44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2024
- Bill C-49 is an Act that amends the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. It changes the titles of these acts to include offshore renewable energy management and establishes the Canada–Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Energy Regulator and the Canada–Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator as the regulating bodies for offshore renewable energy projects. The bill also establishes a land tenure regime for issuing licenses for offshore renewable energy projects and expands the application of safety and environmental protection regulations to include these projects. It allows for negotiations and compensation related to interests in abandoned facilities and establishes a regulatory and liability regime for these facilities. The bill also addresses other areas such as access to offshore infrastructure, hydrocarbon management in tra
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It being 3:20 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the amendment of the member for Tobique—Mactaquac to the motion at third reading of Bill C‑49.
Call in the members.
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Mr. Speaker, our Atlantic accords bill would allow for the development of offshore wind projects. By investing in renewable energy, we are investing in a future for Atlantic Canadians that is green and prosperous, one where we fight climate change and create jobs. The Conservatives are getting in the way of Atlantic Canada by opposing Bill C-49.
What is the government doing to ensure that Atlantic Canada can contribute to the green economy?
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Madam Speaker, my hon. friend is right. Investors are looking at Bill C-49 and they are looking at Bill C-69. They see provisions in the bill before us that would give the very anti-resource Minister of Environment and the anti-resource Minister of Natural Resources power to arbitrarily kill projects, even after investors have invested billions. Who would invest billions into the country on any project knowing that at any time the same government that says it wants to phase out oil and gas can step in and kill a project on a whim for political gain?
This issue is no different, and we will continue to see a lack of investment in Canada while we have the current government in power.
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It turned out that they were my former neighbours. This couple lived in the lot right behind our house. Back then, if anyone has ever lived in St. John's, they would know it has very lovely winters with lots of snow. The first year I lived there, we had 22 feet of snow, a record amount of snow. It was not until June that I found out we actually had an eight-foot fence in our backyard. This couple was laughing about living behind us. I had to laugh because, at the time, we had this beautiful dog named Doonesbury. He was the world's greatest dog. He would wander on these huge snowbanks, from yard to yard because, of course, the snow was way above the fence. It turned out that he had often visited their yard to do his business, so it was years later that I had the opportunity to apologize for my dog.
There are a few things I would note about people from Newfoundland. They really never leave the rock. I worked in Fort McMurray for a while, and we had the largest club at the time, the Newfoundland club. When we would meet in Fort McMurray, they all had the same wish; they wanted to be able to go back home to work and to get good jobs, which of course were not available. That is why they were in Fort McMurray. When I lived in Newfoundland, every time I travelled to the mainland or away, usually to Nova Scotia where our regional office was, and then flew back to St. John's, I would land at about midnight at the airport, and there were always about 50 to 70 people, families holding up signs and welcoming back their family members, who were mostly coming from Alberta because of work. Since taking over this job nine years ago, I have probably returned to the Edmonton airport 300 to 400 times, and not once has anyone been waiting there for me with a sign. With Newfoundlanders, it was always like that. It was quite amazing.
It is a beautiful city. I enjoyed my time living there, although I cannot say the same about the weather with the massive amounts of snow. I remember that on the May long weekend, I was flying to Nova Scotia; I think it was May 21. The day before, in Halifax, there was a record high of 36°C. I was waiting in St. John's for my wife to come home with the car and drive me to the airport. We had a snowstorm, and she got the car stuck in the driveway in a snowbank. She walked in with our two kids, who were about one and two years old at the time. With tears streaming, she said that she was leaving me and was moving back to Victoria. That almost sums up the weather. However, I noticed a month later, in late June, that we were shovelling the snow in the driveway, and in the back of the house where there was sun, we were mowing the backyard. That is the weather in Newfoundland.
Everywhere I have lived, I have run into people from Newfoundland who want to get back to the rock, but they want good jobs. Bill C-49 I do not see delivering that. There are quite a few flaws in the bill. I want to go over some of them.
Clause 19 of Bill C-49 would open the door to more red tape and likely to delays. We have heard repeatedly about a lack of investment and productivity in this country. It takes 15 to 20 years to get a mine approval and years to get a housing approval. In Alberta, we see people not wanting to invest in the country because they know the red tape and the approval process make it so slow. Clause 19 is going to add to that and going to discourage investment. It would shift decision-making power and licence approvals to the federal and provincial ministers, while tripling the amount of time the decision can take.
The government often talks about how we need experts to make the decisions, yet this bill will take power away from experts and regulators and put it into the hands of the very partisan and biased natural resources minister. Can members imagine anyone who is involved in resource investment in this country looking at our current environment minister or natural resources minister and saying that Canada looks like a great place to invest in because they can trust their opinions? Of course not.
Clause 28 would give the federal minister, with the approval of the provincial minister, the power to outright ban drilling in certain areas and to even halt projects that are already approved and in progress. That sounds a bit like Kinder Morgan and Trans Mountain. That was approved, and it was going to spend billions of dollars just to find out that the government can retroactively change the rules. Who wants to invest in this environment? Who wants to create good jobs in this kind of an environment? If the bill were to pass with clause 28 as written, it would put an end to offshore petroleum drilling in Atlantic Canada, killing good-paying jobs for workers and further strengthening eastern Canada's dependence on foreign oil imports from dictatorships like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
We have seen how the government treats resource projects in this country. Section 61 and 62 would invariably be abused by the government, and they would attach so many strings that approval for projects would become unfeasible. Does anyone remember energy east? We have TransCanada ready to spend billions of dollars so we can bring Alberta oil and Saskatchewan oil out east to get the eastern provinces off of U.S. oil and off of dictator oil. Instead, the government threw up so many roadblocks and changed the goalposts so many times, it ended up cancelling the project.
Section 61 and 62 would bring the unconstitutional Bill C-69 into the review process, allowing the minister to attach any conditions they see fit to an approval. Sections from the Impact Assessment Act, previously Bill C-69, also known as the no-new-pipeline bill, have been put into Bill C-49. On October 13, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled Bill C-69 largely unconstitutional. The federal government has not fixed those sections to date. If Bill C-49 is passed, as written, it would include 32 references to sections of Bill C-69 that the Supreme Court identified as unconstitutional.
Bill C-49 also includes the discretionary decision-making power of the minister and the entirety of the designated project scheme, both of which are unconstitutional, so components of Bill C-49 may also be unconstitutional. Section 64 of Bill C-69 was deemed unconstitutional, and is referenced throughout Bill C-49, which allows the minister to interfere in a project they think is in the public interest and create any conditions they deem necessary to which the project proponent must comply.
We, in Alberta, know full well what the government does to resource projects. We know full well how it works against resource projects. Of course, we had Bill C-50, the so-called just transition bill, which we called the unjust transition bill. It would be absolutely devastating to Alberta.
I want to give members some numbers the conference board put together. Bill C-50 would destroy 91,000 jobs in Alberta. That is a 58% increase in Alberta's jobless rate. There would be a decline in our GDP of almost 4%, and a 50% bigger hit than the 2008 financial crisis. Alberta revenue would be chopped up to $127 billion over 10 years. That is almost a 20% drop per year.
We see very clearly the Liberal government's intention toward our natural resources. It is kill the resources at all costs, send Canadians into poverty, hurt Alberta, hurt Newfoundland, and hurt resource-producing provinces, which is why we will not vote for Bill C-49.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-49. As I have mentioned in the House, I have had the pleasure of living across the country, from one side to the other, from Victoria to northern Alberta and even in Newfoundland for a while. Therefore, Bill C-49 hits a bit close for me, so I am very pleased to speak to it.
To sum up Newfoundland, I will tell members of an experience I had. One day in Edmonton, I was door knocking for the first campaign in 2015. A lot of Newfoundlanders live in my riding of Edmonton West, or as I call it, “Edmonton West Edmonton Mall”. A couple was in the garage. It was a hot day and the garage door was open. They were sitting having a beer inside their garage, and we started chatting. They said they were from Newfoundland, and I said I used to live in St. John's, so we started chatting. They invited me to have a beer, so I sat down with them. We had a nice beer together.
A couple of years later, during the horrible forest fires in Fort McMurray, where, of course, a lot of people from Newfoundland were living, the residents had to evacuate. This couple had taken in a couple from Fort McMurray, who also were Newfoundlanders. I was at an event one night at the Good Shepherd Church. It was a fundraising event. I ran into this couple, and they introduced me to this other couple who they were housing. They were complete strangers, but because they were Newfoundlanders, they were happy to take in this couple. We started chatting and they said they were from St. John's. I said that I used to live there and they asked where. I said I used to live on Bindon Place.
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Mr. Speaker, thank you for pointing that out.
Mr. Morneau said he had pointed out, on several occasions, to the Prime Minister that he had a focus on improving Canada's productivity. Mr. Morneau said, unfortunately, the Prime Minister was not interested in that. He was more interested in distributing wealth, rather than creating wealth.
I think that is one of the fundamental economic problems in Canada today. The person at the head, the Prime Minister, is not interested in these sorts of things. That is very evident with what we see in Bill C-49. There is no interest in talking about the things that drive our economy and that are going to improve our wealth and wealth for Atlantic Canadians.
What are the sorts of things that we can do to improve our productivity, our per capita GDP? We talked about investment already. Bill C-49, the old Bill C-69, scared investment away, and that needs to be reversed. The Conservative members are saying that we need to bring this bill back to committee. These are the sorts of things that we have to look for.
We also need to reduce red tape. That is another common-sense solution to Canada's lagging productivity. We need more innovation. We need to develop our natural resources.
I want to talk about something that is very important to my end of the country, the Pacific region, and that is liquid natural gas.
It was pointed out in earlier debates that Canada has an abundance of natural gas. That is how most western Canadians heat their homes and buildings, and it is used for a lot of our vehicles. Natural gas is much cleaner burning than coal or even oil.
The world wants it. How do we ship natural gas? We liquefy it, we put it into special containers and we ship it around the world. This is a proven technology, and Canada is ready and willing, but not able to do it because the Prime Minister has told other countries there is no business case for this. Unbelievable. He said there is no business case for liquid natural gas.
Other countries in the world, like the United States, for example, see that there is a business case. Where we dropped the ball, the Americans picked it up and they are supplying Europe with liquid natural gas, which is exactly what Canada should be doing. Our allies are asking for this kind of help. It is a perfect solution to their problems, to wean themselves off Russian natural gas, and it is a perfect opportunity for us to grow our economy and improve our productivity.
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Mr. Speaker, tonight we are talking about Bill C-49, an act to amend the Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord. I am a member of Parliament from the other end of the country, the Pacific Coast, and it is a real honour for me to be joining in the debate about something that is so important to Canada. It goes to show that Canada really is a nation from sea to sea. I am from the other ocean, but it is wonderful to be here with my colleagues who are very knowledgeable about what happens on the Atlantic Coast. Listening to the speeches tonight, I have learned a lot about that part of my country.
Bill C-49 would impose, unfortunately, many of the Liberals' failed environmental assessment initiatives that have been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada for infringing on provincial jurisdiction. It was a real surprise for me, as I delved into this bill, to see that the Liberals would take the risk of incorporating a lot of the failed clauses of Bill C-69, which we call the “no more pipelines” bill, into this very important legislation about improving the economy of the Atlantic Coast, and I wonder why they would do that. The last thing that investment dollars and investment entrepreneurs want is risk. It has been pointed out before that this bill poses a political risk that is going to drive away investment. Here is a proof point that I think is really clear.
In 2022, there were five offshore land bids in Newfoundland and Labrador at a value of $238 million. If we move forward five months to May 30, 2023, about a year ago, when Bill C-49 was first introduced, which is not law yet. Business people read it and said that they did not want to take that risk, and in 2023, there were zero bids. That is just a really clear example of what happens when the government introduces legislation that does nothing more than introduce a lot of uncertainty into the mix.
If we take a look at what happened with the TMX pipeline, Kinder Morgan, which is a risk-taking company with very deep pockets. It was willing to take on the challenge of twinning the pipeline that had been in existence for 70 years with very little environmental risks involved. It started the project to twin that pipeline, which seemed like a very common-sense project to undertake, and it was, until the federal government started imposing environmental regulatory red tape that really did not do anything but slow down the project. Finally, Kinder Morgan said that it was out of there because It did not want that risk anymore. It is a business that wants to make money, and it could see that there was way too much risk there, so it pulled out. It was willing to walk away from its multibillion dollar investment at that point.
However, the Liberal federal government said that it needed that pipeline and that it could not let it go unfinished. It picked up the project for $5 billion, which was going to cost $7 billion altogether to complete it. In fact, the project is now finished, finally, but at a cost of $35 billion. The federal government is now saying it is for sale, but who is going to buy it? Certainly, not for $35 billion. That is what happens when government gets into business. It should just stay out of business and should let private enterprise do what it does best, which is to undertake projects that have a very good opportunity for earning a profit. I know “profit” is a bad word with the NDP-Liberal government, but let me assure members that private enterprise runs on profit. Profit drives innovation, competition, investment and creates wealth.
This is very important to Canada because our productivity numbers are lagging compared to our trading nations, and this has been pointed out on many occasions. It was recognized by the former Liberal minister of finance, Mr. Bill Morneau, in the book he wrote after he left government, after he was released from the Liberal Party's talking points. He said he had pointed out to the current Prime Minister that one of Canada's biggest economic challenges was its lagging productivity numbers.
Here is a nice, neat example of what exactly that means when compared to the United States. For every American worker who pumps in $100 into their economy, their Canadian counterpart, doing exactly the same kind of work, pumps $70 into Canada's GDP. We are 70% as productive as the United States. Does that mean that we do not work as hard? No, of course not. We are very hard-working and industrious people.
However, we do not have the tools, investment, creativity and tax fairness here in Canada. That is what is causing our productivity numbers to lag. That goes to the wealth of the nation. It goes to the wealth of individual people. This is what Mr. Morneau had pointed out to Mr. Trudeau on what he said were numerous occasions. He said—
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to join debate in the House of Commons, even quite late on a Monday evening. We are discussing Bill C-49, a bill the government tabled to solve regulatory issues and bring them in line with other bills it had passed, in particular, the Impact Assessment Act, Bill C-69 of the 42nd Parliament.
The problem with Bill C-49, as well as the sudden urge to ensure its passage by invoking closure and using procedural tools to force a vote on it, is this: Since the time the government tabled the bill at first reading to bring existing environmental regulations into line with the other red tape it brought in with Bill C-69, significant portions of Bill C-69 were struck down in court.
The prudent action any government would take in this situation would be to remedy the portions of its existing red-tape regime that have been found to be unconstitutional. The government has been found to have trammelled the constitutional prerogatives of provinces. This is what the Supreme Court found in its review of Bill C-69. However, the government is persisting, through Bill C-49, in taking the same unconstitutional framework and applying it to offshore projects, both oil and gas drilling projects and future renewable energy projects, such as offshore wind production or perhaps tidal electrical generation.
On this side of the House, we are the party of energy. Canadians need reliable, affordable and abundant energy. That energy could come from any of a variety of sources. We support all forms of energy that can deliver on those basic points of affordability, availability and reliability. Different parts of the country are able to produce energy in different ways. The potential for offshore in its oil and gas potential has brought, in fairly recent memory, tremendous economic benefit to Newfoundland and Labrador. For the first half or more of my life, this was by far the poorest region in Canada, with the lowest per capita GDP. It is a part of the country that really suffered economically and had the lowest standards of living in Canada.
We have seen in a generation what energy production can do for that part of the world and how so many people from Newfoundland and Labrador have also helped build Alberta and its energy projects. In addition to that, there is tremendous potential for offshore renewable energy. However, taking this unconstitutional model from the government's earlier bill and applying it to projects offshore, renewable or non-renewable, is not going to give affordable, reliable and available energy for Canadians or create the export opportunities that an abundance of energy may give. This is a flawed approach.
One would think that the Liberals would not need the opposition to move an amendment that would seek to refer the bill back to committee where it could be studied further and amended to deal with the reality of the Supreme Court's decision on renewable energy. However, they have even made it muddier still by tabling, in the House, a budget implementation act that further confuses regulatory issues and compliance and congruity between these different acts, by tabling a bill that overlaps and attempts to do some of these things the bill before us would do.
One would think that the Liberals would hold back on the bill before us and call the BIA tonight, and it is confusing because it is numbered Bill C-69, but have that debate instead and move that bill along. I mean, I will vote against it and I hope that other members will too and so that we can bring the government down and get on with the carbon tax election. However, either way, whether the bill passes or not, surely that is a more prudent present step than forcing through Bill C-49, which has obvious constitutional and regulatory problems to it. So, if they will not do it for that reason, if they will not do it for compliance or get the order right with the BIA versus Bill C-49, at least recognize that the Supreme Court has already weighed in on the substance of the bill and found it unconstitutional. The bill belongs back at committee, or perhaps just not called at all.
The Liberals have tabled a lot of bills, and a lot of them do not go anywhere. In fact, over these last few weeks, they have tabled a number of bills that they have not called, and so I do not understand, in terms of the management of its legislative calendar, why suddenly the drive to call the bill before us.
We have seen the kind of red tape that this government has given Canadians. The Liberals have already hindered traditional and alternative energy development in Canada. Under Bill C-69, no projects get approved. It is the no-more-pipelines bill, and it is going to become the no-offshore-wind-development bill and the no-offshore-drilling bill. To top it all off, I understand from speaking to a number of Atlantic members of Parliament that they have also managed to upset the stability and the investment climate for the fishing industry, because they have not consulted those in the fishing industry who stand to be affected by the bill. This government is so consistent in its muddy, muddled approach to regulation and the creation of red tape. It is time for this government to maybe fire some gatekeepers instead of finding new ways to tie up Canadian businesses and scare away investment.
However, scaring away investment is exactly what these bills have done. Bill C-69 led to capital flight from this country. We have seen how Bill C-49, even its tabling, has also triggered capital flight from Atlantic Canada in terms of projects abandoned and the dearth of new applications for drilling or offshore projects in the wake of the bill. As my colleague for Calgary Nose Hill said earlier, Canada has become a country where political risk is driving away investment, because decision-makers, those who allocate capital, do not know from one year to the next just what this government is going to do. It piles on laws that do not stand up in court and then it is charging along here tonight by calling the bill before us and having a debate on it as if the Supreme Court decision did not happen. It happened, and it cannot be ignored. The bill was tabled before that decision, and it does not take that decision into account. It should be taken back to committee where maybe it can get sorted out, or it can just be held back and not called again.
The Liberals have so many other bills that they seem to want to get approved but have not called and have chosen instead to call Bill C-49. I would call on the government to get a hold of its legislative calendar, get a hold of its constitutional issues, and go back and fix the bill if it is going to call it again.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree. At one point, I would have said that I do not understand what the government is doing, but after a while, one knows full well what they are doing. The Liberals and the NDP are antidevelopment. They are anti-Canadian jobs. They are doing everything they can to suppress investment in this country.
Look at what Bill C-49 would do. It is going to be caught up in the courts. There is going to be chaos and confusion. Look at Bill C-69 and what it has done to our natural resources sector. It has been devastating. It has been struck down in court. It will be the same thing here. The Liberal record after nine years is turning away investment in this country. We go through the laundry list and they keep saying they are proposing new ideas. It is the same failed approach that got us in this mess in the first place. It is time for a fresh start. Bill C-49 and their other efforts are not worth it.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise here in the House and have many of my colleagues join to listen as I contribute some points to the debate we are having here tonight, particularly on our Conservative amendment. Many would argue it would be common sense. I look forward to getting into that tonight a little bit more.
However, Mr. Speaker, you are from Nova Scotia. The legislation here impacts that province. It also impacts the great people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I had the honour to visit, a couple of weeks ago, the province. I had some great visits, travelling many miles, all the way from St. John's and Mount Pearl in the Avalon region, all the way across to Clarenville, Grand Falls, Windsor, Corner Brook, Deer Lake, Stephenville, Kippens, and all points in between. I think the debate here is timely tonight, as we talk about what the priorities are for the good people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
However, I want to give some breaking news here in the House tonight, if I could; breaking news that is fresh, hot off the press of some by-elections, a by-election that just took place in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Liberals love intruding into provincial jurisdiction on issues, although they should not. They get struck down by courts and we have these prolonged problems. I am going to bring in provincial jurisdiction here because in Newfoundland and Labrador, in that by-election tonight, in the riding of Baie Verte-Green Bay, the votes are in. It was a carbon tax by-election.
After nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, here is an interesting thing. Both of the PC and the Liberal candidates endorsed the Leader of the Opposition in Ottawa. The Prime Minister has become so toxic, even Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador want nothing to do with him. The results are in tonight and it was very conclusive. The voter turnout in the by-election tonight in central Newfoundland was 57%. It was 15 points higher than it was in the last general election in that riding. It was a close riding in 2021. The Liberals got about 52%, the PCs got 47%. Tonight, the Conservative candidate who opposes the carbon tax got 80% of the vote.
Congratulations to Lin Paddock from Ottawa. I am thankful to him for fighting the carbon tax, fighting and standing up against the punitive measures that the Prime Minister and the NDP are imposing on his province.
That by-election followed, in Newfoundland and Labrador, a by-election that just took place about a month ago. Again, it was the same thing around central Newfoundland. There was a historically high voter turnout in that riding. It took a long-time Liberal riding and flipped it to the PCs; again, a carbon tax by-election. They are just building the momentum. If we go to Nova Scotia, in Pictou West, the minister of housing's own riding, right in that region, the PCs not only held that riding, but they drastically increased their vote share and the turnout there was very solid for a by-election.
There was another example, absolutely, in Preston only a short while ago. For the first time, in a long-time Liberal or NDP back-and-forth riding for the most part, there was a Conservative victory there as well, another carbon tax by-election.
I raise this point tonight because there is a theme developing in Atlantic Canada. It is going from Liberal to common-sense Conservative. Here is the thing that is interesting. It is building the momentum. The Prime Minister and the NDP and Liberals know they are extremely unpopular. They know that their plan for this country is more and more unpopular, the more Canadians learn about it. The priorities that they try to address are out of touch with the realities on the ground.
After giving colleagues these updates of these carbon tax by-elections in those respective provinces, I cannot wait for our carbon tax election here to take place all across Canada. Canadians are going to have their say. I think the turnout and the blue wave are going to be equal in every part of this country.
I want to talk about Bill C-49 here tonight. I do listen to what the member for Kingston and the Islands says, believe it or not. I have to because both he and the member for Winnipeg North speak quite a bit here in the chamber.
Just a few minutes ago, the member for Kingston and the Islands was trying to make this argument about the Constitution and how the Liberals listen to the Constitution, respect it and talking about their actions when it comes to their legislation and bills. This bill here, or more specifically, our Conservative amendment, actually just call it out for what it is, hypocrisy. It is saying one thing and doing the absolute opposite.
He goes on about how they do all this. Well, Bill C-49 has a lot of very similar provisions to Bill C-69, which has garnered a lot of attention when it comes to developing our natural resources and realizing our economic potential. It has done a lot of damage in every part of the country. It has turned away, turned down and cancelled investments by the hundreds of millions of dollars in this country. The thing about Bill C-69 was that, for months and for years, Liberal ministers would go out and say, “There is nothing wrong. The bill is constitutional. It is going to be upheld.” Well, the Supreme Court had its say, and guess what. It did not uphold it. The bill was struck down.
Now, moving forward, we have Bill C-49. Our Conservative amendment tonight is saying that we need to take this back to committee. There are serious flaws with what the government is trying to do because many of the same provisions that were struck down in Bill C-69 are embedded and repeated here in Bill C-49.
Mark my words. I am going to put it right here, in Hansard, in the blues and on video here tonight: This piece of legislation is going to be dithered and delayed for years. It is going to be challenged. Look at what happened with respect to Bill C-69. Liberals and then the New Democrats said, “Oh, it is all fine. Do not worry about it. The Conservatives are just talking negative about it.” The government ignored it, and guess what happened. It is the chaos coming around Bill C-69. The uncertainty, the lack of answers from that side and the lack of fixing the problem the Liberals were warned about in the first place are challenging the economic environment in our country. It is turning away investment. It is turning away projects that could be completed here at home, creating great Canadian paycheques. The Liberals are doing the exact same thing. Members could look and see that there are now the same inefficiencies that are here in the Impact Assessment Act, in sections 61, 62, 169 and 170. The list goes on about how they are constantly dithering and delaying.
If members do not want to take my word for it here with what I have said so far, let us just look at the number of projects already stalled under the Liberal-NDP government. The Liberals are blocking projects with red tape left, right and centre. Bill C-49 would only make it worse. There is Beaver Dam gold mine in Nova Scotia. It has been nine years, and it is still not done. Fifteen Mile Stream gold project is going to be a massive $123 million investment. After six years, that project, 95 kilometres northeast of Halifax, is still being delayed, and with three years extension, it is still not done. Then we have the Joyce Lake direct shipping iron ore project, which would be a $270-million investment in Newfoundland and Labrador. After 11 years, it is still waiting and not approved. There is Cape Ray gold and silver mine in Newfoundland and Labrador. It has been eight years, and it is still waiting and not going through. The list goes on and on. It is the definition of insanity.
I have said it before about the budget, and I will say the same thing about the Liberals' efforts to remove red tape and unleash the economic potential of this country. We have so many natural resources. We have so many jobs that could be created in this country, and what the Liberals have done time and time again, and what they are doing with Bill C-49, is causing legal nightmares. They are going to cause red tape nightmares for years to come, and it is Canadian workers in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia who are going to be hurt.
We are putting this amendment forward. We are opposing the constant red tape of the Liberals. After nine years, Canadians have had enough, and I do not blame them.
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Mr. Speaker, it is good to be here this time of the night, and I do want to congratulate Lin Paddock, who won the Baie Verte—Green Bay by-election in Newfoundland. Kudos to him, a progressive Conservative, as he won with an almost 80% victory. Actually, two years ago, in a by-election, he had 48%. The Liberals went from 52% to 24%. So that is Newfoundland, the Maritimes, but there has been a plethora of polls the past year that have the Liberals trailing. I know that we do not count our chickens before they hatch, but this one did hatch this evening. I think that the Liberals and the NDP should get this message that they are out of touch with Newfoundlanders, Maritimers, British Columbians and everyone in between. What is the problem? Is it just because people like the change of colour? No, the issue is that the Liberals' policies are hurting Newfoundlanders, Maritimers and all Canadians. They are putting a squeeze on Canadians.
Now, the member for Kingston and the Islands just finished talking about bringing down inflation. Well, he fails to recognize that all those past number of years when inflation was extremely high have not gone away, and Canadians are struggling to pay for the increases that have been happening because of the out-of-control spending.
I have been in Newfoundland. I was in Labrador once in Goose Bay in 2016. I was very impressed. I went to St. John's, rented a car, went down the Avalon Peninsula, and I was surprised at the wealth. I saw a lot of construction, a lot of nice houses and it is a beautiful part of the country. It has been transformed from a have-not to a have province. However, that was in 2016, and already there were starting to be some problems. With the anti-energy policies of the Liberals, the Newfoundlanders and the Maritimers had a lot of flights going directly to Fort McMurray, but their policies squeezed that and those direct flights and that income were cut off, which has hurt. So, a tip for the government is that it should listen to the Conservatives, which might help it a little bit, because we are listening to the people of Canada.
However, the problem that we have with Bill C-49 is that it is essentially just going to be adding more regulations and more red tape to an already cumbersome, if not impossible, process. Yes, it is pretty much impossible to get projects approved in Canada, and that is very unfortunate.
I think the comments from the member from Nova Scotia a little earlier bear repeating, about the tidal project in the Bay of Fundy that was ready to roll. It was tested, they were bringing electricity into Nova Scotia, and then it got cut off. It got cancelled by the Liberal Department of Fisheries.
This is a prime, and incredible, example of a potential project that could have been a reality with green energy, yet the Liberals cancelled it. It is just contrary. Looking at this bill, the Liberals are saying that it is pro-renewable energy. They had something right in their hands that could have gone forward and would have supplied hundreds of megawatts, and it was just cancelled. This is what the Liberals will also be doing with these other projects.
I am from British Columbia. We saw similar things happen for energy that is clean, for example, the LNG. The presidents of Germany and Japan wanted LNG and wanted production because of the invasion of Ukraine and their source of energy from Russia being cut off. They said that they needed it.
The Prime Minister's response was to see if there was a business case. That was basically flipping the bird. Then they went to Qatar, which is a sponsor of many terrorist organizations. This is something that we could have gotten. These are jobs. The biggest private project in history is happening right now in Prince Rupert, the LNG. That was approved under the Harper Conservative government. It reduces global emissions worldwide.
However, the Liberals have blocked everything else from happening. They talk about consultation with indigenous people. The northern gateway project was supported by all the different first nations along the route. The Liberals thought about it and asked what they were going to do there. The first nations wanted it, but what were they going to do? They decided to find a few elders who were not even part of the leadership and put everything upon them.
Then the Liberals cancelled the project because those elders were against it, even though the first nations, the Wet'suwet'en First Nations and everyone else, wanted it. The Liberals blocked it. This is just a sham, as far as what the Liberals say toward the first nations, that they really want to consult and work with them. This is just a way to block and not allow first nations and Métis people to really benefit.
As far as the energy projects, it seems what the Liberals are really just building more regulations, more red tape and more bureaucracy. The commissioner of the environment and sustainable development worked with the Auditor General to do a study on the net-zero accelerator initiative, a $7.4-billion project. Their conclusion was that there was no due diligence happening. They could not even determine if emissions would go down. The contracts were not clear. It is just a mess.
It is the same thing with the $1-billion green slush fund. The Liberals appointed Liberals to a board, and those Liberals directed hundreds of millions of dollars to their own personal companies. This is the type of mess that we are facing here in Canada. It is all about what is in it for me, or what is in it for the Liberals. We saw that with the WE Charity, where the Prime Minister's family got significant money for contracts. We saw that with former Liberal MP Frank Baylis with the COVID contracts. We see it all the way through.
We just have to question if that is the Liberal objective, to build bureaucracy and build more opportunities to give money to their friends and family.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands undoes himself with his own arguments. He says inflation is not as bad as it was three years ago. He says the Liberals are getting a little better than they were. The Liberals want to tell us they might be bad, but they are getting a little better, and they are not doing as badly as they used to.
To the member's comments on the Constitution, the Liberals just show complete disregard for the Constitution. They just ignore it. They violate the law routinely. We see that with Bill C-69. The anti-energy, anti-development Bill C-69 has been found, in part, to be unconstitutional, and rather than responding to it, they are resuscitating provisions in Bill C-49.
While I am on my feet, I just want to say the lack of extending the rural top-up to the people of Pefferlaw is a grave injustice. I stand with the member for York—Simcoe in calling for the immediate redress of that injustice.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to address the House this evening, as always, and to follow my esteemed colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets, who knows a bit more about Atlantic Canada than I do. Nonetheless, I am pleased to support his view and the view of my Conservative colleagues that Bill C-49 needs to go back for further study, that it is a deeply flawed bill.
Fundamentally, for those who are just joining us at home, Bill C-49 is about furthering the government's anti-energy, antidevelopment agenda. In that context, let us talk a little bit about the state of this beautiful country. We are here because we are fighting for Canada, this country that we love and believe in. Canada is a cold frontier nation built on hard work. People who came here as immigrants or people who have been here since time immemorial did not come here or stay here because of the weather. They worked hard in a cold frontier nation to build beautiful things that lasted for themselves and for future generations. They have always taken pride in their hard work. Canadians have understood that it is not the easy life we seek, but it is through striving and struggle that we build and expand a beautiful country for those who come after us.
When I talk to people working in this country, that is what they want. They want to be able to work hard, to use their God-given creativity and genius to create new things for their families and for the future. The government, unfortunately, gets this country totally wrong. This is evident in the way it has approached economic policy and so many other areas over the last nine years. It thinks Canadians are just waiting for that next handout from government. While some Canadians do need to rely on social supports and assistance from time to time, the desire of Canadians is to be able to work, produce, and provide for themselves and their families and, indeed, for posterity.
The government's approach to energy policy, then, is completely disconnected from the desires and aspirations of the people of this country. Canadians want to be able to work, produce and create. People who work in the energy sector, in some cases, face cold, harsh elements, working outside and striving for opportunities for themselves and their families. However, they do this with joy and relish because satisfaction comes from that production; this gives them joy, strengthens their sense of meaning and purpose and allows them, again, to be connected to something greater than themselves.
The government does not believe in the energy economy. It does not think that it is part of the future of the country's economic potential. It has come up with this concept, a so-called just transition. It wants to sell people on the idea that they might no longer, under the managed anti-energy transitional policies of the government, be able to work in these highly productive sectors of the economy. Instead, the government promises that there might be social assistance payments available to them.
This misunderstands the realities of our fiscal situation and the fact that one cannot promise endless spending on borrowing and think it is just going to go on forever. Of course, we see the effects of the government's economic policies with the accumulation of debt and deficit as a result of more and more spending promises. There is no meaningful fiscal anchor, just continuous expansionary spending promises. This has been the hallmark of the government.
Moreover, these promises of moving people out of productive sectors of the economy and onto social assistance ignore the essential nature of the Canadian worker and the aspirations that have defined this country. People do not just want to work for the money, although the money helps. People derive a sense of value and meaning from their ability to produce, create and contribute constructively to the economy. That is why so many have come to this country and built our country into what it is. Nonetheless, after nine years of the policies of the NDP-Liberal government, we are, of course, weaker than we have been for a long time.
The government has more than doubled the national debt, if we can imagine that. The Prime Minister is responsible for more than half of this country's national debt. We see crime, chaos, drugs and disorder reigning in our streets, as many people feel a sense of desperation.
Many Canadians feel that doing the right thing, working hard and living a good life no longer pays in this country. People who are trying to take advantage of the system are getting ahead, whereas those who are trying to work hard and do what is right fall further behind. This has increasingly become the reality in this country after nine years under the Prime Minister.
However, the good news is that this is not truly what we are as a country. It is not what we are as Canada. It is not what we were before 2015, and it is not what we will be after we have restored the kind of responsible leadership this country needs.
The economy is not just about money. It is really about providing people with the opportunity to engage in meaningful work and to have the joy, sense of purpose and mission that comes from working hard and providing for the next generation. With that in mind, we have an agenda.
The Conservative Party is proposing an agenda that is based on restoring the country's enthusiasm for development. We are a country that has, in the past, undertaken great nation-building infrastructure. We are a country that builds things. In the process, we give jobs and opportunity to each other, and we strengthen our sense of national unity and purpose.
In the 19th century, it was our cross-country railroad. Today, in the 21st century, we need to become a country that builds great things again. We need to build homes and national energy infrastructure. We need to support the development of energy infrastructure in all parts of this country, and that includes, of course, in Atlantic Canada.
However, instead of recognizing the urgent need to once again become a country that builds things, the government continues to propose antidevelopment, energy-blocking legislation, such as Bill C-49.
Our plan is based on axing the tax to unleash the creative potential of the economy and building homes at a micro level. We are not building enough homes in this country. I do not mean “we” as in the state, I mean “we” collectively. The government has put itself in the way of new home construction. It is time we axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget so we do not have inflationary spending getting in the way of development and, of course, stop the crime that is holding back our communities from reaching their full potential.
Our plan to restore Canada is based on axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime. It is an agenda that seeks to build beautiful things that last and build the nation-building infrastructure of the 21st century, that is, homes at the micro level, and at the national level, the energy infrastructure, the mines and the development opportunities in both traditional energy and new green energy.
The problem with the Liberal government, in terms of its rhetoric on green, is that it misses how its antidevelopment, red-tape-driven agenda is actually holding up green projects as well.
If we have an economy where people want to invest, where we can unleash opportunity and where we are attracting investment with the right tax policies, as well as pulling aside red tape, this would have an impact on both traditional and green energy.
The Liberal approach is to pile red tape on and then hope that an additional subsidy is somehow going to help move certain preferred projects in preferred sectors along. They do not understand that the government's role should not be to pick winners and losers; rather, it should be to create an environment where all businesses want to invest and pursue opportunity.
That is what our country was before 2015 and will be again under responsible, Conservative, pro-development leadership. Despite the challenges our country faces, I know that there is great excitement about what is to come. I hear it from constituents across the country. There is great hope for the restoration of this country to one where we see the good in each other, where we see the opportunity in our natural resources and where regions wish for each other's success.
Under the current government, there has been a pitting of regions against each other. There has been a desire to create division between, for instance, Atlantic Canada and the west, with a carbon tax policy that seeks to create a temporary fake break to the carbon tax in eastern Canada while not having the same kind of changes happen in western Canada. Nonetheless, the carbon tax is expected to go way back up again in eastern Canada. Liberal ministers have made incredibly divisive comments on this. This is the Liberal approach. It is to see economic development as a zero-sum game. They have to tear down the west in order to build up the east.
What we say in the Conservative Party is this: Let us encourage and be excited about the opportunities for growth and development in every part of this country. As an Alberta MP, I want to see Atlantic Canada succeed. I want to see Atlantic Canada become incredibly prosperous and create jobs and opportunities for people in Atlantic Canada. I want the same thing in Quebec, Ontario, the north and every region of the country. Conservatives want to see every family, community, region, province and territory prospering and building itself up. We want to end the division. There is hope for this new vision of a strong Canada made up of strong individuals. The Liberals are bent on a government that is constantly gorging itself and growing at the expense of citizens. Conservatives want a smaller government and bigger citizens. That is our vision, and that is how energy development connects to that vision of what a brighter future will be when the current Leader of the Opposition becomes prime minister.
Why is it important to support energy development? It is important on four grounds, which I would like to go through: on economic grounds, on reconciliation grounds, on environmental grounds and on global security grounds.
I have spoken about the economic grounds already, but we can build a strong national economy driven by the private sector if we focus on removing the barriers that prevent investment and development from moving forward. I believe in the inherent creative potential of every human being, wherever they live, whatever their background. We do not create economic opportunity through central state planning, but rather by unleashing the creative genius of every individual. We need to build systems that emphasize subsidiarity, which is decentralized decision-making that unleashes the creativity of more and more individuals as part of economic development. That is why our focus should be on removing gatekeepers, removing red tape, identifying those things that prevent development and investments from taking place, and removing those barriers. It is only through the creative genius of individuals with new ideas and taking risks through investment that we will truly see economic growth and opportunity.
This government seems to believe that it is about the government making bets on specific sectors, without taking any kind of risk itself. The Liberals are not spending their own money, after all, and they are only applying the creativity of the central state system. This is not how we build a powerful modern economy, and all the evidence shows that. We have the current government, frankly, trending towards the most left-wing economic philosophy in a government that we have seen in decades. This is not the John Chrétien-Paul Martin Liberal Party. This is a government that loves centralized state planning as its approach to the economy, and it clearly just does not work.
Energy development has incredible potential for facilitating reconciliation. Canadians want to see each other succeed. We all want to see success in economic development that will provide jobs and opportunity for indigenous peoples. A big part of that is going to be economic development in the area of energy, and many indigenous nations are eagerly engaging with and investing in this opportunity.
We have a number of prominent indigenous leaders who are joining the Conservative Party and running in the next election. In the Edmonton area, we have Chief Billy Morin, who is a great champion of energy development. He will, of course, be joining our caucus after the next election. Indigenous leaders such as Ellis Ross, Billy Morin and so many others understand the potential for economic development, for prosperity and for ending poverty in indigenous communities through energy development.
Many indigenous communities are asking for this, yet the Liberal approach is, on the one hand, if someone is proposing a development project, to pile on consultation processes, but then when they want to stop development from happening, they do not consult at all. We have had many instances in which the government has proposed antidevelopment policies and has shut down development opportunities that indigenous nations wanted, and the Liberals did not feel like they had to consult at all. How do they explain that? The government, on the one hand, wants to constantly pile on more red tape if a project is going to move forward, but it does not feel any need to consult with indigenous nations when it is imposing antidevelopment projects on communities who want the opportunity and want the prosperity to come from that.
Conservatives believe in the benefits of development, and we believe that consultation should be meaningful consultation. It should be required and a part of the process, within reasonable parameters and a reasonable time frame, and it should be part of the process if they are moving forward with a pro- or an antidevelopment policy. Either way, the people should be listened to and consulted.
In terms of the environment, Canada's energy sector is continually improving its environmental performance. This is part of who we are. This has always been part of who we are. We live here. We live on this land. We breathe the air. We are all working together on environmental improvements. However, that environmental improvement surely cannot mean shutting down highly productive sectors of the economy and moving those jobs to other jurisdictions that do not have the same environmental standards. Given the global need for energy, either Canada can fill and respond to that global need, or we can leave it to other countries that do not have the same standards that we do. I submit that it is better for the environment if Canada continues to develop and improve its environmental performance while sharing the technology that it develops with the rest of the world. This is good for our economy. It contributes to reconciliation. It is also good for the environment.
Finally, I want to speak about global security. This is the biggest issue being talked about around the world. We are in a new cold war. The world is an increasingly unstable place, and access to energy will be a critical part of that global struggle as it unfolds. Canada could play a critical role. Most of the world's free democracies happen to be geographically small, more densely populated nations that rely on the import of natural resources. This is the reality for our democratic partners in Europe as well as in the Asia-Pacific. In the vast majority of cases, they are geographically small, densely populated nations that struggle with energy security and have to constantly be thinking about how they could position themselves to have a secure supply of energy imports.
Canada, relatively uniquely in the democratic world, is a geographically vast, sparsely populated nation blessed with an abundance of natural resources. We are that cold frontier nation within the community of democratic countries. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to develop those resources for the benefit not only of our own domestic economy, but also for the benefit of our partners and contributing to global security.
When European countries have to rely or have chosen to rely on imports of energy from Russia, they fuel the aggressive, violent, genocidal designs of the Putin regime. Canada can be strategic and displace and replace that Russian gas. Particularly when we are talking about energy development in Atlantic Canada, of course, which has greater proximity to Europe compared to western Canadian resources, there is a great opportunity for us to be excitedly engaging with the opportunity in Atlantic Canadian energy development and using that opportunity to not only support Canadian prosperity, but also contribute to global energy security. This is good for us, but it is more fundamentally the right thing to do in this new cold war struggle to ensure that our democratic allies around the world do not have to rely on strategic foes for energy, that they do not have to calibrate their foreign policy positions for fear of losing access to the fuel that their people need.
This is Canada's vocation. This is Canada's opportunity in this new struggle. Let us step up to seize it. Let us do what is right for our country and for our people. Let us also play our essential role in the world by rejecting Liberal antidevelopment bills and standing up for Canada and for freedom everywhere by developing our natural resources and creating jobs, opportunity and prosperity for the Canadian people.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his very interesting speech. I especially liked the part about the tidal energy industry in the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world. As for the bill before us, we supported Bill C‑49 at second reading because we expected a collegial approach, and we thought we would be able to discuss it and improve it in committee. However, the government rejected all of our amendments.
In the hon. member's opinion, is that how this government operates, even with a minority of seats? Is that not the same way it behaves toward its provincial counterparts?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his wealth of knowledge of history, not only in his province but also in this country.
It is probably not in the Standing Orders for me to do this, so I want to be careful, but I will make a bet or a wager. Several Conservative members have consistently stood up and made a case based on the government's history, based on Bill C-69 and based on many of the same provisions that are in Bill C-49, which we are dealing with. There is an amendment that would send the bill back to committee to fix some of what I think is going to be deemed unconstitutional, dragging the process out and creating an investment climate in this country that is going to go in the wrong direction.
I want to make sure one more time that my colleague can get on the record again, as the Liberals and the NDP seem to be blind to the idea that this could even happen. Can the member talk about what he predicts would happen in the future if the bill passes in its current form and does not go back to committee?
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Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to rise tonight with respect to Bill C-49, which would amend, in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, the offshore petroleum board's mandate from petroleum to regulating overall energy. We have proposed an amendment at this stage to deal with the fact that parts of this bill would implement elements of the Impact Assessment Act, IAA, that have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
I would like to start by addressing some of the concerns that I have heard over the last few weeks from Liberal members from my part of the world in Atlantic Canada. One of them, the member for Kings—Hants, has an agriculture riding, so he is expert at spreading manure. He has very much pushed the envelope on what this bill is about. It almost makes us believe that maybe he had not read it.
I am going to talk a bit about the issue of tidal energy to start, which was mentioned a little earlier by one of my NDP colleagues. The good news is that the first North American tidal project that was able to produce actual electricity without being destroyed by the tides of the Bay of Fundy worked. The bad news is the project is dead. Why is that project dead? It is dead because of the natural virtue-signalling tendencies of the current Liberal government; the Liberal government killed it, if members can believe it.
Sustainable Marine Energy started developing the alternative energy project in the Bay of Fundy. If members do not know, I will tell them that the Bay of Fundy's tides, every day, push more water in and out of the Bay of Fundy than all other rivers in the world combined in their flow in one day. That is the power of the Bay of Fundy. Many attempts have been made to put turbines at the bottom of the ocean, millions and millions of dollars in the Bay of Fundy, and within about 48 hours they are blown apart by the actual power of the sea and those tides that rise 48 feet and drop 48 feet every day. They are the highest tides in the world.
Sustainable Marine Energy developed a different approach, basically put the turbines on the top of the water, and that energy project in the Bay of Fundy was licensed in 2012. Who was the government in 2012? I think it was the Conservatives. The first energy tidal project producing clean, renewable energy was approved by the Conservative government in 2012. That is when the green energy bonanza, which could have been a bonanza, was started in Atlantic Canada. What happened? The tidal project would have provided nine megawatts of clean, green energy to Nova Scotia's electrical grid and could have generated up to 2,500 megawatts while bringing in $100 million in inward investment and eliminating 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, which is the equivalent of taking 3,700 cars off the road. It sounds pretty good to me and it sounded pretty good to the Harper government, and that is why it was approved to go ahead with the experiment.
If the Liberal government really cared as much about combatting climate change and about green energy as the Liberals claimed to, one would think that they would have continued to license this project, to develop it and to draft this offshore power that we have. However, they did not; one would be wrong.
For its trail-blazing efforts, this is what happened to Sustainable Marine Energy. It was awarded, I would say, a red tide. In the ocean, a red tide kills everything. A blue tide, everything lives in; and the red tide in the ocean actually kills all fish. The company was awarded a red tide of red tape from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. For those familiar with the energy projects out west and the power of DFO in preventing energy projects in western Canada, the government of course decided to use this in the ocean as well when it came to Sustainable Marine Energy. The government repeatedly delayed the permits and rejected permits, even after being provided reams and reams of science about how the fisheries were not impacted by this project.
The last project, which is the straw that broke the camel's back, was last year. After five years of the regulatory challenges by DFO, the project in Digby county, and I know the Speaker is very familiar with it since Digby county is in his constituency, that would have gone a long way to fighting against climate change was cancelled by DFO.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Rick Perkins: No, Mr. Speaker, it was not withdrawn, as a member said, by the company. It was cancelled, and that company now has shut down.
At the time when this happened last year, the CEO said that the company put in $60 million and five years of work into the turbines, which were the first to return power to the Nova Scotia electricity grid, and DFO actually shut it down anyway. As I said, Sustainable Marine shared a video with a news organization that showed the tidal power working and how it was connected into the Nova Scotia grid.
The CEO said, “We’re the first ones to actually deploy and put power onto the grid and actually receive payment from Nova Scotia Power for power.“ He said, “so it's quite bizarre” in relation to what DFO has done. He continued, “We don't know how they've made that determination despite the fact we’re using very conventional technology and there’s over 20 years of experience with this technology internationally, and no one’s ever seen a single marine animal or fish harmed in any way, shape or form.” DFO shut this company down.
In the era of puffery and imagery of the government, it brings in input, but when it comes to actually executing on it, it lets a department like DFO shut it down. That is before this bill. Let me explain now how bad it gets with this bill, because if the system that gave DFO this power now was not bad enough, this bill would give DFO way more power.
This bill would give DFO the power, if it thinks at some point in the future it might want to do a marine protected area in the ocean in an area where there might be a development of oil and gas or a wind energy project, to veto without having to talk to anyone. It could just veto the project. It would give more power for DFO to shut down projects in the ocean.
However, this bill includes four sections from the Impact Assessment Act, and those four sections are designed to slow down energy projects. They were designed by the Liberals to stop energy projects from happening, to delay to the point where mines take 15 years to get a permit in Canada. That great success rate is what the government wants to impose now on offshore wind. Why would it impose a process on offshore wind that has been so detrimental to the energy industry out west and think that somehow the result of how it would be implemented in the ocean would be different?
I will give an idea of some of the projects in Atlantic Canada going through that particular process. The Tilt Cove exploration petroleum drilling project in Newfoundland in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin was started in 2019 and has been extended for a couple of years. It is already five years through the process, with no end in sight and was extended on the latest phase out to 2025 for more study.
The Cape Ray gold and silver mine in Newfoundland, which started in 2016, is now eight years through that process, with no end in sight. The Joyce Lake direct shipping iron ore mine in Newfoundland is now 11 years through the process, with no end in sight. These keep going on. The Fifteen Mile Stream gold mine, which I believe is in Nova Scotia, has been six years in the process. The Beaver Dam gold mine in Nova Scotia has been nine years in the process.
Anyone who thinks this IAA process works in an expeditious way has not actually looked at any of the impacts of the process on getting energy projects actually approved through the system. Taking that great success of five years, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years, 10 years and 11 years to go through a project, the government wants to put that success into offshore wind. If anyone believes the offshore wind projects off Nova Scotia are going to be done before Centre Block opens again in 2035 after construction, they are living in a different world.
Our opposition is not an opposition to “technology, not taxes”, as some members seem to always imply, and they abuse the line. It is our line. We believe that we can do these things. We just think they actually have to get done, and that imposing unconstitutional provisions in the act, and enforcing and pushing those down on the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, would only lead to failure.
We are a party that believes in success and that we have to get these projects done. The government seems to actually believe that the process it has put in place will actually get things done. I do not believe that the Liberals believe that, but they seem to spin it. However, getting things through in 10, 11 or 12 years is not getting them done. Fifteen years for a mine is not getting it done; that is driving capital to other places.
Every year in Newfoundland, the Newfoundland offshore petroleum board, whose mandate the bill would amend, does a call-out for bids for exploratory oil and gas drilling wells off Newfoundland. Every single summer, it gets bids and people explore. Companies from around the world explore. I understand how expensive it is to do exploratory drilling in the ocean. It is $100 million to $200 million-plus per drilled hole, minimum, to do that, so these are big global investments that happen. Every single year, the board has had bids for them.
The bill before us was introduced in 2023, in late May or early June. The Newfoundland offshore petroleum board went out with its bids. Guess how many bids it got last summer? Colleagues would be right if they said none. There was not a single bid. Year after year it got bids, but the bill got introduced, and the very threat of the IAA on the offshore petroleum business in Newfoundland sent the money elsewhere.
Guess where the money and the drilling permits went. They went to the Gulf of Mexico, because the mere idea that the process would be imposed sent capital elsewhere in the world. That is what it would do to offshore wind. The offshore wind money that is being proposed now, for the most part is not coming from Canada. It is coming from elsewhere to be invested in Nova Scotia, and it will fly away just as quickly as a Liberal promise. As soon as the bill were to come into effect, it just would not happen under the process. That is what we object to: a process that would not work.
Liberals believe in the output but have not even actually read the bill to understand what the four provisions are from the IAA that they have put in it. I would like all of the Liberals whom I can see from the vast number of them on the benches across from me to raise their hand if they can cite the four sections that have been pulled out of the impact assessment thing. I hear nothing. I do not see a hand going up. This is a very awkward silence indeed because I can cite the provisions if they like.
I will inform the members which sections are there. Clauses 61, 62, 169 and 170 are all from the Impact Assessment Act of the government. All of those are the clauses that would impose the IAA on offshore wind approvals in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in Atlantic Canada. All of them have resulted in zero projects being approved in the energy industry out west. The outcome of those will be exactly the same for offshore wind, and that is why we oppose the bill.
We support the technology. We support offshore wind. We support using the Bay of Fundy tides to generate clean electricity. Unfortunately, the government does not, because it vetoed the only real functioning project. By the way, there is no offshore wind project or windmill anywhere in Canada up now, but we had one that was going to use tidal Bay of Fundy energy, and the government shut it down.
We will continue to oppose bad legislation that would bring in anti-capital processes that drive investment out of Canada, which is what the bill before us would do.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise on behalf of the people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley and speak to what I believe is a Conservative amendment to Bill C-49, which in turn amends two other pieces of legislation, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act, and makes consequential changes to other acts.
I see my friend from Nova Scotia is already yawning. I promise the speech is about to get quite a bit more exciting.
We are talking in part this evening about renewable energy, about this really exciting industry that is growing in leaps and bounds and is going to very quickly take over as the primary energy source, powering countries and economies around the globe.
I thought I would start by first going back to my home province, to the west coast. Tonight we are talking about Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. If we go some 4,000 kilometres westward, we get to the islands of Haida Gwaii. I was there just a couple of weeks ago and met in Masset briefly with the folks from the Swiilawiid Sustainability Society, which is a grassroots organization on Haida Gwaii that, among other things, is working on a project called Project 0% Diesel. Being a remote archipelago, Haida Gwaii gets most of its energy from diesel generators. This, of course, produces a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions and is something that folks on Haida Gwaii want to move off through the generation of renewable energy.
The folks at Swiilawiid are going to be hosting this year's renewable energy symposium on September 21-22. That is an opportunity for Haida citizens and people living on Haida Gwaii to come together and talk about the myriad options and opportunities for renewable energy generation as part of tackling the climate crisis, as well as creating economic development, jobs and innovation right on Haida Gwaii.
There are two other projects I will mention. Haida Gwaii has emerged as a real leader in northern British Columbia when it comes to renewable energy. There is a really exciting tidal power pilot project that is moving ahead, I believe, with some federal funding. The village of Masset has installed what was at the time the largest solar installation in British Columbia, a two-megawatt solar farm at the Masset airport. I had a chance to see it when I flew into Masset about a month ago. This is exciting stuff on the west coast.
However, the bill we are debating this evening is dealing with the east coast and the development of, among other things, offshore wind, which is a tremendous opportunity. I will just briefly review that. I know we have been debating this for some time, so people know what the bill does. I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are nodding that we have been debating it for quite a while, because there are certain people who would rather that this bill did not pass through the House in a timely manner. However, I digress.
Essentially, this bill is going to update legislation and help facilitate the development of an offshore energy industry. This is something that the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador have been calling for. There are agreements between those provinces and the federal government to do just that. My understanding is that the premiers of those provinces want this to happen in a big way, because there is a tremendous economic opportunity at stake here, and it is something that is going to come with a huge number of benefits. That is not to say that there are not important questions to be asked.
I, for one, am not a member of the natural resources committee, so I was not party to all of the discussions that have taken place there, but I have been present for some debates about offshore energy and tidal energy. The member down the way will remember when we sat together, I believe at the environment committee, where we talked about a certain tidal project in the Bay of Fundy that was withdrawn by the proponent in part because of government processes. I see that he is shaking his head, so maybe I got some of the details wrong, but at the time Conservative members were bemoaning the loss of this project and calling for the government to do more to incentivize these renewable energy resources. Here we have a bill that, at least according to those provinces and the industry in those provinces, does precisely that, yet we do not see that same call for things to move ahead.
I have listened with interest to all of the speeches this evening. They have covered a bunch of ground. I listened with particular interest to the remarks made by my colleague from Provencher. Several Conservative speakers have indicated that they support this bill in principle, and I think that is admirable if, in fact, it is true. The reason I question whether that is indeed the truth is that if we go back to the vote at second reading, which is a vote on the principle of the bill and a vote to move the bill ahead to committee, where it can be studied and amended, my recollection and the information I have suggest that they voted against it at second reading. Perhaps they could correct me if that is wrong.
It does seem that this is a bill that will move things ahead, and it is something that we support. There are, of course, questions that have been raised about the impact of offshore development on the marine ecosystem. This is a matter that is of utmost importance. My understanding is that the government has suggested that issues related to the impact on specific areas should be properly dealt with through the assessment process on a project-by-project basis. Similarly, there are questions about the impact on fish harvesters who rely on areas that could be developed in the offshore for wind resources, and those are very valid concerns that must be addressed in a proper way.
My hope is that the government would do just that, that it would take those concerns seriously and seek to mitigate those impacts and compensate any fish harvester who is affected by the development of any offshore resources.
What we are talking about is tapping into an area of economic development, an area of renewable energy generation that is burgeoning around the world. If we look at some of the statistics, in January of this year the International Energy Agency report said that wind and solar are going to generate more electricity this year than hydro power, and by 2025, renewables are going to surpass coal as “the largest source of electricity generation” around the world. By 2028, renewables are going to “account for over 42% of global electricity generation”.
This is a massive opportunity. It is an energy revolution that is happening, a transition that is happening. It behooves Canada, our federal government and us as parliamentarians to ensure that the frameworks are in place so that we can take advantage of this as a country, so that provinces like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador can get good projects moving ahead as quickly as possible, can offset or reduce their reliance on fossil fuel sources of energy, and can pursue other opportunities for export, like green hydrogen. We heard about Germany's desire to have green hydrogen exported to it, and if there is a surplus of electricity beyond domestic needs, that is something that should be investigated thoroughly and delivered on.
Again, we hear frequent protestations about the constitutional jurisdiction of provinces. I was at committee when several premiers were invited to attend and talk at length about the perceived infringement on provincial jurisdiction. This idea that every province has a right to determine its economic future is something that we have heard from the Bloc as well. However, in this case, we have maritime provinces that very much want to move forward in an accelerated way with renewable energy development. They want the kind of legislation that is before us to set a predictable framework so that the industry can, in an efficient way, move forward with developments, produce renewable electricity, address the climate crisis and develop the economy all at the same time.
I am pleased to rise tonight and speak to this legislation. I look forward to the questions from my colleagues.
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Mr. Speaker, what I do know is that we cannot be stalling on real solutions to the climate crisis and on moving forward with renewable energy. As a matter of fact, I have in front of me an article put out by CBC News quoting the Premier of Newfoundland, Andrew Furey. It says, “Newfoundland and Labrador is positioning itself as the primary benefactor and regulator when it comes to offshore wind developments in the province—but the deal hinges on federal legislation passing in Ottawa.”
The federal legislation that is pending is the bill that we are debating this evening, Bill C-49. It is time that we see this go through so that we can see these projects move forward.
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Madam Speaker, I am on the natural resources committee, and there were two bills that came to our committee. There were Bill C-49 and Bill C-50. Bill C-49 came to us first. The government and the NDP were adamant that we had to do Bill C-50 first and then Bill C-49, but we knew that the Supreme Court had made its reference ruling that C-49 had unconstitutional elements to it, so we proposed to get the Impact Assessment Act right first and do that first and foremost. That way we could pass Bill C-49 because we know that the provinces are looking forward to getting something like this done, and then move on to Bill C-50.
The Liberals basically programmed the committee so we had to do Bill C-50 first and then do Bill C-49. It was done in such a fast fashion. We had industry representatives come in to say that they were not consulted. It is a complete dumpster fire.
I am wondering if my colleague has any explanation as to why the government would want to ram forward something rather than doing our job as parliamentarians, which is to make sure that we get the bill right and make sure we pass a constitutional bill in the first place.
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Madam Speaker, my understanding, and I would have asked my colleague to avail himself of the opportunity to look through the committee evidence from those meetings, is that this concern did come up. I also want to say to him that this is all fresh. This is actually what debate should be about in the House of Commons. The government's tabling of its amendments to respond to the Supreme Court ruling did not come out until the budget implementation act was tabled, which we are all in the middle of reviewing. I am not even sure. I am looking at my colleagues from the finance committee. I do not think they are in the middle of that yet.
The fact is that at finance committee, the BIA amendments on the Impact Assessment Act have not been debated yet, so when the member is saying he is sure that other provincial governments would have raised this, how would they have? This is super fresh, and I am not sure because the government has not made a statement. I do not think it has thought of this. I do not think that its members have said how the Impact Assessment Act could harmonize with the relevant sections of Bill C-49.
My colleague is right. It is not every part of Bill C-49 that is impacted by this, but there are material sections that are, so because the amendment is tight in scope to those relevant sections, he should be able to support it.
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