- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Apr/11/24 11:57:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to speak to Bill C-50, which can be summed up in one short sentence: It is an act to promote Liberal friends to fancy boards and to destroy the economy of western Canada. There is an obsession by this radical socialist environment minister to push his not-so-hidden agenda on Canadians, to wipe oil and gas production off the face of the earth and ensure that we all live in energy poverty.
If members do not believe me, they can listen to his own comments. He said that fossil fuels must be phased out by 2050, and even earlier if possible.
Let us contrast that statement with some comments from Japan’s ambassador to Canada about the role we could be playing in the world’s future energy mix, in particular when it comes to LNG: “The world is waiting for Canada...Canada can and should play a very important role to support the energy situation not only in Japan and South Korea, but the world.”
When it comes to Canada, we are the closest market to Japan and South Korea that could be providers of clean, sustainable and affordable LNG. Canada has a natural advantage in producing LNG, because of the naturally colder climate that we have for more than half of the year. Japan and South Korea are trying to find ways to avoid being energy-dependent on nefarious players like the Communist regime in Beijing. As the Japanese ambassador said, we have an important role to play, but the world is still waiting.
Look around the rest of the world, and we can see what other options there are available to us for selling our LNG. Last year, we saw Germany, Italy and France sign long-term LNG supply agreements with Qatar, but only after they came to Canada asking us to be their provider of choice. They came to us because they did not want to go to a country with a deplorable human rights record, like Qatar. They did not want to go to a country that is housing the leaders of Hamas, but, because of the minister’s blind and radical loathing of our world-class energy sector, he said no. The Liberals left those countries with no choice but to basically support the enemies of one of our most important allies, Israel, and in February it was announced that India and Bangladesh are signing agreements, and so has a Chinese company as well.
It is a shame, because if we look at the way the world is right now, there is both a moral case and a business case for producing and exporting Canadian energy, in particular our LNG, but the Liberal government does not get it. We have a radical environment minister and his incompetent Prime Minister, who apparently would rather see energy deals go to a country that houses the head of Hamas than to Canada, with our high standards for things like human rights, high regulatory standards and an abundance of supply.
How does that make any sense?
When the government stands against Canadian energy, we are not doing the world any favours. At the same time, it also hurts a lot of people in our own country, who benefit from having a successful energy industry here at home. There are so many communities that rely on the oil and gas industry for their survival. It is the industry that keeps the lights on at the hockey rink, at the community centre and at the seniors centre, and that pays the royalties and taxes that are needed to invest in things like hospitals, schools, libraries and emergency services.
Here in Ottawa, if we walk down the street across from Parliament, there is a good example of two different billboards, one after the other, that highlight the social benefits of the oil and gas sector. The first billboard says that Canada needs a fully funded Canada disability benefit. The second billboard is a message from Canada Action, and it says, “As Long As The World Needs Oil & Natural Gas Shouldn't It Be Canadian?”
Why are those two billboards related? It is because the royalties and the tax dollars that are raised when the energy sector is going strong fill the government coffers with the necessary money to invest in those types of social programs. They cannot exist or succeed in the first place without generating a significant amount of revenue from our energy sector.
As much as the NDP-Liberals keep trying, we cannot get away with spending money that we do not have. Sooner or later, it runs out, and bad things start to happen, like some of what we are seeing now with inflation. As we know, the Prime Minister does not have the type of common sense or self-control as the Conservative leader, the member for Carleton, to be able to implement a one-for-one policy, whereby for every new dollar of spending the government has to find a dollar of savings.
As such, when the government sets out to destroy the very industry that massively funds government programs and the equalization payments that prop up Quebec, everyone loses. That includes indigenous communities as well.
Natural Law Energy is a company made up of a group of first nations in Saskatchewan and Alberta. They wanted to invest in the Keystone XL pipeline expansion so they could increase their cash flow, which would support their people. It would have been a great opportunity for economic reconciliation. Do members remember when the Prime Minister claimed that no relationship was more important to him than the one with first nations? Apparently, he said that for his own political gain, because once he had a chance to put his words into action, he was nowhere to be found, other than to say that, no, they do not get to participate in the economy or have any economic self-determination and reconciliation.
Then there are the thousands of jobs and economic spinoffs that come from having a robust oil and gas sector in an area. There was a local news headline in my riding recently that read “April Oil and Gas Public Offering Shows Kindersley Area Generated $234,074.68 in Revenue”. That is just from one public offering. It does not include all the wages of workers in the area or the money they are spending in their community.
This past winter was like every other winter across the Prairies, and we had some strong cold snaps. More urgently, there was a period of time when Alberta was sending warnings to its people to reduce their power consumption to avoid rolling blackouts during peak times when the temperature was in the -40°C range.
How could this happen to a province like Alberta? It had an NDP government that drank the same Kool-Aid as the radical environment minister and decided to close down the reliable, affordable baseload power and replace it with expensive, intermittent wind and solar power. The irony is that it was not due to a lack of wind. There is enough wind most days to produce power. The issue was that it was so cold that it was not safe for the turbines to operate. I have actually worked in the wind industry, and I know that actually happens, because it happened all the time on the wind farm I worked at. Quite often, in the winter, it was also overcast, and the days are short, so there was next to no solar capacity that was actually available. The previous NDP government in Alberta literally almost killed people because of its radical ideology.
Thank God that Saskatchewan had the ability and the capacity to fire up Boundary Dam Unit 4 to be able to help provide power to our neighbours. Thank God that our province has invested in natural gas power stations like the Chinook Power Station in Swift Current, which can provide the equivalent baseload power to hundreds of thousands of homes. If the Liberals’ radical agenda is allowed to proceed, this is only going to be the beginning, and this is just a snapshot of what we can expect. The Liberals have this idea that any new natural gas has to be phased out by 2035 too, if not sooner.
I met with some of the turbine suppliers, and they were willing to tell me some of the timelines to get the parts needed to build a plant now. In some cases it might take up to 10 years to get all the parts they need to build a power plant. It is the same story about trying to procure solar panels and wind turbine equipment, because there is minimal manufacturing in North America for that equipment and that industry as well. However, in order to comply with the regulations that the government is rolling out, they have to be in operation before 2035. Simply ordering the power plant prior to the deadline is not good enough. Canadians are at serious risk of being plunged into widespread energy poverty, but the Liberals know that. The regulations that are published in the Canada Gazette told us that the people most at risk or most likely to already live in energy poverty are single mothers and seniors living on a fixed income, and those regulations would disproportionately impact those people.
The Liberals also know the devastating unemployment that their transition is set to cause. The natural resources minister received a memo discussing exactly that. The Liberals' own government document says that their so-called just transition will affect over 200,000 workers in the energy sector. That is listed as 1% of our employment rate and, with how unemployment numbers are already rising, we really cannot afford for that to keep going up.
The memo also happens to mention 292,000 workers in agriculture and 193,000 workers in manufacturing. Does anyone really believe that the Liberals are going to replace hundreds of thousands of jobs on the line?
Combine all this with the carbon tax, the Liberal fuel regulations, the emissions cap regulations and other burdensome regulations like the unconstitutional Impact Assessment Act, and it is quite easy to see the place where the Liberals are trying to take us. Their plan punishes Canadians, and it will bring misery and devastation upon them.
Thank God that there is an election on the horizon, in which Canadians can give this radical socialist environment minister the boot and get Canada back on track with a Conservative government that would axe the tax and fix the budget so that Canadians can get back to living in prosperity instead of poverty. Canada can become an energy-independent country that no longer relies on imported oil from dictators. We can use our own resources to produce what our country needs and what the world needs: clean, affordable, ethical and sustainable Canadian energy. Only a Conservative government would get it done.
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- Jan/30/24 6:27:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course Conservatives support the development of all types of energy. What we do not support is the government picking winners and losers and putting barriers in the way of provinces being able to set up whatever it is that they want.
I have actually worked in the wind industry. This is just a quick fact. In Alberta, 88 of 88 wind farms were producing next to zero power when it was -50°C, because it was literally too cold for them to operate. It was too dangerous. We need to consider other variables at play in a Canadian winter as to why we cannot go that far in on wind and certain other technologies. We can supplement a grid with them, but we cannot replace the reliable, predictable, affordable energy that we get from natural gas.
That is something that Saskatchewan has decided to do more and more of. We have the Chinook Power Station in Swift Current, which produces all kinds of wonderful power. They are building another one in Moose Jaw. The government needs to support those kinds of projects instead.
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- Jan/30/24 6:20:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I just want take a minute to thank all the great workers in the natural resources sector, and also our farmers and our producers, for making sure that the lights can stay on when it is -50°C, that our homes can stay warm and that we can still produce food. I also thank all the transport workers, who make sure that food, clothing and resources can get all the way across our country regardless of the temperature, whether it is warmer like it is today or if it gets to be, like I said, -50°C as it was a couple of weekends ago back home in Saskatchewan.
Canadians understand how important it is for us to have energy security. Before we all came back to the House, western Canada had to deal with the alarming effects of extremely cold temperatures. The worst of it hit my home province of Saskatchewan, but it was also in Alberta and British Columbia. As we might expect, there was a surge in demand for electricity, but this time, it all put a strain on the system. It got to the point that Alberta had to send out an emergency alert asking everyone to limit their electricity use in order to avoid blackouts. For hours, people were asked to do different things to cut down on their usage, such as turn off their lights, avoid cooking with a stove and delay charging their electric vehicles.
Alberta also received some power from other places, including Saskatchewan. Here is what our Premier Scott Moe said on X at that time. “SaskPower is providing 153 MW of electricity to AB this evening to assist them through this shortage.” It goes on to say, “That power will be coming from natural gas and coal-fired plants, the ones the Trudeau government is telling us to shut down (which we won’t).”
We fired up Boundary Dam 4 in Estevan country to produce more coal-fired power, and I am sure the folks in Alberta were very grateful that Saskatchewan was able to do so. Meanwhile, the government's emissions cap would prevent this from happening. Thankfully, we avoided having a worse situation with rolling outages. However, it is something that could happen, and we do need to take that situation seriously. For the NDP-Liberal government here in Ottawa, it should serve as a wake-up call.
Most people across the country understand that Canadian winters are tough, but I am not sure if some members, Liberal ministers or parliamentary secretaries realize what it is like to live through a typical prairie winter, where it is normal to have a wind chill of -50°C. Our average temperatures can be terribly low and last for a long time. They do not just come and go right away. There are times when it is actually not safe for people to stay outside for very long. People need to be somewhere indoors with a reliable source of heat. That is how we survive. It was one of those extremely cold days when people were faced with the power going out.
My province had greater energy demand as well, and we met that demand from reliable sources. When push came to shove, the overwhelming majority of it came from natural gas and a bit from our coal plants. At the same time, we were also able to lend a hand to our friends over in Alberta. It made a difference for them. It is not a mystery why the premier says he does not want to get rid of affordable and reliable energy. In a critical moment, we all had something solid to fall back on.
The real question is why the Liberals are obsessed with weakening our energy supply with their carbon tax, their emissions cap and the so-called just transition. Not long before all of this happened, they announced some new electricity regulations, and they were shocked to hear that the premiers of Saskatchewan and Alberta would refuse to go along with it. This threat of power outages, while enduring extreme cold temperatures of -50°C, is exactly why.
Are the Liberals going to listen to what our western premiers are trying to tell them? Do the Liberals get it yet? Does the Minister of Natural Resources understand why Saskatchewan will not accept his radical agenda? Will they finally give Canadians a break?
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- Dec/5/23 7:57:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, only this member would think that higher grocery bills are somehow a net benefit. Only this member would think that higher energy bills are a net benefit. I wonder how that goes over with the residents of Winnipeg North.
I was messaging a family friend earlier today, and they were telling me a story about their son, who has actually started out as a young producer; he is raising cattle. He has home heating oil in his house. We have heard so much about the government's vaunted home heating oil program, but guess what? Yes, we can get the heat pump, but heat pumps do not work in Saskatchewan because of how cold it gets in the winter, and the government knows that. This producer cannot afford to buy heating oil for his house, so he has to use electric heat. It is costing him over $400 a month just to use electric space heaters to heat his house, and it is not even that cold in Saskatchewan yet. However, the member opposite seems to think that this is just fine because there is a rebate out there that is going to exist and make everything all better and rosy, and that this young producer should just be happy for his rebate cheque. Who does the member think should actually pay for that? Is it this young producer?
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- Dec/14/22 4:36:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of the members of the Conservative Party on the natural resources committee, I have the honour to table our dissenting report.
The report fails to mention the world-leading standards Canada has. It also fails to address issues like carbon leakage and to give credit to what rural, remote and indigenous communities provide when it comes to service work in the energy sector.
Canada has what the world needs, and that is clean, reliable and affordable energy, and the Liberal emissions cap will substantively prohibit Canada from being able to take its place as a world leader in energy production.
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Mr. Speaker, I would submit that going back to yesterday where there is no carbon tax would mean that groceries, food, heating, energy and gas would all be cheaper. It would means things would be more affordable for Canadians. That is the crisis that we are going through right now, an affordability crisis.
Over the next number of years the carbon tax will go up, and the clean fuel standard will kick in, which is also going to add another couple cents per litre, and going forward that will also increase, putting another burden on Canadians, consumers and how we transport our goods across this country.
Those are things we cannot afford that are pricing Canadians out of the grocery store, out of their homes and into a situation where they have to choose between heating or eating.
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