44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 4, 2023 11:00AM
- Dec/4/23 4:16:19 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, this has been on the floor of the House of Commons and in front of committee, but there has been a moving target on this, particularly with the Supreme Court's reading on the Impact Assessment Act, which has reopened whether there is any validity to this law whatsoever or if we are going to just end up putting the country into another couple of years of legal morass where nothing gets done. Nothing will get done for any workers in Canada. Nothing will get done for any projects in Canada. Nothing will get done for any provinces in Canada. Nothing will get done in Canada.
The government is happy with that. The government is used to that. The government has created that atmosphere across this country. That is what needs to stop in this country. The fact is we need to get things done here again. This is one more laden bill that basically says that we do not want anything to happen in Canada, but not to worry, workers, they are on their side, even though workers will not have any jobs at the end of their agenda. It is a ridiculous scenario. We need to have it examined clearly in the House of Commons, particularly with the interpretations from the Supreme Court of Canada, to see if this is legitimate legislation in the first place.
Could the minister stand up and tell us if he has anything resembling an advanced ruling on this?
248 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 4:38:17 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, this is about labour. The minister keeps saying it is about the labour that is going into Canadian manufacturing and the labour that he can try to move, with Canadian taxpayer dollars, out of productive industries and into unproductive industries that are not making any money. It is a shift into provincial jurisdiction. He knows that. He knows that the federal government has no expertise here, no reason to be here because it is already being done by every one of the provinces way more effectively than the federal government could ever do.
I will cite an example. We talked about the coal transition, Canadian coal workers and communities. There was a whole bunch, $185 million, in funding until 2025. Where did it go? It went into consultants only. It did nothing for the coal workers. It did nothing for the communities. It got put in the pockets of Liberal insiders, and that is what the government is all about; it is about paying its own friends and not paying Canadians who are going to be displaced in this—
182 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 6:00:51 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is the second time I have heard in the House of Commons that there is something anti-Semitic being referred to on this side of the House. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and I ask the member to withdraw the comment.
46 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 6:38:42 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, on a point of order, this is the House of Commons. We do not talk about physical violence in the House of Commons. Nobody has here. The fact that the member has brought it up, and said that somebody is threatening him physically, when nothing of the—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
55 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 6:39:00 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am asking you to make the member withdraw that remark because there was no threat of physical violence. It was for the member to try to make that statement outside of the House of Commons, where there is no parliamentary privilege accorded. This was from somebody who has no intention of any interaction of a physical nature whatsoever.
I would ask the member to withdraw that comment, please.
71 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 6:40:00 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You asked him to withdraw the comment about the physical violence that he suggested my colleague visited upon him here in this House of Commons.
I think everybody here in this House of Commons knows that did not occur. I would ask you to—
54 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:20:46 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for those comments on this bill and why we are at the stage we are at today. We are here because the Conservatives on the committee are trying to make sure the government understands there is a whole bunch at play here. Number one is jobs. Number two is we are wasting our time here again and again.
That time is being wasted because the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled on this twice now in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act where it sets the guidelines, but most recently in the Impact Assessment Act where it says very clearly what is provincial jurisdiction and what is federal jurisdiction.
Will he admit that he has to go back and get an actual judgment ahead of time, a pre-ruling, on whether this transcends federal jurisdiction to step into exclusively provincial jurisdiction at this point in time?
152 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:25:53 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is my honour tonight to rise and speak to this filibuster that these people are claiming it is at this point in time.
We have a number of motions that we have to address through committee processes—
41 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:26:28 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am speaking about the bill in front of us at this point in time. I apologize if my colleague does not know that.
I have been speaking about this since it arose over a year ago—
40 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:27:08 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I will start over, if I may.
We are here tonight to debate exactly what we are trying to ram through the House of Commons, which is a bill the Liberals put on the table over a year ago. I have spoken to many groups in Calgary about what this legislation represents, and I have been speaking to it since it came because there are all kinds of problems with this legislation, many of which have been exacerbated by events that have transpired since it was put on the table over a year ago.
Effectively, what we are talking about is the federal government's engagement and accountability framework to guide the government's efforts over time. However, it is based on false narratives.
Before I move forward any further, I will let members know that I will be splitting my time tonight with the member for Portage—Lisgar.
There are a lot of expert opinions being invented to move the bill forward. We can seek expert opinion, pay for it and make sure it says what we want it to say, and this government is very good at that. We found lots of ways it is spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars making sure it gets the right opinions in the right place and puts the money in the right pockets.
This is a brazen attempt to unilaterally move into the traditionally provincial jurisdiction of labour, the labour that is being produced in the provinces of Canada. We can think about how provinces actually fund the post-secondary institutions to make sure that jobs in demand are there four, five or six years hence. This is the provinces' job. The bill before us would be another muddying of the water of who is responsible for the outcome of delivering labour in Canada for the jobs we need going forward. We have enough of this muddling in Canada right now, and more of it is not going to accomplish anything. It is going to lead to more stalemates in every province.
I am dead surprised at the Bloc Québécois not opposing the bill openly because it is a gross movement into provincial jurisdiction. It is its raison d'être here in the House of Commons to make sure that the federal government does not move into provincial jurisdiction, but I guess the Bloc's hatred for the oil and gas sector, which funds most of what happens in this country, makes its members overrule their raison d'être, which is making sure that provinces have their responsibilities and that the federal government stays in its lane.
The bill would advance funding for skill development towards sustainable jobs, but at this point, the federal government, through transfers, already gives $1.8 billion to the provinces to make sure that they develop those jobs. That is partially funded by the federal government, through Canadian taxpayers, who fund the federal government, and part of that comes back to the province of Alberta. For industry, it means a double effort because it is already working with provincial authorities to make sure that we have the labour going forward. Now we have to make sure that we have the federal government onside as well as the provincial government. Well, it is double the effort, double the work. We have to make sure that we make things streamlined and stop creating uncertainty for every business in Canada, for every industry in Canada, primarily our natural resource industries.
One of the key actions I really like in the bill, and we can read it in the preamble, of course, is that one of the jobs for the federal government is to identify what data is currently tracked across the federal government and other accessible sources. This is actually what the government is going to spend money doing: finding out what data it already has. Now, this is a ridiculous use of legislation.
The government wants to motivate investors with a thing called “sustainable finance”. Members know that I have a background in finance, and “sustainable finance” is an anachronism. There is only finance. There are only numbers. We cannot monkey around with numbers and make the equation different. It is fabrication of the highest order. We need to get past it and realize that, at the end, the math has to work for everybody.
The government maintains it would allow us to collaborate and lead on the world stage, which is a joke. The federal government does not collaborate with any of the provinces. At this point, it is doling out cheques to its favourite friends, but it does not lead on the world stage. As a matter of fact, many people in the world are looking at Canada's diminishing role in the world and wondering what has happened. What has happened to Canada after eight years of this government is detestable on the world stage. We have got to get better outcomes and better recognition in the world about how we can contribute to the solutions that the world needs at this point.
There is an issue of accountability as well; we know the government is not good with accountability. We have to find a way to become more accountable, and that means staying in our lane. Where are we having an impact, and what do we have to do to make sure we get results for the country going forward? The legislation says it would guide a cohesive approach to climate energy security. I do not think the government even knows what it is talking about with regard to energy security. I think it has been making it up as far as its solutions for the climate, because it continues to fail with every goal it ever sets.
I am going to get into this whole notion of the definition of a “sustainable job”. Let us say that a sustainable job in this legislation would remain evergreen in order to evolve over time through consultation with key partners and the public. Liberals do not even know what they are aiming for. It is the most aimless legislation available, and yet they want to continue to move into provincial jurisdiction to basically muddy the waters in getting results. The input on this is that federal efforts must respect provincial jurisdiction, and none of this does so. I beseech my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois to recognize that, because they are about to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Industry talks about access to safe, reliable and affordable energy as the most important thing for Canada. Countries without safe, reliable and secure energy are effectively going down the rabbit hole of non-existence in the world. They are looking for solutions, and Canada provides them. We have to get ahead of this and make sure we understand where the world is and where Canada is. Frankly, when one talks to the Canadian public about this bill, people ask what a sustainable job and a just transition are.
Is a just transition like what happened in the coal industry in Alberta? Let us go over those numbers, because they are illustrative. They indicate that the government spent $185 million, accomplishing almost nothing. It set up its own commission and its own just transition for Canadian coal workers in communities in 2018. An 11-person panel of experts got $185 million in funding through to 2025. So far, $52 million has been spent, $27 million of that in my province of Alberta, but that included $18 million to build a road far from any of the coal plants. It was just a slush fund, and the government seems pretty good at building slush funds.
A case in point is Hanna, Alberta, where there was a coal plant. Hanna's unemployment rate went from 4% in 2011 to 10% in 2021, for the highest unemployment in Alberta. It is worse when we think about the workers there. What happens to them when everyone in the whole town loses their job? The houses become worth much less. The average house price in 2016 was about $177,000 in a rural town in Alberta. In 2022, the same house was worth $65,000. What is the number one type of savings a family has? It is their home. When their home value goes down by over $100,000, almost two-thirds, they recognize that is value they will take a long time to get back. It also means there is no tax loss selling there, because it does not get any tax relief in that respect. It is something we have to make sure we have our eyes on. We should not replicate the same disaster the government had with the coal industry.
Is there any indication that the federal government has competence in this realm? No, there is not. It does not know this at all. It is trying to invent it by saying it wants a certain jurisdiction now, because it wants its thumb on the scale about where it gets to see jobs in Canada going forward. It is not enough to continue to spill money out of their jeans in certain sectors that it thinks are going to be more important. It is really the government putting its thumb on the scale to try to determine where the jobs should be in Canada. Those jobs are not anywhere without private sector investment. We are a disaster, as far as the world goes, because we have to continue to spend government money. Private sector investment not happening in this country, because of the uncertainty created by the government, and this bill would add to that uncertainty.
1639 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:38:06 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member across the way. I was a member of his committee once. He was a really good Chair of that committee, one of the best Chairs on the Liberal side of the House that I have had to work with.
Let me say that when there are rulings from the Supreme Court of Canada in the midst of legislation that more or less says that, no matter what, the legislation moving forward is going to face a Supreme Court challenge, it is time to revisit the legislation, bring it back and rewrite it so it is actually pertinent and might go somewhere.
At this point in time, we are going to spin our wheels in the House of Commons, going through legislation which is likely going to be overturned. That is the point we are trying to make here: get back to work where we are actually accomplishing something for Canadians.
156 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:39:53 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, if I made a mistake, I apologize. I listened to his colleague's speech, which seemed to suggest that he was in favour of the bill. I was sure that he was in favour of the bill, because I know him well. I know that he does not like the oil and gas sector, especially in Alberta, but I do not know exactly why, because we have discussed some facts pertaining to the oil sector.
If I made a mistake and my colleague was against the bill, I am very sorry. I must have heard his colleague's speech wrong.
102 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/4/23 7:41:50 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the loss of jobs in Canadian energy since 2015 is a result of government policy. It is government policy that has caused the bulk of Canadian workers in the natural resource sector to leave their jobs, and not of their own accord. They wanted the jobs. They are some of the most productive and most value-added jobs in Canada, yet they have been thrown under the bus by policies of the Liberal government.
We can look at the Canadian dollar. It is no longer moving up with the price of oil around the world, because money is not flowing into Canada. It goes somewhere else. Eight years ago, there was no oil being produced in Guyana. Now, Guyana is at almost a million barrels a day. That money is not coming into Canada, and our dollar, as a result, stays low.
We have to make sure not only that workers are being encouraged to work in productive sectors but also that they are paid appropriately and in money that actually means something around the world, as opposed to in a devaluing currency, as we have had under the Liberal government.
193 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
