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Member of Parliament

Martin Shields

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Bow River
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $127,198.82

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 40 - Mar/3/22
Mr. Martin Shields (Bow River, CPC)
  • Mar/3/22 6:19:40 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting day in the House. I know my colleague across the way is expecting some communication that I might have about mandates and health. I will get to that in a minute, but there were some other things I wanted to mention coming out of what I heard today in the House. It was a very interesting discussion. As we know, about 30% of the natural resources in Canada is from foreign countries, and that is primarily used in the eastern part of our country. Also, in just a couple of decades, $500 billion from Canadian energy has been shared across the country and used extensively in Canada to build roads, schools and hospitals, but we have also spent $500 billion on bringing foreign resources into our country. One of those foreign resources would be Russia, which exports to Canada. Canada spends about 1.4% of our GDP on military, while Russia spends 5%. It gets a lot of its resources from exporting of resources. Some statements have been made that I will refer to. The Ukrainian foreign minister said that the world needs to boycott Russian oil and gas. To begin with, here in the House, there was a discussion of that, and a minister said that we do not take Russian crude. Eventually it got to the point that we do take oil derivatives, and extensively in the billions, over the years. What has Russia used this money for? According to Ukraine's foreign minister, a full embargo is needed, because Russia now has the means to pay for arms to murder Ukrainian men, women and children. We have to understand the challenge that it is. Some people would suggest that I think in my riding it is all about oil and gas, but that is not so. Some of the largest wind farms in Canada are in my riding. The largest solar farm in Canada is being built in my riding. We are one of the sunniest places in this country, if not the sunniest. We have a lot of different sources that we use as we talk about energy. In my riding, there are a lot. However, Russia has gotten $13.1 billion from Canada for their oil. In 2021, it was almost $400 million of oil. This is what Russia used to pay for a lot of things they are using against Ukraine. We need to use Canadian resources going forward as we have a transition in our economy. We have to stop importing oil from countries like Russia.
430 words
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