Pat Kelly

Madam Speaker, Claims · 34 wordsin 2015, the northern gateway pipeline was a conditionally approved 525,000 barrel per day link between the Alberta oil sands and the Pacific coast.¹ In the 2015 election, the Liberals campaigned against this project.² Positioning · 36 wordsThey were aided and abetted heavily by environmentalist NGOs, many foreign-funded, that opposed that project. Their then leader, Justin Trudeau, his campaign manager and many of his candidates were vehemently opposed to the northern gateway pipeline.Positioning Claims · 101 wordsThis is what happened in 2015. A pipeline was conditionally approved and the Liberals opposed it.³ When they formed their government, they failed to champion this approved pipeline. They failed to take any steps to work with anybody toward ensuring that conditions could be met or that the opposition could be worked with to ensure its construction, and they killed it by a ministerial order in the fall of 2016, about 10 years ago.⁴ Then they brought in Bill C-48 to ensure that no pipeline could ever be built to the northwest coast.⁵ That is the track record of the government. Reasoning · 111 wordsThey are opposed to northern shipping because they oppose a pipeline and the increased production to fill the pipeline. The northern route is the best route to world markets. It is the closest way to world prices. It is the least number of shipping days to get to Asian markets. It is the way that Canada could get off the differential with the existing bottlenecks that cause Canadians to take a discount on our prices.Unearned certainty Getting to Asian markets, world markets and world prices is how Canada can diversify its trade relationships with Canada’s most valuable commodity, by far the biggest source of export revenue and contribution to the Canadian economy. Claims · 348 wordsI heard as recently as last week in debate in this House that they claim there was never any shipping traffic and Bill C-48 was just codifying a long-existing de facto ban.⁶ That is all nonsense. They deliberately banned shipping traffic with this bill. Bill C-48 prohibits the loading and unloading of tankers off the northwest coast of British Columbia and this bill today would repeal that decision.⁷ Let us face it and admit to ourselves that Bill C-48 never had anything to do with environmental policy, certainly not with maritime environmental policy. It had everything to do with ensuring that the northern gateway pipeline would never be built and that the expansion of the oil sands to fill the pipeline would not happen. That was the agenda. We need to go back to that time and hear some of the things members said in this place. We need to hear what Prime Minister Trudeau said when he appeared at the industry committee, I think in 2021, under questioning from the opposition leader. He doubled down, said he supported it and thought it was the right decision to kill northern gateway.⁸ He did not say it was because the Liberals did not want shipping traffic off the northwest coast. It was because they did not believe in the project and did not want a northern pipeline. It was not about safety. It was about their opposition to pipelines and the oil and gas industry. So many of the members of the Liberal government and caucus are quite clearly on the record about this. The current Minister of the Environment, on her MP web page, gave herself credit for opposing an expansion of the oil sands.⁹ This is not something we dug up deep from the history of the Internet. This is live while she is Minister of the Environment. I questioned her about it at the natural resources committee. I was actually surprised that the Liberals did not have it taken down within the hour when it was aired publicly. It took months before they took it down.¹⁰ Positioning · 46 wordsWe have the Minister of the Environment who proudly opposes an expansion of the oil sands, and today they would have us think that they are aggressively moving forward to ensure that we have an expansion of our exports and that we become an energy superpower.Positioning Reasoning · 173 wordsIn order to do that, we would have to export far more oil and gas and energy products than we currently do. We would need two or three northern gateways. We would need a doubling of TMX.¹¹ We would need Keystone XL to be built. We would need an eastern pipeline to Sarnia or all the way to Saint John. These are the things that an energy superpower would need. The most efficient way to get our exports to world markets would be to allow the shipping traffic that is currently banned by this law. If the northern gateway pipeline had been built at 525,000 barrels a day, at today’s world prices, that would be nearly $20 billion a year in revenue.¹² Think of the taxation base for public services. Think of all the high-paying jobs. Think of what we would have today economically if that pipeline and other pipelines had been built, if the Liberals had championed Keystone XL to ensure its construction or had not chased TransCanada Energy out of Canada. The ask · 94 wordsIt literally had to change its name and moved all of its investment activity to Mexico and the United States.¹⁴ The Liberals have an opportunity today. They can stand up and vote for this bill, although we will probably not have the vote today but this week. They can declare whether they want to actually undertake the steps necessary to allow Canada to become an energy superpower. They can repeal Bill C-48, which was calculated to restrict the expansion of the oil sands and our exports. They have a chance to do that now. Claims · 44 wordsThere is today a private sector proponent that wishes to ship 250,000 barrels a day from Prince Rupert, which is the closest port to, and has the fewest number of shipping days from, Asian markets.¹³ This proponent would need a repeal of Bill C-48. The ask · 70 wordsThe Liberals have a chance, with this bill, to be on the side of Canadian jobs, of Canadian export diversification and of getting us out of our dependence on the United States as an export destination. They have the chance to do it with this bill, and it will be really interesting to see if they will undertake a concrete step in furtherance of the objectives they sometimes talk about. Reasoning · 109 wordsThe Liberals speak of Canada as an energy superpower yet have not repealed Bill C-69, which is the “no more pipelines” bill. They will need to support Bill C-264 to remove the shipping ban. These things have to be done. They cannot just say the words “energy superpower”. They will have to change the laws the government passed that prevent Canada from reaching its potential as an energy superpower. This is an important step. Bill C-5, which we supported, gives the Liberals the power to exempt people from the law, but that is not the way to go. They need to change the laws that actually prevent the activity. Thanks · 37 wordsI want to thank the member for Calgary Signal Hill for bringing this bill to the House. I want to thank my friend James Cumming for his attempt in an earlier Parliament to strip away Bill C-48.Thanks Claims · 24 wordsIt is a long-time policy of the Conservatives to repeal this ban, ¹⁵which is all about reducing Canada’s export potential of oil and gas.