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House Hansard - 40

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 3, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 40 - Mar/3/22
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.)
  • Mar/3/22 10:13:02 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, many residents of Winnipeg North have signed this petition asking for the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister and, in fact, all members of the House of Commons to advocate for our seniors and deal with issues such as long-term health care, mental health, the OAS and the GIS, all very important issues for our seniors. The constituents I represent have signed, in good part, the petition asking for all members of the House to be advocates for the needs of our seniors.
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Context: House Hansard - 40 - Mar/3/22
Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)
  • 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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