44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/3/22 10:10:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions, and I hope if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
That the House call upon the City of Ottawa to consider renaming the portion of Charlotte Street which houses the Russian Embassy in honour of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine.
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- Mar/3/22 10:26:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Parliament certainly stands to condemn Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked illegal attack, and we certainly stand with the people of Ukraine, but what I find really disturbing and appalling at this time is the crass exploitative attitude of the Conservatives to try to take a humanitarian disaster and use it to promote the pipe dream of spending billions of taxpayers' dollars on pipelines.
They could have talked about the need for Parliament to stand together and take on Russian disinformation. They did not do that. They could have talked about the food crisis we could start to see if we see wheat exports in Ukraine cut off. They could have talked about refugees, but they are not interested in that. I expect a lot from many of the Conservative backbenchers, but I expect more from this member.
Does he not know that Quebec has already shut down LNG pipelines? If he is going to get to tidewater, does he not have a map of Canada? Quebec says it will not allow LNG exports. That would actually undermine our world obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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- Mar/3/22 11:10:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am absolutely appalled to see the Conservatives' use of talking about children going hungry as a reason for us to spend billions on a pipeline. We are dealing with a world crisis of people dying in the streets, being killed, and they see this as another reason to turn on the taps of taxpayer money.
We have spent $121 billion in subsidies to big oil in the last seven years, $75 billion on carbon capture, $21 billion on TMX and $1 billion on the abandoned wells, and the Conservatives are talking about using a humanitarian crisis for more.
Will the Liberals agree with us that this motion is undermining Canada's reputation of standing up for Ukraine because the Conservatives are more interested in satisfying big oil?
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- Mar/3/22 11:26:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not surprised the Liberals are coming out to support the Conservatives. They have had 6,800 backroom meetings with big oil, and there have been more oil subsidies under the Liberals than under the Stephen Harper government.
I want to ask my hon. colleague a quick question. I have seen the map of Canada. To get a pipeline from Alberta to the Atlantic it has to cross Quebec, which has just cancelled the Saguenay pipeline because it undermines our international Paris obligations. Does the hon. member think the Liberals and the Conservatives are going to force Quebec to put the new pipeline through?
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- Mar/3/22 11:41:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, I am honoured to rise and represent the people of Timmins—James Bay. At this moment, when our world is confronted by horrific violence and naked aggression, the footage of children hiding out in bomb shelters has shocked the world. It has shocked all of us and made us understand the importance of standing as a democracy and standing for freedom.
As New Democrats, we believe that we stand together in the House for the principle of the right for people to make their own decisions, and when our neighbours are in crisis we reach out and help them. The New Democrats and I certainly support the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and condemn President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation for their unprovoked illegal attack and invasion of Ukraine. Yes, the Parliament of Canada stands solidly with Ukraine, the people of Ukraine and Canadians in the Ukrainian community.
The member for Wellington—Halton Hills tells us that what we should do with this is undertake measures to ensure that new natural gas pipelines can be approved and built out to Atlantic tidewater. I am actually appalled by the cynicism, and the exploitation of a humanitarian disaster to promote, once again, the interests of the oil sector. I know there are many on the Conservative backbench who would take that position without even blinking, but I have always had great respect for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Such a stunt should not be played at this time in our history.
This motion could have talked about the need to deal with Russian disinformation and the need for a strong position by our Parliament. We would have supported that.
We could have talked about the need to help with visas and the refugee crisis that is clogging the Polish border. All of us could have stood together as a Parliament and supported that.
We could have talked about the growing food crisis that we are facing. Ukraine is one of the world's bread baskets. We could have talked about the crisis of that war and what it means for global food supplies, but the Conservatives are not interested in that.
The Conservatives' fundamental view of the world has always been to take as much public money as possible and blow it on oil and gas. Even though oil and gas is making enormous profits, the Conservatives want the public to pay for it. Now they have decided that a humanitarian crisis is another good reason for them to shamelessly promote something like this. I am actually embarrassed that, as the world is looking for solidarity and a vison of democracy, freedom and rights, we are here having to play games promoting the interests of oil and gas once again in a petrostate such as Canada.
As the Ukrainian crisis comes to us, I think ironically of two other important points that have happened this past week. One is an IPCC report that says the window for saving this planet is growing very short. The UN talks about the creation of an “atlas of human suffering”.
I have never, ever actually heard Conservatives talk about the climate crisis. They talk vaguely about it. I was listening to the CBC as I was driving to Ottawa the other day. The story was about baby boomers. They were interviewing a couple of boomers who were saying, “We set out that we were going to spend the inheritance of our children and we ran out of money”. That is what we are doing here once again. Our generation is standing here, selling off the future of our children in order to make extra profits: not just profits, but extra profits for oil and gas. I urge my colleagues in the Conservative Party, if they keep talking about international standards and international law, to note that Canada has failed in every international commitment we have made in dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, and we are spending our children's inheritance right now.
The third element that I think is important is, of course, that we found out that we are now on the hook for $21 billion of taxpayers' money for the TMX pipeline, and that we are going to spend enormous amounts of taxpayers' money promoting the export of bitumen overseas as a Canadian public policy, which is going to be covered by the taxpayers. We are going to get into some of these pipe dreams of the Conservatives. It is a pipe dream ideology that betrays workers and is fundamentally unsound economically because it is based on the massive use of taxpayers' money again and again. It is, of course, undermining the very future of our planet, earth.
I was thinking of buying myself a map of Canada that I could give to my colleagues in the Conservative Party, because if we look at the map of Canada, we see that to get a pipeline from Alberta to the Atlantic we have to cross Quebec. I am not from Quebec, but Mr. Legault is kind of a conservator. He shut down the Saguenay LNG pipeline. Why was that? He shut it down because it would undermine Canada's international obligations to deal with greenhouse gas emissions. This was a $9-billion project that would have certainly benefited many jobs in Quebec, but he made the decision that he was not going to invest here.
Of course, the Conservatives do not want us to know about the fact that they could not even get a pipeline built to tidewater, because to do it we would have to get across Quebec and Quebec is saying no, as it has obligations. They are talking about how this is somehow all about helping, that it is a humanitarian project that is helping the planet. Those are falsehoods.
It is also a falsehood economically, because right now in north American there are at least a dozen LNG projects that are going nowhere and have gone—
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- Mar/3/22 11:49:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not surprised. Whenever the Conservatives get challenged on misdeeds and misrepresentations, they are more touchy than a European football player who falls on the ground and pretends their knee has been hurt. This is abusive. Here we go again.
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- Mar/3/22 11:49:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will take this moment to apologize to any European soccer player who has never played the game and never shown a great propensity to lie on the ground and howl. I apologize to them greatly.
We are dealing with something serious here. We are dealing with a party that is using a humanitarian disaster to exploit falsehoods. I will call that out and I will not be silent, because they are trying to fake out Canadians that there is somehow an economic argument. Let us throw mindless amounts of money that will somehow get to Ukraine and make some money.
If members want another example, it is like coming upon a horrific car accident, and as we are trying to pull people out of the car accident, someone is climbing over them and saying, “Hey. I'm from Abe's Honest Used Car Service. Let me sell you a car.” This is not what we do in the middle of a humanitarian disaster, because right now, as I said, 12 major LNG projects are not going ahead. Things are not further ahead, but the Conservatives want to build a pipeline of 2,000 kilometres. In Europe right now, stocks in clean energy have taken off. Why have they taken off? It is because Europe knows that its future is in clean energy.
Let us talk about Conservative mathematics, and certainly Liberal mathematics too, because the Liberals are now on the hook. They bought a pipeline because Kinder Morgan knew it did not have the financial capacity to build a $5.4-billion pipeline. It went to the Conservative government in Alberta in 2014 and asked it to backstop the TMX pipeline. Alberta said no since the money was not there and the economic case was not there.
The Conservatives and big oil accused the Liberals of hating the oil sector, so the Prime Minister signed up and hooked us into a pipeline that is now at $21 billion. Here is the thing. We paid Kinder Morgan for selling us a leaky pipeline and it used taxpayer money to give the CEO bonuses for hoodwinking us.
Here is the other thing that is important to know in the scam that we are dealing with in continually giving money to big oil. The cost overruns are locked in at $7 billion. Those are all the extra overruns in the pipeline. For the tolls that run the oil through the pipe, all the extra costs are being paid for by the taxpayer. Not only are we paying $21 billion, but every barrel of bitumen that goes overseas from here on in will be paid for by the taxpayer. That is a pretty good deal for big oil and, again, it is being paid for by the taxpayer. However, that is perfectly normal mathematics in the world of the Conservatives, who think that this is how money should be spent.
Why is TMX so fundamentally important to the ideology of the Conservatives and the Liberals? It is because they were never focused on supplying Canada's energy needs. They were not interested in that. They stand and rant about how Saudi Arabian oil, Venezuelan oil and Nigerian oil are coming down the St. Lawrence, but it is not true. Quebec refineries are not using that. This is about export. Why is export so important? It is because none of the emissions of burned bitumen count as part of Canada's total. Right now, our emissions total from exports is more than all the emissions in Canada combined. Talk about the burning the planet. We are looking at an increase of 1.2 million barrels a year thanks to TMX and thanks to the money that is being invested by the government.
I will refer to a recent article in Forbes Magazine from January 28, 2022. It says that big oil is using the big tobacco playbook because they realize they have lost the argument in Canada on the energy crisis. People don't believe them anymore. What they have done is turned to export. They are looking to create markets in the global south. They are looking to China, where there are lower standards. That is the economic model and none of those burned barrels of bitumen in places like China or in markets in India will ever be counted in the global total. That is how we burn the planet while getting to net zero.
The Conservatives have tried to tell us that this pipeline is some kind of humanitarian grain mission. We do not deal with food in pipelines. I know the Conservatives would love to add it in the mix, but it is not there. However, they keep talking about how this is a clean fuel. The problem is that Canada has failed on this time and time again.
I will refer members to the problem with methane. The Prime Minister made a promise of cutting 45% by 2025. We never got there. Now he is saying we are going to get to 75% by 2030. I mention methane because if we cut methane emissions on natural gas, then we can say this is a transition fuel. However, methane is a planet killer. Everybody knows this, but we have not seen the industry take any steps to deal with methane. We can do this. I talk to people in the industry. We can get to zero on methane, yet this planet killer is leaking out of abandoned wells, leaking out of pipelines and leaking out of refineries. What do they do? Of course, they go to the government and say, “Help us.”
The Liberal government has held 6,800 backroom meetings with the oil lobby since the Liberal government came in. The Conservatives say the Liberal government is against big oil, but it is just a myth. We have had $121 billion in oil subsidies. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has come forward and said it wants $75 billion in carbon capture. We are paying $21 billion for TMX. We are on the hook for $1 billion for abandoned wells.
Then big oil came forward asking to be given money to deal with methane, and the government gave them $132 million to clean up methane. Now here is the thing. What were the goals of the methane reduction program? Number one was to attract investment. Number two was to increase competitiveness. Well, that is not saving the planet. Then down at number three was finding some equipment to help reduce methane emissions.
Why does this matter? It is because the environment commissioner has said that Canada, which used to be a world leader, is now at the back of the G7. This methane reduction program was not used to deal with the planet killer. It was used as a subsidy to big oil and it allowed them to increase production. What the environment commissioner also found was that they are not even tracking any of the background emissions. They do not even know how bad methane is. They have not bothered, yet we are writing cheques for $134 million and we do not even know how it is spent. Meanwhile, the planet is burning.
The Conservatives have a whole series of myths they try to perpetuate about how hard done by the west is on this and how hard done by oil and gas is. This is a group that is belligerently fighting for billions in taxpayer subsidies to support the typewriter when the rest of the world is moving to the cellphone.
I want to point out one of the myths I have been hearing. It is that rules on environmental standards in Canada are somehow scaring off investments. That is simply not true. I refer members to a Wall Street Journal headline that says financial giants are quitting what they call “one of the world's dirtiest oil patches”. That is something they also do not want us to know. Canada's—
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- Mar/3/22 11:59:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would tell my hon. colleague that if the truth hurts, too bad, so sad, because the Conservatives have taken the crisis in Ukraine, the humanitarian suffering, the deaths, the murder of innocent people, turned it around and said this is a great opportunity for them to take billions in taxpayers' money to promote the interests of oil and gas. If they do not like the mathematics of how bad that is, then they should not be in the chamber. Too bad, so sad, because this is their motion. We could have been debating anything of substance. Instead, we are debating Conservative mythologies.
As I was saying, over the last few years, 60 financial institutions, including Deutsche Bank, HSBC Holdings plc, Hartford Financial, the Japan Petroleum Exploration, have all pulled out of Canada. Why? It is because of the lack of a plan to deal with the climate crisis.
Not only are the Conservatives misrepresenting the facts in terms of the horrific humanitarian crisis, but they are misrepresenting the facts to workers because the transition is here. We see the potential. Calgary Economic Development and Edmonton Global are saying that if we start to invest now in clean energy, we are looking at an additional $61 billion for the provincial Alberta economy. If they continue with business as usual, there will be only $4 billion. Year in, year out, we see drops in employment in the oil sector and that is not because people are being mean to them. It is because industry is cutting jobs and making more profits. That is the thing.
That leads me back to the Forbes comparison. Forbes says that having lost the debate in Canada on the climate crisis, oil and gas have shifted, like big tobacco, to the global south, where the number one plan is to make some claims about greenwashing, shift massive exports to the global south where it does not count and then only invest enough in clean tech so it looks like they are doing something. Meanwhile, the market has moved beyond, and it has moved beyond in a substantial way. What we have been given, time and time again, by the Conservative Party is a fake, failed mythology when, year in, year out, jobs in the oil patch have gone down and the opportunity for a clean-tech economy is staring us in the face. There is a huge potential, but if we do not meet that, then we are consigning our children to no future.
To get back to the motion at hand in a very clear way, I have seen a lot of ways the Conservatives and the Liberals will bend over backwards to give taxpayers' money to big oil, to excuse all manner of abuses of accountability and to go along with all manner of fake claims about dealing with the crisis, but emissions have continued to rise, year in, year out. We are talking about the future of our planet, but we are talking about it now, within the context of a global crisis, a humanitarian crisis where people are dying. They expect more from us than this gaudy attempt to claim that our best response to Ukraine is to spend billions of dollars on an unproven, unplanned, unidentified pipeline, when the Europeans are already moving toward clean energy alternatives. This is exploitative and crass.
I have enormous respect for my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills, so I will offer an amendment in order for us to come together and show a higher standard. I move that the motion be amended in paragraph (c) by deleting all the words after “Government of Canada to” and substituting the following, “greatly increase humanitarian aid for Ukraine and for countries bordering Ukraine that have already accepted hundreds of thousands of refugees and provide targeted supports to ethnic minorities who have faced discrimination in their attempt to flee Putin's war in Ukraine.”
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- Mar/3/22 12:05:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I did not know they built the pipeline in 1854 to deal with the food crisis in Ukraine, but again, the Conservatives will tell us anything. We start with this being a big oil and gas issue, but as soon as we poke them, they start talking about children being hungry.
We do not carry nitrogen in pipelines. This is about oil and gas. This is a simple fact. For my hon. colleague who wants to go back to 1854, we can go back throughout history. They were not using pipelines to deliver agricultural support and they still are not. Once again, we see the Conservatives using a humanitarian disaster and a humanitarian crisis to promote the false interests of the oil and gas sector.
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- Mar/3/22 12:07:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really would hope that my hon. Liberal colleagues are not going to support this motion to expand gas line production, because we are afraid of what Russia is going to say. I just want to put that on the record.
We have been unanimous in standing up on the issue of Ukraine. What we are seeing is the Conservatives using this as a wedge to undermine our credibility by saying that our number one issue at this time, of all the issues that we are dealing with from Russia, is to undertake measures to ensure new, natural gas pipelines be approved. That is such a cynical and exploitive position. I certainly hope the Liberals are not going to go there with them.
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- Mar/3/22 12:08:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the issue here is really concerning and is a constant misrepresentation. We have a huge opportunity in Canada to be a world leader in moving forward with renewables, hydrogen and geothermal energy. The expertise in Canada is second to none. We could be working around the world with this, but we are not because we are focused on putting billions and billions of dollars into a 20th-century economy when the planet is burning around us. This is a lost opportunity for workers, for regions and also for the future of our children.
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- Mar/3/22 12:10:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if we look at what is happening in Europe now, the discussion is clearly about the need to get off Russian energy. They are talking about doing this through improving the electricity grids and making sure that their non-renewable and nuclear options are in place.
I do not see any of that from this Conservative party, a party that is trying to exploit a humanitarian crisis right now, at this time, in order to sell this false pipe dream that we could in six months, a year or two years, build a pipeline from the west to Atlantic Canada to capture a market, when there are already at least 12 other LNG projects sitting on the sidelines across North America and the European stock in clean energy is going up. All of this is predicated on the usual Conservative scheme of saying, “Let us take billions in taxpayers' money and try to drive it through.”
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- Mar/3/22 12:12:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my hon. colleague, like me, like everyone in the House, is fielding calls every day from people who have family in the Ukraine. They are asking what we are doing as the Parliament of Canada to help them.
Am I going to say, in response to the fact that their family is trapped in Kyiv or on the Polish border, the Parliament of Canada came forward today to say that what we want to do is approve new pipelines? I cannot call anybody back and say that. I can say that we tried to work with the Conservatives, but they did not want to work with us. We tried to work with them on the issue of speeding up visas, of making sure we could get people to safety. That is what I would like to see.
I am hoping the Liberals will oppose this motion because of the cynicism of it. My God, if I were Putin, what I would be saying now is, “Look at the Conservative Party. They are not worrying about the horrific death rates in the Ukraine. They want to compete with us for our natural gas.” To me, that is an appalling position.
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- Mar/3/22 12:13:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague and say, “Welcome to the petrostate.”
Remember how the Conservatives, who are all really upset about Communist China, actually sold off sections of the oil patch to state-owned Chinese companies because as long as it was Chinese companies owning them, they did not mind. Now, we have the Liberals talking about sanctions but refusing to go after these key oligarchs. This is the face of the petrostate between Conservatives and Liberals. We need to have better accountability.
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- Mar/3/22 12:15:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need to rise up to a higher level here, because we are being watched around the world, and this motion brings us to a much lower, much more cynical, exploitive level.
I urge all my colleagues to vote against it. We need to move forward on something that shows that, as a Parliament, we will stand up for freedom for the people of Ukraine and not just for the pecuniary interests of the oil lobby.
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