44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 11, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/11/24 1:54:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to a common‑sense piece of legislation, the Canadian sustainable jobs act. This is legislation that will enable Canadian workers to succeed. That is what it is all about.
I will be honest, and I think I am just going to riff a bit here. Honestly, I could not stay in the House for very long. I needed to find a wall to bang my head against while I heard what I heard from the other side of the House, or what little we could hear with their heads in the sand.
Let me be very clear about the context in which we are discussing this proposed legislation. Green energy is happening. Renewables are happening. Biofuels are happening. Hydrogen is happening. Lowering emissions in the oil and gas industry in Alberta, in British Columbia, in Saskatchewan and in Newfoundland and Labrador is happening.
One thing I learned as minister of natural resources is that workers want to know, want to understand and want to have a say in what is happening. If members were to blame anybody for the shenanigans of what we have heard over these past few months, I guess they will have to blame me because I am the one who thought maybe it was a good idea to set up a committee that would involve workers so that we could take their advice on the big issues facing the fourth biggest producer of oil and gas in the world, which is Canada. We are very good at doing what we do, but all these things that I am talking about and all the investments, prosperity and the jobs that come with those things are happening, and we have to make the most of them.
When we came up with this legislation, we did get a reaction from workers. We got a reaction from the International Union of Operating Engineers who said that the act “puts the interests of energy workers at the forefront of a low-carbon economy.” We heard from the president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who said that this act shows the government's “commitment to protecting good-paying, highly skilled jobs.” Canada's Building Trades Unions welcomed the bill, saying that the consultation built into this process would “ensure workers are front and centre during this transition”.
Just to be clear for the Leader of the Opposition, these are the workers who actually wear steel-toed boots every day.
I could go on, but I know that the party opposite does not put much stock in what workers want. Why would they, when their leader has spent his entire career trying to bust unions and the workers who were in them? If they will not listen to workers, maybe they will listen to industry.
The president of the Business Council of Alberta said, “The Sustainable Jobs Act represents an important opportunity for Canada: to shape our future and create jobs by providing the resources that the world needs”. He also said that the act would help “equip [Canada] with the skills for the jobs of our future economy”.
From Clean Energy Canada: “deliverables and measurements for success while coordinating across the many federal departments...[a] commitment to centring indigenous voices”.
I could quote more leaders from industry, but then the Leader of the Opposition also has no respect for the people spearheading our resource industries after he said, “I meet with resource companies when they come to Ottawa, and all they do is suck up to the [Liberal] government. They have no backbone and no courage”.
I could list a slew of support that this legislation has from leaders in the climate and environmental sector, but I think I will go out on a limb and say that the party opposite probably does not hold much for them either, which begs the questions then: Who are they listening to? If it is not unions, if it is not workers, if it is not industry, if it is not business, Lord knows it is not science, and it is not environmentalists, then who are they listening to?
I will commend their efforts though. When the opposition decides to fight for something for no good reason, they will do it with so much conviction and creativity that we might think they have an actual cause.
After question period, I look forward to getting into the 14 pages of this piece of legislation, which, in effect, says that workers should be heard. What are the opposition members afraid of? Workers in the oil and gas sector in my riding, in my province, have told me time and time again that they will no longer be left out. They will not longer be marginalized. They will no longer be rage farms. On my watch, they will be included.
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- Apr/11/24 2:35:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this issue, it is very important to listen to constituents.
I would like to quote Danielle from Foothills. She said, “I do my family's taxes, so I know we got $808.50. We get an extra little bump for me and my husband because we live in a rural environment. When I go back and look at what I spent last year in carbon taxes, because I was working from home, I wasn't commuting, my gas bills were way down, and even the amount of tax that I paid on my home heating [bills]... we're principally natural gas where I live, I would say that I probably ended up better off with that transfer.”
We should listen to constituents, like Danielle of Foothills, Alberta.
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- Apr/11/24 2:42:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would allow Danielle from Foothills to continue with her comments. She also added, “I would say that I probably ended up better off with that transfer.” She also said, “[so] I think a lot of people would be of the view that if you are going to implement some kind of revenue-neutral carbon pricing, that's probably not a bad way of doing it.” These are the words of Danielle from Foothills.
I am happy to inform Danielle that two and a half years later since she made that comment, it is now up to $1,800 for a family of four in Alberta.
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- Apr/11/24 3:23:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say that, when I proposed this bill back when I was the minister of natural resources, the objective being that workers should have a seat at the table when major issues are being discussed like the transitions that are occurring within our economy, most especially the energy economy, I had no idea that Conservatives would have their staff put up some 20,000 amendments to the bill.
That is 20,000 amendments on a 14-page bill. I do not know what AI or CPC GPT they are using, but it is astounding to me that the Conservatives would go through this much trouble to stop something that I think is so astonishingly simple. When they were forced to admit that this stunt perhaps went a little too far even for them, they settled on a mere 200 amendments, which I understand is going to keep us occupied for some time.
What are these very serious and meaningful changes? The Conservatives have created and inserted dozens of random and conflicting dates into the legislation. They amend the same lines repeatedly. They delete entire clauses. As if to prove that they favour slogans over substance, they have even included some of their leader's favourite slogans into the legal text.
I am sure that these 200 amendments are very important, so important that they could not have been done at committee, by picking up the phone or by working with us over the months preceding this. I am sure these changes to the bill will help the member for Provencher finally enjoy his strawberry milkshakes again, as he testified at committee. I hear that the renewable energy industry, the one that employs 430,000 Canadians and has brought in tens of billions of dollars in investments for our country, is starting to make his strawberry milkshakes not as tasty.
I doubt these amendments will do what the party opposite really wants, that they will somehow reverse climate change and erase this booming, multi-trillion dollar renewable energy industry that is frankly an inconvenient truth to the opposition. They are meant to keep workers out of this conversation, out of this important dialogue that we are having about the future of our economy.
I am a member of Parliament from Newfoundland and Labrador. We are a proud oil-producing province that depends on our oil revenues for some 50% of our provincial budget. It is important to me and it is important to people out my way that we get this right, because we have skin in the game.
For those who may have missed it, I am happy to say that the provincial legislature of Newfoundland and Labrador, our House of Assembly, is the only jurisdiction in North America to unanimously vote for net zero. It made business sense. It sent the right signals to the business community. It sent the right signal to investors, and it is working. It did that unanimously.
I am proud of my province's offshore industry. I am prouder still to say that representatives of oil companies and their suppliers rebranded their association from the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association, NOIA, to become Energy NL. That is so it can talk not just about oil and gas, which is so tremendously important to our province, but also about hydrogen, renewables and hydroelectricity and how they mix together.
The expertise that workers have gained from any one of these industries lends itself so well to so many of these other industries. It is indeed our competitive advantage. During COVID and during a time when we also suffered an oil price war, which occurred because of Saudi Arabia and Russia, so many workers in my riding and jurisdiction said they wanted to have a seat at the table. They wanted to have some say in their future.
In these 14 pages, we would create a table, put them at the head of it and say we will listen to their advice, and that is it. Why does this warrant 20,000 amendments? Even whittled down to 200, why does this occupy the productivity and precious time of members of the House? It is utter and complete nonsense. It is malarkey. It is important that this bill go through. There is nothing, I say to members of the House, to be afraid of. Listen to workers and include them.
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- Apr/11/24 3:29:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would never speak in such a disparaging tone about the proud Newfoundland and Labrador energy and oil and gas workers who travel the world because they are the best at what they do. They often get paid more money and have greater opportunities. They have, because of this industry, the ability to live at home in Newfoundland and Labrador and travel the world to where they are paid the best and where they are attracted. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, I am proud of it.
It employs many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians right now. When I go to Argentia and Placentia Bay in Newfoundland and look out at a gravity-based structure that is being built by Newfoundlanders and Labradorians right now, as it stands proudly right next to the biggest monopile marshalling port on the eastern seaboard, do not tell me we cannot have our cake and eat it too. I will take opportunity everywhere I can find it.
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- Apr/11/24 3:31:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it did not happen in the 1980s. I can tell that member that some of us remember exactly where we were in July 1992 when that happened.
Let me add something else, first and foremost, we have developed an expertise in Newfoundland and Labrador in the offshore that not only this government but every Newfoundlander and Labradorian is extremely proud of. We will continue to grow that industry as we welcome new and better opportunities. We will not stand in its way. We will listen to workers.
I ask this member to please tell me where in the bill some dictum comes down from on high. We are creating a table, we are putting workers at the head of that table, and we are saying that we will listen to their advice, full stop.
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- Apr/11/24 3:32:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would also add that while I am very proud of the fact that Quebec has such a low-emitting and predominantly hydroelectric economy, there are workers in other parts of this country, predominately in my province and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, who worry about the future.
They worry about the future of an industry that is changing internationally. I would say to hon. members to not stand in the way of jobs and prosperity, because regardless of what we think in the House, the world of energy is changing. We need to grasp the opportunities that are there. There is nothing that any of us can say or do that will stand in its way. What will make a difference is the number of jobs and the prosperity that we create in an international phenomenon that is called net zero.
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