Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the member for Beauport—Limoilou. I rise to give my first speech in the House with gratitude to the people of North Vancouver—Capilano and a profound sense of responsibility. This seat belongs to them, and I will hold it in trust and work every day to further earn the confidence that they have placed in me. I thank my predecessor, Jonathan Wilkinson, for his service to our community and continued service to our country; the Prime Minister; and so many friends and neighbours for their confidence throughout such an important campaign. With the highest voter turnout in a British Columbia federal by-election in nearly half a century, I am grateful to everyone who cast a ballot, whatever their choice, for their faith and their involvement in our democracy at this important moment for our country. From Loutet Park to Ambleside, through thousands of conversations, we heard what our community expects, which is for everyday costs to be brought down, homes people can afford to be built faster, transportation that keeps pace with the growing north shore, action on climate change and protection of nature. Above all, I heard determination about Canada being able to choose its own strong future. That is why I rise today in support of Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act. For the people I represent, a stronger, more independent Canadian economy is a practical necessity. It means a job that can withstand a tariff, a business that can reach another market and a community whose future cannot and will not be decided elsewhere. The Prime Minister has clearly set out our task, and it has always been our new government’s plan A to build our strength at home and broaden our partnerships abroad. At last week’s Canada investment summit, he made the case for turning Canada’s advantages into investment and investment into lasting prosperity for all. Our responsibility in the House is to make that prosperity real in people’s lives. In an uncertain world, we have argued that Canada can offer something increasingly valuable, which is trust, the confidence that a commitment will be honoured, that an investment can really become a project and that a trading partner will deliver. We have to earn that confidence in what we do next, and we will with this bill. On the north shore, we can also see what that means from the waterfront. Neptune Terminals beside Low Level Road is the world’s largest potash terminal. It connects workers and communities in Saskatchewan with customers in China, Brazil and beyond. Cargill, Richardson and G3 connect prairie grain growers with markets all around the world. Lynnterm moves forest products that sustain livelihoods all across British Columbia. Our community moves what the world needs. Every railcar and every ship carries more than cargo. It carries the work of Canadians, the incomes of families all across the country and the promise of another order from another market far or near. A ship built at Seaspan on the north shore means skilled, high-paying work; an apprenticeship for someone’s kid; and Canadian capability that we can depend on to secure our sovereignty on all of our shores, not just the north shore. Our home is where national ambition meets a working waterfront and a gateway to a world that wants more Canada, but the opportunity before us will not realize itself, as we know. New projects need reliable routes to market. Businesses need confidence that decisions will come reliably. Workers need to know that the gains from growth will reach them directly. Bill C-39 would help connect these pieces, designating national trade corridors, enabling a national trade corridors council, modernizing port governance and laying the groundwork for updated transportation security clearances. The purpose is straightforward. It is to get Canadian goods to customers with more certainty, attract investment and give Canadian businesses more choices about where they sell and can sell. More routes to market mean more room for Canada to make our own decisions. However, that requires government itself to work better, too. A project should not stall because one department is waiting on another or because the same information has to be submitted again and again. Building on last year’s Building Canada Act, these reforms would better coordinate federal reviews and permitting, with a one-year decision timeline in place once the required information and studies are submitted. Rigorous scrutiny and timely decisions must go together. Canadians deserve both, and people across the north shore have long demanded both. Provinces are also working to accelerate infrastructure and energy development. In British Columbia, that effort includes reforms to infrastructure approvals and renewable energy permitting. Federal and provincial governments also have different responsibilities, and the people depending on us need those responsibilities to add up to results. That is what a whole-of-government approach should and can mean: a system that works together so Canadians can get to work. How we build matters as much as what we build, as the Prime Minister often says. My mother taught school for decades, like my grandmother before her. My father was a bus driver and fuelled aircraft at Vancouver International Airport. In my family, like so many represented in the House, service meant doing a day’s work with determination, taking responsibility and being there when people needed us. Those lessons belong in this House, too. So, too, does the understanding that a paycheque supports a household and that strong unions and collective bargaining help people build and secure lives they can count on. That is why this bill’s labour measures matter as well. Earlier engagement and stronger mediation can help unions and employers reach lasting agreements at the bargaining table. Following significant consultations, the bill also proposes key important guardrails on certain interventions under section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, alongside public reporting by special mediators. These measures will and always must support genuine collective bargaining and respect Canadians’ right to strike. We must always build in solidarity with Canadian workers, whose skill and effort make the kind of transformation that we are talking about possible, and we always will. Success must mean more apprentices learning a trade, more families with a secure income and more young Canadians able to see a place for themselves in the stronger economy that we are building together. We must also build in partnership with indigenous people, including the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations on the north shore, which will also be leading builders of our shared future. Their leadership and ambition are also helping shape so much of what our region and indeed our country can become. I have heard directly about how difficult overlapping federal processes can be to navigate for them and others. Better coordination needs to mean that meaningful participation is easier and that the Crown’s obligations are upheld. Alongside this legislation, a Crown consultation hub within the Impact Assessment Agency would help coordinate federal consultation, working toward one comprehensive process per project, per indigenous community. Partnership must begin early and carry through to the opportunities and prosperity that a project creates. For a community framed by mountains, forests and ocean, protecting nature is also inseparable from building our future. Following a lot of the consultation we saw this summer, the government dropped one earlier discussion point to allow exemptions from the species at risk jeopardy test, and I would say that is a very welcome response to the considerations Canadians raised. Building faster must go hand in hand with protecting the natural world that we live in, thrive off of and pass on. Listening well is part of governing, and I really applaud the ministers’ leadership in that regard and the depth of the consultation that the ministers undertook. Canada’s advantages are extraordinary, but future generations will inherit the country we build with those advantages, not simply a list of the advantages we once had. They deserve a country that can make things, move them and sell them to the world, a country where the people who make our communities work can afford to live in them, a country that protects its lands and waters, honours its commitments and gives its people the confidence to plan a future across the country. That is the purpose of the work before us. It is why I support this bill. I will say to the people of North Vancouver—Capilano that I will bring their ambitions into the House and carry the responsibility of the House back into our community too. Canada’s future will be built in places like ours by people like those who sent us here. In this House, let us be worthy of their work and get on with ours. Let us build Canada strong.