Pierre Poilievre

Mr. Speaker, Positioning · 7 wordsit is déjà vu all over again.Positioning Claims · 66 wordsA year and a half ago, the Prime Minister came storming into the House of Commons with a cape on his back, saying that he had a new bill, Bill C-5, ¹which was going to bring in sweeping legislative changes to build at speeds not seen in generations. The media declared that we would build the unimaginable with this bill. Here we are, 18 months later, The question · 7 wordsand how many projects has it built? An hon. member: Zero. Hon. Pierre Poilievre: The question · 14 wordsMr. Speaker, did I hear “zero”? Is there any dispute on the other side? Claims · 12 wordsThey are dead quiet on the other side.Off point The answer is “zero”.² The question · 10 wordsHow many permits have been issued by the new office? Claims · 1 wordsZero.³ The question · 8 wordsHow many employees are working on those projects? Claims · 9 wordsIt is zero, zip, nada, nothing, after 18 months, Procedure · 4 wordsbut do not worry.Procedure Claims · 173 wordsToday the Liberals have come in and announced another sweeping bill, which the media has regurgitated unfiltered, as though it were gospel truth, and this time the Liberals are repeating exactly the same promises. It is not just that the Liberals have approved and built nothing. There are 500 projects, at least, waiting on the Prime Minister’s desk.⁴ I say 500, because the Impact Assessment Agency has that number of significant projects, but there are also countless other projects at other departments, which are too dispersed among too many agencies for anyone to tell us how many projects the federal government is waiting to approve. Still, 18 months later, none of them are approved. Not a single Trudeau-era, antidevelopment law or tax has been removed. Not a single inch of oil pipeline has been built.⁵ Remember, the Prime Minister said that we are in an existential crisis. That is to say that if we do not get it right, we will not even exist in his terms, that we are in a “war”. Positioning · 6 wordsIs this the speed of war?Positioning Procedure · 2 wordsImagine this: ProcedureAnecdote · 36 wordsIf we had travelled at this speed back in the Second World War, we would not have gotten the Lancaster built in two years. In fact, the plane would not be off the ground even today.Anecdote Claims · 29 wordsThere have been dozens of announcements, summits, speeches, signing ceremonies and other illusions. We have heard lots about this project or that, which will be designated, declared or listed. Positioning · 37 wordsPipelines do not go on lists; they go in the ground. Shovels do not go on designations; they go in the ground. Energy does not go in an MOU; it goes in a tanker to another market.Positioning Claims · 7 wordsUnfortunately, none of those things are happening. Positioning · 15 wordsIt is all talk, no results; all show, no go; and all theatre, no reality.Positioning Procedure · 7 wordsHere is the reality and the result: ProcedureUnearned certaintyClaims · 46 wordsGushing media headlines aside, there has been nothing in 18 months. The previous bill was called the Building Canada Act. It built nothing. Today we have a bill called the building Canada strong act, so in 18 months, the Liberals have managed to add one word. Positioning · 13 wordsOne word on a piece of paper is 18 months’ worth of achievement.Positioning Claims · 13 wordsThe only thing the Prime Minister has built is 14 new government agencies.⁶ Procedure · 5 wordsNow, here we go again.Procedure Claims · 93 wordsWe have another bill, and it would not repeal Bill C-69, Justin Trudeau’s antidevelopment law.⁷ It would not eliminate the industrial carbon tax, ⁸and it would not ultimately change the obstacles that are in the existing legal framework. For example, let us take the administrative burden created by Liberal Bill C-69, Trudeau’s antidevelopment law. Even if the bill before the House were to pass today, we would still have on the books requirements that anybody who applies for a project include analysis on “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors”, ⁹Positioning · 13 wordsas if that has anything to do with mines, pipelines or marine ports.Positioning Claims · 40 wordsMy favourite is that projects, even if the bill before the House today were to pass, would still have to take into account “any other matter relevant to the impact assessment that the Agency requires to be taken into account.”¹⁰ Reasoning · 21 wordsThat means there is no limit on the number of things that the bureaucracy would consider before a project were approved. Positioning · 14 wordsHow can the Liberals even talk about regulatory certainty with that kind of ambiguity?Positioning Claims · 18 wordsThe Liberals are claiming that it will help get things built, but they promised this the last time, Positioning · 31 wordsso we should not hold our breath. Does it reduce the number of vexatious or irrelevant obstructions from hard-core foreign-funded interest groups that have been killing projects for over 10 years?Positioning Claims · 72 wordsWell, the bill maintains a wide-open approach to consultation about projects that would allow literally anyone to have their comments and testimony included in hearings before a project can actually occur, so we could have American interests that want to keep Canada down, the ones that helped Justin Trudeau get elected with massive foreign funding in the 2015 election, fund antidevelopment groups against the interests of Canada to block things from happening. Positioning · 5 wordsIt is elbows up, indeed.Positioning Claims · 7 wordsThat would not change under this law. Mr. Speaker, Procedure · 37 wordsI am just wondering if I can ask for a favour. Could you pause the clock so that I can speak for longer than 10 minutes but still come in under the 10-minute limit? Hon. Kevin Lamoureux: ProcedureClaims · 4 wordsWell, technically we can. Procedure · 3 wordsHon. Pierre Poilievre: ProcedureClaims · 39 wordsNo, it turns out we cannot.Off point However, Mr. Speaker, under this bill, the one-year time limit could be paused at any time. The regulator could stop the clock so that it would not count within the one-year time limit.¹¹ Reasoning · 60 wordsWe could waste seven or eight years and still claim that it all happened under one. Under this bill, the bureaucrats could use three or four different excuses to hit the pause button on the clock, meaning that the famous one-year turnaround time on the decision that the minister advertised to the media is nothing in reality except an illusion. Claims · 51 wordsOn top of that, the minister sitting before me could actually add 90-day extensions to the time it takes to get a permit for a project.¹² If that is still not enough for government bureaucrats, they could go to cabinet and get a permanent extension on the consideration of a bill.¹³ Positioning · 49 wordsWho in their right mind, as a company, would put aside billions of dollars for a major project knowing that a Liberal cabinet, which has spent the last decade blocking projects, would have the legal power to delay the approval of or even a decision on a project forever?Positioning Claims · 82 wordsUnder the current system, the legislative timeline does not start until the proponent has done lengthy mandatory preplanning and consultations. That does not even come into the existing legislative time frames. Under Bill C-39, the proponent would have to gather and produce even more information, all the detailed engineering and scientific data necessary not only for the impact assessment, but also for whatever permitting processes apply to the project. That would all happen before the clock starts running on the one-year limit. Mr. Speaker, Aside · 32 wordsif you would like me to stand up and speak for an hour before the clock starts on my 10-minute speech, I am sure the Liberals would love for that to happen.AsideOff point Claims · 11 wordsHowever, in reality, there is no one-year timeline for a project. Positioning · 20 wordsIn sum, this is once again all talk and no action. The one-year timeline is smoke and mirrors, another illusion.Positioning Claims · 22 wordsThe reality is that there would still be many years before concept can lead to construction.Unearned certainty There is ultimately no limit whatsoever. Positioning · 39 wordsThis bill appears once again to be all talk and no results, headlines without deadlines. Meanwhile, there are real consequences for the Prime Minister to continue along with the same policies of the Liberal government of the prior decade.PositioningPartly on point Claims · 50 wordsDespite him claiming in the House of Commons that affordability is the best it has been in more than a decade, all he proved by saying that is that he is out of touch while Canadians are out of money.¹⁴Off point The Prime Minister promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Positioning · 7 wordsIt was all talk and no results.Positioning Claims · 46 wordsInstead, today we got information from the OECD that we will be fourth out of seven, and our economic growth for the present year was downgraded by a quarter, down to a pathetic 0.9%.¹⁵ Inflation is outgrowing wages, meaning Canadians are getting poorer in real time. Positioning · 5 wordsLiberals are costing us more.Positioning Claims · 29 wordsCanadian households are now the most indebted in the G7, ¹⁶as interest rates rise on their mortgages, and rising prices at the grocery store ultimately leave our people behind.Partly on point Positioning · 5 wordsWe have a better way, PositioningThe ask · 18 wordsand that is for the government to get out of the way and pass our economic action plan, Claims · 30 wordswhich would scrap Bill C-69, the antidevelopment law. It would repeal the ban on shipping oil off the west coast of British Columbia. It would eliminate the industrial carbon tax. Mr. Speaker, The question · 6 wordshow much time do I have? Claims · 3 wordsIt is unlimited.Off point Positioning · 25 wordsIt is kind of like the timing on the Liberal approval for projects: It is unlimited. They can take as much time as they want.Positioning Claims · 38 wordsWe can see why the Emiratis, who wanted to invest $90 billion in Canadians, came back six months later and said they could not find a project that was approved for them to invest in under the government.¹⁷ Positioning · 8 wordsThe Conservatives have a way to fix that.Positioning Claims · 348 wordsIt is called the “one and done” plan. It is very simple: one project, one approval, one year, and better yet, one page. Members may say that it is impossible, but it has been done. Under Prime Minister Harper’s government, in the 2008-09 world financial crisis, then minister John Baird told his bureaucrats that he wanted to get the application form for a project down to one page. They said they could never do it, that it was impossible. They came back saying that he would be very happy because they got it down to 100 pages. He said that he wanted one page, and he told them to get out of his office. They came back, saying that the minister was going to be thrilled because they got it down to 50 pages, which had never been done. He told them to get out of his office and said that he wanted one page. They came back, saying that the minister was going to be thrilled because they got it down to 10 pages. He told them to get out of his office and said that he wanted one page. Finally they came back and told him it was one page. Then he told them he wanted one approval for each project. They came back and delivered one approval. Guess what happened. We finished 23,500 projects, from concept to completion, in under two years.¹⁸ Despite grave warnings from the Liberal opposition at the time that this would destroy safety and the environment, the environment commissioner did a full audit of 23,500 projects, and not one came back with a safety or environmental problem, ¹⁹so “one and done” can be done. What was funny was that the NDP got up and waved around a document saying that the environment commissioner had found a problem with a project that the feds had approved in Kanata, so we looked into it. It turned out that this project had not been part of the “one and done” plan but had taken seven years to approve and had the worst environmental outcome.²⁰ Reasoning · 50 wordsThat proves that all the paper, process and delays have nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with feeding an insatiable bureaucracy that creates work and money for itself by getting in the way, a bureaucracy that the government has allowed to metastasize over the last decade. The ask · 148 wordsWe need a real bill that will truly cap the consideration time for a project at under a year and set a target of six months. A year should be the worst-case scenario. In fact, why not bring all the first ministers and all the mayors into a room to sign a document that we in Canada should be the fastest place on earth to get a building permit? No matter what someone wants to build, it should be faster to build it in Canada than anywhere else on earth. The Prime Minister could set the example today by granting permits for the 500 projects we have identified that are waiting in the impact assessment office. He could also get rid of the capital gains tax for reinvestments in Canada so we could bring back the trillion dollars of investment the Liberals have driven out of our country. Reasoning · 14 wordsThat would be an avalanche of investment that would come pouring back into construction. Positioning · 12 wordsIt would be possibly one of the most patriotic tax cuts ever.Positioning Claims · 10 wordsWe will look very carefully at this 250-page Liberal bill, ²¹Positioning · 23 wordsbut we are not going to believe all the rhetoric, the hype and the talking points, because we have heard it all before.Positioning Claims · 14 wordsThe Liberals have been repeating the same promises since the Prime Minister took office. Promise · 7 wordsWe are going to study the bill, Positioning · 7 wordsbut we have reservations about the outcome.Positioning Claims · 25 wordsThe Liberals have made similar promises before. So far, they have not gotten rid of Liberal anti-development laws, Liberal anti-development taxes or Liberal anti-development bureaucracy. Promise · 56 wordsWe want to remove these barriers so that we can build in earnest and make our country affordable, safe and independent here at home. We will study the bill, and we will do so based on the criteria of whether it meets our mission of a country that is affordable, safe and independent here at home. Positioning · 21 wordsOur mission is to save Canadians money, save jobs and put Canada first. We have a real plan to do it.Positioning The ask · 24 wordsWe ask the government to steal our plan. Perhaps what it should do is just take our plan and amend it over this bill. Reasoning · 8 wordsThat way we would actually get some results. Positioning · 19 wordsAt the end of the day, the Prime Minister does not need to do, he needs to stop doing.Positioning The ask · 41 wordsHe needs to stop blocking, stop taxing, stop obstructing and stop signing meaningless MOUs. He needs to get out of the way, get off the backs of our people and let our builders build, our workers work and our investors invest. Positioning · 39 wordsWe should be the richest, most affordable country on earth. We have been blessed with an abundance that is unmatched in the history of humanity in geography, oceans and resources and, of course, the best people on planet earth.Positioning The ask · 42 wordsLet us unleash their potential and let us fulfill the promise of this country that anybody who works hard gets a great life, an affordable home, a fridge full of groceries and a bank account that is overflowing at the same time. Positioning · 35 wordsThat is the promise this country made to every single person. That is our country’s promise. That is what we are fighting for. That is the fight we are having on behalf of all Canadians, PositioningThe ask · 7 wordsso let us get the job done. Positioning · 11 wordsThere has been enough talk. It is time for some action.PositioningPartly on point