's mines or Alberta's oil, of course. Markets have changed, new opportunities have been found, and people have flocked to the cities. However, it is clear that Canada is staying true to that spirit by consistently opting to specialize in natural resources in order to compete worldwide.
Western Canada has focused all its efforts on oil extraction, neglecting the necessary diversification of its economy. To get back to Dutch disease, the consequences could be even greater if the oil sector also goes through some difficulties, like the depletion of its reserves or fluctuations in the price per barrel.
The impact on Canada's economic future is considerable. We are paying for it today with the COVID-19 crisis, as well as the oil crisis, the price of the unwavering support that Ottawa, the banks and the pension funds provide to the oil sector. Pension funds like the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec have increased their investments in the sector. Canadians' and Quebeckers' pensions have therefore been jeopardized by being dependent on oil fluctuations. However, oil investments by foreign companies have declined steadily over the last four years, meaning there are very few royalties to be had.
Shale oil, for example, is a very bad development opportunity, and yet Canada cannot seem to escape it. One of Canada's biggest disappointments is that in the global marketplace, in the midst of this great geopolitical struggle, Canada is ultimately a minor player with basically no influence. It is easy to see the problems that could arise from stubbornly putting all the eggs in one basket, especially when that basket refers to a deregulated and fluctuating energy sector.
It is really tough to get out of oil, though. When the price is high, investments pour in. The renewable energy sector is looking to grow, but the money is just not going there because investments continue to pour in for oil. Conversely, when the price is low, investments will be minimal, almost non-existent, but consumers, whether individuals or companies, will rush to the pump, so there is no money left for renewable energy. I could say it is a lose-lose situation for anyone thinking about a real transition. This is where political will is needed. It is imperative and urgent that we make the transition. Crises come with serious repercussions, but they can also bring great opportunity.
The energy transition that many have been calling for and talking about for quite some time needs to begin with decisive action. We must put an end to Canada's oil dependency. In the meantime, demanding a safe supply of oil can no longer be a luxury. In other words, Line 5 is the lesser evil compared to other modes of transportation that are more dangerous. However, we must not depend on it. We also need to look very closely at the real environmental considerations that can be linked to safety and that are entirely legitimate. They must not be dismissed out of hand, as Canada's federal politicians seem to be doing.
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.
View Monique Pauzé Profile
BQ (QC)
View Monique Pauzé Profile
2021-05-06 19:34 [p.6843]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to let you know that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Jonquière.
There is nothing trivial about the reason we are here tonight. However, is the shutdown of Line 5 really so imminent, given the Canada-U.S. treaty on cross-border pipelines? Basically, the treaty states that the countries will not take unilateral action on existing pipelines.
Another question might be asked. In the event of a shutdown, is the reality as frightening as the worst-case scenario painted by the official opposition?
The issue of Enbridge's Line 5 gives us an opportunity to discuss the necessary energy transition that Canada must embark on and to put into perspective the legitimate reasons for Governor Whitmer's actions, which were neither spontaneous nor unpredictable.
The issue at the root of the debate over Enbridge's Line 5 is environmental safety. We need to know the truth about how safe the pipeline is. Given that in 2010, the pipeline spilled the equivalent of 20,000 barrels of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, the public and government authorities have every right to be concerned about waterway health and safety.
The Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, criticizes the company for persistently violating the easement's terms and conditions and for not doing enough to protect the Great Lakes, contrary to what the Minister of Natural Resources said earlier about the company.
The governor says Enbridge has routinely refused to take action to protect the Great Lakes and the millions of Americans who depend on them for clean drinking water and good jobs. She also said the company has repeatedly violated the terms of the 1953 easement by ignoring structural problems that put the Great Lakes and families at risk.
The concerns of the American stakeholders are therefore nothing new. In fact, the concerns of the State of Michigan predate Ms. Whitmer's time in office. She is just the one who decided to take action. Inevitably, this will generate some discontent and concerns. It will force this oil company to review its priorities because, suddenly, the company has crossed the line and someone finally said no.
For that matter, why did Enbridge routinely refuse to be proactive about managing Line 5, particularly in the sensitive Straits of Mackinac? When the company itself reported defects in the protective coating of its structure, noting erosion and damage caused by commercial tugs, why did it fail to show any integrity?
Michigan could also be using the threat of shutting it down to force Enbridge to upgrade its bloody pipeline in order to make it safer. The company is loath to spend the money, so it is using every tool it can think of, including lobbying politicians. The Governor of Michigan is fed up, and the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.
Between 1996 and 2014, Enbridge was responsible for 1,276 spills totalling nearly 10 million gallons of oil in both the United States and Canada. These data are conservative. Why? Because they are Enbridge's data. Do not bother looking for those figures on the company's website. They were there at one point but have since been removed. The documents I consulted, which are very well referenced, reveal another worrying problem, and that is how much power this industry has when it comes to Canadian regulators.
I encourage everyone to search for the words “national energy board” and “Enbridge” in the May 2, 2016, edition of Canada's National Observer. Members might be surprised by what they learn. It is enlightening.
The Bloc Québécois cannot condone the behaviour and reactions of Enbridge and the Department of Natural Resources to Governor Whitmer's announcement. The concerns are legitimate. Michigan was already affected in 2010. The governor has decided to focus on prevention rather than remediation.
I want to be clear. We do care about the repercussions of this measure if it goes ahead. Still, we have concerns. We do not support pipelines, and we certainly do not want to continue to rely on an outdated energy source.
Such transitions take time and planning. If we plan changes and anticipate challenges and solutions, moving away from oil is not only feasible, it is close at hand.
We know that a legal, political and diplomatic showdown between Enbridge, U.S. authorities and the Government of Canada is approaching. We would like to remind members that Quebec's refineries can quickly implement a plan B and switch to other sources of supply. We should also remember that Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's third-largest producer, so depending on what happens with Line 5, planning for supply from this region would be wise.
Nevertheless, the pipelines running beneath our rivers will continue to pose a risk to environmental safety, and the transportation of oil and gas via pipelines will continue to face political opposition, as it should.
The current situation should spur us to make the energy transition. In Quebec, the transportation sector is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, accounting for more than 80% of total emissions. Quebec's transportation electrification industry is booming, and our expertise, whose development we have made a priority, should serve as an example to the rest of Canada.
We do not manufacture cars in Quebec, but we do manufacture trains, buses, streetcars, subway cars and public transit vehicles that are all well suited to zero-emission electric technology. We are on the right track to get our transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions down.
We need federal zero-emission legislation. The more electric transportation evolves, the less dependent we will be on oil. Supply issues will gradually go away, and we will keep our money within our own economy.
Sure, there are costs associated with the transition. The financial argument is often invoked to convince people that we must continue relying on fossil fuels, but we need to be vocal about the real cost of energy and gas, which is much higher than the price we pay at the pump. The real cost includes the upstream and downstream environmental costs, in terms of the environmental damage created by the extraordinarily dirty extraction process, soil contamination and threats to wildlife, on top of the environmental costs of atmospheric pollution caused by burning oil here and in other countries.
Add to that the social costs, including the cost to our health care system, due to the prevalence of illnesses directly related to air pollution, especially the growing number of children and even babies with lung or respiratory issues. Plus, there is all the public money paid in subsidies and tax benefits to the oil and gas industry to sustain a dying industry, starting with the obscene Trans Mountain pipeline.
What about the cost of clean-up? How do we describe the losses incurred during oil spills? According to the International Monetary Fund, the global negative externalities for 2017 alone amount to more than $2 trillion U.S.
Again, Canada's landscape is conducive to clean, renewable energy. The wind, solar and geothermal energy industries are reaching out to the government. The government just has to accept. The technology and resources are there.
The Conservatives are resolutely defeatist about their ability to break up with the extractive industries, while the Liberals insist on fuelling dependence on fossil fuels while claiming to favour a green transition. We are not fools. This is a green mirage.
Michigan's policy choices should be an eye-opener for us. They are certainly coming as a surprise to Enbridge and the powerful lobbies in their industry. Their track record, their failure to live up to their commitments, their lax maintenance of their facilities, and the arrogance that comes from feeling untouchable have just caught up with them.
Canada, the G7 country that subsidizes oil and gas production the most in relation to its gross domestic product, the country that announces to the world that it is committed to fighting climate change and then turns around and authorizes oil drilling in a marine protected area, might have avoided a diplomatic crisis and what is happening today if it had intervened with Enbridge sooner.
When governments give everything to the oil companies, the companies end up thinking they are in charge. Gretchen Whitmer has shown them that they are not in charge anymore.
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-05-06 19:50 [p.6845]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by reading an excerpt from the request for the emergency debate, and members will all understand why. It reads, “The Minister of Natural Resources has confirmed this one pipeline alone is responsible for 53% of Ontario's crude and 66% of Quebec's.”
Members cannot imagine how happy I was to hear the leader of the official opposition mention that 66% earlier. I was happy because I remember how, during the election campaign, the Conservative Party, with its much-touted energy corridor project, kept repeating that most of Quebec's oil comes from dictatorship countries or the United States.
Earlier I was blown away when the leader of the official opposition told us that was not true. I hope that this lie, which was repeated multiple times, will not come up again in the future. I must say I was somewhat offended by the answer that he gave me. The leader of the official opposition told me that the Bloc Québécois is not a party that supports the regions and that we stand up for urban centres. I was offended because the regions of Quebec mainly live off the forestry industry, not the oil industry. I have never heard a typical Conservative talk about forestry. I was therefore somewhat offended, but I am not vindictive, so I will quickly move on to something else.
Earlier this afternoon, as I was reflecting on today's debate, I thought there was a rather interesting connection with the pandemic we are experiencing. What does a crisis do? A crisis makes us confront our vulnerabilities. We went through this early on in the pandemic when we saw the gaps in our supply chains. Masks and vaccines come to mind. It forced us to confront our vulnerabilities. It showed us that we were not ready. We depend on exports, and I feel as though we are also dependent when it comes to our energy and our energy consumption. We are dependent on something, and we know what that is: oil.
Another major crisis that certainly lies ahead is climate change. Will we be ready to live through this climate crisis?
Based on what I am hearing tonight, I want to say no, because we do not seem to have learned anything from what has happened to us. Canada is still fundamentally an oil state that thinks only in terms of oil and for oil.
I believe the debate on Enbridge is an opportunity to revisit two fairly simple concepts: energy independence and the energy transition. I do find it surprising that it is the United States, or at least one U.S. state, that is asking us to take care of ecosystems. Let us be smart about this. We have to realize that the Great Lakes provide drinking water to 40 million people. We know there was a 3.2-million-litre spill in the Kalamazoo River.
I do not think it is appropriate for us to get a wake-up call from a U.S. state and for us to tell Enbridge today that it can go ahead, anything goes, it can do what it likes and we will put environmental considerations aside as long as the oil industry is fine and there are jobs. I think that we, by which I mean everyone besides me, must do some collective soul-searching about Canada's dependence on oil and gas, because I believe it is a terrible disease that Canada has been carrying around for over 20 years.
Why do I say that? I spoke earlier about the energy transition.
Concerning getting out of the crisis, the Liberal government announced to us that it wants a “green recovery”. We all remember that. Ms. McKenna and Mr. Wilkinson were involved, as well as Mr. Guilbeault. I thought that the green recovery was promising and that we could perhaps live—
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
2021-05-06 20:03 [p.6847]
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech.
Another very important element is keeping the Great Lakes safe. I think we are nearing a consensus that immediately shutting down Line 5 is not a good thing, but what can the government do to keep the Great Lakes safe?
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-05-06 20:04 [p.6847]
Mr. Speaker, earlier I said that the Great Lakes provide drinking water for 40 million people. We need to send a clear signal to Enbridge that we care about the drinking water of 40 million people.
It is not by holding an emergency debate where we tell Enbridge it can do want it wants and we will stand behind it that we will successfully secure the drinking water of these 40 million people. Enbridge is gambling with the quality of life of many people. It needs to realize that, and I get the impression that is the message the Governor of Michigan is trying to send.
For its part, the Canadian petro-state prefers to pander and stake everything on oil, telling Enbridge to do whatever it wants and that as long as there are economic spinoffs and jobs, Canada will be happy.
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Elmwood—Transcona.
Tonight we are debating the critical situation around Line 5, an Enbridge pipeline that transports crude oil and natural gas liquids from Alberta through Michigan to refineries and other facilities in Ontario, notably in Sarnia, and Quebec. It is capable of carrying 540,000 barrels per day. A similar pipeline in the Enbridge system, Line 6, also serves these markets, with 667,000 barrels per day.
As others have mentioned, including the Leader of the Opposition, this emergency debate is not at all like the debates we have had here about other pipelines, such as Keystone XL or Trans Mountain. These 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.
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, at least for the moment, and maintaining those jobs in the industrial heartland of Canada.
One similarity between this and the other pipeline debates is that at the heart of it, there is credible environmental concern. I would like to start by laying out the positions of the two sides in this confrontation: the Canadian workers and companies that need the pipeline to continue supplying oil to Ontario and Quebec, and the State of Michigan, which is concerned about the prospect of environmental damage.
Line 5 was built in 1953, and the Michigan section operates under an easement granted by the state. Back in November, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer stated that the pipeline is a threat to the environment, particularly if a rupture occurs in the section that travels on the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. That section has been a bone of contention for years, and it has suffered damage on occasion from dragged anchors. However, fortunately there have been no leaks in that water section.
Michigan has also pointed out violations in the easement conditions, including inadequate supports for the pipeline on the bottom of the strait. For its part, Enbridge has proposed to enclose the underwater section in a concrete tunnel to protect it from future accidents, and it has obtained some of the permits necessary to carry out that work.
Michigan, however, has claimed that because of past violations and present concerns, the pipeline is “a ticking time bomb” and will revoke the easement as of May 12, which is only six days away. If Enbridge is still using the pipeline after that date, the governor's office has stated that it will be breaking the law.
What will the impact be if this pipeline is shut down? There are about 4,900 jobs in Sarnia that directly rely on the supply of crude oil that Line 5 now supplies. One of the products that plants in Sarnia produce is jet fuel, which supplies large airports such as the Toronto Pearson Airport. The oil not diverted in Sarnia is carried on to refineries in Quebec, so the impact could be huge.
There is some debate on how alternate supplies could mitigate these impacts. Pearson airport stated in a recent article in the National Post that it is not too worried about a shut down of Line 5, as it has diversified its sources of jet fuel. The refineries in Quebec said that they have made arrangements to get their crude oil from another pipeline. Industries in Sarnia may be able to get some crude oil through increased flow in Line 6, since they managed oil that way when Line 6 was ruptured in 2010. At that time, they 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 it is one that could result in a direct loss of jobs in the Sarnia industrial complex and indirect job losses throughout the region. We have to have a strategy to keep Line 5 going and protect those jobs. That strategy goes through convincing Michigan that it is in all of 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 on another Enbridge pipeline in Michigan. As I mentioned, Like 6 goes through Sarnia via Michigan and 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 and took five years to clean up. The people of Michigan are therefore very well aware of what could happen. Line 5 itself has suffered a number of leaks over the years, totalling over a million gallons in all.
In the order to cancel the easement for Line 5, Michigan has pointed out numerous violations of the original agreement, including the design of the support systems of the pipeline on 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. Another study makes it clear that a rupture in this section could damage hundreds of kilometres of shoreline along Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Also, the Ojibwa of Michigan consider any agreement to allow Enbridge to continue operating Line 5 a violation of their treaty rights.
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. All I have heard from the minister is that Line 5 is not negotiable. However, I think it is obvious that the only way out of this dilemma is through negotiation, proving to the State of Michigan and everyone else who cares about the environment, me included, that Line 5 will not have a history similar to Line 6B. We should point out the economic impacts that 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.
As usual, experts are advising that a diplomatic solution would be best, but Enbridge is counting the 1977 transit pipelines treaty if talks fail, and right now it does seem that both sides are the length of a continental pipeline apart. The treaty states:
No public authority in the territory of either Party shall institute any measures...interfering with in any way the transmission of hydrocarbon in transit.
It also states that the treaty is “subject to regulations by the appropriate governmental authorities”. I will leave that to the courts to decide, but the treaty is clearly a last-ditch strategy that may work.
As I said at the beginning, we have been debating this pipeline dispute in Canada over the past decade or more. This 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, and Line 5 is an important delivery mechanism for that purpose.
This dispute has been a wake-up call. The public is increasingly unwilling to live with 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 the Alberta oil patch or the industrial cities of Ontario. We need a plan, not just empty promises, to provide good jobs for those workers over the coming decades. We need training programs that will allow them to move to jobs in building retrofits, electrification, electric vehicle manufacturing, battery 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 that we are serious about helping them.
As that transition takes place, we need to protect the jobs that Line 5 provides and protect the ecosystem of the Great Lakes. The federal government must have a clear and effective plan to do both.
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
CPC (ON)
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
2021-05-06 20:14 [p.6849]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for recognizing that this is not like other debates we have had. Line 5 does not have an alternative right now. People have talked about plans to use 2,000 trucks and 800 railcars a day, but the capacity to do this by next Wednesday does not exist, so I certainly agree that there is no plan.
What does the member think the government ought to be doing? We need detailed plans, not the vague words we heard from the natural resources minister.
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, as I was saying in my speech, I think it is clear that both sides have doubled down on this.
The Canadian government clearly wants this pipeline to continue, for good reason. Michigan, on the other hand, has doubled down on the fact that it is not going to continue because of environmental concerns.
There is one path forward that I see for the government, outside of the courts, and who knows, it may go to the courts and it may be in the courts for years. However, if it stays out of the courts, if we want a diplomatic solution, a mediated solution, the only path I can see is that Canada have a plan to really prove to Michigan that this is environmentally safe.
The minister said it is demonstrably safe. Obviously it is not or Michigan would not be proceeding in this manner. We need a solution that increases the environmental safety along all lengths of the pipeline, not just the Straits of Mackinac.
View Jenica Atwin Profile
Lib. (NB)
View Jenica Atwin Profile
2021-05-06 20:16 [p.6849]
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Lac-Saint-Jean.
I want to ask the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay about his comments around Enbridge and its track record.
I cannot help but think that if there is success in not having Line 5 shut down, we would be placing immense trust in Enbridge to maintain the safety and the sanctity of the Great Lakes. We can look at some of the infractions. Enbridge has been cited as having persistent and incurable violations of the easement.
Is it not a history of a lack of enforcement of safety protocols that has gotten us into this mess to begin with?
View Richard Cannings Profile
NDP (BC)
Mr. Speaker, I would agree. I realize how important this pipeline is to Canadian industry and Canadian jobs, but I can also very much see Michigan's stance on this.
Michigan experienced one of the worst oil spills in North America, in the Kalamazoo River. Line 5 has been leaking off and on, on the land portions of the pipeline. As the member said, there are violations of the original easement agreement in terms of how the pipeline was constructed and maintained. I can see why Michigan is very concerned. That is why I think Canada should try to allay those concerns through promises to really up the ante in terms of environmental safety.
It really shows to everyone here why these environmental impact studies of pipelines are so important. I hear complaints all the time, especially from the Conservative side, that these environmental impact studies are a waste of time. Here is an example where, if we had done things right in the first place and not had these incidents, we would not be here tonight talking about this.
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
NDP (MB)
View Daniel Blaikie Profile
2021-05-06 20:20 [p.6850]
Mr. Speaker, we are gathered here tonight to debate the future of a pipeline that has been in operation for over 60 years. I think we must start that debate with a recognition of the fact that Canada and the planet are facing a climate emergency. We have known this for a long time. We are beginning to see the effects of climate change. They are already happening.
As people have tried, whether here in Canada or elsewhere, to push for meaningful action on climate change, it has driven a very polarized debate about pipelines and about the oil and gas sector. On the one hand, some people say we need to completely get rid of all oil and gas extraction. On the other hand, there are boosters of the industry who continue to advocate for what appears to be a limitless expansion and an increase in the rate of extraction of oil and gas. I am not sure that Canadians or anybody on the planet, frankly, has been well served by the extreme polarization of that debate.
Certainly, New Democrats have been very clear that when it comes to that kind of unbridled expansion and lack of critique of the oil and gas sector, or thinking that things can go on as they have for decades without any kind of meaningful change, that is not what is going to get us out of this climate emergency. We do need to change course. We need to think more critically about the oil and gas sector and how to transition successfully toward a low-carbon economy in a way that does not leave workers behind.
Right now we are in a debate where the imperatives of a large company that has known there has been opposition in the State of Michigan and elsewhere to its operations for a long time has refused to act. Instead it has lobbied to create political pressure for the company to be able to continue its operations as it has been doing for some time.
We need to get to a point where we can get concrete action on climate change and transition toward a low-carbon economy. Those companies that have the ability to get politicians like us all together advocating for their interests, when the money is not there to be made anymore can quickly turn their backs and walk away. Who is left holding the bag? It's their workers.
We have a lot of people in Canada who have made their living in the oil and gas sector. As the economy and market forces are driving people away now from fossil fuels, it is incumbent on us to make a plan for what the next stage of our economy will look like so that those workers are not left holding the bag, and so that they do not face economic disaster when those companies move into other more profitable pursuits.
However, we are not talking about that expansionist drive here tonight. We are not talking about pipelines like the Keystone XL pipeline or the TMX pipeline. We are talking about a pipeline that has been in operation for over 60 years. When we talk about that transition, I do not believe it is a transition to zero oil and gas here in Canada. Even if we transition all of our home heating and our transportation away from fossil fuel use, there will continue to be a role for the oil and gas sector. This Parliament is brought to those at home by plastics, among other things, and those require oil and gas for their manufacture.
The question is this: What does a reduced oil and gas industry look like in Canada that can support a number of good paying jobs, albeit not what we saw at the height of the boom in Alberta? The answer has to be that for every ounce of oil and gas extracted from the ground here in Canada there are more value-added jobs like the refining capability that is in Sarnia.
The Line 5 pipeline debate is different from the debates around Keystone XL and TMX in a couple of key ways. One is that we are not talking about more extraction. We are talking about the extraction that has already been going on. Two, we are talking about transporting oil and gas to a place where the very kind of work that we would like to see happen in Canada, the value-added work that creates more jobs and more value here in Canada for every ounce of oil and gas extracted, takes place. Those are the kinds of things that Canada needs to be thinking far more about.
In the time that we have seen massive increases, not in the last five or six years when the oil and gas sector in Canada has been hit very hard, but over the last 20 years when we saw a huge expansion of our oil and gas infrastructure, we also saw a dramatic decline in the refining capability of the country. There are various reasons for that in terms of the market, and that is what happens when we do not have a government with its hand on the tiller, that is actually trying to make a plan for how Canadians themselves, not just international shareholders, can benefit the most from the oil and gas that is taken out of the ground.
With respect to shutting down Line 5 in the next couple of weeks, New Democrats have been very clear that this is not a good thing. It is going to impact thousands of workers in Canada, both on the supply end and the receiving end where there is value-added work being done.
That said, we understand the frustration of folks who have legitimate concerns about the Great Lakes, who want to see real action get taken. It is not like these concerns are new, and so there is a lot of frustration that a company that has been hearing these concerns for a long time could continue to get away with doing business as usual. They are talking about a corridor underneath the Great Lakes that could replace the existing pipeline. That sounds like a good thing in terms of eliminating one of the environmental threats, but that replacement is also not going to get built in the next two weeks. Therefore, the question is, what do we do in the meantime?
What we would like to hear from our own government and governments in the U.S. who, like New Democrats, support the ongoing operation of Line 5 is a plan for how to mitigate those environmental risks in the meantime. We would like to hear how we get to a place where we have another option that does not involve massive shipments by rail and by truck to these refineries in Canada, and that is something that has been seriously lacking. We owe that, not just to what Conservatives like to write off as environmentalists; these are concerned Canadian and U.S. citizens on both sides of the border. We also owe it to indigenous people on both sides of the border, whether it is the Bad River Band or it is the Wiikwemkoong on the banks of Lake Huron who are concerned, not just about what it means for the lake in a general environmental sense but also what it means for local economies who depend on the Great Lakes.
I appreciate that people do not have a lot of faith in Enbridge. They have every right not to; they should not. We should demand more. We should demand governments that have a plan for how to transition to a low-carbon future. We should have governments that take public interest regulation and enforcement seriously. If we had a stronger culture of that, then some of the issues around this pipeline would have been addressed much sooner. We need to be building a culture, not of saying yes to the oil industry any time it asks because it happens to employ a lot of people, but a culture that impresses upon that industry its responsibility, with governments who understand their own responsibility and are willing to enforce public interest regulation to ensure that these powerful companies do not just get away with anything and it is not just business as usual. That has to be there.
There is a governor in Michigan now who clearly feels that sense of exasperation and is putting pressure on Enbridge. We need to find a way to keep Line 5 open for now without dissipating that real and important pressure on Enbridge to do the right thing by the environment and by local people whose economies depend on the success and the health of the Great Lakes.
View Anthony Housefather Profile
Lib. (QC)
View Anthony Housefather Profile
2021-05-06 20:49 [p.6854]
Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to take part in a debate where all parties in the House have the rare opportunity to agree. We must do everything we can to ensure that Line 5 continues to operate.
I had the pleasure of sitting on the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States and working with my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and the NDP to deliver a unanimous report to the government.
It was also a pleasure to have our colleague from Sarnia—Lambton frequently join the committee, because this affects her riding almost more than anywhere else. This is about jobs. This is about economic security for Canadians. This is about the price we pay for things like gas, and this is about our relationship with our closest ally.
How did we get here? What is Line 5? Line 5 is a 645-mile pipeline that was built in 1953. It was built long before most of us were born, when Dwight Eisenhower was the President of the United States and issued a presidential permit to allow for the construction, operation and maintenance of Line 5. In Canada, Louis St. Laurent was our Prime Minister. That is how far back this line has been carrying shipments of light crude oil, light synthetic crude oil and natural gas liquids to Canada. It carries today about 540,000 barrels per day, and since it first entered into service in 1953, it has carried approximately 80 million barrels. It is responsible for transporting about 70% of the total Michigan crude oil production. It starts in Wisconsin and moves through Michigan to Ontario, where it ends near Sarnia.
What has happened? A notice has been given by the Governor of Michigan that she intends to end the easement that has been in effect since 1953 permitting the continued operation of Line 5. For a period of time, a portion of Line 5 crosses the Straits of Mackinac. It is about a four-mile portion of Line 5, and it is a dual pipeline. The governor has issued a shutdown order, telling Enbridge it can no longer operate that portion of the pipeline, which has no alternative, so essentially shutting down that four-mile stretch would mean the pipeline can no longer operate.
However, the governor has cited hypothetical safety concerns. We learned at committee that, first of all, there has never been an escape of product into the Straits of Mackinac since 1954, when the pipeline started operating. Second, there have been numerous tests that have been done, and what they have determined, from private companies, is that the chance of a leak is less than 0.05% per year, meaning less than one in 2,000 chance per year that there would be any leak into the Straits of Mackinac.
The company has come forward with an alternative. The company has said, “Let us build a tunnel, an alternative”, and previously Michigan had agreed to this. The company will need a few years to get that in place, which would mean we would no longer have this four-mile stretch. I respect Governor Whitmer, in the sense that she had a very tough time during the recent presidential election. She was threatened in a way that no public official should ever be threatened, and my complete sympathies go to her and her family for what she went through, but this decision puts Canadian families, Canadian workers and also American families and American workers through a horrible ordeal because it risks their jobs and it risks their economic security. I would beg her to reconsider.
One thing I would like to say is that, like our friends in the United States, Canada has a federal system, which means that in Canada we have sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution and certain powers are federal and certain powers are provincial. In the United States, there are certain powers that are federal, and in my view, based on the evidence we heard at committee, the Governor of Michigan lacks the power to terminate this easement.
For example, Congress enacted the Pipeline Safety Act and invested a federal agency called the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which people call PHMSA, with exclusive authority to regulate pipeline safety. The act provides that the state authority “may not adopt or continue in force” safety standards for interstate pipeline facilities or interstate pipeline transportation. It comprehensively regulates pipeline security.
In the United States, as in Canada, there is something called the supremacy clause, which means that if the federal government enters into an area of jurisdiction, the state cannot, by its actions, trump the federal legislation. Having enacted the Pipeline Safety Act, it would seem to me that it would be unconstitutional, if I can use that word, for the Governor of Michigan to revoke the easement, because all the safety concerns from the pipeline are dealt with through PHMSA and its regulations. They have confirmed as a result of all their reviews, and there have been a number of independent reviews done, that the dual pipelines, which are the two lines going under the Straits of Mackinac, are fit for service and safe to operate. That is very important, and I reiterate that since starting operation over 65 years ago, these pipelines have never released any product into the Straits of Mackinac.
Another issue, constitutionally, is who gets to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. In the United States, the Constitution says that the federal government is exclusively responsible for regulating interstate commerce. There is no argument here that this does not go through a number of states. As I mentioned before, Line 5 originates in Superior, Wisconsin. It then goes into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and receives product at Lewiston, Michigan, where local Michigan crude oil is collected and transported to U.S. and Canadian refineries. It transports 14,000 barrels of Michigan oil per day. Then, the oil is taken not only to Sarnia, but also to Marathon's Detroit refinery and to two refineries in Toledo, Ohio. In addition, in Ontario, the pipeline is connected to other pipelines that transport crude to Pennsylvania and to my home in Montreal, Quebec.
It is hard to argue that this does not constitute interstate commerce: Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That is more than one state, and it is definitely commerce. My feeling is that this is under federal jurisdiction.
Then, let us look at international. There is no dispute that international commerce is federal, and the United States has even entered into pipeline treaties with Canada, including a 1977 pipeline treaty that ensured the continued operation across the border, which should not be ended by any one state.
In the context of Canada-U.S. relations, clearly it is not acceptable for different states to be involved in deciding whether a pipeline can cross the border between our two countries. The same is true for a pipeline that crosses several states. There is no question that a state like Michigan should not have the power to stop oil flowing through its territory between Wisconsin and Ohio or Pennsylvania. We therefore need specific, clear rules that apply to all states. That is why the United States has a federal government.
Given that there is a congressional law, a law passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, that deals with this issue and exclusively regulates the safety of the pipeline, given the fact that it is a pipeline that goes between four different states, at least, given that it is a pipeline that transverses an international boundary between the United States and Canada, and given the fact that the United States government has actually entered into an agreement with Canada related to the continued operation of the pipeline and issued a presidential permit for this pipeline, I would argue legally that Enbridge is correct in its pleadings in the Western District of Michigan and the Governor of Michigan does not have the power to end the easement or to cease operations of the pipeline. I also agree with Enbridge's position that it would be up to Michigan to seek an order of the court, an injunction, to stop the pipeline from operating.
In the meantime, we need to be team Canada. We need to appeal to state legislatures in Michigan and elsewhere, especially those states that are impacted by the governor's decision. We need to appeal to fellow legislators in Washington, whether it is the Prime Minister to the President, or all of us to our fellow legislators. We need to let them know how important this pipeline is to Canada, and perhaps to their states, which they may not be aware of. We need to make sure we do everything in our power to protect the jobs of Canadians and Americans, protect the continued operations of a pipeline that has operated safely for over 65 years and make sure the refineries in Canada do not lose—
View Mario Simard Profile
BQ (QC)
View Mario Simard Profile
2021-05-06 21:15 [p.6857]
Mr. Speaker, I really like my colleague from Calgary Centre. I consider him to be a gentleman, so I do not want to ask him an awkward question.
I think the Governor of Michigan's criticisms are valid. Does my colleague agree that we can criticize the government for being slow to act and dragging its feet, but that Enbridge itself might bear some of the blame as well?
When the Governor of Michigan accuses Enbridge of not doing enough to protect the Great Lakes, does my colleague agree that the company should do more?
View Greg McLean Profile
CPC (AB)
View Greg McLean Profile
2021-05-06 21:15 [p.6857]
Mr. Speaker, that is a very theoretical question because I am sure my colleague is well aware that there has never been an oil spill in the Great Lakes on either the Canadian or the American side. I think Canadians are just as keen as Americans are to keep the waters of the Great Lakes safe.
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
CPC (ON)
View Marilyn Gladu Profile
2021-05-06 21:20 [p.6858]
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank every member who is in the House tonight for this very important debate, showing their support and their understanding of how serious this is. Obviously, for my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, this is an extremely serious issue.
As many have said tonight, there are three refineries and multiple other related businesses in Sarnia—Lambton, and a shutdown of Line 5 could impact as many as 23,000 jobs in my riding. Just to put that in perspective, in the pandemic about a third of Canadians are on the CERB and many businesses are on government supports; we are talking about a substantial percentage my riding who would be out of work. I want to take this opportunity not just to repeat what has been said already in the House, but to try to give an understanding of the situation that exists and to call for action of a specific nature, as we move forward.
Members know that Governor Whitmer has brought this executive order. This is an election promise that she ran on. To be fair, I do not think she was aware at the time of the impact on her own constituents. Thirty per cent of Michiganders in the upper hand of Michigan use propane that comes down from Line 5 to heat their homes in the winter time.
We know that members of many of the trade unions that got Governor Whitmer elected are actually going to lose work over the tunnel project that has been proposed to resolve any outstanding concerns about the pipeline. That is a $500-million tunnel project that would, in fact, encase the pipeline below the Straits of Mackinac and eliminate the risk totally.
There has not been an issue. I have heard members talk about how what has happened in the past is no predictor of the future, but this technology we are talking about is in use in many places around the world. There are many pipelines that are built under the water, and not just small sections of 50 kilometres, which we are talking about in the Straits of Mackinac, but thousands of kilometres. In fact, Governor Whitmer is likely unaware that there are eight other pipelines that run underneath the St. Clair River in my riding, which has Michigan on the other side, some of those pipelines belonging to Enbridge as well.
This technology is safe. Just to let members know, for those who know my background as a chemical engineer, I have looked at all the reports that have been written about Line 5. The Environmental Protection Agency does regular monitoring, regular inspections and audits on this line. The federal pipeline safety department, PHMSA, also regulates this line, inspects the line and follows up. The State of Michigan is involved in monitoring, Enbridge has its own continuous monitoring on this line. There is a huge amount of technology that goes into making sure that this line is safe, and it has operated for 68 years without an incident.
I have talked about the impact to Michigan.
Regarding the line that comes from Alberta, obviously there is an economic hit for Alberta and this is at a time when Albertans have already been punished by the bad policies of the Liberal government, including the “no more pipelines bill”, Bill C-69 and the many cancelled oil and gas projects including Teck mines, northern gateway, Kinder Morgan backing out, the KXL and the Petronas LNG and now the Kitimat LNG. There is just an ongoing punishment there, so this would just be another hit to Alberta at a time when it can least afford it.
The other states that are being impacted are Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are refineries in Ohio and Pennsylvania that supply all the jet fuel for the Detroit airport. There are many jobs in Michigan as well. Overall, we think 50,000 jobs could be impacted by this; not to mention in Ontario, many farmers heat their barns for their animals, dry their grain and heat their greenhouses with the fuel that is coming down through Line 5.
When I hear people who are anti-pipeline and want to shut down Line 5, I ask them if they live in Ontario and drive a car because, if they do, their gasoline is coming out of Line 5. Do they eat food, like beef, chicken and pork that is grown in Ontario or Quebec? If so, they are going to be impacted by Line 5.
Do they eat vegetables or grains that are produced in any of these provinces? If so, this definitely would be an impact to them. It has already been mentioned as well that the plastics industry and many of the great smart phones and things we enjoy so much are a result of the fossil fuels that are coming down through Line 5. There is a huge impact there, and I was pleased to see the natural resources minister emphasize again that this is essential for the economic and energy security of Canada.
I have been calling on the government for action. I called on it to have the Prime Minister intervene with President Biden directly to let him understand the importance. The Prime Minister did raise it, but we have not seen President Biden take an action, and I am sure that is because the case is before the court. Right now, what is being decided in the court is whether this issue should be heard at the state level or at the federal level. There are a number of these amicus curiae briefs of support and against that have been submitted. There are 14 Democratic states that have submitted a brief against keeping Line 5 open, and one Republican from Ohio has submitted one in support of keeping Line 5 open. This is why it is so important that the Canadian government provide a brief of support, and it is due next Tuesday, so we are running out of time. It is fine to say we will do all things and take every effort, but seeing the piece of paper submitted by May 11 would be very helpful.
At the same time, I agree with the member for Mount Royal, who indicated that he does not believe that a state court at this point in time has the power to force Line 5 down and also that they will likely not put an injunction out while the case is before the court. In terms of that timing, the judge did order mediation between Governor Whitmer and Enbridge, and that mediation is coming to an end within the next week. Then, the deadline for the briefs exists, and she will have to review all of that information before she can render a decision about whether the case should be heard in federal court or state court. Then, of course, the case needs to be heard, so that would be another whole bunch of testimony that will happen.
Although I do not think things are going to happen next Wednesday, I do think that there is no other contingency plan in place. The tankers, railcars and trucks have been suggested. We are short of railcars in Canada right now, and there is a shortage of trucks as well, so even if we could find them, to take that volume is certainly environmentally worse from an emissions point of view. We know, with the Lac-Mégantic issue that occurred, that rail is not as safe as a pipeline is.
I think those are important considerations, and I would say that, when it comes to the Canada-U.S. committee, which I was fortunate to sit in and go through, it came with seven recommendations for the government. This is the call to action I would like to see the government act on. It called for mediation; that is happening. It called for U.S. decision-makers at all levels to be contacted, and I know there are efforts of lobby within Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Michigan. It is unfortunate the Governor Whitmer will not meet with the natural resources minister. She did take a call with the leader of the official opposition and with Doug Ford, and so I think we need to press on there. The amicus brief, as I have mentioned, is an important support for Canada to bring. Then, it called for the Prime Minister to press and, if necessary, put a treaty violation complaint in if this continues, because this certainly is a federal treaty that allows that line to operate.
I have not heard of any contingency plans, but somebody should start thinking about those. The companies in my riding are thinking about that. As well, we should look at our other vulnerabilities, because if we continue to see that the U.S. is not going to stand as our friend in these matters, then what other supply chain and critical energy infrastructure is vulnerable, and what will we do about that? The committee then called to have members of Parliament engage, as we are tonight, and so I am happy to see everybody all on the same page, calling for the action.
Let us move forward. Let us keep Line 5 open.
View Kristina Michaud Profile
BQ (QC)
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
He clearly explained that Line 5 supplies refineries in both Quebec and Ontario, and that its potential shutdown is a legitimate cause for concern. On the other hand, there are all sorts of environmental concerns.
My colleague said that this pipeline was safe, but it is important to remember the 20,000 barrels of oil that spilled into the Kalamazoo River in 2010. One cannot help but think that another similar incident could occur, which is worrisome for the environmental health of our waterways.
If we want to move toward a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and toward net-zero emissions, how can we strike a balance between economic and environmental concerns?
View Raj Saini Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Raj Saini Profile
2021-05-06 21:47 [p.6862]
Mr. Speaker, I think the concerns will be resolved by making sure that the pipeline is built to standards above what are required today. If Line 5 gets shut down, we will see the environmental impacts of putting 15,000 trucks and 800 railcars on the road. There will be a higher chance of spills and a higher chance of accidents on the road. We will see a huge disruption across the border and a thickening of it. Other products will be delayed. Trucks will be all over the road.
If we want to talk about the environment, we know there has never been a spill on this pipeline. We recognize that to get to net zero, we need to make sure that we incentivize our transport industry to either go electric or minimize the impacts. This pipeline serves all of those purposes, especially for the environment.
View Gord Johns Profile
NDP (BC)
View Gord Johns Profile
2021-05-06 22:20 [p.6867]
Madam Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague. One thing I am concerned about tonight's debate is that we are not talking enough about solutions to this issue. We are not hearing good ideas coming forward as to how to alleviate this logjam. We are also not talking about why this has come about.
This is about fear. This is about the Governor of Michigan and her constituents being concerned about a spill. We know that Enbridge has a track record of a spill in the Kalamazoo, along with other breaks. We have also seen President Biden kill Keystone XL. We have seen the Norwegian government withdraw the money from their sovereign wealth fund. These are all signals that we are not doing enough here in Canada to tackle climate change and do our part.
Why do the Conservatives continue to argue in defence of tax breaks and subsidies to oil and gas companies, instead of calling on them to do a bigger and better part? Why are they not calling for more stringent environmental regulations to build trust with the Governor of Michigan—
View Gérard Deltell Profile
CPC (QC)
View Gérard Deltell Profile
2021-05-06 22:21 [p.6867]
Madam Speaker, I welcome the question from my colleague.
I am sure he knows that Canada has the highest standards for producing petroleum and natural resources. We have to be proud of that and do what we can to sell the proudness that we have for our natural resources.
Yes, I am proud, as a Canadian, of the petroleum industry and the hydroelectricity in Quebec. We have to be proud of ourselves and say to everybody, especially to the Americans, that here in Canada we have the highest standards in producing our natural resources. Be proud.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-05-06 22:52 [p.6871]
Madam Speaker, I do not think that Canadians are fully aware of the reputation of Enbridge across the United States.
After the Kalamazoo, Michigan spill in 2010, the National Transportation Safety Board reviewed the occurrences of that spill. The head of the inquiry actually said to the media that Enbridge had a culture of negligence, and that they resembled, at the time of that spill, a bunch of Keystone cops.
We have a problem in defending, and we will have to defend, that we need to get the products to Sarnia and are cutting a corner getting from Alberta to eastern Canada by ducking through the United States. I would maintain that as a Canadian concerned for the safety of the Great Lakes and the environmental risk there, we have a problem because I do not trust Enbridge either.
That pipeline is old, and when—
View John McKay Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I can hardly respond to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands in five seconds. That is an impossible task.
However, she does make a point, and I take it.
View Elizabeth May Profile
GP (BC)
View Elizabeth May Profile
2021-05-06 23:54 [p.6880]
Madam Speaker, I am afraid many members have not been able to distinguish between why some pipelines are opposed on climate reasons and others are not. Despite what many members have said in this place, there are pipelines in use that do not expand fossil fuel production, unlike Keystone, energy east and TMX, which are all about the export of raw bitumen to other countries to be refined elsewhere. The Line 5 pipeline is not being opposed by environmentalists on either side of the border because of climate constraints. It is being opposed by people who are concerned that a pipeline built in 1953 and maintained by a company with a terrible record for leaks poses a threat to the Great Lakes.
I would ask my hon. colleague this. It is very important for the Canadian government to make its views clear, but we must be realistic. Another pipeline is needed—
View Francis Drouin Profile
Lib. (ON)
Madam Speaker, I hear what my hon. colleague is saying. I am not involved in those direct negotiations, but what I have heard from Enbridge is that it is proposing some mitigation measures to ensure the pipeline is safe.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-05-03 15:33 [p.6536]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith and signed by 12,920 Canadians.
The petitioners are deeply concerned about protecting British Columbia's endangered old-growth forests from logging. They note that old-growth ecosystems provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and cultural, recreational and educational value.
The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada 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 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 uses for local jobs, and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel production.
View Robert Oliphant Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Robert Oliphant Profile
2021-04-30 12:07 [p.6473]
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, two treaties.
The first is entitled “Annex V to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty”, done at Bonn on October 17, 1991; and amendments to “Annex II to the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty”, done at Baltimore on April 6 to 17, 2009.
The second treaty is the Final Acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference of the International Telecommunication Union, done at Sharm el-Sheikh on November 22, 2019, known as the “Final Acts 2019”.
View Paul Manly Profile
GP (BC)
View Paul Manly Profile
2021-04-30 12:12 [p.6474]
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to table this petition initiated by constituents in Nanaimo—Ladysmith. The petitioners are concerned about the logging of old-growth ecosystems in British Columbia. They note that old-growth forests provide immeasurable benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity and cultural, recreational and educational values.
The petitioners call upon the government to work with the province and first nations to immediately halt the 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 valued-added forestry industry initiatives in partnership with first nations to ensure Canada's forestry industry is sustainable and based on the harvesting of second- and third-growth forests, ban the export of raw logs, maximize resource use for local jobs and ban the use of whole trees for wood pellet biofuel productions.
Results: 1 - 100 of 330 | Page: 1 of 4

1
2
3
4
>
>|
Export As: XML CSV RSS

For more data options, please see Open Data