44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 1, 2021 02:00PM
- Dec/1/21 2:55:19 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, earlier in question period, the Conservative leader asked the Prime Minister when he would stand up for workers in Canada's energy sector. The Prime Minister responded by implying that energy jobs in Canada are not good careers. I will give him the opportunity to clarify.
Does the Prime Minister believe that those who work in Canada's rapidly decarbonizing, fair-trade energy sector, people who work hard to power Canada as we move toward a low-carbon economy, have “good jobs”?
86 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 2:56:31 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that is interesting, because the Prime Minister is actually encouraging Canadians to use energy from high-carbon, unethical sources like Saudi Arabia.
Canadian energy is rapidly decarbonizing its production. Until there are readily available, low-cost alternatives to high-carbon products, Canadian energy should be filling that gap.
Why has the Prime Minister, if he cares about Canadian energy workers so much, not put caps on the importation of unethical, high-carbon, foreign carbon products from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, when Alberta is already providing decarbonized, carbon emission-capped, fair trade energy?
94 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 2:57:50 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada have actually grown each and every year the Liberal government has been in power, and the number of jobs in Canada, particularly in our natural resources sector, has decreased, being offshore to other countries that do not have ethical standards like we do.
We are going to need a lot of rare earth minerals in order to build things like batteries for electric-powered cars, but we know that in certain countries, child labour is what supports the mining of those particular minerals.
Will the Prime Minister commit to sourcing rare earth minerals for the batteries that power Canadian electric cars from fair trade Canadian mines, as opposed to offshoring our jobs to child foreign labour?
123 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 2:59:09 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the world is not investing in Canada, because the Prime Minister chases away investment in our ethical sources of energy. Frankly, I think that his record on this is abysmal.
I want to remind the Prime Minister of something. Good jobs are ethical, regulated jobs in Canada's natural resource sector. Bad jobs are those that are done by children in cobalt mines in other parts of the world. Bad jobs are those given to countries where gay men are murdered and women are not seen as people. Those are bad jobs. Bad jobs there; good jobs here.
When will the Prime Minister commit to supporting the workers in Alberta's energy sector?
119 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 7:53:03 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we are participating in a take-note debate tonight, which is designed to allow members to give their opinion on policy development on a matter of urgency. Today, the government has taken a delegation to Washington, D.C. ostensibly to talk about the softwood lumber dispute. I want to briefly, in the time I have, outline what the problem is and two ways to fix it.
We have to start by laying out the fact. The fact is that the American government has become more protectionist, particularly in its policies with Canada, under the tenure of the current government. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay outlined some of the issues, but it is everything from some of the policies around dairy; the EV tax credits that my colleague from Markham—Thornhill raised in the House during question period today; and the failure of the Americans to really respond to pleas on the Line 5 issue, and I know that the government was silent on KXL but certainly provincial governments were active on that. I could name many issues, but the doubling of the softwood tariffs suggests that something is very wrong with Canada's relationship with the United States. The question is, why? That is a question everybody in this place should ask, in a very sober tone.
The world has changed and it benefits all of us to have a strong relationship with the Americans, some continental economic unity and some continental integrated defence and immigration policies. It makes sense because the world has changed. When we look at supply chains and at trade, we need to be working with partners that are like-minded. Therefore, the question is this: Why has this relationship deteriorated?
I think it is Occam’s razor in this situation. I actually think that the relationship is just left fallow and the Americans do not care. I am sure they do care. I know there is one American who certainly cares about me. He might even be watching right now, and my condolences to him. However, I will say this: The American trade balance of Canada is such a small portion, about 2% of their export value, compared to ours that without the relationships that existed in the past and that do not exist right now, I just do not think the Americans are listening.
It has been very disappointing to watch the government allow infrastructure that was set up around the negotiation of CUSMA, like city-to-city relationships, the first ministers to state-level meetings, the business leader relationships and all that infrastructure that was developed, kind of be dismantled by the current government. I do not know whether that was through malfeasance or just atrophy, but without those relationships the government is not going to care. The first rule of foreign policy is they need to be able to pick up the phone to somebody that they have broken bread with and say, “I understand where there are commonalities and differences; let us work together on this.” I just do not think that has happened. Again, we are a rounding error to the Americans in a lot of ways. We have to make them care. That would be my suggestion for the government, humbly: Rebuild those relationships.
The last thing I will say is this. Knowing one American fairly well, I know that if he does not care about something I can either build the relationship with him or I can make him pay attention. Sometimes we have to make a trading partner pay attention and that, unfortunately, does come through retaliatory measures.
We do have measures to litigate, under CUSMA, that we have raised in the House this week. The government should be expressing plans for that to Canadian industry and should be putting its American partners on notice, but I would like to think that we can actually build that relationship again. There has been a lot of atrophy, but the government cannot say Donald Trump is in office anymore, so there has to be a purposeful building up of a relationship under Global Affairs, which has seen several ministers in a very short period of time.
There needs to be political leadership, a clear direction and an imperative from the government to make that relationship work at every level, not just at the ministerial level but state to province, municipality to municipality and industry leader to industry leader. If we are not talking to each other, really it is other actors around the world that benefit from the fact that we have not integrated our supply chains, that we are not working together and that we are fighting these silly trade wars with each other instead of uniting as a continent on certain values while retaining our sovereignty and our sovereign right to our economy.
That is what I humbly submit, out of respect, in this take-note debate tonight: Build the relationship and make them pay attention.
837 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 7:59:07 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, exactly. The point I am trying to make in my intervention tonight is that it benefits both Canadians and Americans for us to have strong relationships so that we are not going through escalating trade wars, but that is the job of the government.
We have had five foreign ministers in six years, I think, and four international trade ministers. How can there be a continuity of relationship even at the department level if department officials are not getting political will or a mandate that this is a priority? A lot of the infrastructure for those relationships to happen was dismantled after CUSMA.
Yes, of course we benefit. Both countries benefit from having strong trade that happens under a respectful rule of law. That is not happening right now and the onus is on the government to fix it.
141 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 8:01:01 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I very much look forward to working with my colleague on natural resources because I understand how important that sector is to his riding. I think we actually have a lot of commonality on what we can work on together.
I very much agree with him that the federal government should be doing more to support value-added processing of forestry products. At the same time, it has to make sure that our relationships with major export markets are secure. It should be able to do both. What we have seen through the government is an atrophy on both fronts.
I certainly hope that we can work together on the natural resources committee to hold the government to account, in the best interests of all Canadians.
128 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/1/21 8:02:47 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it seems like unanimity is breaking out in the opposition ranks. I also look forward to working with my colleague from Timmins—James Bay on this matter because he is right. We should be ensuring that we are not offshoring jobs in natural resources and we are not being priced out of competitiveness because of our failed relationship with the Americans that has happened under the government.
This is exactly what the Liberals need to be held to account on. It is exactly why the natural resources committee needs to be reconvened immediately. I look forward to working with him and my colleague from the Bloc Québécois as well on the fact that we have lost jobs, we have lost opportunity and we have lost that ability to transition to a clean energy economy.
Very briefly, I would also like to wish a very happy birthday to the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
163 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
