44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 3, 2022 10:00AM
- Mar/3/22 10:31:13 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is my honour today to second the motion brought forward by my colleague from Halton Hills. I stand firmly with the rest of my party in condemning the actions of Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime against our allies in Ukraine, our democratic friends in Ukraine. Here in Canada, there are 1.3 million Ukrainian descendants. They are one of our most important allies in the world, and we need to stand with them strongly at this point in time and make sure that we speak and act accordingly so that this does not continue, as much as we can.
The other day I heard from a friend who has a cousin who is in Ukraine. She was here in Canada for 20 years, but she chose to go back to Ukraine because she retired. She had an inheritance there in a small house that she got from her family, so that is where she retired. That house was destroyed earlier this week by a tank. Her name is Luda and now she is in hiding. Luda's family is asking that we quickly allow 200,000 refugees to come from Ukraine, at least temporarily. We have seen the backlog at the border with Poland. They are not going to be able to shelter all of these refugees alone. We need to help. Canada needs to help and quickly.
Rex Tillerson, former head and CEO of Exxon Mobil Oil, one of the world's largest oil and gas producers, said in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, that they didn't take sides in international conflicts. That is an absurd statement. We need to know what side of humanity we are on. There is no commodity, no dollar earned, that is more important than the lives that are being trampled on by Vladimir Putin. Rex Tillerson's words represent the decline of western values to the point where nothing matters more than money. This needs to change immediately. The evidence is clearly at our doorstep.
I have heard the meek calls from world leaders saying we cannot disrupt Russia's oil and gas exports for various reasons. First, it will cause a spike in oil prices that will cause financial hardship in the world.
That is ironic considering the intent of all of our various tax measures on the oil and gas industry: excise taxes, royalties and carbon taxes. That one is going to escalate by 25% in less than a month in Canada. These are all designed to do exactly that: to make the consumption of hydrocarbons more expensive so that people believe that the expensive alternatives are more palatable. I suppose the message is to make it more expensive just on our own terms, but inaction to disrupt Russia's trade in oil and gas in the world is going to have some financial consequences on those countries that have chosen to have the resources supplied by Russia. This will cause inflation. There is no doubt. Just as every other input increasing prices in oil and gas impacts inflation. We are experiencing significant inflation.
Second, Europe's economy is dependent on the supply of Russian natural gas. That is also a choice that has been made, in spite of the danger that was always evident of having such a large portion of energy supply coming from an unpredictable and despotic regime. Yes, jobs will be impacted.
Third, Europeans will freeze at the end of this winter. Yes, the absence of natural gas delivery to Europe will cause some discomfort, some of which we have already seen as energy prices have skyrocketed in Europe this year. Europe is entering a period of energy poverty, and it has always been looking for a quick fix. It turns out that the impacts of being overly reliant on Russian gas supply is not the quick fix that leaders without foresight envisioned or ignored, with its own consequences.
There are many consequences, but for succinctness let us put three consequences briefly together. Higher costs for hydrocarbon energy is something that we in the west have been manipulating higher through government action for years, but higher costs suddenly will cause inflation, hardship and choices. There is also economic displacement. European factories will need to adjust and some will shut down as the cost of energy becomes prohibitive. Again, we in the western world have been offshoring our jobs for years to parts of the world with lower environmental standards and lower labour standards. On heating for homes, there is going to be some discomfort.
Let us compare these three hardships that I have just outlined here to what Luda is experiencing in Ukraine right now.
A country is being destroyed. There is no economy or jobs that will matter in the midst of a shelling war. Luda's home was destroyed by a Russian tank. The juxtaposition is stark and the world is soft-pedalling our response to Russia because we need its oil and gas. The irony is stark. Where do we draw the line here, after Ukraine, when Poland or Moldova is in Russia's sights? We need to collectively act now and ensure the entire world rejects Russian commodities. Such is the cost of tyranny, which we have been ignoring for years. The Canadian government has been a willing part of this abject shift. Dollars have flown to Russia because of the government's regard for Canada's resource industry.
In the last seven years, oil production in Russia has gone up by a million barrels a day. Gas exports have gone up 35% from Russia. Disdain for Canadian resources has led oil and gas exploration elsewhere, including the world majors. Shell and British Petroleum have just recently decided they would extract themselves from Russia, losing $20 billion and $25 billion respectively in the process. However, the largest beneficiary, particularly for the flow of capital, has been Russia, which has profited with hundreds of billions of dollars because of choices such as the ones the Liberal government has made.
These are choices. All of these choices have consequences, the consequences of curtailing Canadian oil and gas development through various ill-advised methods has led to the void being filled by less transparent regimes, primarily Russia. Our naive policies have put hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of a despotic regime. This week I asked the government to actually curtail oil imports into Canada from Russia, and it said we had not imported crude since 2019. Subsequently it recognized there is more to oil than crude and did suggest, on which I think it will follow through, cancelling all crude oil imports. I hope that happens immediately.
We have helped finance, through this transfer of money, a military buildup in Russia. Our military has shrunk. We do not meet our international obligations from a military perspective. I remember a song by a Canadian band from when I was young. The gist of it was that if we choose not to decide, we still have made a choice. This is a choice we have made without any eye on the consequences here. When I ran for Parliament going on two and a half years ago, it was to get pipelines built. There is no better infrastructure for helping the Canadian economy and the world environment than Canadian pipelines delivering Canadian product to markets.
Canadian natural gas production has gone down in the last seven years. Russia's has gone up by 35%, again a juxtaposition that is stark. The west coast had 14 LNG facilities in line to be built in Canada. Now there is one that is being built. In the U.S., in the meantime, seven have been fully built and five more are being built. Think about how we do not get things done in this country anymore, things that will help the world from an environmental perspective, from an economic perspective and, of course, from a democratic perspective.
One of the issues on natural gas is that it is not just a fuel. It is also an input to fertilizer. Feeding eight billion people in the world requires natural gas fertilizer and that is going to continue to be necessary to prevent a crisis at some point in time in the future. Therefore, getting that natural gas to where it is needed for fertilizer is essential.
I spoke last night for 20 minutes with a gentleman named Karil. He is a temporary foreign worker from the Ukraine working in Alberta's oil fields. He was pleaded with me, and he ended up shouting at me and apologizing to me. I felt awful because he should not be apologizing to me. He is from Kharkiv and he has seen his city destroyed. He has seen his family displaced. They are looking for places to stay, and I say I am sorry to him that we cannot act more forcefully here in getting this under control.
We need to act. We need to act quickly and decisively, as soon as we can. Slava Ukraini.
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- Mar/3/22 10:42:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am unfamiliar with my hon. colleague's timeline of 20th century versus 21st century. The solution is more environmental power to the world. It is more ESG, environmentally friendly, socially friendly and good governance, as we see investments in natural gas supply to an energy starved world.
That starts with natural gas, and that is what has been held up by the government since it came to power, when we had the best rocks in the world and the best ability to get a good resource to the world for its consumption. We have put the world in a position where it is reliant on despotic resources. That is, as I said, a choice we have made and there is a consequence to that choice.
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- Mar/3/22 10:43:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I think I understood the gist of it.
Right now, it is very important that we make Canada's gas supply available to the world. Countries are currently getting gas from Russia, and there are needs in China. The Russian pipelines to China are very important for that country. We need to build pipelines so that we too can sell our gas to China.
This is a global issue, and we need to address it with our natural gas industry.
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- Mar/3/22 10:45:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the most important thing to do right now is to make sure we are standing firm with the Ukrainian people in the plight they are facing from an aggressive neighbour that wants to defeat them. This is first thing we have to look at. How do we help them as much as possible? Part of that is the displacement of refugees that is occurring immediately.
In my speech, my colleague will recall that we were actually looking at 200,000 people being allowed into Canada on a temporary basis. That is the first step. We also need to address how this is happening, why it is happening and how we can avoid it happening again in the future. Part of that is the supply of energy.
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- Mar/3/22 2:37:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with an aggressive Russian invasion of Ukraine, European countries recognize how dependent they are on Russian gas supplies. Forty per cent of Europe’s gas comes from Russia, and Europe’s security now has a gun to its head. Coal plants are being brought back online, undoing years of progress on emission reductions. Energy and security analysts have been warning about this danger for years, and the government has lacked Canadian vision on this matter.
When will the government end its efforts to replace Canadian energy with offshore resources from hostile regimes?
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- Mar/3/22 2:39:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting approach, but since the government came to power, Russia’s natural gas exports have increased 35% and Canada’s exports have declined. The result is that tens of billions of dollars have flowed to fund Putin's war machine.
A decade ago, Canada had 14 LNG projects preparing to supply energy to an insecure world. Now, thanks to the government’s aimless policies, none are built and only one is under construction. This was a choice with now obvious consequences.
Will the government revise its regulatory regime to allow Canadian natural gas to get to tidewater?
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- Mar/3/22 3:29:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me ask my colleague a question that is predicated upon 12 years of projects that were advancing on the west coast of Canada that one by one fell off the table once her government came to power seven years ago. They did so because of a regulatory environment that was punitive to building energy projects in Canada. As a result, they built energy projects in Russia.
Can she take some accountability that maybe now is the time to start building energy projects in Canada, not five years from now?
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