I appreciate so much your giving me the opportunity to do this. I know in your riding in Calgary, you represent many oil and gas workers and their families, and oil and gas businesses, so I'm sure that's why you also believe that this is a very critical and crucial discussion for the people that you represent.
We're both Albertans. I have been working on this file for a long time, and I worked on these policy issues long before I was elected, as you may know. I'm certainly very familiar with Calgarians, their values, their priorities, and their deep concern about all these bills, so thank you for this, despite all the interruptions which are delaying this point, for still giving me the time to address this. Thank you.
I do have an amendment, but as you can see, I feel it's my duty, given the delay on dealing effectively with Bill I really want to make sure I'm making the comprehensive case to Canadians and to all the members here why we certainly cannot support this scheduling motion as written, and as was just brought to this committee with no notice to any of us, and seeks to dictate every single aspect of the work and the timelines of what we do in this committee.
I hope I have already addressed why failing to deal with Bill is nuts and destructive to the country. The way that Bill C-69 is in Bill certainly will open it up to litigation and delays, which no person in Atlantic Canada or the premiers want. They want a clear, predictable regulatory environment for both offshore petroleum and offshore renewable energy. That's why they want the bill and they want the provincial ministers to have a say. They don't want this all just to be cooked up on the back door by the federal representatives. I hope I have explained why those two things are linked and why Bill C-49 has to come first.
Of course, according to the NDP-Liberals' own schedule under which they brought the bills through the House of Commons, which was Bill first and then Bill .... Of course, the arguments about other ministers or other ministries aren't really relevant on any of them since Bill was a joint initiative by the environment and natural resources ministers. Bill C-49 was the same. Of course, Bill C-50, the just transition, which will be transition to poverty, was also brought forward jointly by the environment minister, the natural resources minister and the labour minister.
To the schedule which the NDP-Liberals have put on the table today to dictate every single aspect of the work of this committee, here are the problems.
For Bill , we have this date.... No, this one is good. If we can get the minister....
Actually, the minister hasn't been here for a while, so I really appreciate that we do have this date for him to come. Of course, he should come for a whole bunch of other reasons so that's cool beans to me.
Let's go down here. We have the minister again. That's fine. We should have the minister in, obviously, as soon as possible as this motion does outline. Definitely.
Here's where we start getting into the problem. There are dates here that are tying us based on the other work that we have to do to ensure that all Canadians who will be impacted by all of these bills will be heard. They must be heard. In the House of Commons and committee, it is our job to demonstrate our diligence, to demonstrate accountability, to do the work that Canadians expect of us to pass legislation that, for example, won't be litigated until kingdom come and won't be declared to be unconstitutional five years later. We don't want to do that again. I'm sure we all agree. This is why it's so important that we do our jobs.
One can understand that even though parties, various groups and the government have been working behind the scenes—and they have; I mean that's how things get developed—for a year or two years on Bill and Bill .... For Conservatives as the official opposition, of course, our tools are to litigate that and to do our due diligence in the House of Commons and in committee.
We in the official opposition—Conservatives—who also did gain more votes individually from individual Canadians in 2021 and in 2019, haven't been working on this in the back doors with NDP, Liberals and various other groups for one to two years.
The only thing we can do is fight for the ability to do our jobs on behalf of the common sense of common people who have sent us here. That's our job.
I hope that this helps explain why we can't possibly support this scheduling motion that is aiming to drive through and dictate every step of what we do next on this committee.
Viviane, you asked me if there was an amendment, and there is.
Let me get to it at long last, unless members are still unclear why I am making the case that Bill is so important and that Bill C-69 is in Bill and why Bill C-49 must come first and then we must do Bill . Is anyone still questioning that?
Certainly, not to further delay, but I understand, Marc, that when you have the official opposition, who hasn't been included or involved in any of this work, and they're now really trying to do their jobs as members of Parliament, as the official opposition.... In my case it's as the vice-chair of this committee, as a shadow minister for natural resources. There are my colleagues representing the Saskatchewan riding, Manitoba riding; my colleague, Earl, who's been here, I think, the longest of any of us, and he represents an Alberta riding; and Mario, who needs to do his due diligence for his constituents.
I understand that my colleagues in the NDP-Liberals might find this inconvenient. They might be annoyed at this. I mean, this is democracy.
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Thank you very much, Chair. I do appreciate that.
I think this amendment is solid. We're trying to order Bill ahead of Bill with our amendment because of the at least 32 times that Bill is referenced in Bill C-49. Because the Supreme Court of Canada has provided a reference on the largely unconstitutional nature of Bill C-69 and since it is referenced in Bill C-49, that is why there is a priority by Conservatives to start with Bill C-49, but that would of course mean that we need to deal with the case of Bill C-69. The court specified that legislators had to find ways to answer to the reference—not maybe they should find ways, but they had to find ways.
We spent a big chunk of this meeting laying out the case as to why we need to do the order in this manner now that we have our amendment on. Again, it's of the utmost importance that we do it in this fashion because part of Bill talks about the jobs. This is a jobs bill. It's a just transition. It's going to kill jobs, but let's just say that the government somehow is able to be successful and transition people to jobs. They won't be, but the issue is that we have heard in this committee—I have been on other committees as well where we heard this—over and over again from the private sector, but also from the public sector, and perhaps even more importantly from indigenous leaders, that Bill is the single largest barrier to actually getting projects done of any kind of any type of energy, or any type of project they are trying to do whether it's traditional oil and gas, whether it's renewables, whether it's various projects, and we've heard it numerous times.
That speaks to the urgency as to why we need to address Bill and particularly as it pertains to Bill , because this is obviously about jobs in Atlantic Canada and trying to deal with the energy situation there. It would absolutely be appropriate that we deal with Bill C-69 and the impact it has first and foremost.
There's a good note from the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Parliament can enact impact assessment legislation to minimize risks that some major projects pose to the environment. However, “this scheme plainly overstepped the mark.” That's what the Supreme Court said. Moreover, “it is open to Parliament and the provincial legislatures to exercise their respective powers over the environment harmoniously, in the spirit of co-operative federalism.” That's another quote from the Supreme Court ruling.
The whole point about Bill was every single province, every single premier said there were issues, and the territorial leaders did too. It is important that is noted, that going all the way back to 2018-19 when this was debated, flags were raised over issues with this bill by members of Parliament. In particular, all three at this table on the Conservative side spoke to it. In fact, my colleague from Lakeland did multiple times, and the Premier of Saskatchewan, the Premier of Alberta, all the premiers spoke against the overreach of this. Particularly the Ontario premier very strongly stated on it.
It's important that this be considered as we look at the ordering of these bills. That is why the Conservatives have put this amendment forward, because we need to respect provincial jurisdiction, which is why the Provincial Court of Alberta made a ruling on Bill , which of course the federal government challenged at the Supreme Court. We then saw the Supreme Court make its ruling in the reference case.
I would just like to note that all throughout the history of Canadian parliaments, any time the Supreme Court has made a reference ruling, Parliament—the government of the day—has decided to make the necessary changes to it.
For the certainty of communities and people who are looking for certainty going forward, I think it's extremely important that we address this first.
I'm going to read something from the Saskatchewan government. The first line here is, “5-2 Decision Finds That The Federal Government Overstepped Constitutional Authority And Should Be More 'Cooperative' With Provinces In The Future.”
The opening statement lays out the case as to why and how co-operative federalism is actually supposed to work. It clearly was not done in this case. The rest of the quote contains kind of no-brainer points. It reads:
Saskatchewan welcomes the Supreme Court of Canada's...ruling against the federal government's environmental Impact Assessment Act, formerly Bill C-69.
“This decision is nothing short of a constitutional tipping point and reasserts provinces' rights and primary jurisdiction over natural resources, the environment and power generation,” Justice Minister and Attorney General, Bronwyn Eyre said. “It should also force the federal government to reassess other areas of overreach, including capping oil and gas production and electrical generation. The IAA has stalled everything from Canadian highway and mine projects to LNG facilities and pipelines. It has thwarted investment, competitiveness and productivity across the country. This major decision will correct course.”
That last sentence, “This major decision will correct course”, is why our amendment has been moved. That's why we feel this bill needs to be done first.
I'll finish the article:
The IAA received royal assent in 2019. In 2022, the Alberta Court of Appeal (in a 4-1 majority) held that the IAA was unconstitutional, violated the division of powers between Ottawa and the provinces, and took a “wrecking ball” to exclusive provincial jurisdiction under Section 92 and 92A of the Constitution Act, 1867. The federal government appealed the decision to the [Supreme Court of Canada].
Last March, Saskatchewan was part of the constitutional intervention, along with seven other provinces, before Canada's top court, arguing that the IAA had exceeded federal jurisdiction.
The majority recognized that the IAA is a clear example of federal overreach. Specifically, the Supreme Court majority held that the IAA's designated projects scheme, by which the federal authorities could permanently put a project on hold was an “unconstitutional, arrogation of power by Parliament” and “clearly overstepped the mark.” The majority also found that the Act “grants the decision-maker a practically untrammelled power [of] regulated projects qua projects.”
In 2023, Saskatchewan passed the Saskatchewan First Act to [deal with] matters of provincial jurisdiction.
My own province has made it very clear where it stands on this case and on this point. We know all of the other provinces did as well when it came to the government tabling Bill back in 2018-19.
The fact that the Supreme Court has made its ruling kind of puts us in the position we're in now, where we have a largely unconstitutional bill impacting a lot of things that the government is trying work on—multiple pieces of legislation. It's not just Bill and Bill . Other issues will arise if it is not dealt with and addressed.
Quite frankly, it is hamstringing the provinces to be able to proceed with projects. We heard about LNG. We heard about simply trying to get highways built or repaired.
I mentioned earlier that some of the first nations leaders were concerned about this as well because they're looking at timelines. They're looking at how there will be opportunity for self-determination, economic participation for their residents and economic reconciliation.
Many of them have earmarked and flagged natural resource projects and development and also renewables, which also gets to the point though of why we have a problem with Bill . They have told us over and over again that even on the renewable side, Bill C-69 is a problem. It's not even just about this being the.... It was originally dubbed the “no more pipelines” bill. This is just a “no more energy” bill. That is what we have here in front of us.
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: No more building anything ever anywhere.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Yes, exactly. No more building anything ever anywhere.
I think it's important that we address the issues around Bill , because we've heard from many people, many stakeholders, private, public and otherwise, that this is a problem. I think what we're going—
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: The guys are worried about me interrupting you. You can maybe explain how you feel about that. The guys over there are worried about how I'm speaking to you.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Yes, exactly. They're looking like they maybe want to have a—
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: I'm pretty sure you would tell me to buzz off if you were worried about it.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Well, exactly. We're colleagues. We banter back and forth about things. We are like-minded. I have the floor.
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Yes, I had the floor. I did not concede the floor. It's been mine since I started speaking, and I thank you for making that point.
Just quickly, if I may, Mr. Chair, I'm going to say hello to my son. He's back home. He's sick today, so he's home from school, unfortunately, and he is watching the natural resources committee. I just want to say hello to my son.
I hope you get better soon, buddy.
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: Knowing kids watch debates really points out how important it is for his future.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Exactly. He's going to get a chance to learn today how important Canada's energy future is to our generation, to his generation and to the generation that is going to follow after his and how our country is going to work.
It's an important opportunity for us to discuss the division of powers in this country as well, because Bill , as the Supreme Court of Canada clearly ruled, has trampled all over that. That is why there is a priority and a precedence on our side to see that we deal with Bill first, because it directly quotes and references Bill C-69 no less than 33 times.
It is causing some grief for members on the other side that we keep talking about Bill , but, because they are so incredibly linked together, we continue to hammer home this point. We want to make sure that people understand that, in order for us to properly get the best result for Canadians, we are going to start with Bill , which means that we have to deal with Bill C-69 and, as the amendment that was moved states at the very end in point 2—it's a very simple line that we have at the bottom—we complete consideration of Bill C-49.
What that is doing is ordering Bill to be first. Deal with Bill , as part of it ties in with Bill C-49, but we are going to complete deliberation on Bill C-49 and, at that point, at the end of the amendment, point number 3 would then be the a), b), c), d), e), f), g), h) and i) that was part of the original motion. It includes the original wording and lettering of the original motion, but it includes direction to have an order prioritizing Bill C-49 in advance. It's a very substantive amendment, and I really appreciate the wording that we have in it here, which we came up with to make sure that it was compliant and in order.
It might be worth going over that one more time. At the start of the motion, point 1 is going to be that first we undertake the study on Bill . It references in the opening dialogue about the need to do Bill . We're already establishing that those two bills are going to be part of the motion.
We're going to say that we first undertake the following study on Bill :
1. First undertake the following study on Bill C-69: “Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling that Bill C-69, An Act to enact the Impact Assessment Act and the Canadian Energy Regulator Act, to amend the Navigation Protection Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, is unconstitutional; for the purposes of this study, the committee: (a) hold at least 5 meetings, (b) invite the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to appear for one hour each, (c) report its findings and recommendations to the House and, (d) pursuant to Standing Order 109, request that the government table a comprehensive response to the report.”, then
2. Complete its consideration of Bill C-49.
That's effectively—if I'm allowed to use the term—killing two birds with one stone here, because, when we deal with Bill , we have to deal with Bill . We have to start with BIll C-69 to make sure that Bill C-49 is compliant with that law that is now in place. It has been largely unconstitutional since its implementation, which the government was warned about back then and continues to be warned about now.
This is why we want to prioritize the order of the bills that we have here in this amendment.
There are a few parts to Mr. Sorbara's motion that are still going to have to be addressed and dealt with, possibly in a subamendment.
Before we get to that, Mr. Chair, I think we need to really discuss the impacts that this will have if we don't deal with Bill .
I have read a little bit about Saskatchewan and their response to the reference case and the importance of that. I'll just remind members that at no point in history has a government ignored a reference case. They've always acted upon it and prioritized it. Let's take Saskatchewan as an example. We hear a lot about the government doing consultations and how they've been very engaging with people. Well, only about 15% of Saskatchewanians have heard of the just transition. I would suspect that if the other 85% knew what was happening and what was going on, people would have a lot of concerns.
In particular, as we have seen and heard, the government's initial attempt at a just transition of coal workers substantively and spectacularly failed. I'll get to that in a bit. People have seen their energy prices already go up. That has already happened. At this point, the shuttering of our coal plants has not fully happened just yet, but we have seen energy prices increase as the government has implemented very strong anti-energy development legislation.
Take the cost of the carbon tax alone, for example, on energy production in Saskatchewan. I've heard workers at the coal station talk about how the carbon tax might put them out of a job far in advance of 2030. This is because of the excessive costs that will be associated with producing power as the power plant is phased out and winds down. That escalating cost gets thrown on top, onto the Crown corporation SaskPower.
Then you have the case of Swift Current, where I live. They buy the power from SaskPower. In a sense, you have a doubling of costs and regulation here that is causing this issue of affordability of energy for folks. We've heard the government's own regulations speak to the fact that the people who will be disproportionately impacted are seniors living on a fixed income and single mothers. That was right in the government's own regulations, and yet they are plowing ahead with this legislation that is problematic and causing massive cost overruns for people.
In fact, we just heard on Friday that the government is going to put a pause on the carbon tax in one area of the country because of the issue of cost, but yet we've constantly been told that people receive more than they pay, so therefore it shouldn't be a problem. Well, clearly it is. This is why people are concerned with Bill , Bill and Bill . This is why getting to Bill C-69 first will be of the utmost importance to people.
In Saskatchewan the working population is 598,000 people, give or take. There were over 43,000 construction jobs, 32,000 manufacturing jobs, and 25,800 agricultural jobs. In forestry, mining and gas there were 19,700 jobs, in utilities about 8,500, in wholesale and retail trade 98,000, and in transportation and warehousing about 30,000 jobs. The potential just transition job impacts are 10,432 direct jobs and 131,500 indirect jobs. A lot of that can be attributed and traced back to the ripple effect of Bill .
Mr. Chair, I was speaking about the fact that Saskatchewan relies on natural gas and coal for the majority of its baseload power right now. Interestingly enough, on their website for the Government of Saskatchewan—it actually lists this on the SaskPower portion of that website—you can go through and you can see where the province, within the previous 24 hours, got its energy from. You can see where all the kilowatt hours were produced and where they came from. Routinely, about 70% of that was drawn from natural gas and coal. The third highest would be hydro power there. We have a couple of hydro dams in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, I don't know that we would actually be able to build and complete one single hydro dam in the amount of time that the government is trying to phase out fossil fuels.
We've heard about timelines for approvals. That's part of the problem with Bill , and now we have the largely unconstitutional part with what the Supreme Court made their ruling on. There's also the practicality of what we are going to replace the generation of gas and coal with.
We look at how long it has taken for a few hydro projects around the country to be complete. We're talking decades. Yet the government has this plan that by 2035 there will not be any natural gas. Natural gas would be basically banned at that point in time. Coal is suppose to be gone by 2030. We're seeing some difficulty around the country in trying to get the reliability factor for wind and solar. We've seen the blocking of new technologies such as tidal power already. Now that wasn't in Saskatchewan where the tidal project was moved, of course. It's a landlocked province. I'm just speaking generally about around the country how that's going to work and how that's going to play out.
With wind and solar, solar regularly accounts for less than one per cent of the power usage and energy consumption in Saskatchewan. Wind is regularly less than 10%. It's regularly a single-digit number. Sometimes, it goes a little bit higher. Sometimes it's a little bit lower. Specifically, people are concerned about peak usage and peak demand, right?
Now, for those of you who don't follow the weather patterns of Saskatchewan, in the past week, it's been as cold as -15° already and -19° in some areas. I think it's important that people realize that this assertion that you can just throw a heat pump or two on and you'll be good in the middle of winter—I mean, already in October, most heat pumps wouldn't have worked in Saskatchewan. I think it's important that this be noted.
In fact, when I was driving home on Friday after flying home from Ottawa, one of the news talk radio shows in Saskatchewan had a conversation around heat pumps. There are people who do use them up at their cabins. The people who have them speak specifically to how that is a three-season solution, mainly because it can be used as an air conditioner in the summer. You might be able to get some warmth in late May or early May at the cabin. Certainly, September into October you can get a little bit of warmth out of it.
As I said, it's already been close to -20° in Saskatchewan. That's a common occurrence at this time of year. If you look at October, November, December, January, February, March and into April, the majority of the year, you're not even going to be able to use that as a source of heat in your home reliably.
I think that it's important to have that on the table. We talk about the issue of a supposedly just transition and where people are going to get their energy from to heat their homes, to do their laundry, to cool their homes, and we have those severe differences in our temperatures from summer to winter.
We can be in the plus mid-thirties or in the minus mid-thirties, and sometimes you can see that in a span of a week, depending on the time of year. It's important that people have reliable energy, reliable power.
That's why Bill , Bill and Bill all need to be discussed, but it's also why Bill C-69 needs to be dealt with first: because Canada's strategic advantage over the last number of decades has been the affordable, reliable, sustainable energy sources that we have in this country.
There are many countries around the world that would be jealous and envious of the situation we have with our abundance in natural resources and also the diversity of ways in which we generate power and our energy. I think it would be important for us to make sure we keep that. Certainly, Bill has been a barrier to enabling that to continue, because our population continues to grow, which is always a good thing.... It's good to see our population growing, but it also means that we're going to need more energy.
It's interesting to note that it's not going to be very long before, in a province like Quebec, which has a very robust hydro-powered grid, demand is going to outgrow capacity. I'll give credit to Quebec. They do have one of the more robust energy...where's the specific phrase I had here for it? Its grid is one of the most extensive systems in North America. To their credit, that includes the Americans. Also to their credit, they have a very extensive system, but that doesn't change the fact that if we don't have the capacity we need to continue to grow our population, it becomes a problem. That's where Bill comes into play.
Certainly, the folks in Atlantic Canada want to see growth in their capacity to produce energy, to produce power, and that's why they want to see Bill dealt with and addressed, but because it's also tied in with Bill , which is obviously the Atlantic accords, that is why we have a motion and an amendment before us here today.
When we talk about what's happened in other provinces.... For example, with the coal transition that supposedly happened, there were thousands of people who at the end of it were put out of work. They were not transitioned to new jobs. We've seen entire towns in Alberta decimated by that. Bill is the government's attempt at doing this across the entire country, which is why Conservatives talk about the hundreds of thousands of jobs that are going to be lost, eliminated, because we do have a model to go on that the government has tried.
We've heard in other committee studies about how, when there was a transition that was going to happen in fisheries, it just didn't work. Mr. Angus has talked about how workers have been left out in his riding when it comes to plants being shut down or mining projects being closed. I think it's important that this Bill that has been looming over our country for the last four or five years gets dealt with, gets addressed and gets prioritized.
Mr. Chair, when it comes to a potential subamendment, I think of one thing that would help to make the original motion work.
I'm just going to discuss this out loud here. I'm not officially moving anything. I just want to talk this out quickly. Some of the dates that are trying to be prescribed in this programming motion obviously are going to be problematic.
In order to make sure that this motion works, getting rid of those dates or bumping them down the calendar at least a little bit, for the flexibility of the committee to be able to properly and appropriately deal with the study—I'm just thinking out loud here—removing those dates is probably going to be best.
We want to make sure that we hear from Canadians, from employers, employees, and certainly we'll hear from the private sector unions. We're definitely going to hear from people who aren't in a union, because we have heard from many people that if we talk about what this just transition supposedly is going to do, it's going to drastically impact the work of folks who don't belong to a union.
When we talk about the indirect jobs, that number is huge as well. We have to make sure that it considers those folks.
That's part of why I think putting in rigid timelines in the programming motion is going to be problematic. It also is going to be a barrier to getting the proper ordering of the motion with the amendment in it that my colleague from Lakeland moved. It would be appropriate for us to look at removing that.
With that, Mr. Chair, I'm going to move a subamendment that in section 3, as it's been ordered by my colleague from Lakeland, there be a subamendment that we would remove the reference to the dates in paragraph (a).
Paragraph (a) would read, “That the minister and officials be invited to appear before the committee on Bill ”. We'll just leave that open-ended so that we have that flexibility as a committee. Then (b) would say, “That the minister and officials...”. I think we would have to remove (b) all together. Again, that's one that's prescribing. It's programming a set date for officials in there. We haven't even agreed to our witness list yet. We have to do that first before we can start putting dates in there for what point officials should appear.
We will continue to push forward on this. This legislation has to be passed.
This committee had 56 meetings with 133 witnesses and over 112 hours of testimony. We know what the energy file is. We know what the sustainable jobs issue is. We need to get this legislation passed.
We are hearing from labour groups across the country who are very concerned. I'm hearing from investors who are looking to shift investment to the United States because they are seeing that Canada is becoming a gridlock, with the Conservatives blocking Bill , when there are such opportunities.
To that, this motion that I read, or my attempt to speak to this, was referred to us because two pieces of legislation were referred to our committee. As someone who has been in Parliament for multiple years and in opposition for all that time, I don't always agree with how government works. I know that when government moves legislation to the committee, it becomes the priority of the committee. The committee has to address that legislation.
What we saw from the Conservatives was an attempt to monkeywrench that motion on Bill and Bill by introducing another study on top of that. I reached out to the Conservatives. I said that I'd be more than willing to look at that study, but that study would have to come in order. It doesn't get to pre-empt the work that has been given to us by Parliament. There is a timeline ticking on this. We need to get this done. This is what we're hearing from labour.
We have a series of these amendments that are very.... First, it was Sudbury. Suddenly, we're going to have people from Sudbury. It wasn't really clear who we were going to have from Sudbury, but we were going to get somebody from Sudbury. The Conservatives suddenly were really fascinated. It's funny. They didn't have anybody come when the coal transition happened. It was the New Democrats who brought representatives who went through the coal transition. They didn't bring anybody. Suddenly, they wanted someone from Sudbury.
I believe the motion was that they wanted representatives from the mining industry in Timmins, which I think is a great idea. I would love to have a set of meetings with representatives from the mining region of Timmins, maybe Val-d'Or, maybe Sudbury, but outside of this meeting on Bill and Bill , because it would certainly be a huge education to my Conservative colleagues.
If they think that the mining representatives from northern Ontario are going to come down and back their climate-denying anti-investment in EV technology, I think they're going to be in for a big surprise.
We have Alamos Gold in Matachewan that's running 8,000 tonnes of gold a day underground. That's massive. When I go underground at Alamos, we talk about the really important need to move from diesel to electric trucks. That's a huge investment. Those ITCs will be huge for being able to move those kinds of underground pit trucks to battery power.
There's the Newmont mine. I would love to invite Newmont to come and talk about Borden. Borden is a mine that's running almost entirely green now. It is possible.
Again, this is something my Conservative colleagues would not probably know anything about. When you work underground in a diesel environment and work with oil from the drills, the lung cancers and stomach cancers are enormous, just from what you're breathing.
When you go into a clean battery-driven mine, the air is so much cleaner, and it drops your costs enormously. What you pay in battery investments, you actually make up in less cost for underground fans. When you have to run fans, let's say at Creighton, deep, 9,000 feet underground, you're pumping a lot of cool air down at those depths. When you run diesel motors at that depth, you have to run really heavy fans.
I talk to mining representatives, and I'm sure they would love to come to this committee to talk about how ITCs would help in those investments so that we could make switches. For example, I believe Vale, which is not in my region, but is in Ms. Lapointe's region, is running 72-ton haulage trucks now on batteries. That's a really transformative moment. People didn't think that was possible. Certainly the flat earth EV deniers would say that you couldn't run trucks that big. What they can do now, because of how they've tied the batteries to the braking energy on those pit trucks, is run from six hours to 10 hours. A 10-hour shift on a battery hauling 72 tons of ore is a major transformative moment.
I would love to have them come and talk about that technology and why they are absolutely committed to the clean-tech future, because they see the opportunities for mining.
Whenever I talk to people in the mining sector, they get it. If we're going to be competing against China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there are horrific human rights abuses, we need to have a supply chain that is free of the abuses that are happening in places like Congo, but also that has a clean energy footprint. We can't say we're going to be a clean energy superpower and get critical minerals unless our mines are able to start running on clean energy.
That leads to questions on the grid.
I know, Chair, when you were sitting as just one of the members, we were going to study the grid, something my Conservative colleagues don't seem to want to deal with. But the grid is important, because we actually can't move some of this battery technology for big industrial projects without dealing with issues of the grid.
I think it would be really great to have representatives of the Timmins mining industry. They would also explain to the Conservatives that Bill has really nothing to do with how mine projects are developed. I know Conservatives are going on that it takes 10 to 15 years to get a mine up and running, and they blame the Liberal government for that. Well, it always takes 10 to 15 years for a mine, because when you're talking about a multi-million dollar investment underground, you have to make sure you really know where you're putting your infrastructure. If you put the shaft in the wrong place, you're going to go bankrupt pretty quickly, and you're not going to be able to raise the money on the international market until you've done all the important steps that are necessary.
Take Doug Ford. He announced he was going to run a bulldozer through the Ring of Fire. Well, that didn't go so well. I wouldn't be betting any money on the Ring of Fire right now, because it was Conservative politicians who shot their mouths off about the Ring of Fire. If you go to Neskantaga First Nation, they're saying, “It ain't going to happen, because it's not done properly.” To build a mine properly, you have to have a proper environmental plan, a proper financial plan, the support of first nations, because when you have the support of first nations, things move a lot quicker.
For example, we had representatives from the Timmins mining region come—
I guess I could go back to the point where I said that we have 338 ridings where this is significant. We need to talk about the concerns that Canadians have, that regions have and that provinces have about how things are dealt with. We need to look at how industry is managing this, and the only way you can do that is to talk about the way the government has put obstacles in the way of industry and set up barriers where one part of the country is working against another part of the country. That is my rationale, and that is where I will continue from.
This contribution we had in Berlin was probably one of the first times where I had to sit there and say that I have to speak against this, because this was not the best way. It was obvious that it was simply presented to the group as window dressing to say, “Hey, this is what we're doing, so we'd sure like to have this other group on our side to do this.” It did pass, especially at that time—that was about six years or so ago. They were about as Conservative-minded as they are now, so it did pass. Therefore, we could merrily come back and say that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe also believes the carbon tax is a significant part of this.
We have that in a couple of different regions. For example, if you are going to be in the club of the European Union, you have to commit to some sort of engagement with and development of a carbon price, which kind of ties into what Canada said a number of years ago in Berlin. I can't see why Canada would be the one pushing it, but I can see where that discussion would come into play.
We can fast-forward to a McKinsey report that came out in 2019 and talked about carbon pricing in Europe and the engagement associated with that. I believe it was Poland that was at the rate of $1 per tonne at that time. I think Sweden was at $159 or $179 at that time, and we had Ukraine at 38¢, so that was it in 2019. To be fair, in 2019, Canada's carbon price was $20, so there was a 56:1 ratio involved there. Yes, Ukraine said, “Okay, to be part of this group, we're part of the carbon tax.”
If you look at where we are now, it is $60, and I believe Ukraine is around 83¢, so that is probably closer to a 75:1 ratio as far as the tax is concerned. Where does that put us? We know we want to help. That's what the OSCE was about. It speaks about food security and energy security, and, at that particular point in time, with Russia's incursions into Georgia and other places, and Crimea as well, all of those things were discussion points.
We can fast-forward to Birmingham in 2022, and we have similar arguments, except this time Canada came with a plan for the transition away from hydrocarbons. Again, it's very confusing as to why the greatest developer of hydrocarbons on earth would go there with its hands up and say, “Handcuff us. We're ready to show just how committed we are, because we know how committed our environment ministry, our natural resources and our are to respecting a signature that says if something is going to be done, it's going to be done by us first, and we will lead the charge.”
At the meeting where we were presenting this, the Czech Republic presented a motion, more or less saying, “Well, that's great. We want to talk about that. However, we would like to have respected the types of energy sources that we have in our boundaries, so that we are not bound by such stringent rules that indicate how great it would be if the world could get off hydrocarbons and how quickly they could get off hydrocarbons.” It was presented.
Once again, in order to make the changes that were associated with this amendment—and there were a few other changes there—the only way would have been if they had unanimous consent to do so.
I feel bad, but I had to make sure we did not have unanimous consent to do that. I know that people I care about a lot probably looked at me and asked why I was doing that. The reason is that you had the Czech Republic, along with many other countries in Europe, saying, “With the conflict that we have here in Europe, we need every sort of fuel we can get. We need to go back and reconsider the plans to mothball nuclear. We know that we're going to be doing more deforestation. We have those areas that had oil and gas.”
They didn't want to upset the organization they were with, but they wanted to be respected. That was the rationale and the reason for doing what I did.
It's difficult when you're put into that position, and it's more difficult when you come from a part of the country where, in the 15 years that I have been a member of Parliament....
I remember the very first time, when I was just running.... This guy came to me and said, “I want you to know that Alberta's and Canada's oil and gas industry is the very best in the world.” The only place that was coming close to it, he said at that time, was Australia. He said it was because they had taken what we had done and implemented that into their procedures and regulations. That made me proud.
It made me proud to stand up for our indigenous groups who were engaged with oil and gas. It made me proud to stand up for those in my community who work so diligently on oil and gas. Quite frankly, it gave me a sense of pride. I knew that I could go to other parts of this country, as a member of Parliament, and speak highly about what we did and therefore speak highly about what they do. We could all work together. As Canadians, we are experts in that field, as we are experts in other fields.
That's what we're dealing with right now.
It saddens me to look at the last five or six years and see serious division. I've seen division between groups. The biggest thing we do in this place.... When I first got involved in politics, I said that the worst thing you can do is to label people, label groups, label organizations. That's cheap and easy, and it doesn't show that you actually care about knowing more about what is taking place.
When we think about Canada and how we can take our natural resources.... I remember being part of ParlAmericas, and I remember going to Mexico. I believe we were in Mexico City. We had, at that time, the Bloc with us, and we had the Liberals with us and the NDP with us.
I might have said some things that were not exactly nice about the government in Europe. I suppose I learned that from some of my Liberal colleagues who were with me in Mexico City. However, leaving that aside, I remember a person from the Bloc. What they said was, “I love Canada”—
:
Thank you very much, Chair.
Again, as we speak about various parts of the country, whether they be provinces, regions or each and every one of our constituencies, this is the point I wish to make, and I'm about to make it with regard to the dear friends from the Bloc that I had with me in Mexico City.
As I said, the public comments were these: “I love Canada. I love Quebec. Two great countries.” I didn't see eye to eye with that part, but nevertheless, that was what was being said.
I realized that they wanted to make Canada strong because it gave them an opportunity to be strong within a Canada that was going to be able to go around the world and be beneficial and that then they would be able to work well within that in their aspirations on sovereignty and so on—because it was the Bloc—and that it would have gone someplace for them.
Now when I listen to my friends from the Bloc, their commentary is this: “This country is so dysfunctional that we can't wait to get out of here.” It's quite a change in 12 years from “We love this country, we love your country, and we want to work together because we can see that it's positive” to the labelling and the pitting of one group against another. Believe me, it has done a lot of damage to this country.
I can see what the Bloc would do with that and how they would simply ask, “How do you expect us to want to be part of this group? You guys can't get along. It's east against west.”
Let's talk about a language against this and about the different types of energy. I would love to for us to be able to work through with the energy we have. Getting back to the natural resources side of it, I am happy that we have the great ability of this country to have so much of our electricity coming from hydro power. The point that gets me—and many people have heard me say this—is that those dams didn't just happen. The environmental damage that is associated with flooding vast sections of Canada in order to ensure we have electricity is something.... I've always said that you have to measure the environmental impact from the first shovel you use to dig something up to the very last shovel you use to cover it up.
Now, when it comes to hydro power, it's going to be a long time before we cover it up, but we should recognize that which is there. I can go through all the scientific aspects of it. I know a little bit about science. I can go through all of that, but that's not my point. My point is the metrics of analysis. When we then talk about, for example, nuclear energy.... Again, I'm dealing with this because we're part of natural resources.
Thankfully, with all of the discussions we have had over the last number of months as we've had the nuclear industry here and they've been chastised for all of the different things and so on, finally they got some recognition, recognition that if we want emissions-free electricity, then we shouldn't be damning the nuclear industry in the same way that we're putting the oil and gas industry in the crosshairs. Thankfully, that has happened. I'm happy to see that, for many different reasons, but we still have this....
I constantly hear from people I know, who know better, that what we must do is minimize and get rid of our hydrocarbons. Well, when I fly to Vancouver, I take a look at where they load all of the coal. I know where it's going, as does anybody else who flies in and out of Vancouver.
That's okay. However, if you fly over Fort McMurray, it's not okay. All this oil that has been seeping into these rivers in northern Alberta for millennia.... We've now put a stop to it. We collect it and sell it around the world, but this has been demonized. I keep telling people that the oil and gas industry hurt itself with this. It felt, “Well, anybody would understand what we're doing and how much better we are doing it than any other place in the world.” They didn't do a very good job of selling that. Therefore, it was easy for groups, especially from Europe—although we certainly have groups here in Canada—to say, “You know, the tar sands campaign”—of course, tar is something you get from a process, not what we have there—“will be something we can get a lot of money out of.” That is exactly what took place. It took place for decades. It's pitting one group against another.
I know the massive dams on these rivers are going to look like that for hundreds of years. When a pit has been completed in Fort McMurray, within 40 years, you cannot tell the difference between it and any forest that would be there. Actually, after 20 years, you can't tell the difference, except the Alberta government won't allow a complete reclamation—or whatever the term is—until after 40 years. That's what you get in Alberta. You don't get that in Venezuela. You don't get that in Nigeria. You get it in Alberta.
I have to listen to different groups demonize the oil and gas industry in my province—and worse than that, in my country. That's the part I believe is very important, which is why, when I look at what is happening with Bill , I believe it is rather important that we respect that process and work from there. Those are some of the things I believe we should be paying attention to.
Talking about our own constituencies, I know oil and gas found disfavour, because it was easy for environmental groups to get money to demonize it.
Look at our agriculture area. I've been a farm kid since I was born, and I still continue to farm. I know we have a tax on agriculture as well. We do a great job. That's why, when I was at the OSCE, we talked about food security. When I went to Asia Pacific and the ParlAmericas and so on, food security was critical. I could tell them what we do in agriculture—the significance of Canadian agriculture and of what we sell. I also tied in how that's what we do with oil and gas.
The next part of it is this pass we seem to give the mining industry. Here we have an opportunity to do mining for rare earth minerals and that type of thing. We believe the people who made all their money going against oil and gas and conventional agriculture are going to let mining get this great pass.
When we talk about what is happening in Timmins or in Sudbury or in my riding, it's “Don't worry about that. That's for the greater good. That's for electric vehicles or that's for some other type of thing we have. We'll be fine. Just you guys stop with this hydrocarbon development, because we believe that's a problem”—“we” being the and the
That is the reason I am so concerned about the way we are going in this country. We are looking at ways that we could pit one group against another. I do not believe that it will change with this present administration, and that is something that bothers me.
I would think that somewhere along the line, people could look at what we do and what Canada does, be proud of that and speak about the things we do together, rather than people such as me having to go to international fora. I listen to our government talk about how embarrassed they are that we are a major oil and gas-developing nation and that with any luck they will be able to come up with another plan. Those are the things that concern me.
There are other aspects when we speak about Bill and the transition away from traditional oil and gas jobs, about how things are going to be so much better if we can just tie into the new world order that we see and be prepared for all of us to use a new energy source and change our way of doing things.
Depending upon which way the earth is turning, it takes me four hours on average to get from Alberta to Ottawa, which is about the same amount of time it takes if I want to fly to Mexico. We have six time zones in this country. When I look out the plane window, I see the amazing things we have, the natural beauty and the water. I know that we have minerals there. I know the other things that are associated with it, and I am proud of every part of this.
My wife's family came from Prince Edward Island. They were there in the 1800s. They were mariners. I have a great sense of pride for that part of the country and for the Maritimes. I have friends I went to school with who are from Quebec. They are great, hard-working people. Then there's Ontario and all of the western provinces.
In my role with indigenous affairs and northern development, I have met some amazing individuals in that community. Believe me, I would tell people that if they wanted to find a CEO to come and work in their company, they should talk to these people. They understand what's going on. They know what is taking place.
My thought when I became an MP was that we would find ways of bringing this country together and be proud of it, rather than finding ways of dividing. Sadly, we seem to make sport of that. That is something that I feel is not standing us in good stead.
I've been fortunate in that I've spent time on the agriculture committee. I've spent time on public accounts, so I understand how the funding of government goes. I also understand what happens when things go awry with government. I've also been on international trade, so I know how important it is to trade our goods around the world. I know how well respected our goods are around the world.
I've been in South America, talking to mining companies there that are Canadian. We have a lot of Canadian mining companies. Yes, sometimes they take over a mining operation that was not looked after very well, so we have groups here in Canada that will attack them.
I remember one group—I believe it was in Colombia—that basically made a point. They said they needed consultants. Here's how they were going to use consultants: They weren't going to take some American consultants who came down, or somebody from Canada. They were going to go to the local colleges in these countries and bring these people to be their consultants so that they could have respect and talk to the priests, the community leaders, the government, the environmentalists, the farmers and everybody. That's how they were going to deal with that.
They brought the groups together. These Canadian mining companies basically said that they needed to do that to gain trust, so that's what they did.
At the same time, I remember that here, we had motions coming to the floor from the Liberals that were basically criticizing our mining companies around the world. By extension, then, that would include these that were doing a great job.
It gets a little frustrating when the mindset is, “Let's be critical”. The mindset is to look at these things and find out just what to do to minimize the efforts of expert Canadians.
I suppose I'm going back to my 34 years as a teacher in math, physics, biology and chemistry—primarily math and physics. The problem is that we have preconceived notions of what is happening in the world.
One book I've been looking at is called Factfulness by Hans Rosling. He was a medical doctor as well as a statistician. He goes through a series of questions that he would ask the public. They're simple types of things. I'll just take an example. I think you'll be curious to see this.
In all low-income countries across the world, how many girls finish the first five grades of school? Here are the options: (a) 20%; (b) 40%; or (c) 60%. In low-income countries around the world today, how many girls finished the first five grades of school? I'm not a teacher anymore, so I'm not going to make a test out of it. It's 60%.
That's not what the results were when they gave this question to the general public, to people we depend on in different world-wide organizations or to academics. They got less than what it would have been if they had randomly chosen it.
Another question is, “In the last 20 years, the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has...”. The options are “almost doubled”, “remained more or less the same”, or “almost half”. Well, most people think poverty is getting worse, but no; it's half of what it was before, because of different things that we've done.
For life expectancy in the world, they had a) “50 years”; b) “60 years”; and c) “70 years”. This is in the world. It's 70 years. That's what it really is.
I don't want to belabour it, but my point is that people like me have these preconceived notions of what is taking place. I grew up in the sixties, and these were the things that we were all bombarded with. We teach teachers—the older ones teach the younger ones. This is our preconceived notion of what is taking place in the world, so that is something we present.
However, when we look at it statistically, we see that we've been wrong. Governments bring together their sayers of sooth, but they're wrong, and we make decisions and policies that are related to that. The only thing on which they agree with us is the 13th question.
Actually, I want to go to the 12th question. It asks, “How many people in the world have some access to electricity?” The options are 20%, 50% or 80%.
Well, it's 80% of the world that has access to electricity.
Another one asks “How many of the world's 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease?” Option a) was 20%, b) was 50%, and c) was 80%.
The answer is 80%.
We don't think that way. We don't look at those statistics. We believe the things that we are told through social media, through reports that we see on various news agencies. I won't go into the ones that I think are somewhat off.
The only one on which it seems that we have it right says, “Global climate experts believe that over the next 100 years, the average temperature will: a) get warmer, b) remain the same, or c) get colder.”
Well, it is true that global climate experts believe that it will get warmer.
Again, I mentioned that it was the sixties when I grew up. It was a little before that when I was born. However, I remember all of these different stages—here is the next ice age; here is what is going to happen with our ozone layers; this is going to happen here, and everything is going to be flooded. It was all of these problems. We are going to have massive hurricanes. We are going to have massive forest fires. We are going to have all of these types of things. If you believe that narrative, then you are prepared to make statements that say that the Earth is boiling and you will believe somebody who says that.
The facts don't bear it out. The sad reality is that one of those other groups that have been criticized for not doing their job has been forestry. Of course, forest communities live around the forests. They have not done those things that were necessary for them to be able to protect themselves. The opportunities are there, but they just have not used them.
How can we here, in Canada...? We've had some terrible things, and I know people who have lost homes and so on. We have people who categorically will state that it is all because of climate change. Well, the U.S. doesn't have a carbon tax, and this last year has been one of the least severe fire seasons ever—with no carbon tax.
I know that this correlation doesn't make sense, any more than the correlation makes sense that if you charge a carbon tax, you're going to be able to solve these problems.
The correlations don't make sense, but they sure make good clips in the House of Commons. They make pretty good clips when you say, “This person here is a climate denier.” I've had that accusation.
All I simply said is that I remember going to Drumheller Valley and looking at a sign that said that 10,000 years ago, we were under a kilometre of ice. Yes, there has been global warming. At that time we were only under a kilometre of ice. Montreal was under two miles of ice, so they had even more hot air there as things changed.
I don't know how many people know about Lake Superior. It wasn't there about 15,000 years ago. It was carved out of the glacierization. The fact is that as massive dams of ice broke as the climate started warming, the Great Lakes were formed. That's the reality we have, but nobody pays attention to those things because they'd sooner talk about somebody being a climate denier or this sort of thing. There are all these things that nobody pays much attention to, so it's important that if we're going to make up policies, we take a look at all politicians who give that simple argument as to how this can happen and how that can happen.
In our case, it's how far down the road we are going to be before we can fix some of the problems we see, and there are a lot of them. The main one is that we have such wealth in this country. We have so many unique innovators in this country. We've heard—and I can't remember whether it was here in the natural resources committee or back in the environment committee—about a group who built hovercraft in Ontario. In order to get funding to proceed, they had to go through the U.S., and where did they get their funding from? It was Canada pension plan. That's where the money came from when they went to the States to be able to develop the programming they had.
It seems a little odd to me that we can't figure out a way to make those types of things happen. Nevertheless, that's what we are dealing with when we have ideologically driven leadership, because they stop thinking.
We talk about how every one of our communities is affected by the IRA in the U.S., which Biden has signed on to. We are expected now to change all of our rules for our investments and all of the things that are taking place.
The first thing that the Biden administration did when they came in was to shut down Keystone XL. When they realized that they needed a little bit of diesel and they needed a few other things, they asked where they were going to get this from. They made deals with Venezuela to get their heavy oil.
Again, not a lot of people understand the science of all of this, but heavy oil has all of the different things you need. It has what you're going to use for asphalt and it has what you're going to use for diesel. It has the gasoline, and you have the propane. You have all these things.
It all comes out of one pot. It's how you deal with it that is important, but we seem to forget that. We seem to forget how much of what we do and what we use is actually coming out of the hydrocarbons that we have. That's why these different regions get a little upset when someone does not respect those parts of the country that champion these new technologies.
Before people just say, “You don't like the concept of a carbon tax” and all this other kind of stuff—because I know I'll get that—Alberta has had a fee for heavy emitters for close to 20 years. There was no way that each and every one of those businesses could take an amount of money and efficiently fix or change their industry, so they put it together into a fund, and that fund, as it grew, was then able to fund industry-wide solutions, such as carbon capture utilization and storage, such as taking nanoparticles of carbon and putting them into different types of products, whether it was steel or whatever. Those are the things that are done if you are wise.
How do you get to the stage where you can afford to be wise? You take a product you have, make it the best in the world, sell it and get tax dollars to build schools and hospitals in your province. You have tax dollars that go to helping other provinces in this country. You have tax dollars to help with all the needs the federal government has, and you have tax incentives and dollars to make the environmental aspects of what we have in this country even better. What can you do with that? You sell it around the world.
What are we going to do with things the way we have set it up? We will chase that innovation out of this country, similar to the hovercraft, and then we will buy it back from others around the world. Where is the logic to have other provinces suggest that Alberta is doing all this damage to the world and that they are going to do all they possibly can to stop it? Where is the advantage to having political parties that believe it worked for Greenpeace and for all these other groups? Lots of money comes in if you fight them, so that's what they will do again. Where is the advantage? How does that build a nation?
As I mentioned earlier, I can see where the Bloc would look at it and say, “Who cares? We don't want you guys to build a strong nation. We have an exit strategy.” However, it should matter to my friends in Quebec. It should matter to my friends in the Maritimes. It should matter to my friends up north. It should matter to my friends in Ontario. It should matter to my friends in the west, and it should matter to my friends whom I have met and have spoken with for many years around the world when I say, “If you would just come to Canada, and if you would just look at what we produce, how we produce it and why we would do it this way, you will be impressed.” That would mean there is no better place for you to invest. Certainly, if you need products, take a look at Canada and what Canada has to offer. That's where I'm going with this.
I believe that such an amazing country, with 338 ridings at this point in time that depend so much on oil and gas and its byproducts.... We look at the things we have around this table and at the things we wear. All of those things are critical. Why would we want to go someplace else or not have that opportunity to at least sell and buy that product? Those are some of the things that I'm extremely concerned about.
As I've said, on the world stage, we have lost our way. I can't believe the way in which we are portrayed around the world at this point in time. I have friends who have been in India, Asia and so on, and when I was on the international trade committee, we spent time with the ASEAN countries and talked to them. This was at about the time when the went to India with his family and sort of embarrassed things a bit. Maybe some people didn't think so. Nevertheless, even Liberals who were with me on that committee—I won't name names—were scratching their heads as to what was taking place.
We had the same sort of thing happen with trade developments. When we talked about CETA, the ball had already been hit out of the park. All this had to do when they brought it back to home plate was to put his signature on it. That is how far CETA had been. Then, of course, he decided, “Well, there are a few other things I'd like to see added to this thing, so let's open this up.”
The same kind of thing happened in Vietnam in the meetings there: “If I show up on time, it's probably because I've been working on these great things to add a few more letters to the agreements.” The people who were there would look at it and say, “Well, why? Why would you do that? I thought we were talking about trade. I thought that was the rationale. I thought that was the reason we had.”
Again, on this latest issue they're trying to say, “Don't you know that Ukraine has a carbon tax?”, and all of this kind of stuff, thinking that they've really found something special to hang their hat on. Well, when you go from a 56:1 ratio to an 80-some-to-one ratio, of course people knew that they had to sign on to an agreement to be part of the EU, but when you take a look at the other aspects of it, again, it's back to the history of what happened in Berlin.
Canada was saying, “Hey, we're going to do this carbon tax, so why don't you guys get on our side and make it so much easier?” In Birmingham they said: “Well, we've even gone a little further because we have a Minister of Environment and a Minister of Natural Resources who just love this stuff, so we're going to say that as Canadians we are going to do all we can to limit the expansion of hydrocarbons, even though it's here in our country and it would really hurt us more than anybody else.”
That's really where we're at. Those are the reasons I am so concerned about how each one of our ridings is going to deal with the issues that are taking place. Again, I go back to what I said about from the first shovel to dig something up to the last shovel to cover it up.
I know that there was a great discussion having to do with biodiesel or ethanol and those types of things as farm products. All I can say is, that's great. I know we can do these things. As a matter of fact, probably 30 years ago I was approached by a group to commit about 500 acres of barley to a project that would have turned the barley into ethanol. Then you would take the ethanol and move it off, and then you would take the mash and you would feed it to animals. Then you would take the methane you would have from those animals and that would help run your system.
There were two things.
First, it would have probably been useful. The only thing was that they said it would work dependent upon subsidies that we could get from the Alberta government. Well, I look at subsidies as “that's my tax dollar” and “that's my neighbour's tax dollar”. I can't do something just because it came from my neighbour's tax dollar. It has to do something on its own.
It would have been a neat thing to do, but I didn't feel that it was right. It got to the stage where we talked about zoning and how we would do all of this stuff, and how it was a “good idea”, but it wasn't the right thing at the right time.
If I were going to deal with what I was getting out of this, I would have had to look at how much fuel I was going to use for this 500 acres of barley that I had to commit, so I would have had to treat it in exactly the same way and manage it and analyze it in exactly the same way I would if I were selling it for cattle feed. I'd have to do that. I'd have to then look at the cost of the facility and the cost of everything else associated with that, as well as the trucking. Those were some of the metrics I looked at.
We need to do that for everything else we do. When we say, “Oh, I think we'll go to Timmins and we'll start digging up there, and everybody's going to be happy.” Well, that's not likely. We can try to find all of the rare earth minerals around Canada, and it's not that we can't do it, but at what cost?
Right now, we're still sending coal to China, and if they're producing and mining in their country, where are we going to buy these things from? We're going to buy them from them, because they are part of that supply chain. With them as part of that supply chain, we will not be able to compete. We will not be able to compete with the way in which they have taken over African countries and the way in which they get cheap labour in order to produce these products that we all seem excited about having.
We're going to say we're going to do it and we're going to say because the U.S. is doing this, we have to make sure we get in on it as well. Again, as I mentioned before, sometimes we hear things and we think that we know everything, so I'm going to preface some of this.
When we hear that companies in Europe—GM, Ford, Stellantis and so on—are actually cutting back on their electric vehicles because of the supply chain, the costs, the high electricity rates, then we start to think that yes, this was a good idea, but how do we make it work? How do we measure the environmental impact as we do the mining in our region and do all of the other things that are there?
We, as Canadians, go over and above everything to make sure that we have satisfied any group that wants to send in a brief or have a discussion, and we do that. We encourage it, so we should actually listen to them when they come.
That's the issue we have right now. That makes it kind of difficult for us to proceed.
As I mentioned before, if you have billions of dollars of subsidies to these companies, even if they're suspect as to how they might get built and by whom, still it's $15 billion from Canadians for this kind of a project. Wouldn't it better to look at the strengths we have and take vehicles, as we have, that have gone from 10 or 12 miles per gallon to 30 miles per gallon? Wouldn't that be a better way?
As we purchase this fuel that we have, we then put that money into our schools, our hospitals and our national defence and into all of the things that Canadians need. We help out those provinces that for some reason or other have a different way of analyzing their balance sheets. I would think that would be a wise thing to do.
How do you do that in a country that pits one group against another? How do you that when the mandate letters for the and the just cut and paste from one to the other? How do you look at a department?
I understand government. They are beholden to the thoughts and ideology of a government. I understand that's how it's done, but how do we find our way through when this is what we are doing to this wonderful nation of ours?
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank my colleague, the member for Red Deer—Mountain View, Earl Dreeshen, for a wonderful explanation of why we need to consider this subamendment. He really created a great platform to help Canadians who are watching on TV understand what this is really about, the importance of the work this committee does and the importance of the order in which we do things in this committee.
Thank you, Earl, for doing that. You've helped, I think, all of us around this table, and certainly viewers who are watching, to understand the importance of the work that we're doing here, as well as the importance of the sequence of the work that we're doing.
Getting back to the subamendment, which was to make sure that this committee will be hearing from witnesses from Timmins—James Bay, someone might ask questions. Why Timmins—James Bay? What is so important about Timmins—James Bay? Why do we need to hear those witnesses?
It is quite simple: There is a lot of natural resource activity in that particular constituency of the country.
I acknowledge that there are 338 constituencies in Canada, many of which have natural resources. Mr. Dreeshen talked very articulately about the natural resource sector in northern Alberta, but Timmins—James Bay has forestry and lots of mining. Some of the bigger mines there are the Alamos Gold project and the Victor Mine. We hear lots of the big names fairly regularly. They come to Ottawa and solicit tax dollars for consideration, but there are a lot of others.
The concern is that we're going to be looking after labour there. That's why they want to discuss these bills, both Bill and Bill . They cite the concern of wanting to make sure that labour is properly addressed there. We know there is labour involved in mining activities.
I also want to point out to folks who are watching, and to this committee, that there are lots of junior miners we never hear about that also have employees who also need to be able to count on that paycheque coming every two weeks so that they can feed their families, heat their homes and put fuel into their vehicles. These are all things that have been very negatively impacted, Mr. Chair, by a carbon tax. We've seen the price of all of those things significantly increased by a carbon tax.
It's interesting that this Liberal government carved out a geographical area of our country and gave it a carbon tax exemption or holiday. It's very interesting, because apparently it's an ideological platform of this government to have a carbon tax, and now it's carved out for a geographical area—Atlantic Canada—a carbon tax exemption to make life more affordable there.
None of the other areas of Canada received that same exemption. They didn't receive it because they're heating with more fuel-efficient methods, like hydroelectricity or natural gas from Alberta. They experienced the same cost increases due to the carbon tax, yet they did not get the benefit of that carve-out exemption that was provided to Atlantic Canadians.
We know the reason that happened. It's because the 's polling numbers were plummeting in Atlantic Canada, and he tried to address that by throwing them a bone, as we would call it in the industry. Maybe it was keep them happy and get their support onside.
There are people in Timmins—James Bay who have experienced the same increased cost of living in heating their homes, putting fuel in their vehicles and buying groceries at the grocery store, all of which have been impacted by the carbon tax. That's no small matter here. I think this committee should be seized with the cost that carbon tax has added to everyday living.
I want to list some of the junior miners that find themselves domiciled in Timmins—James Bay. I went on the Internet to get a list of the junior mining companies in Timmins—James Bay. I would like to make mention of them, because they're why we need witnesses from these mining companies.
They include Patriot Battery Metals, Osisko Mining, Li-FT Power, Critical Elements, Lithium Royalty, Brunswick Exploration, Fury Gold Mines and Arbor Metals.
As well, we have Azimut Exploration, Benz Mining, Power Nickel, Midland Exploration, Vanstar Mining, Max Power Mining, Superior Mining, Champion Electric Metals, Ophir Gold, Consolidated Lithium Metals, Hertz Lithium, Comet Lithium, Sirios Resources, FE Battery Metals, Targa Exploration, Harfang Exploration, Quebec Precious Metals, Canadian Critical Minerals, Lithium One Metals, ALX Resources, Stelmine Canada, Dios Exploration, Niobay Metals, Medaro Mining, Opus One Gold, Green Battery Minerals, Mosaic Minerals, Stria Lithium, Genius Metals, SPOD Lithium, Metalex Ventures, Battery X Metals, TomaGold, Clarity Metals, SLAM Exploration, Durango Resources, Lancaster Resources, Rockland Resources, Arctic Fox Lithium, K9 Gold, QcX Gold, Bullion Gold Resources, Victory Battery Metals, Brigadier Gold, Lithium Lion Metals, Musk Metals, MegaWatt Metals, Fabled Copper, Nordique Resources and Q2 Metals.
That's the listing that you can find on the Internet, Mr. Chairman, about junior mining companies in the James Bay area. There's a whole host of them there, and all these mining companies have employees who work in that area and are dependent on their paycheques. What we do in this committee matters. It matters greatly, and that's why it's so important to hear from them.
However, we also need to go back and look at the platform this premise is based on and why we need to reconsider, very carefully, whether we're addressing things in the right order here. We know that the Supreme Court issued a reference on Bill C-69, which is the impact assessment legislation this government passed, which has also been referred to in the industry as the “no more pipelines” bill. We know that there was a referral that struck down about 80% to 85% of that bill as being non-charter compliant or constitutionally challenged.
This committee should be absolutely seized with getting that legislation back here to committee and identifying the areas that the Supreme Court has referred to as not being compliant with the Constitution. We should be looking at those areas and correcting them, if they can be corrected. I suspect that in a lot of instances we're going to have to just discard big segments of that bill, because it just doesn't pass the litmus test.
I think it would be very wise of us to conduct a study on that bill first and to bring in witnesses from Timmins—James Bay and see how that particular piece of legislation has impacted their companies and impacted their employees, because the Supreme Court says that it doesn't work. Then, also, the Federal Court recently ruled that the ban on single-use plastics also wasn't constitutional. I know that the NDP-Liberal government is moving ahead with contesting that further and challenging that decision. I know it is a very welcomed decision from the Federal Court.
Mr. Chairman, I get into my riding very late in the evening when we're done here in Ottawa, and I like to treat myself. I swing through McDonald's on the way home and pick up a strawberry milkshake. I have about an hour and a quarter drive to my home from the airport, so I do that quite frequently. I was reminded again last week when I went home that I put that paper straw into the strawberry milkshake and started sucking it. Well, that just doesn't work so well. You have to look at the cost-benefit aspect, and with a paper straw, the suction that you need to get that triple-thick strawberry milkshake from McDonald's up the straw and to your palate takes an incredible amount of work. We very much welcome the decision from the Federal Court to strike down this plastic straw ban.
That decision is going to be welcomed by Canadians as they go to have their strawberry milkshakes, which are an important staple here in our Canadian diet. Both of these decisions are important to this committee. Our committee should be consumed with addressing these two pieces of... One is a regulation that came out of cabinet, I suppose—the plastic straw ban—but certainly the decision of the Supreme Court on Bill is something this committee should be bringing back and studying.
Why is it important to prioritize that? It is because both Bill and Bill reference Bill , which the Liberals have proposed as the next pieces of legislation on our work schedule here at this committee. If they're referencing a flawed piece of legislation, we know in turn that this legislation is also flawed. That gives us many reasons that we should be prioritizing the study of Bill C-69 over Bill C-49 and Bill C-50. Let's get Bill C-69 right, or let's actually recall all of Bill C-69 and discard it and present legislation to this committee that will give Atlantic Canada a regulatory platform for tidal power.
We could talk more about Bill , which was at one time called the just transition, and then industry referred to it more as an unjust transition, which probably more adequately described the intent of that bill. The Liberal government, in an effort to try to save face, renamed that bill “sustainable jobs”, when the sustainable jobs were already there. They're in oil and gas. They're providing above-average income levels for the families involved in that industry, and in the production of the world's cleanest and safest fuels by way of diesel fuel, gas, aviation fuel and liquefied natural gas.
When this Liberal government came to power back in 2015, there were 18 LNG projects on the board. Do you know how many of them have actually been built and are in production at capacity? Zero. Zero projects have been completed. It's important for Canadians to know that. The Liberal government has either been the cause of these projects being cancelled or of their not being completed.
Meanwhile, the Americans, whom we refer to a lot around this committee when we talk about the IRA.... To folks watching on TV, the IRA is the Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden has implemented in the United States. It's a massive spending bill. We always seem to want to compete with that piece of legislation on the Canadian side. I don't know why we're so eager to race to the bottom with Joe Biden, but for whatever reason, that's the direction the Liberal government has decided to pursue.
In spite of the IRA, and in spite of the massive spending and tax credit regime the Americans have created south of the 49th parallel, they have still built and completed almost half a dozen LNG projects. Canada had opportunities in Europe and Japan to sell our liquefied natural gas, coming from the cleanest processing plants the world has ever known. Our gas and oil industry has the cleanest and safest energy model. Instead of our being able to capitalize and sell to countries like Germany, the rest of Europe and Japan, our clean LNG products are now being sold by the Americans. That's another opportunity that has been missed by the government, while at the same time it wants so desperately to compete on so many levels with the American government on its IRA.
I guess another example of that is the massive amounts, the billions of dollars—I think it's close to $31 billion—that this government has committed to large multinational corporations that want to build battery production facilities here in Canada. We're going to be giving them $31 billion of taxpayers' money.
I think Canadians need to understand what this Liberal government has committed to here, because it is no small sum. It will create some jobs, but by the way, 1,600 of them, we're told now, will come from Asian countries in the form of temporary foreign workers. When Canadians were first told about the investment into these lithium battery manufacturers, I don't think they were told that these temporary foreign workers were going to be the mainstay of the employee workforce. That's something on which we haven't seen complete integrity and openness from this government, but it's come to light now. Many of these workers who are going to be employed in these battery plants that are being built on taxpayer dollars here in Canada are actually going to be foreign nationals. That's another aspect of trying to compete with the Americans on their IRA, on their Inflation Reduction Act. I think, Mr. Chairman, that's just a race to the bottom.
I think we, as Canada here, are incredibly blessed with our God-given natural resources, whether it's oil and gas, whether it's in our mining sector, or whether it's in our forestry, all things that this committee should really be studying. We need to develop these resources. They weren't given to us just to keep in the ground and stay buried, covered in a pile of dirt.
No, we have these resources, and we've been given these resources to be good stewards of them. I think the mining industry and the oil and gas industry have shown that they're responsible and that they are good stewards of the resources that we have here in this country. We have a phenomenal amount. We're the envy of the world.
We also have clean water. We probably have the largest amount of clean water resource on the globe, and I think our natural resources companies have been great stewards in protecting the integrity of our clean, fresh water resource that we also have here.
However, there's mining that needs to happen, and we know that Bill has made mining very difficult. It's happening in Timmins—James Bay with the regulatory process that's necessary to open up new mines and to continue to develop existing mines. It's very difficult, and that is something that needs to be studied.
Just recently someone pointed out to me—and it's not a recent fact but an age-old fact—that when we look at the air that we breathe, the composition of that air.... We hear so much about carbon and the need to reduce the carbon input and we hear that we're responsible for creating all this carbon pollution everywhere. It was pointed out to me that 78% of the air that we breathe is nitrogen and 21% is oxygen, so 99% of the air that we breathe is nitrogen and oxygen. The other 1% is comprised of argon and carbon, and 0.03% is carbon.
I don't have the data to show that it's true, but some folks say that the impact of the carbon in the air could be manipulated by about 20% by human activity. If that's true, then it would be 0.006 of 1%. That's six one-thousandths of a per cent of impact that all human activity could actually have on the quality of the air we breathe in relation to carbon. Those are things that we need to consider before we light our hair on fire talking about carbon pollution.
Do we still want to reduce pollution? Absolutely, we do. Do we still want to find out more efficient ways to burn hydrocarbons? We've seen the industry really step up and do that. We've seen miles per gallon per vehicle significantly increase in the last two decades.
I remember growing up in the 1970s. I'm a little behind my colleague Earl here, from Red Deer. He grew up in the 1960s and I grew up in the 1970s. I was really fond of muscle cars.
Some of the muscle cars that I owned at that time.... The very first one I ever bought was when I was 16. It was a 1970 Mustang Mach 1 with a 351 Cleveland automatic. It had a shaker hood. It had the louvres on the rear window. It was blue with black accents. It was a wonderful car. I would have been very lucky in those days to get 15 miles to the gallon—very lucky. I had an awful lot of fun burning that gallon of gas for every 15 miles I drove.
We have cars being produced today with the same amount of horsepower, or more, that will get 30 miles to the gallon. That's a testament to industry, to how far technology has come. We've reduced the amount of hydrocarbons we consume for the same amount of horsepower that we create, whether that's in gasoline-powered engines or diesel-powered engines. We know this carbon tax is particularly burdensome to our transportation industry, which has some of the heaviest users of diesel fuel in our country. We know that every semi truck driving down the highway is burning diesel fuel. The construction industry also is consumed with heavy equipment that—
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Thank you for focusing me again, Mr. Chairman.
The fact that Mr. Simard brought up my muscle cars just made me think back to the 1970 Challenger Hemi that I bought, which I had for a period of time, and the big-block Chevelle convertible, which was just phenomenal. Then I bought a Chevrolet Vega that somebody had wedged a little 327 Chevy into, and that thing just went like a bandit.
That really refocused my thoughts, my little diversion there on muscle cars, and what that has to do.... The fact is that the industry we have here in Canada that is using our natural resources is becoming more and more efficient. I was talking about the amount of hydrocarbons that I was burning back in the seventies. Now, with the technology that we have today that is making the same amount of horsepower, we're using about half of the fuel that we did before. That's amazing. Why is that important? It is important because if we're burning half the fuel, we need to produce half as much, or we can sell that much more. Whether it's in the oil and gas industry, whether it's in the forestry industry or whether it's in mining, which is what we have in Timmins—James Bay, we know that if we can become more efficient users of the natural resources that we have, they're going to last longer. They're also going to create lower emissions.
I think that creating targets that are reasonable and sustainable is important. We know that this Liberal government, in spite of the carbon tax, which was supposed to be a cure-all for everything, hasn't met any of its emissions targets—and that's unfortunate—except for the one year during COVID when nobody was driving or moving anything.
What we need to do is protect our natural resource industry. I know there are a lot of advances in technology. I know that solar and wind are important, and I know that this is the direction that Bill would like to take the natural resources industry in here in Canada. It was interesting, because we had industry on the Hill here last week, and there were industry representatives. I went to one of the receptions and was talking to one of the producers there. They were boasting about how their whole facility was solar powered. They showed me the rows upon rows of solar panels. I told them that was very interesting. They said that they have a connection to the grid in the case of the solar system not being able to provide enough energy to properly run their plants. The question I asked this young lady was this: If there wouldn't have been a subsidy to have installed these solar panels up front, would it be economically viable to be using solar energy versus the hydro energy that we have in Manitoba? The answer was no. The only way that a lot of this stuff works is if we take tax dollars and subsidize it. I think we have to look seriously at whether that's the direction that we need to go. Do we want everybody else to pay to subsidize our reduced energy bills? I don't know if that's fair. I don't think it's the right way to do it.
My point in talking about muscle cars and where that whole industry has evolved to today is that as time moves along, industry and technology advance to the point where we become more efficient. I think that over time, that happens in the energy industry as well. However, when we force it to happen this way, there's nothing efficient about it, and it takes huge amounts of tax dollars to achieve the results that we get. I believe that we'll get the same results at the end of the day if we allow these things to naturally progress, if we allow industry and technology to use our resources responsibly to create our desired results while using less of our resources, and I think we can do that.
We know that there are a lot of things that we need to consider when we're studying these bills here at the committee. I think that if we get representation in here from the mining industry, in particular from the Timmins—James Bay constituency, we're going to hear reports from these miners and company owners about how difficult it is for these junior miners to start up and how absolutely necessary the products are that they produce.
I listed several of the junior mining companies in the list that I provided for committee just a few moments ago. You could see that several of these mines are lithium mines. Lithium is a project that's required in the production and development of the batteries that need to power our electrified economy, and in these batteries that we want to make in Stellantis and Volkswagen. I think Ford is considering something as well.
It's important that we hear from witnesses from Timmins—James Bay about how they'll feel about it, and not only on the labour side. I think the labour side is very important. We want to make sure that Canadians can bring home powerful paycheques, and that they can keep a higher percentage of those paycheques in their pockets and not have to pay them through increased costs related to the carbon tax—with the higher cost of groceries, the higher cost of home heating, the higher cost of fuel in their vehicles. With powerful paycheques, we're going to build a powerful economy that is going to continue to drive the welfare of our country.
We're also going to be able to see our export markets expand. We know that Europe has a huge market for us. There are 500 million people as part of the CETA trade pact that we have access to with the free trade agreement. We can access these people with our natural resource products here. We have lots to offer them, whether it's LNG or whether it's our clean hydrocarbon diesel fuel and gas, whether it's forest products, or whether it's the lithium that comes from the mines—the cobalt, uranium—all the stuff that we need and other countries need that we have. We have that here.
We need to be responsible with how we're going to develop these resources. Bill was an abject failure in that regard. It got nothing done. It made it burdensome for the industry. It created an untenable situation for anything to happen in the natural resource sector. I think that's something we can improve on.
There's a reason this committee should be looking at Bill . It should also be looking at the decision on plastics, like I said before, because of the importance of milkshakes and other things.
This committee needs to be working on legislation that the courts have said is not constitutionally compliant. It's absolutely important we do that, especially if we think we should be studying legislation that references failed legislation. We need to get it right on Bill . We need to get it right on the regulation from the Liberal cabinet on single-use plastics. I think those are the issues this committee should be seized with and should be studying.
Mr. Chair, I think I've made my point, and why it's important that we hear from witnesses from Timmins—James Bay in forestry, in mining, because of the products they produce and also because of how important it is to our studies.
With that, Mr. Chair, I think I've made a good argument.
I've heard from several committee members on why they're not going to support my subamendment. I don't know why they wouldn't want to get witnesses in from Timmins—James Bay. What do these folks have against folks who live in Timmins—James Bay? Why wouldn't we want to hear from them and hear what's important to them?
Right off the top, it's probably worth mentioning that it was nice, at the last meeting, how things just went along. Everybody was respectful. The points of order.... Only a couple of them happened, and they were, I think, received well. I can count on one hand how many points of order we had last meeting, so that was quite nice and a bit of a change of pace.
I want to welcome Ms. Zarrillo to this committee, as well. It's nice to see her here.
On the point about the subamendment to bring witnesses from Timmins—James Bay, my colleague Mr. Falk did a great job talking about a lot of the mining companies that exist in that particular part of the country. It's important to have people from there speaking at the committee. I think they would generally be concerned about what is going on. One way to find out, obviously, is by inviting them. I think they would be concerned about the development of multiple pieces of substantive government legislation being ruled on and referred to as largely unconstitutional—in particular, the Impact Assessment Act and the way it's going to impact mining as we go forward. I think those mines, especially the ones Mr. Falk was mentioning, will play a big role in Canada going forward. I don't think it matters whether you think everybody should be mandated to drive an EV or not. We're going to need these resources one way or another.
As we continue to develop new ways to generate power and new technology.... It goes outside energy production. It's just technology, generally speaking. The technological advances we have seen, certainly in my lifetime, have been remarkable. Sometimes it almost scares me when I think about the kinds of technologies we're going to come up with, which my kids are going to see as they grow up and enter the workforce—the kinds of things they're going to have at their disposal. The advances in things are going to be quite remarkable.
Those minerals or elements will come from mines in Timmins—James Bay and lots of other places across the country. The problem we're seeing right now is that it will be pretty difficult to get more and more of these mines and projects built when we don't have laws that are constitutional. The certainty required for investors to make investments in Canadian energy, development and exploration.... I know the government said it made the IAA to create certainty, but the problem is that, practically, this has not been the case. It has not been the reality of the situation on the ground.
Given the importance of mining to Canada's strategic positioning in the energy world, globally.... Again, the potential for our country, generally speaking, beyond what we have by possessing all these rare earth minerals here in Canada, which are still largely untapped and not being developed.... We're seeing investment fleeing Canada, or not even looking here at all, because they know they can build projects more quickly, get a return on investment faster and make more money elsewhere. That means jobs are elsewhere. The tax dollars needed to maintain, build and even create new communities are so important.
I think we need to hear from these folks, because they're going to bring a valuable perspective.
I was in a meeting the other day with some folks who were representing some of the port authorities on opposite sides of the country. One of the fundamental concerns they have, and part of their budget submissions, was to figure out a way to reduce timelines for major projects for approvals, because for them to expand their ports or to do any major projects, they have to wait a minimum of five years to get approval. I asked them if that was for the Impact Assessment Act, and they said yes. They had been waiting five years to get an approval.
This is important because, as much as we would like to have all of our rare earth minerals mined in Canada and then turned into products in Canada, the reality is that we're going to be exporting a lot of them. We're going to be exporting them through our ports.
The folks from Timmins—James Bay, much like the people from Cypress Hills—Grasslands, rely on those ports to be able to get our products, our commodities, out to the global marketplace. When we have largely unconstitutional laws in this country, it severely impacts what we're able to do and get done.
I think it's important to note that on this side of the table we want to make sure that we're passing laws that are constitutional and will withstand that challenge. I think we have outlined previously some of the issues we have with the potential constitutionality issue of Bill because of its 33 references to the Impact Assessment Act and, in particular, the parts that were referenced as largely unconstitutional.
It would be important to hear from these mining communities and the workers about how this has impacted them and their ability to do their jobs but also to have that certainty long-term knowing that their jobs are going to be there for them tomorrow, next year, and the year after that and make sure that there is a future for their jobs and for their communities. I think that's an important perspective that we will look forward to hearing from witnesses and, particularly, hopefully, from people from Timmins—James Bay.
Part of that, too, is that, when you meet with people in mining and in construction, even at the ports and other places, they talk a lot about the layering on of regulations, and the layering on of costs that continue to pile up and create problems for them. They are just looking for a streamlined process. I know that the people in Timmins—James Bay would benefit from having a streamlined process, the un-layering and unpacking of all of these layers upon layers of regulations and costs.
We know that Canada has some of the highest standards for how we develop our resources. We know that if the rest of the world adopted our standards, the world would have a much lower greenhouse gas emission footprint, yet we still seem to see the need from this government to continue to layer and pancake on regulations rather than trust the process and trust the industries that have really been world leaders at the forefront of the development of this to do what they do, rather than putting them through the gauntlet of regulatory death, basically.
We've seen that multiple times on multiple projects, where they're waiting for approval, waiting for approval, and it's delay, delay, delay. Then, finally, the proponent withdraws the proposal because they know they're either not going to get the approval or the uncertainty and the delays have cost them so much money they'd be better off to cut their losses at that point and run. That's not a situation we want Canada to be in, particularly as we have all the resources in this country that the world wants and needs.
I think we need to make sure that we are prioritizing people who can speak well to these things. That's going to be people who are working in the industry in Timmins—James Bay. They're going to want that certainty.
When Mr. Angus was still here.... He likes to talk a lot about the union jobs, which is fine. It's good that he does that, but what's important is that there will be no union jobs if there are no new projects, if there is no certainty, if there's no investment, if there's no streamlining of regulations or even just making them compliant with our constitution. I think that's of utmost importance.
Part of the reality with rural and remote communities, and with our indigenous communities as well, is that sometimes the only source of jobs is just resource development. That's the opportunity for them. That's where they see the ability for them to have self-determination, to have fair and equal economic participation in the economy. It comes from resource extraction and development and refining.
They also want certainty. They want to know that when a project that's going to be good for their people is proposed, it's not going to take 10 years to get approvals or to finally get a shovel in the ground and start building something or developing a mine or developing the resources they have available to them. That's why Conservatives want to see some witnesses from Timmins—James Bay who can bring that perspective. I think that would be very valuable.
I think part of what's going on with this committee, with this government, with the policy objectives and the multiple court rulings that have gone against the government in recent weeks.... Part of what the government is supposed to do is set the tone for how industry is going to be, set the tone so that there is a sense of optimism.
That's what Brad Wall did so well in Saskatchewan, to turn Saskatchewan from a have-not province to a have province. He set the tone by saying it's good to be from Saskatchewan. We don't need to apologize for being from Saskatchewan. He set the tone because he knew that Saskatchewan had the potential to be so much more than what it was under the NDP for years and years. Many people who left Saskatchewan found a home in Alberta, next door.
You're welcome, Mr. Chair.
They all came back to Saskatchewan because they saw the opportunity because of the tone that was set by the premier. That started in the mid-2000s with him saying that it was good to be from Saskatchewan, that Saskatchewan had what the world needed. It had what our country needed, and we were going to do what we could to provide the goods and services that were needed, both here and across the world. For the next number of years, we developed our resources in a sustainable, environmentally friendly and beneficial way. That has allowed economic participation by people from all across our province.
We have uranium developments in the north. We have potash developments all across the province. We have a lot of oil and gas extraction and development, quite frankly, all across the province, as well, particularly a lot in my riding. That comes because the government set the tone. It set out a framework for how it was going to be done, and we got things done.
The federal government then decided it was going to put a stick in the spokes, with policies like the carbon tax and the Impact Assessment Act, and really gummed up the system in the process. All of it was done under the guise that it was going to save the environment from these crazy people who were developing resources. It's really unfair to the provinces and the industry, which have done a great job of trying to make the processes better.
They have quite often done that without the government stepping in saying, “This needs to happen, that needs to happen, and that needs to be done, or else.” Definitely, taking a sledgehammer and holding it over an industry is not the way to work collaboratively, as we hear from the government a lot. Rather than working with industry to figure out how it can best figure this out, there's the stick approach instead of the carrot approach. The folks in Timmins—James Bay would agree with that, as well. As they do a lot of resource development and extraction there, it would be important to hear their views and perspectives on that, as well.
We're starting to see the provinces take matters into their own hands, yet again. That's because of the way the government has decided to set the tone. It has decided to set the tone in a way that is combative, oversteps boundaries and oversteps jurisdiction. We now see multiple provinces telling it to back off, because it is their jurisdiction, their area, and they are doing the best they can. That is why the provinces are passing a Sovereignty Act and the Saskatchewan First Act. I think our colleague, Mr. Simard, could tell us about the viewpoints of some people in Quebec about how they feel, especially regarding provincial jurisdiction.
Our provinces shouldn't have to constantly be putting the shields up and drawing their swords against the federal government, one that talks about collaboration. It says it's going to work collaboratively, and then it dumps burdensome, unconstitutional regulations and laws on top of the provinces. It then acts all surprised when the provinces are all of a sudden saying, “Excuse me”, and, like porcupines, they get their quills up, and their tails are ready to swing. That's where the provinces are at right now. They have their quills up, because they know they are being threatened by the federal government with regulations, laws, and the tone that's coming from Ottawa toward them. It is harmful to the provinces. It is harmful to their objectives and what they are trying to do.
We know the folks in Atlantic Canada want to develop their resources. Obviously, this is why the government prioritized it first in the House of Commons and passed it first. That's something we would like to see, the Atlantic provinces having the ability to develop their resources, and we're looking forward to getting to Bill first, hopefully. At that point, we will also be able to have a good, fulsome conversation and discussion around the former bill, Bill , which has caused large amounts of investment to leave Canada. It's a healthy part of the job losses that have impacted non-unionized and unionized labour. It's impacted our indigenous communities, our rural and remote communities, from being able to develop their resources and being able to offer jobs and employment to their people and their residents.
It's important that the federal government deal with matters that are deemed unconstitutional. That, you would think, would be priority one, trying to resolve that. That would be my hope, that it would be resolved, and there has been no indication that will actually be the case. There were some soft words that it would work to make those sections compliant, but we've heard nothing. We haven't seen any urgency to try to get that done and get that dealt with. Certainly, on our side, we would like nothing more than to get that sorted out and dealt with.
That's part of the main motion—sorry, the main amendment to the motion that we have put forward. Of course, we're on the subamendment for members to hear from people from Timmins—James Bay, and I think they would also like to see the certainty that prioritizing the Impact Assessment Act and fixing that would bring for them, for their jobs, for their industries, for their communities. I think they would really appreciate that, so I hope the government will take that seriously and actually consider what it is that Conservatives are trying to work on when it comes to the Impact Assessment Act, and what industry has been saying and what community leaders have been saying on this. It would be a great way to do something that's good for the entirety of the country, for once. I don't think that's asking too much.
I know that our provincial counterparts would appreciate it as well, as they are looking at how best to provide more affordable, more reliable power and energy for their citizens, as that is their provincial responsibility, and having the certainty within the Impact Assessment Act would help bring that for them. I know that in Saskatchewan, for example, there's a lot of conversation happening now around identifying sites where we could build small modular reactors. They would definitely appreciate having an approval process in place that is going to be expeditious and fast, and there will be some certainty provided in it. We know the province wants to do this because they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but they also want to make sure that we have reliable power that's generated right in Saskatchewan. We have some nice inner ties with Alberta, Manitoba and Montana.
When you look at the SaskPower website, you can see which direction power is flowing—if we are sending power out of province, or if we are bringing power into the province through the interties—but the Saskatchewan government wants to be able to develop uranium deposits further. Certainly, our rural and remote indigenous communities in northern Saskatchewan want to see that development as well, because it means jobs and opportunities for them, much like it would mean jobs and opportunities for the folks in Timmins—James Bay.
I think across the country, there will be a lot of demand for Saskatchewan uranium. I think these are the SMRs. Even if they were to build another CANDU reactor, for example, if somebody were to do that one day, it would be beneficial, and Saskatchewan uranium could be the ticket for that, to be able to get it done. It's a good Saskatchewan resource for good, truly clean, zero-emitting power that for years the current government has said it doesn't want and we can't have, but we know it's up to the provinces how they are going to develop their resources and provide power for their citizens. Getting this right would be the least this committee could do.
The former member for Sudbury, when we talked about this in a previous Parliament, was adamant: “No. We fixed the assessment. It was your process that was flawed. That was the problem. Ours is perfect. Ours is good. It's not the problem.” We have been hearing—and we've done multiple studies across multiple committees—that this is just not the case, and the Impact Assessment Act has caused extra delays, extra uncertainty and problems for getting projects developed.
I'm sure Mr. Lefebvre would agree that getting the process right this time around would be a good thing, after his assertions in the previous Parliament that everything was fine and that wasn't the problem. Now that it's been proven that it is unconstitutional and creates problems, I think he would agree that we should make sure we get it right this time around. I won't put words in his mouth. I know he is not here to defend himself on that, so I won't do that to him. However, the reason why I said that is that I think it's worth noting the position over multiple Parliaments that the government has had on this particular issue and its refusal to admit that there are problems.
That's what brings us to where we are today, once again talking about the Impact Assessment Act, how it's going to be a problem for Bill and how it will absolutely be a problem for Bill . This is because, again, the whole just transition plan by the government is to transition workers out of the.... For sure, it's to make sure that there's no more coal in this country, but for the oil and gas sector, it would be a supposed just transition or, as we call it, an unjust transition for these workers that's going to happen.
If the government is successful in ramming this unjust transition down the provinces' and the unionized and non-unionized workers' throats.... They're not going to be okay with being janitors, as some of the briefing notes that have come to light have indicated or hinted at, and they're certainly not going to be okay with a 34% pay cut to go and work in the renewables sector right now. We heard that witness testimony a little while back. That's not to mention the fuel, the energy and the power that will have to be developed to replace the losses from those plants being shut down. That will be of the utmost importance.
It's interesting to note that in the so-called clean electricity regulations from this government, a power plant could operate for 450 hours if it's emitting after the deadline comes and goes. That amounts to less than 18 days. It's around 18 days. My quick math might have me off by a day or two. Forgive me for that. If somebody decides to fact-check me, I admit that I might be off by a day or two.
The point is that in Saskatchewan, for close to seven months of the year, it's below zero degrees. A large amount of our power in Saskatchewan comes from coal and from natural gas. It's about 73%, on average, on a daily basis. In Alberta, I think it's 85%, or somewhere around there, largely in natural gas.
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: Alberta is the country's leader in renewable energy.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: It is the leader in renewable energy. That is absolutely right. It has the most wind capacity as well, I believe, as a province, with lots of solar developments and a few other things going on there.
It's worth noting that a couple of days ago, when it was a cold day in Alberta, the total net-to-grid for wind and solar was basically a couple of megawatts, out of the thousands of gigawatts of capacity that they have. Without the reliability and certainty of the grid that you have with natural gas...and even right now with coal, although I recognize that coal is on track to be phased out by 2023. There is an amount of reliability and affordability that you get from coal and natural gas.
Saskatchewan in particular has done a lot to develop natural gas alongside Alberta. If this government is going to transition everybody to powering their grids with wind and solar, it doesn't matter how much capacity you build: If the turbine isn't spinning, the sun isn't shining, and you have next to nothing for total net-to-grid, there will be some huge problems.
We saw the devastation in Texas when they had a little bit of snow and cold weather. They were totally unprepared for it because of their pursuit of trying to run their grid on renewables. I don't say this lightly. People died. This past summer, we had a billet who played with the Swift Current 57's. He was from Texas. We talked with him about what was happening down there. He talked about that particular week when that happened and how crazy it was—the blackouts, the devastation in communities with no power, the pipes that were bursting, the issues from the cleanup after the fact, and the disaster in people's homes, let alone the devastation it brought when people were literally freezing to death.
That was in Texas, where it's usually a lot warmer 12 months of the year than it is in Saskatchewan. That's a shocker, I know, but seven months out of the year we are below zero, on average, below freezing.
I drive to Regina to fly out to Ottawa. I drive down Highway 1. I drive past some of the most recent wind turbines that have been put up in Saskatchewan. Even on days when there is a good wind, and when I have a nice tailwind pushing me into the Queen City, it's amazing how many turbines aren't spinning. To be fair—I don't know—maybe they haven't been fully commissioned yet, but I know I've seen most of them, at very different times, in operation.
The fact is that if they're not spinning, they're not producing. It's usually pretty windy in Saskatchewan, but there are a lot of days when there's not enough wind to generate wind power reliably. There are days when it's cloudy. In the winter, the days are shorter. You only have a couple of hours of peak power-producing sunlight to generate the power you need to keep the lights on and furnaces running. That creates problems.
If you start to think about the amount of capacity it will take, we know we're going to have to increase the grid capacity by two and a half times at least and probably to well over that. You'd have to times it by three at least. That's the route this government wants to go on. How much land is going to be taken out of production to build more and more wind- and solar-chasing capacity? How many tax dollars are going to be spent subsidizing the development of this in the pursuit of an unattainable mandate from this government?
If we're going to be powering mines in Timmins—James Bay, they want reliability. They want certainty. They want affordability as well, because powering these mines is not cheap at the best of times. To massively increase the costs and uncertainty for these companies, which are doing the best they can in the circumstances they find themselves in, wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be right.
I'll go back to my point about setting the tone. At the very least, the Impact Assessment Act needs to be prioritized and fixed before anything else can proceed. I hope that somewhere in the nation's capital here, whether it's the , his staff or all the people who work in those offices, somebody is working on that, because we haven't heard anything since the brief statement about making sure it is compliant. We haven't heard anything, so what's happening? How are we going to provide certainty for people if we're not doing that?
I think our committee has a great chance to be the ones who set the tone for that. However, if we're just going to have a seven-to-four vote on whether or not we do anything with the Impact Assessment Act, this committee will rob itself of the potential to set the tone on this, to make sure we get it right and to make sure we provide certainty, clarity and reduced timelines for proponents who want to develop our resources—develop the goods and things we have in this country and can offer the world. The good folks of Timmins—James Bay would surely appreciate that as well, I would imagine.
I really hope we'll be able to get to a point where that can be the priority for this committee, because we know that there are going to be some problems with Bill if we don't address it and deal with it. We want the good folks in Atlantic Canada to develop their resources as best they see fit. We know that Bill C-49 is the tool they need to do that, but imagine giving somebody the tool they need to do their job but it's completely disassembled and you took a few components out of it and said, “Here you go. This will work.”
That's basically what's happening here by sending out a bill that has no less than 33 references to the unconstitutional part of the Impact Assessment Act. That's going to be a problem, and it will be a problem for the folks in Atlantic Canada to have the certainty they need to get this done. The last thing they want to see are court challenges arising from a piece of legislation that could end up being deemed unconstitutional because of certain elements in it and because of its affiliation to the Impact Assessment Act.
The government is on a bit of a losing streak with court challenges lately too, which also doesn't set a very good tone. What we are finding out is that—
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That was an interesting intervention, because over the last four or five meetings, again, it was the member from Timmins—James Bay who kept on saying, no less than 15 times—actually, I think it was closer to 20 times—that he was being abused by Conservative members. I didn't hear a single objection from anybody on that side of the committee room to him using that kind of language, which was very unparliamentary, not to mention the fact that it completely undermines people who are legitimately, this very second, experiencing abuse. There was no objection to that, and that's disgusting.
The fact that Mr. Angus went on and on about not being allowed to speak means that saying he was whining fits. It was appropriate. When he finally did speak, he didn't even talk about Timmins—James Bay. He didn't talk about the motion either. He spent his whole 45 minutes not even talking about it.
I spent my whole hour and a bit talking about how this is going to impact projects in Timmins—James Bay. I listed seven projects that are currently under way in Timmins—James Bay, not one in Alberta. That was brought up by somebody else. I've been speaking about the projects in Timmins—James Bay and how the Impact Assessment Act is going to be, if it's not fixed, a problem for them. That's what I've been talking about. That's what I spent my time talking about.
I've been telling you why we need to prioritize the Impact Assessment Act so these projects in Timmins—James Bay can continue to go ahead and so more projects like them can be proposed in Timmins—James Bay and in other parts of the country. That's what I've been talking about for over an hour and a half and that's what Mr. Angus was not bothering to talk about for the hour that he had the floor—nor were any other members who were saying they were not being allowed to speak. When they finally got the floor, they didn't even bother to speak to the subamendment either. I am speaking to the subamendment and I am using and will continue to use language that is parliamentary.
It's important that the federal government set the tone. The point I was about to make before the last couple of points of order was that the rules matter. Whether it's the rules of this committee, the laws of this land or our Constitution and the way it's set out for the provinces within Confederation, rules matter.
I mentioned earlier that the federal government is on a bit of a losing streak in the courts as of late. Most recently, it was the plastics ban and the regulations around it that were unconstitutional. In particular, the Impact Assessment Act was ruled largely unconstitutional. When the government deliberately sets rules and laws that are unconstitutional, it creates disorder and issues.
We've seen the provinces, as I mentioned earlier, draft legislation to shield themselves from overreach in the federal government and to reassert that they have jurisdictional authority over provinces. By the way, I'll make note that in Saskatchewan it was supported unanimously by the NDP. It's because they know what's happening with this federal government. Even the provincial NDP in Saskatchewan know the federal government in Ottawa is overstepping its bounds. Generally, they are quite aligned with the federal government, but even they are starting to see that the federal government is offside.
It's true of the NDP in Alberta too. They're starting to wise up to that as well. Despite their desire to try to please the federal government, even they are now starting to see and realize that was probably not the best idea. Now we also have the UCP government in Alberta and the Saskatchewan Party government in Saskatchewan actively working to shield themselves from the overstepping of the government.
That's the tone this government has decided to set. It's decided to say, “This is the way we're going to go. We don't care what you think. You're going to have to do this.” Not only do the provinces say no, but the Supreme Court did too, and here we wait for the government to act, to do something and to remedy the situation.
We know it is a usual practice for the government to create a problem for people and at the same time think it's creating the solution. This is one of those few times when we say the government has to provide the solution, but the solution is going to be undoing the disaster it created in the first place. That's what we are hoping to get to, start with and prioritize in this committee. That way, more projects in Timmins—James Bay can happen and more projects across the country can happen.
Again, we have the Atlantic accord legislation, Bill , here with us as well. That needs to be done and dealt with, and the government prioritized that over Bill . For some reason, the decided to wait over a year to do anything with it. We've also seen Auditor General reports talk about how the government has basically done nothing, particularly over the COVID years. For two years, it did absolutely nothing to get people and communities ready for 2030. They are still waiting for the coal transition funding they were promised by the government.
Over 3,400 or 3,500 workers were impacted by the microtransition that happened in coal in Alberta. Entire communities were devastated. Who knows? Maybe the Liberals will put forward a subamendment to hear from people from Hanna, Alberta. I think they would probably want an opportunity to speak to this as well and how the just transition worked for them. However, we're talking about Timmins—James Bay, so we'll see if the Liberals want to move that subamendment later.
Just looking at the list of the projects going on in Timmins—James Bay, I see that one of them is a phosphate project.
Mrs. Shannon Stubbs: It's not even on the critical minerals list.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Yes, that's another point. It's not even on the critical minerals list, but it should be added. My colleague has been out at the front asking for that for months. Mining and developing phosphate in northern Ontario is a nation-building project, with the applications that phosphate can be used for in agriculture, for example. There are lots of opportunities there. Going forward, for food production in this country and around the world, there will be a need for more and more phosphate. It's going to be needed but it's going to be tough to develop more projects in Timmins—James Bay or wherever else it might be if we don't fix the Impact Assessment Act.
If we don't deal with it, we're not going to see the proper development of resources in Atlantic Canada. They're not going to do the things they need to do, which, by the way, support the industries in my riding, Cypress Hills—Grasslands. They rely on the Atlantic provinces to either import or export agricultural commodities. Right now we have to import certain things for agriculture that we could probably develop and do in our own country, but because of regulatory uncertainty we don't because it's cheaper for companies to do it elsewhere around the world.
We could change that if we prioritized the Impact Assessment Act. We could change it so that we are world leaders in some of these projects involving critical minerals and other items that should be added to the critical minerals list. We could be world leaders if the government got out of the way and respected the fact that we already have some of the best and highest standards for environmental responsibility in this country. It's the multiple layering that continues to suffocate jobs and development in all parts of this country but particularly in Timmins—James Bay.
I hope I have been clear that we need to do the Impact Assessment Act, because it will directly benefit the people and the projects in Timmins—James Bay. I strongly feel that the committee should be prioritizing the Impact Assessment Act. We could come to a position where we do Bill quickly and pass it and then fix the Impact Assessment Act after. Maybe we could do that, but if the government isn't giving any indication that they want to fix the Impact Assessment Act, then, as I said, I'm worried there would be a seven-to-four vote in committee on prioritizing the Impact Assessment Act. That just leaves us at square one, or square zero, as it may even be behind square one with the way things are going.
I think we have an opportunity as a committee to do the right thing and fix the Impact Assessment Act. That way the Atlantic provinces get the certainty they need to develop their resources, whether it be renewables or oil and gas, whatever they want to do. If it's tidal power, they should have the freedom to do that. I recognize that we need to pass Bill for that to happen, but passing an unconstitutional bill would be problematic. That's why we need to prioritize the Impact Assessment Act.
Mr. Chair, I think that I am coming toward the end of my remarks. Do you want me to keep going? Okay, I'll keep going. I can't believe you shook your head.
I know Mario would have a problem if projects were being delayed and denied in Quebec and if there were issues with companies getting the certainty they need with the Impact Assessment Act, so—
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Thank you very much for that point of order, Mr. Simard.
I will be mindful of how I say this, because sovereignty can be used in a few different ways. I firmly believe the provinces should be allowed to develop their resources the way they see fit. Quebec has developed a lot of hydro power. They have an abundance of that power, which is fantastic. They've been able to utilize a resource they have because the province prioritized that. They've been successful as a province because of that, within Confederation. Manitoba is much the same with their hydro, and Ontario obviously has hydro. Ontario has been successful in developing nuclear power too.
The Impact Assessment Act, I suggest, should not be a barrier for a company in Quebec to develop LNG. As I understand it, Quebec has some of the largest reserves of natural gas in Canada. Heck, they could almost be part of the conversation around who the world leaders are in developing this valuable resource. I will concede that it's up to the provinces to decide whether they want to do that. As far as I know, I don't think Quebec at this point has an interest in doing that. That's their prerogative. In the interest of provincial autonomy, I disagree with their decision, but I support their right to make that decision. I think that's an important distinction to make. When provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan decide natural gas should be developed as a way to provide reliable, affordable and clean energy to their people, the federal government shouldn't be a barrier with its regulations to them being able to do that.
In particular, these mining projects in Timmins—James Bay are going to need a lot of power. Our grid needs to more than double in the next 10 years I think, or maybe by 2035. Our grid is going to have to more than double its capacity. To hamstring provinces with the Impact Assessment Act.... Who knows? Maybe Quebec will one day decide they're going to develop all that potential LNG in their province. If they do, it would be a shame if the federal government were the barrier that stood in their way. It stands to reason that, if Quebec wants to do that, they should be able to do that. I would support them wanting to do that. If they don't, they don't.
As I said, they have a lot of hydro power available to them, which is phenomenal. When you look at some of the potential for utilizing that hydro power for other means, boy, that's a good nation-building project in and of itself right there. I think there is some joint interest between Saskatchewan and Quebec and Alberta and Quebec to get some manufacturing. Raw goods and products that are harvested in the Prairies could be sent out east to Quebec or the Atlantic region, where there's existing infrastructure in place, to be refined or developed. That's a great idea.
One of the mines I was talking about in Timmins—James Bay is going to be developing 900 jobs during early operating years. Construction jobs last a certain period of time. Then they start the actual long-term jobs, the number of which is a bit lower. It looks as though we're levelling out at about 400 to 500 jobs down the line on that.
They applied, under the Impact Assessment Act, in March of this year. The timelines are going to be problematic for them. They're trying to figure this process out, and now all of a sudden the act that governs this is unconstitutional or largely unconstitutional. What does that do for their certainty when they've applied in March, and how is that going to work out for them? That means there are going to be more delays. That means more timelines aren't going to be favourable for the development of this project. The Canada Nickel Company has proposed the construction, operation, decommissioning and abandonment for this mine. It's an open-pit nickel-cobalt mine and on-site metal mill.
We're talking about the need for nickel-cobalt for electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are going to need a lot of these materials. It would be a shame if the Impact Assessment Act stood in the way of the expeditious development of this project. The Crawford nickel project would have a mine ore production capacity of 275,000 tonnes per day and a mill ore input capacity of 120,000 tonnes per day. This is a project that will operate for 43 years. That will be huge for the region, for jobs. That's how you keep communities, cities and towns viable. That is why the Impact Assessment Act is important.
We've heard from people, from a witness actually, that we would be lucky if that were to get from conception to operation—and I'm glad you're all sitting down—within 25 years. We have an EV mandate in this country. If it's going to take 25 years to get a project developed and producing to the point where things can be going, how are you going to hit that mandate? How are you going to hit that target? Where are you going to get the resources from?
That's the problem. Nobody is against EV vehicles. Give me a superior vehicle and I'll drive it. That's what I want. I just want a vehicle that will perform better. If my internal combustion engine vehicle is going to perform better, then I'm going to drive that. However, if a battery-powered vehicle performs better and it's more affordable without the government—the taxpayer—having to subsidize it to make it more affordable, I'm probably going to stick with what I have, to be honest.
We can see this project operating for 43 years. It's amazing how sometimes projects like this mine, which is in the heart of Timmins—James Bay, will go longer than what the prescribed timeline is. It says it would operate for about 43 years. There are mines in Flin Flon, for example, that were mining this resource and then all of a sudden it was discovered that they were right next to a deposit for something else. Once they exhausted the one resource, they switched to mining for other resources in the shame shafts, or maybe they had to make a new shaft. They were doing that and were able to develop new resources. They discovered that throughout the process. All of a sudden, you now have mines that have long exceeded their expected end-of-life date.
These are jobs and certainties for people for decades and decades to come. This Crawford project is accessible from provincial Highway 655. A 13.2-kilometre section of the highway will need to be realigned, as it passes across the pit envelope. Phase one development will include a processing capacity of 42,500 tonnes per day, which will be increased to 85,000 tonnes per day in phase two.
I'm going to read those job numbers again. There will be 900 jobs during the early operating years, levelling out at 700 to 800, with 400 to 500 jobs created during the construction phase. That is a significant project for the area. An MOU has been signed as well, which is important for the other folks and first nations in the area. That's important too. This is about wanting to participate and wanting self-determination as well. That's important to note.
One thing these projects also do is support our community. We have the jobs part, but I hope one day to drive through the riding of Timmins—James Bay, through some of these communities, to see the names of these companies on the community rinks and as sponsors of kids clubs. There is an oil company in my riding that recently sponsored a kids curling club. I think it was Kindersley. The kids curling program is free for these kids because this company sponsored the entire program. That's what oil and gas companies are actively doing. I would suspect that these companies operating in Timmins—James Bay and throughout all the communities there.... I'd be willing to bet that the names of these companies are all over that town and all over the community organizations.
This Crawford nickel-cobalt mine is supported by the Taykwa Tagamou Nation. There are other first nations in the area that are part of it as well. It is of utmost importance for them that these projects have the certainty and clarity to be built and get done. That's why we have the subamendment for Timmins—James Bay.
I don't have the number of first nations in the Timmins—James Bay riding in front of me. Charlie has mentioned the number once or twice in the past. I will bet there are others that would like to be partners on future projects as well, or maybe they are in the process of setting up companies to do this. There are indigenous-led businesses and corporations all across the country that are in development or already in existence and are actively contributing to mining projects, among other types of projects around the country.
There's a good-news article from Timmins—James Bay in Northern Ontario Business. This is about the MOU. It says, “Agreement outlines exploration, development steps along with opportunities for Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations.” The Canada Nickel Company and these first nations have signed the MOU “establishing a guideline for exploration and development operations at the company’s Crawford nickel-cobalt sulphide project near Timmins.”
The article goes on:
Announced on Dec. 14, [2020], the MOU signifies a commitment by the company to consult with the First Nations and establish a mutually beneficial relationship during all stages of project development.
The agreement also provides the communities with an opportunity to participate in the benefits of the Project through business opportunities, employment and training, financial compensation and consultation on environmental matters.
Mark Selby, Canada Nickel’s chair and CEO, said the company is committed to “responsible development” of the project.
This is his quote, per the article:
“From the very beginning, our approach has been to work with First Nations and local stakeholders as partners in order to create shared value through economic opportunities, while also being respectful and responsible stewards of the natural environment,” Selby said in the release.
“Canada Nickel acknowledges Matachewan and Mattagami First Nations in their commitment to protect and enhance the land and resource-based economy within their traditional territory.
“We welcome their constructive approach and their support of our efforts to move forward on the development, permitting and construction of the project.”
The articles goes on:
Located 40 kilometres north of Timmins, the Crawford Project is considered among the world’s 10 biggest nickel deposits, and, according to Selby, has the potential to become world-class in scope.
In October, the company was reporting Crawford's total measured and indicated resources at 657 million tonnes, grading 0.26 per cent nickel, with inferred resources of 646 million tonnes, grading 0.24 per cent nickel.
Jason Batise, executive director of the Wabun Tribal Council, welcomed the opportunity to establish a “strong and mutually beneficial” relationship with the company.
In his role with the regional chiefs organization – which represents five First Nations, including Matachewan and Mattagami – Batise has been integral to the development of the Wabun Method.
This structured negotiating process between mining companies and member First Nations outlines how the First Nations will participate in resource activity within their traditional territory.
“Mark is genuinely committed to responsible and sustainable development, and our community appreciates being engaged in the early planning stages of the project,” Mattagami First Nation Chief Chad Boissoneau said in the release.
Canada Nickel is expected to release a preliminary economic assessment of the Main Zone by year’s end, followed by a more detailed feasibility study...[in] 2021.
That article is from 2020 or maybe early 2021. I think that really outlines what they're doing for first nations. When you look at the timelines of things, the fact that the regulatory process is about three years later means it's only just beginning, as we have a largely unconstitutional Impact Assessment Act in place with no indication from the federal government that it will be remedied anytime soon.
It would be in the best interests, you would think, of this government to make that priority number one, especially for a government that's been breathless in their support of reconciliation and in supporting not only the self-autonomy of first nations, self-determination and economic reconciliation but also the local knowledge they bring. I was grateful for the article and how it spoke about them being part of the consultation process, because you can't ever go wrong with local knowledge, especially from those good folks.
That's where the government has a responsibility, I think, to set the tone for how this will go. We're still waiting. That speaks to the tone being set, in and of itself. Will this project and others like it get the certainty they need?
Mr. Chair, do you hear a buzzing sound? I hear a high-pitched buzzing sound. Are the interpreters hearing that noise? They're not. Okay.
Mr. John Aldag: It probably blended into your voice.
Mr. Jeremy Patzer: Well, I gave you that one on a tee, didn't I? I have a lot of catching up to do with , speaking of extra emissions and hot air. He's not here, actually. That's not fair to him.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
A few days ago, I had a chance to speak to both you and the clerk, questioning whether the following statement would be a point of order, and you suggested that no, it's best for me to bring it up when I have the floor, so I have patiently waited for that.
In my last intervention I misspoke. I indicated that it was a company by the name of Hoverlink that had been required to go and get funds from the U.S., actually through the Canada pension plan, in order to fund....
I made a mistake. It was actually in testimony from Mr. Zsombor Burany, who had said that he had needed to get a $250-million investment for his telecommunications company but that he was not able to get Canadian funds, so he had been required to go to the United States. It actually ended up being a U.S. company, but the irony, of course, was the fact that the funding for it came through the Canada pension plan.
I apologize for having made that mistake, but I did want to make sure that the record was corrected. That is the first thing I wanted to mention.
In my remarks, I went through a number of different issues. Again, one I had mentioned was the text of a book by the name of Factfulness by Hans Rosling. We, as politicians or business people, have certain ideas of what is happening in the world, based on our experiences and so on. It's not necessarily fact, and if you start to take a look at the way in which countries manage themselves, you'll see that things are a lot better off in the world than we perceive them to be.
One of the questions they posed—and this was posed to extremely intelligent people around the world— was about the average grade level of young men of 30 years old, who had 10 years of school. They then made the comparison and asked, “How many years of school do you think a young lady who is 30 years of age would have; nine years, six years or three years?” The vast majority of experts believed that it was three or six years. It's actually nine years, one year less than for a male equivalent, but that's not how we think. We have experts around the world saying that they are going to develop policies, make investments and so on, based on their perceived notion of how the world is.
When I read the book, I did the little quiz, and I realized that I am not much better at guessing than anybody else when it comes to that because that's my perceived notion. These are the things that I've heard since I was young. I also reflected on the point—and, of course, this got a little bit of excitement from —about the sorts of things that I've been subjected to as someone who was born in the 1950s and grew up in the 1960s and so on.
I remember when I was a kid. It was only eight years after the Second World War, and the Cuban missile crisis was one of the key issues. My dad was part of a civil defence where basically he was the guy who had to have the Geiger counter out there in case we had an atomic war. That was the sort of thing I was subjected to when I was seven or eight years old—the idea that what is going to get us next could be an atomic war.
Then I started to hear things—this was in the 1960s—that oil was going to be gone in 10 years. In the 1970s, I heard that another ice age was going to take place in 10 years.
This is what got people excited. I mentioned that acid rain was going to destroy all of our crops in 10 years. People got excited about that.
Perhaps I should have explained the significance of the work that had been done in order to mitigate those and to look at that, but I didn't. That caused a little excitement for the minister.
There were similar types of things when we were discussing ozone layers. Again, there have been efforts associated with this. There's a lot to it, so I didn't give the two-hour dissertation about the relationship that exists about that. Nevertheless this is what was presented to people. That was the point I was trying to make—every once in a while or about every 10 years, we are given the next thing to worry about. In 1997-98, of course, it was Y2K—look how the world is going to fall apart, because our computers can't figure out what day it is. That was the next thing we looked at. Of course, in 2000 we talked about when the next ice caps were going to be gone.
Here are the issues. We are constantly given a barrage of information that says we are doomed. Every time we deal with that “we are doomed” scenario, somebody is out there making money. I think that's a critical point.
Again, being old enough, I remember Greenpeace. I remember their reason for being. I remember Patrick Moore and the efforts that he has made. Now he is some sort of a pariah in the environmental community, because he says that the people who have taken over these ecology-focused groups are not there for the environment; they are there to make sure they can get money. He said, “I am firmly of the belief that the future will show that this whole hysteria over climate change [is] a complete fabrication.”
That all depends on where your definition is. I'm sure—as the last time the took a run at me for stating some obvious facts, and the took a run at me for stating some obvious facts—that the climate does change. However, what we also have to recognize is that we need to use our strengths in order to make sure that we are helping humanity. Right now we have this thought, and we hear it constantly, that the earth is boiling, and all of these other kinds of things that are only meant to invoke fear in the populace.
You have others who sit back and say that it's not quite that bad, and maybe what we should be doing is using our wealth to come back to a spot where people are being looked after. That's not a bad idea. We have Dubai, where COP28 is taking place right now. The chair, basically, says that things aren't quite as bad as people think. Of course now you have the groups that ask why we decided to have a climate change meeting in some place where they actually produce oil, That's a dumb thing to have done. Well, no, maybe it's simply that they understand the realities of the world, and I think that's really a critical point.
Then we get back to Timmins—James Bay, and every other riding that we have. This is what I had mentioned last day, and I think it's critical. We have made decisions that say Canada, somehow, is going to be the leader in battery production, electric-vehicle production and mining. Sadly, we say that we will do that at the same time as we are going to minimize the oil and gas industry here in North America—so, our part of it. There are lots of contrary aspects and different things associated with it, but quite frankly, we know what is taking place in the rest of the world.
We know that China has a grasp on all of the supply chain as far as electric motors and battery parts are concerned.
These are the reasons we see companies backing off from their pledges of having this many electric vehicles by 2030.
We see that happening constantly, but here we sit down and say, “Not here in Canada”. We will keep going like a moose on a trail. Nothing that matters is going to change. We're going to stay on that trail.
That's where we have to be thinking. That's where when I go back to this Hans Rosling book. We have this concept that if this is what we have started on, nobody can tell us that anything else is relevant and, therefore, we are going to continue to push this.
We talk about Bill , the just transition and so on. If you do a little bit of research on where that came from, it is a UN discussion. That UN discussion basically started off with a lady named Sharan Burrow who had written a commentary about how shared prosperity provides hope and security. It's basically giving everybody the thought that things are just going to be great.
Who is she? She heads the International Trade Union Confederation.
Basically she is saying that if we can convince everybody that they could change their job, but the only way that they're being saved is because we have trade unions that are going to be part of it and they will stand up for people.... That's not exactly how the world works, especially if you're looking at small business. The fact is that the majority of anything happening in this country right now is small and medium-sized businesses. They're not associated with trade unions. There are parts...but that isn't the reality, yet here is this UN Declaration that indicates that the world should be going through this just transition. That's the sort of thing we're dealing with.
When the UN presents this as one of their goals, they say all the right things. They say all the things that I hear our government talking about when it goes to international fora, about how this just transition is going to work out so well for us.
The reality is that's not the way the rest of the world is. Sadly, right now when we talk about what is happening in Europe.... As I mentioned, I've been part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. We talk about food security, we talk about energy security, and of course we talk about what is happening in Ukraine. Those are the three main issues we have. A year ago, I was talking to these people and people from Ukraine, asking how we can help. How can we be part of this? Things have kind of fallen apart even worse now than they were a year ago.
I've been on the environment committee and the natural resources committee. I listened to my friends from the NDP and from the Bloc.They are adamant that there should be no nuclear energy development because of their concerns about something that I was concerned about back in the sixties because of nuclear war. We kind of realized that wasn't the reality of it, but they can still go back to that rhetoric that says that something terrible is going to happen.
They have no idea what it's like. They have no idea about the safety associated with it. They have no idea that the reason it is so expensive to produce is because we have all of these naysayers sitting on the sidelines saying that we have to make sure we do this. They say, “Fine, we will do it; we will prove it”. Once it's proven the first time though, you'd think maybe we could get to the stage where things could proceed a little faster.
Actually, they are proceeding faster now. If you look at what is happening in Europe, you see them expanding the number of nuclear projects they have to generate electricity, so much so that the next issue is how they transmit that. How do they get that energy to where they need to have it if they're going to concentrate on heat pumps, EVs and that sort of thing? They don't have a grid that can deal with that.
There are billions and billions of dollars that are associated with that part.
That's the reality we have, so those of us in our 338 communities start to look at the opportunities for us to be part of this new transition into electric vehicles. We have to be smart about it, and sadly, I don't believe that is the case.
As I've said on so many occasions, if you're not going to measure the environmental impact from the first shovel you use to dig something up until you're finished with it and have to shove it back in again and throw dirt on it, at the end—whether that be nuclear, hydroelectric, oil and gas, windmills or solar—if you're not going to measure it, then how can you say that you are actually doing anything for the environment?
However, we still do. We say, yes, but somebody told us this, or, we believe this is the case. Even though we might be completely wrong we believe it and therefore that is the path we are going to follow.
If we follow things that are wrong and we spend billions or trillions of dollars globally on these issues, what other things could we have solved in the meantime? I was on the health committee for quite some time. If we could spend our money looking at ways of helping with those things, whether it be cancer or other types of things that affect each and every one of us, if we were able to take the wealth we have and say, let's concentrate on that, instead of saying, the U.S. has the Inflation Reduction Act, so we've got to spend money or else we're going to be left on the wayside here....
It's not going to work for them either in the situations where they're doing it. It's not working from the perspective that they still have electric vehicle plants. They have all of these types of things. They have their own companies that are saying they can't keep up. This 2030 thing or 2035, there is no way that is possible. We are backing away from it.
They might have great ideas, but think, what was the last great idea that happened when this government was elected? The first thing that happened was that the president decided to shut down Keystone XL, and the little bit of push-back that the Canadian government gave, based on that, was very minimal. All that did was prevent our being able to take our rich natural resources that are produced in the most environmentally friendly way in the world from heading into the U.S. market because they didn't want it to move into the world market.
People have to understand the science associated with hydrocarbons. When you bring them in, depending upon how they come in, that's where you get the different types of products that can be used. They need them, so now let's start talking about Venezuela. How can we bring Venezuelan heavy oil in here so that the refineries we have on the gulf coast can actually do the things they need so that these products can be presented around the world?
When you have a neighbour who thinks that way about your energy resources, when you have a neighbour who says, you know what, now we are actually producing more oil and gas to send around the world than anybody else, how much do you really think they are going to be working with us as far as partners are concerned?
The president can simply say, we sure want to be engaged with some of your mining projects so that we can have the rare earth minerals that are required, whether it be for batteries or whether it be for engines and all those sorts of things, and we can look at that and we'd be happy to make you our partners. We have been partners before where we take what we have, dig it up and send it someplace else. Yes, there are lots of people who make money and we chip away at our wealth, give it to somebody else and we go from there.
That's not what the government is saying. The government is saying, “Yes, but we're not going to allow that. We are going to be the ones going in. We will make sure that, whether it's in Timmins—James Bay or Red Deer—Mountain View, we're going to get to these products that we have. We will try to find the supply chain to get them to markets, and everything's going to be great.” That's until, of course, you talk to the community and ask them what their thoughts are about different types of production in their communities.
I remember people being so upset that there were simply going to be transmission powerlines going through their part of the community. These weren't because of some windmills or anything else. It was just that somebody decided they wanted to change the line and then there was a lot of discussion based on that. That's the reality that each and every one of us is going to have to deal with when it comes to looking at what the future is going to be.
Now I know we have amazing wealth and amazing intellect as a country. We should not be stopping any options, but it does not mean we should be shutting down one part of our economy because of an ideological bent, which not just this government but other governments around the world believe is significant. I worry about that. The other governments still have their signatures on the bottom of these agreements, so they're not jumping up and down and saying what they're doing, but the reality is that within their borders they are changing things. I think that becomes a critical aspect of it.
We have had people here slamming the Alberta government because they chose.... As a matter of fact, I can't remember which minister it was as there's a sort of tag team on this. They slammed Alberta because of the moratorium on renewables, whoever it was—I think it was a minister. Nevertheless, what people don't recognize is that Alberta has a massive number of renewables, many more than other places, when you talk about what has been developed over the last number of years—
I was just hoping that you would have a chance to see things through the eyes of the Conservatives there for a moment.
Nevertheless, the point I was making was that sometimes governments have to pause and look at the realities of the things that are taking place. It doesn't matter if it's in my province of Alberta, in Quebec, in the Maritimes, in Ontario, or in the territories.... I won't name all the provinces, but that's my point.
If you don't have a government that sits back...or you have people who say that they found out we've got some issues here, so we 'd better back off. It's the same sort of thing that's going to happen if there is a mining project set up for my riding, Mr. Falk's riding, Ms. Lapointe's riding or Ms. Jones' riding. You have to deal with not only the community, but the province or territory has to deal with not only the community, but the company and the federal government.
When I talk about what has happened in Alberta, a massive amount of renewable resource development is taking place. Then of course, we got somebody who had the support 170,000 union workers say that this is terrible. They said it was going to take $33 billion out. I think the minister—I can't remember whether it was the natural resources minister or the environment minister; they're interchangeable—said the same thing. It's nonsense, but nevertheless it's the same thing. You have to worry.
The reality is, in my community, as in any other people's communities, when you have groups saying they would like to take 11 quarters of good farmland out of production and put in solar panels, if that doesn't mean you should sit back and take a look at it, I don't know what does.
I know the farmers' advocate from Alberta told these people that they'd better really make sure they know what's taking place. At this point in time, it's the Wild West when it comes to these groups.
It's not like oil and gas, where there's somebody there to say this is how this has to be dealt with once it's gone. This isn't the way it is. The same sort of thing happens whether it be windmill projects and so on. They are only designed for 20 to 30 years. As I've mentioned, I have one where it's been about 15 years since it started. It takes a lot more of the environment to deal with putting them up, getting to them, the roads associated with them, the hydrocarbons that are needed to build them in first place and the hydrocarbons that are needed to keep them running in the second place.
A government basically said that they'd better have a plan for this. Therefore, they are going to have a moratorium on other projects. These things are still on the books. There's never a problem. Although we were told that's going to stop everything, that's not true.
That's what happened there. It should be happening around the whole country.
People should be asking whether this is really the right thing.
When you start digging a pit mine some place, it's not going to be like Fort McMurray. They're not going to turn it back into a forest when they're done. It's going to be a hole in the ground. Those are the things that people have to be aware of. I question whether we are aware, when we follow this ideological bent.
Coming back to what I had mentioned before, we do not have the right information in front of us. We believe certain groups that come at us with passion and commitment to their cause. We never take the time to figure out how that affects us as Canadians.
How does that affect our communities?
That, to me, is where I think we need this sober second thought.
Now, on the just transition part, again, this is going to affect people all over, not just in Alberta. It's going to affect people in the entirety of Canada.
When we take a look at what is taking place there, the union leadership is saying, “Oh, that's great. Here's another chance for us to look at the new jobs that are there. We get a chance to be part of that expansion. We'll be able to have more members,” trying to make people think that most people in this country are unionized. That's not necessarily the case.
The other part is that they're basically saying that the investments that have been made in hydrocarbons were a mistake; therefore, we go back. I was for years on the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee, as it was called back in those days. We are now stranding billions of dollars of indigenous investment with the policies of this government.
I have said it before, and I see other people using the term now. We are eco-colonialists. We believe that this is best for the indigenous people of this country. They would love to have jobs working on windmills, solar panels or other types of things, but we should not be encouraging them to continue to invest in or continue to work in the hydrocarbons in which they have spent decades perfecting their skills. If we continue to do that.... We are so naive.
There's always going to be some group that will say, “Oh yes, I'm....” It's whatever the government says. There's a box to check. There's going to be this happen if we do that, and it will make our lives easier if we've checked off any box that the government has. It doesn't matter what government. If this is their plan, then the best thing to do is find somebody who really knows how to write a proposal, send it to the bureaucrats, and then go from there.
Usually how this goes is it takes another five minutes to go back and state the same types of things to prove the relevancy that was associated with it. If we don't deal with Bill , if we can't therefore properly dispose of the discussions associated with Bill , and if we then can't properly look at and be prepared to look at decisions with regard to Bill , then anything we talk about within our own communities is held up by this blockage of legislation.
Of course, the things that happen in Timmins—James Bay are relevant to the discussion taking place here. You have people—the indigenous community—come, and you ask whether the government is overstepping its reach or whether they feel that they are back in a colonial era. That was the last topic we were talking about. Those are community people, specifically to Timmins—James Bay. We could go to that.
We look at the egregious parts of the Supreme Court ruling, which will affect Timmins—James Bay people. If we have something else that we put into legislation and then merrily go along our way, saying that the government said this is true.... Well, guess what? The Supreme Court doesn't like that one either. Why did the Government of Ontario, or why did this group, or why is it....?
I'm trying to remember. I think the first nations have taken the government to court too. I think this has happened on our carbon tax, but that's a different story. I would agree that that is perhaps outside this.
However, I really think it's relevant. How can you not say that the Supreme Court is making decisions, and they affect everybody's riding? They do. I believe that is certainly significant.
I fly over that part of our country twice a week. Unless it's at night, I take a look down there, and I see this amazing country we have. I know we have six time zones from one side to the other. I know there are only three provincial capitals that are north of the 49th parallel. I know that a massive amount of our population is within 50 miles, or 80 kilometres.... This is just to prove that I'm bilingual in math. That's where our population is; and those decisions, then, are made for the breadth of this nation and for communities, and they don't see what this country is like.
Yes, it concerns me, therefore, when someone says, “Yes, but Alberta, you want this,” or, “B.C., you want this,” or, “Saskatchewan is not being reasonable.” It's coming from a government that doesn't care, because its decisions are made for what it believes...for those who are hugging the U.S. border. Therefore, the Inflation Reduction Act and all of these kinds of things are significant, because where do you think all that action is going to come from? Where are all these billions of dollars going to be spent? They're going to be spent right next door. That's what we're going to see.
Quite frankly, no one has challenged them and asked if that's the right thing to be doing. When they say they're going to put billions of dollars into this project or that project, well, here's how they're doing it. They are basically saying to the States and the municipalities, “It's not going to cost you a dime. We're going to develop all of this, and we'll find out some way to get this back from the proponents later on. It's not going to cost you a dime.”
How sustainable is that, first of all? It's a lot more sustainable if you're the U.S. than it is here, because we look at the way our economy is tanking compared to the U.S., and so they have this flexibility. It's still wrong, but they do have this flexibility to continue in a wrong way for a lot longer than we do.
It's going to take a lot of nerve to say, “Here's where our strengths are.” We know that Canada can produce natural gas. We know that the world needs natural gas. We know that different parts of our nation have different strengths and different ways of creating energy. The worst part, though, is when one part of the country says, “We don't like yours, so shut it down and we'll do all we can. We will partner with like-minded individuals who really don't believe that your type of energy is the kind of energy that Canada should have.” Again, they don't make it too far off the 49th parallel when they come up with decisions like that, so I guess that's where we find this disconnect that we have as a nation.
Take a look at all of the potential natural gas we could have in Quebec. Go get it. We could use it, but that would take the narrative away from how we want to use all of our energy, we want to use.... We already have this area flooded, so now we have this green energy coming out of hydroelectric power. As long as nobody goes back and thinks about what it was like prior to that, and as long as we ignore the displacement of animals and humans, and so on, to get to that stage, then it's great. Everyone should be happy.
I remember as a kid—I guess I wasn't a kid at that time—when the Red Deer River was dammed. There are friends of mine who lost land. It had to be sold so that they could dam up the river. For years after, people loved it. It looked good, because you could put a sailboat on it and everything looked fantastic, and that must be environmental—until you saw these trees popping out. They pop up once the lake-bed has deteriorated. We know the methane that comes out of those. We know that any of the minerals and the toxic minerals that are associated with it will then get dissolved. We know all of those sorts of things, but it looks good. I congratulate the people in the community who take this facility and use it in a positive way. I don't go back and complain about it.
I'm not complaining about what the people in Quebec do. As a matter of fact, even if I were an eco-environmentalist, I wouldn't go to Quebec—if they were getting ready to go and flood the whole place to get their hydroelectric power—and tell them they couldn't. I'd say, “It's up to you. You make that decision,” but don't come back to me and say, “Hey, Alberta, we don't like your oil and gas, and we're going to stand up here and we're going to make sure you don't get to do that.” I see. Is that the duplicitous...? I'm not sure whether that's true—it may be two ways of looking at things, but—