44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 15, 2024 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, earlier I heard my colleague from Lakeland answer my question by stating that politicians have to be honest. It seems to me that Bill C-50 may in part address this issue of honesty. If we want to be honest with the people of Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Maritime provinces, whose economy depends mainly on oil, we must tackle climate change and find solutions. That is what I originally thought a bill on the just transition would do. I thought it would help us find solutions to figure out a way to minimize the impact of a necessary transition on workers.
Everyone recognizes that fossil fuels are largely responsible for climate warming and climate disruption. Everyone recognizes that, except maybe certain Conservatives. Everyone recognizes it, but the way to prove that is by taking action. When my colleague says that politicians should be honest, that applies to everyone. I suspect some of our colleagues in the Conservative Party are going to wake up 10 years from now with a pretty bad headache after blowing up the endless balloon of an oil- and gas-based economy.
As far as I am concerned, Bill C‑50 is a textbook example of what is wrong with Canadian politics. I mentioned honesty earlier because I feel that political processes are powerless in the face of the oil and gas sector, which is kind of steering the Canadian economy. As a dispassionate observer, I see the oil and gas sector as a symbol of Canada's identity, such a strong symbol that it makes dialogue on the energy transition impossible. These positions are irreconcilable.
I saw this at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources, where I witnessed blatant filibustering, incivility, and tactics that I believe are totally unworthy of parliamentarians. That is why the Liberals responded in a way that may have been less than optimal—perhaps one of the worst ways possible, in fact—when they took the undemocratic step of shutting down debate. Did they have any other choice? History will not tell us, but this is how the Liberals responded.
The Liberals are not without their faults, either. The Minister of Energy and Natural Resources is a good minister. He does not seem too partisan to me, and he is open to dialogue. However, he too is in the stranglehold of the oil sector, so there is only so much he will do to move ahead with the necessary transition.
The minister found another dance partner, the NDP. It was only natural. The NDP even swallowed several bitter pills. I saw members go along with certain things on the energy transition at committee. That kind of undercuts their claim that standing up for the fight against climate change is part of their values. I may come back to this later when I talk about the difference between a just transition and sustainable jobs.
I was saying that Bill C‑50 is a textbook example of what is wrong with Canadian politics. With this bill, we saw the full scope of what I call the Carleton method, the member for Carleton's method, which has been in place for a while now. This method can be summed up in one word: intimidation.
We witnessed some fairly major intimidation at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Sometimes, when the Conservative members heckled others during the proceedings, it seemed to me that they were acting like influencers rather than lawmakers. Their goal was to wreak havoc in committee. Then some members recorded themselves on video to show viewers what a great job they were doing defending the public's interests. What an utterly pointless exercise. That is the way things went at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. Why am I saying this? It is because it feels like Bill C‑50 was never really debated in committee.
Our chance to have a debate by presenting our amendments and getting to discuss them was stolen from us by the Conservatives' attitude. I will repeat this ad nauseam: This attitude of the Conservatives can be explained by what I see as an all-consuming passion for the oil and gas sector.
At the Standing Committee of Natural Resources, I learned that the member for Provencher's argument against Bill C-50 boiled down to the fact that he likes muscle cars and would rather drink his milkshake through a plastic straw. When I learned that, I thought to myself: Our future is guaranteed, this is the way to go, in other words, more muscle cars—I see my colleague nodding his approval—and plastic straws. Is there anything worse than drinking a milkshake through a paper straw? I mean, really.
I also learned from the member for Red Deer—Mountain View that oil could be used to create peace in the world. In my former life, I taught political science, and I used to talk to my students about colonialism. Now I have learned a new concept: eco-colonialism. Apparently, it is eco-colonialist to stop indigenous peoples from developing oil. That is pretty shocking. Can there be a more pernicious reasoning than that? They are basically trying to secure social licence by saying that refusing to develop new oil projects that are affiliated with indigenous communities is a new form of colonialism. Rarely have I seen such twisted logic. My colleague from Red Deer—Mountain View also suggested that oil can bring peace to the world. Supposedly, Canadian oil and gas could stop the conflict in Ukraine and maybe even the conflict in Israel. Apparently, the answer to all the world's problems is oil.
All that is nothing, though. The Standing Committee on Natural Resources, which includes the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who is a world champion at making us go around in circles, spent almost a month arguing over whose turn it was to speak. As members know, each committee is made up of one member of the Bloc Québécois, one member of the NDP and four members of the Conservative Party, and the others are all Liberals. However, five or six Conservatives showed up, all demanding to speak. They started causing a ruckus, saying that their parliamentary privilege was being breached because they were not being allowed to speak. We spent a month on that. If that is not wasting time, I do not know what is.
The worst part was when we did the clause-by-clause study. The member for Brantford—Brant flew into such a rage that I feared for my whip's safety. I had never seen anything like it. He snapped. He just lost it and started yelling. He really loves the oil and gas industry. In my view, he simply lost it. At one point, I was afraid for my whip's safety. All that happened at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources.
In my opinion, a legislator's job is to calmly study bills in order to improve the society in which we live, to change the direction in which society is heading. How can we do that in an atmosphere like that? How can we do that when some people's prime objective is to derail the process and make dialogue impossible? In politics, the watchword is “dialogue”, meaning a discussion among people who have different visions but who are able to reach a consensus. It was absolutely impossible to reach a consensus on Bill C‑50.
The Conservatives' all-consuming passion for the oil industry was only confirmed by Bill C-49. They invited Ches Crosbie, an eccentric character who does not believe in climate change and who thinks that all the investments in fighting climate change are bogus. We have it on video. He was invited to testify by the Conservatives, who thought he might contribute something important to the debate by spewing absurdities. Maybe one day we will hear testimony from someone trying to convince us that the Earth is flat.
The Conservatives' all-consuming passion came to the fore in committee. I see that as the member for Carleton's method. The Conservatives' decision to reject everything that has to do with the fight against climate change can be seen in their never-ending attack on carbon pricing. We have actually started saying that the Conservatives are obsessed with the “carbum” tax, because they are acting like bums. Anything goes. They can say one thing, then contradict themselves. They can say for weeks that a tax applies to Quebec when it does not. They can say for weeks that carbon pricing is responsible for skyrocketing food prices. We saw them say that many times. The worst is what I saw them do in recent weeks, when they exploited the increase in the cost of living and the misfortune of the most vulnerable to help big oil push its agenda.
What the Leader of the Opposition wants to do is keep the economy stuck in the 20th century. He certainly does not want to end our dependence on oil and gas. We see the proof here every day. When someone asks a question about the oil and gas industry, they get a huge round of applause. No, that is not true. There are two things the Conservatives applaud. The first is the oath to the King. They perk right up when that subject comes up. The second is anything having to do with oil. That makes the Conservatives really happy. That is their bread and butter.
There is nothing more ironic than to hear them say we need to deal with inflation and help low-income people, while at the same time defending the agenda of the most wealthy. I have never seen a Conservative stand up and say that giving $82 billion in tax credits to the oil industry between now and 2034 is ridiculous and that we should use that money to help people in need. I have never heard a Conservative say that. I have never seen a Conservative stand up and say that investing $34 billion in an oil pipeline is absolutely ridiculous. These are the issues that should get their blood boiling, not a potential tax on the greedy oil and gas industry. I would just like to remind the House that, in 2022, this greedy industry raked in $200 billion in profits.
Far be it from me to remind my Conservative colleagues that their former leader, Mr. O'Toole, believed carbon pricing was one of the best ways to fight climate change. I will not do that. Rather, I will focus on the reasons the Bloc Québécois will be voting against Bill C-50.
The first reason is that, in my opinion, the bill is not actually about a just transition. Just transition is a concept. Everyone in the western world uses the term “just transition” to describe the efforts we should be making to plan a carbon-free economy while mitigating the negative impact on workers as much as possible. Everyone agrees, except Canada.
Why is Canada the only country that does not want to adopt the concept of a just transition? Some less charitable souls told me that one possibility is that we could make a pun with the Prime Minister's name. In fact, our Conservative friends made a not-so-clever pun with the Prime Minister's name and inflation. If that is why, it is pretty childish. I hope that is not it. The other possible reason why Canada uses “sustainable jobs” instead of “just transition” is apparently because the Premier of Alberta cannot stand the thought of talking about a just transition. For that reason, Canada chose to talk about sustainable jobs rather than just transition.
I figure that if we do not call a spade a spade, that makes it difficult to take the bold measures that need to be taken immediately if we want to deal with climate change. How bold can we be if we cannot call a spade a spade? That made it difficult for us to support the bill on just transition.
What made it impossible to support the bill is the federal government's calculated abandonment of the asymmetrical agreement on workforce management between Quebec and Ottawa. Quebec has the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail, which allows Quebec society to hold debates between the government, the major unions and employers. We thought that, in Quebec, the concept of a just transition should be debated by these partners and abide by the asymmetrical agreements reached between the governments of Canada and Quebec.
Unfortunately, I have had many discussions with the minister. I thought that at some point we could get there. I had a lot of discussions, I met several times with unions to discuss the bill on a just transition. I will admit that some unions were on board. I have friends in the unions who were prepared to put water in their wine and go for sustainable jobs, as a gesture of compromise. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, the federal government did not accede to their demands that the asymmetrical agreements between Canada and Quebec be respected and that the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail be given a more important role. That is why the Bloc Québécois will unfortunately not be supporting the bill.
However, there are some necessary steps that could have been taken. As I said at the beginning of my speech, Canada is in the oil and gas industry's economic stranglehold. What can we do to make a just transition? What action can we take?
First, the government needs to do away with the strategies that it is currently proposing. When I hear talk of a low-carbon economy in Canada, it is immediately clear to me that the government's and even the opposition's proposals are flawed. Among other things, I am talking about blue hydrogen, which uses carbon capture and storage. That is a key piece of the government's plan to fight climate change.
Many witnesses came and told the Standing Committee on Natural Resources that, from a technical standpoint, it is unfeasible to use carbon capture and storage technologies for the volumes that the government is talking about. Many witnesses also told us that it is unfeasible to produce blue hydrogen, or hydrogen from gas, because it is so expensive, and yet the government is investing massive amounts in tax credits and research support for the oil and gas industry's pipe dream.
In Canada, there is talk of developing low-carbon oil. The majority of experts we talk to say that is impossible. However, the Canadian strategy, as I was saying earlier, with its big tax credits, is focused on the pipe dream of producing low-carbon oil. I always tell the same joke: low-carbon oil is like diet poutine. It does not exist. If we want to fight climate change, then we simply cannot insist on economically supporting the oil companies. If we want to go on a diet then we cannot eat poutine. It amounts to the same thing.
I will close with an anecdote. I joined the minister in Berlin where we attended a meeting with people from Siemens. The minister asked them whether Siemens would be interested in producing the technology for blue hydrogen. The people from Siemens answered rather honestly, saying that the production cost would be so high that they would need government support. In addition to that, the technological costs are so high that it is practically impossible. Yet the government's entire strategy is based on a similar pipe dream.
I see that my time is up. Basically, the Canadian oil and gas sector's stranglehold has led us to a dead end. Unfortunately, we will not be able to produce legislation consistent with our goals and a just transition.
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