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—