44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 4, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I will take this opportunity to ask the minister a question. I agree with him that what we have seen in recent weeks on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources is rather disgraceful.
However, one thing still has to be looked at. In Bill C‑50, the government unfortunately did not take into account the fact that there is a labour agreement between Quebec and Ottawa. I think that needs to be corrected.
I would like the minister to tell me whether he agrees with me that we must consider the workforce training agreements Quebec and Ottawa have previously signed.
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- Dec/4/23 4:25:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier I heard my colleague say that there are two bloc parties here: the Bloc Québécois and the “block everything” party. I am not prepared to credit this claim, because I see two very well-defined camps in this Parliament. On the one side, we have the Bloc Québécois. On the other, we have three parties that are staunchly defending the oil companies.
I say this because this bill was originally supposed to be about a just transition, but that term appears to have been little too difficult for the government. It opted for “sustainable jobs” instead. Canada is the only western country that will be using the term “sustainable jobs” rather than “just transition”.
Why? It is because Canada is afraid of how Alberta will react, and I think that if it is afraid of how Alberta will react, it will not be bold enough to do what needs to be done to fight climate change.
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- Dec/4/23 4:42:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in his answers, the minister spoke a lot about a low-carbon economy. That is good. That is something everyone wants to advance. I have a lot of respect for the minister.
The problem is that the solutions he is proposing are stuck in the oil and gas sector. When he talks about hydrogen, he is talking about blue hydrogen, which relies on carbon capture strategies. No one agrees with that. He is talking about carbon capture for the oil and gas sector, but we know full well that that is not economically viable. Unless big oil companies, the greedy corporations who rake in billions every year, are paid by Canadian taxpayers, then that oil will not be profitable.
Does my colleague agree that the best solution is simply to get out of oil and gas?
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- Dec/4/23 5:52:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a question that has been bugging me for some time now. I often see my colleague at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. I have heard a number of speeches. I cannot help but wonder if, in some way, she recognizes that, from a climate perspective, we currently have a major problem, namely global warming.
I would like to know whether she recognizes we have a problem known as global warming and whether she also recognizes that the fossil fuel sector, as a major emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for global warming. If she recognizes that, it seems to me that the only solution is to reduce our dependence on the oil and gas sector.
I would like my colleague to comment on that. Does she recognize climate change? Does she recognize that the oil and gas sector is contributing to climate change? Does she recognize that we need to phase out oil and gas?
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Madam Speaker, I will start by saying that I will not be sharing my time, and I am happy about that. Next, I want to give an overview of the situation.
How did we get here? How did we get into this situation today, where it has become impossible for the Standing Committee on Natural Resources to study Bill C-50?
First of all, I would say that it is not unrelated to what we saw last week with Bill C‑234. Last week, with Bill C‑234, we talked at length in the House about what I like to call the “Carleton method”, the method employed by the new leader of the official opposition. It is based primarily on intimidation and misinformation.
Last week, I said that the first people to warn us about the Carleton method were actually the Conservative MPs from Quebec. They did not support the member for Carleton in the leadership race because they knew full well that he often used questionable methods. I will simply give the example of what one of the former Conservative Party members went through. This method, which relies on intimidation and misinformation, has become a common practice at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
On October 30, we began discussing a motion that would have allowed us to study Bill C‑50. As ridiculous as it may seem, what the Standing Committee on Natural Resources spent the next month doing was trying to determine who had the floor. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan joined the committee meeting. As we know, a committee has a certain number of members, including one member from the Bloc Québécois who has the right to vote. There are four Conservative members who have the right to vote and speak at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. However, the Conservatives decided that five or six of them would attend and that they would all ask to speak.
Not knowing what to do, the chair said that we would have to determine who the voting members are in order to know who has the right to speak. The Conservatives then objected, stating that the chair would be violating their parliamentary rights and privileges if he did not allow to them to speak. My colleagues may or may not believe it, but we spent a month listening to points of order about whose turn it was to speak. Is that serious? I highly doubt it. It is not childishness, it is not filibustering. I do not know what to call this waste of time, but I would say that it is nonsense. Nonsense, pure and simple.
First we spent a month trying to figure out whose turn it was to talk. Then we spent time on some things that, in my opinion, were even less edifying. The member for Red Deer—Mountain View told us that oil could be used to create peace in the world. His goal is to bring peace to the world through Canadian oil. According to my colleague on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, if Canadian oil were used more, then there would be no more war in Ukraine. Perhaps peace in the Middle East could be achieved with the help of Canadian oil.
That is not all. I was introduced to an entirely new concept. I used to teach political science, but my colleague from Red Deer—Mountain View talked to me about eco-colonialism. Apparently, we are engaging in eco-colonialism if we do not allow indigenous peoples to freely develop oil. When it comes to colonialism, I am familiar with Edward Said's Orientalism. Like everyone, I am familiar with Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, but I have never heard of eco-colonialism. I spent almost 15 years talking about political science in universities, but this was a whole new concept for me. I was informed that we could bring peace to the world with oil and that eco-colonialism is something that is done to indigenous communities. There is not much difference between saying this and saying that we are using certain indigenous communities to advance the interests of big oil.
I learned something else rather interesting from the member for Provencher. The member for Provencher came and told the committee that he was a big fan of muscle cars. He recalled the late 1970s and early 1980s when people were free to drive big, fast gas guzzlers.
In a fit of nostalgia, he lamented that this was what we were losing. The member for Provencher also recalled that he used to be able to drink his milkshake with a plastic straw. The member for Provencher hates drinking his milkshake with a paper straw because it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. I found that out at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Why could we not return to this wonderful world where we could have world peace and everyone could be happy thanks to gasoline, muscle cars and plastic straws?
That is what I learned from my Conservative colleagues while we should have been considering Bill C‑50. This has been going on for over a month. That is why I say that some kind of rot seems to be taking hold of my Conservative Party colleagues. This rot is a kind of populism that might seem practically irrelevant, looking on from the outside, but that appears to be spreading within our committees, based on what I have seen in the past month. Since October 30, members have been telling us that we must not study Bill C‑50 for a variety of flimsy reasons.
After that, we were supposed to consider subamendments. The main subamendments that I saw proposed at committee applied to my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. I do like that member, although I would not say that I am his biggest fan. Still, I have nothing against him. I could not understand why the Conservatives insisted that the purpose of the subamendment was to hear from the people of Timmins—James Bay. They did this for my colleague from Timmins—James Bay and for my colleague from Sudbury.
Why did they want to hear from the people of Timmins—James Bay and Sudbury specifically? Once again, it was a flimsy pretext for getting my colleague from Timmins—James Bay to vote against the amendment so that they could then tell his constituents that their MP was not interested in hearing from them, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with Bill C-50. Once again, as I was saying earlier, this is intimidation and disinformation. It has been going on for over a month at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
This is symptomatic of something I have been seeing since 2019, something I would call the Conservatives' all-consuming passion for the oil and gas industry. The Conservative members are as passionate about the oil industry as the Bloc Québécois members are about defending Quebec, Quebec's language and Quebec's culture.
I gave the example of my arrival in the House of Commons in 2019. I could hear people shouting “build the pipeline”. That is really something. Even though we are proud of Hydro-Québec, I have never heard a Bloc member shout “build the hydro towers". We have not gotten to that point. I have never heard that. The climax was when a motion was moved here saying that oil is irreplaceable. According to the Conservative members, oil is irreplaceable, the same way water or air or our relationship with our family is irreplaceable. To some Conservative members, oil is irreplaceable.
We are faced with a startling fact: The Leader of the Opposition wants to stay in the 20th century. He does not want to put an end to our dependence on oil. The oil and gas industry is his stock-in-trade. Unfortunately, I often get the impression that my Conservative Party colleagues are acting more like lobbyists for one economic sector than like representatives of their ridings.
Why do I say that? It is rather simple. Last week, some members from Quebec forgot all about the interests of Quebec farmers. They rose to ask why the Senate was not examining Bill C-234 and why we were seeing partisanship from some senators. I would remind the House that Bill C‑234 seeks to temporarily include the propane used to run grain dryers in the exemption for qualifying farming fuel. The much-talked-about carbon tax does not apply in Quebec, but there are members from Quebec who are asking questions in the House about why the senators are not passing that bill and who are talking about how terrible it is that they are not doing so. Meanwhile, the supply management bill is also languishing in the Senate. Who is holding that up? Let me give the answer. The Conservative senators are the ones who do not want to move forward on the supply management bill.
Imagine an MP from Quebec who has the president of the dairy farmers' association in their riding. Imagine that MP standing up in the House, saying that this is disgusting and asking why Canadian farmers are still paying for propane. However, this MP does not even mention supply management. Whose interests are they defending when they do things like that? Are they standing up for the interests of their constituents in the House of Commons, or are they standing up for the interests of the Conservative Party in their riding? I will let those members answer for themselves.
Personally, I think this clearly demonstrates that the Conservatives have a blind spot when it comes to the oil and gas sector. We have seen this over and over during the past month with Bill C‑50. I would say the Liberal Party is much the same. Why do I say that? When we pore over Bill C‑50 together later on, it will become clear that the Liberal Party also spared no effort trying to take a bill that was supposed to be about a just transition and make it acceptable to the main players in the oil and gas sector.
Just to come back to that and sum up what I just said, Bill C‑50 was initially supposed to focus on a concept accepted by all western nations, that of the just transition. It was supposed to be about that. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources did a study on the just transition. However, toward the end of that study, the conversation somehow stopped being about the just transition and started being about sustainable jobs. Why did that happen?
I wondered about that. Many unions came to see me to talk about the just transition. During the study, “just transition” was used in the wording. However, toward the end, that term stopped being used. Why? It is because people in the Liberal party were approached by certain people, people who may be close to the Premier of Alberta, and they told the Liberals that they do not like talking about transitions and that the Liberals should instead change directions and find another strategy. On the one hand, there is that. Some people told me, but I do not want to belabour the point because they may have had malicious intentions, that a play on words could be made between the Prime Minister's name and “just transition”, just as a rather spurious play on words was made between the Prime Minister's name and the issue of inflation. If they did that, if they changed the intent of a bill just because of a play on words, I would say that they are spineless.
Basically, they changed directions to please the Premier of Alberta and to appease the backbone of Canada's industrial sector, namely the oil and gas sector. Earlier, I asked my colleague from Lakeland if she believed in climate change, if she believed that the oil and gas industry was one of the main contributors to climate change, and if she believed that we should get out of the oil and gas industry. The reason I was asking my colleague these questions is that, in actual fact, Bill C‑50 is trying to reflect on the necessary transition. We will have to get out of oil and gas. Whether we like it or not, we will have to do it. The other advanced western nations are putting a lot of public funds into doing that. That is what the U.S. is doing. It is spending a huge amount of public funds to get out of oil and gas. However, Canada is trapped in this particular context where the economy largely relies on the oil and gas sector, and there is no political will to change that.
Earlier, I summarized the Conservatives' speeches. The Conservatives' political thinking over the past six months could be summed up in just two words: “carbon tax”. They want to eliminate the carbon tax. They blame the carbon tax for everything. I will say it again because I have to say it every time: The carbon tax does not apply in Quebec. The leader of the Conservative Party has said that the carbon tax will be the ballot box question. That means that in the next election, the ballot box question will be over something that does not apply in Quebec. That is rather surprising. Still, the Conservatives are all over it. The Conservative Party has been obsessed with the carbon tax for the past year. This demonstrates one simple fact: They do not believe in climate change. It seems to me that the last person in the Conservative Party who believed in climate change was Erin O'Toole.
I love this great quote from Erin O'Toole: “We recognize that the most efficient way to reduce our emissions is to use pricing mechanisms.”
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Madam Speaker, it is a conspiracy to silence me.
When he was leader, Erin O'Toole believed in carbon pricing. Unfortunately, no one in the Conservative Party believes in it any more and that is why we find ourselves in a situation where the Conservatives are going to try just about anything to kill a bill that goes against the interests of the oil and gas sector. That is their approach to Bill C‑50.
Let us quickly talk about Bill C‑50. The Bloc Québécois and I, personally, voted against Bill C‑50 since it had some major flaws. That said, I was open to discussing the bill. One of the major flaws had to do with workforce training. Canada and Quebec came to an agreement in 1995, that wonderful year in my life, the year of the referendum. In 1995, Quebec and Canada reached an agreement to promote workforce development and training. Since that time, workforce training falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec.
We know that Bill C‑50 will probably have an impact on workforce training. A just transition means giving employees new skills in new sectors. Acquiring new skills requires training. This is a problem in Bill C‑50 that the minister could fix. Members of the Bloc Québécois might be tempted to vote in favour of the bill if the workforce training issue is addressed to ensure that Quebec's jurisdiction in this area is respected.
Another, although possibly not insurmountable, problem exists. If we lack the courage to call a spade a spade, we may lack the courage to achieve our goals. We refuse to talk about a just transition even though most countries are talking about a just transition. We prefer to talk about sustainable jobs. I sense that the reason is because we lack courage. The problem is not insurmountable, however, as long as the bill is written the right way.
If the ultimate aim is to change the Canadian economy, as my colleague, the minister, was saying earlier, into a low-carbon economy, we have no objection to that. If the government really wants to do some soul-searching and stop providing endless funding to the oil and gas sector, we have no objection to that. If this is truly a step in the direction of an energy transition in Canada, the Bloc Québécois will not object to it as long as jurisdictions are respected.
Still, I do have my doubts. We learned in recent weeks and months that $30 billion is still on the table to pay for a pipeline. This is public money that will be used to support the gluttonous oil and gas sector, which made $200 billion in 2022.
I would like to hear my Conservative colleagues admit that when they talk about the cost of living and how people are struggling to pay their mortgage and put food on the table. I would like to hear them admit that, all the while, the oil and gas sector is making record profits. Shell made $42 billion. Chevron made $35 billion. Exxon Mobil made $55 billion. TotalEnergies made $20 billion. All those folks managed to make record profits thanks to ever-increasing profit margins. Why are my Conservative colleagues not outraged by that? I would like them to elaborate on that.
In closing, I would say that Bill C‑50 is not perfect. Perhaps it can be amended so that we can at least support it. One thing is certain. It proves that both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party are bogged down in a shared philosophy of giving everything to oil.
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- Dec/4/23 6:25:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in all honesty, the Standing Committee on Natural Resources has been a circus for over a month now. I do not consider myself an influencer; I am a legislator. I have seen that there are some people at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources who are choosing chaos and making videos that they put on social media to show how they are defending the interests of the people in their ridings. That is highly debatable. I do not think that is the image we want to project as a parliamentarian.
As parliamentarians, we want to project an image of responsible people, people who want to move government issues forward. That is not what we saw last month at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Now it is all out in the open. I encourage people, if they want to get an idea of the attitude of certain Conservative Party elected officials, to go and watch these videos. They will be able to judge those actions for themselves.
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- Dec/4/23 6:27:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my esteemed colleague from Lakeland is absolutely right. This bill is based on a concept that is used by the Conference of the Parties, or COP, by the United Nations, by all western countries and by labour movements that go far beyond unions in Canada and Quebec. Everyone uses the concept of a just transition, which refers to what is now a global reality.
Why can Canada not apply the concept of a just transition? Why do we need to talk about sustainable jobs?
It is up to the government to respond, but in my opinion, the answer is very clear. The government is doing that because it lacks courage. As I was saying earlier, if the government cannot call a spade a spade, then I do not see how we will be able to implement the difficult measures needed to achieve a low-carbon economy.
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- Dec/4/23 6:29:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I understand that we do not have the same political vision, that we do not think the same way. I understand that sometimes one might use parliamentary strategies to hold up a debate. However, there is also the manner in which things are done. That manner over the past few months has been not only questionable, but also sad and shocking.
Again today, a Conservative MP said at the beginning of the sitting that the chair of the committee misled them because he told them that when the discussions were cacophonous, that was hazardous to the health of the interpreters. What the member was saying is that they should be left to heckle in peace and not be bothered with matters of official languages. Then I remarked that I had been denied one of my privileges. When all the Conservative members shout in their microphones at the same time, there is no interpretation possible for a francophone member. That is one of the examples of the bad faith that we have seen over the past few months.
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- Dec/4/23 6:31:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a great question.
I know that the minister received a lot of letters from all the major unions in Quebec asking him to respect the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail, established in Quebec. This Quebec labour market partners table is doing exactly what the minister hopes to do. It is consulting unions and employers to come up with training strategies. That already exists in Quebec. I think the department made a mistake to disregard that. We mentioned it to the minister and I believe he gave a good answer. He said that he was open to changing some aspects of the bill.
Now, it is very clear. I think that the consensus among all Quebec unions and employers is that this agreement must be upheld.
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- Dec/4/23 6:33:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying earlier, nothing is perfect.
Yes, I think it is important. I think that it is very important, because we should not be lying to people. I am sure that Albertans want us to tell them the truth.
Unfortunately, the truth is that, in the long term, there is no future in the oil and gas industry. If we know there is no future in the oil and gas industry in the long term, then we need to find a way to make sure that the people who work in industries that are in decline or going to die out because we have to reduce our carbon footprint are able to maintain a good quality of life.
I completely agree with my colleague that it is a good thing to have a well-thought-out bill that enables us to take bold action and make a just transition.
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