Official Hansard
Madam Speaker, we are once again in the House to talk about a bill that builds on an existing bill. First, there was Bill C‑5, which was unprecedented in terms of the environment. It trampled 12 laws and seven regulations and was passed here in the House, I repeat, with the support of my Conservative colleagues, because they obviously saw their national interest as being the interests of oil companies. That is exactly what we are seeing again today. There is nothing national about this bill. It is a bill that aims to fast-track this government’s oil and gas policy agenda, using the excuse that the legislative framework that has been built over decades needs to be improved. It took decades to develop a legislative framework that protects the environment and the health of our communities. Now the government is telling us that we need to set it aside because we need to act quickly, because that is in our national interest. One of the arguments being put forward by the Liberals is that we need to develop renewable energy. In their view, developing renewable energy means setting aside regulatory frameworks. We fully support efforts to accelerate the development of renewable energy. Quebec is already doing just that, while also complying with laws and regulations. Is there room to improve certain aspects of environmental assessments for renewable energy projects? Absolutely. Should that be done by disregarding laws and regulations? No, and that is not how we do things in Quebec. Should it be done by ignoring public consultations? No, and and that is not how we do things in Quebec. Should it be done without proper environmental assessments? No, yet that is what the government is proposing. It is proposing to override the views of local communities, sideline public consultations, weaken environmental assessments and set aside laws under the guise of national interest. We are entirely in favour of developing Quebec in a responsible manner, but the government is seeking to grant itself powers that are virtually unprecedented in scope. Bill C-39 is being put forward under the guise of national interest, and it goes even further. This bill allows laws and regulations to be suspended indefinitely. That means forever, if the government so wishes. The Liberals are not only going to such extremes in their oil and gas mania, but they also want to designate so-called “regions of national interest”. Who decides which regions are of national interest, and on whose behalf? It is this government, led by the Prime Minister, who, as we know all too well, is in cahoots with the oil and gas companies. The proof is that the Liberals have just approved a massive oil sands pipeline project with a capacity of one million barrels per day, under the pretext that it is in the national interest. They tell us that they followed the law, of course, and that it is clear they considered the relevant criteria. Bill C-39 follows the same logic: They set criteria for themselves that they are not required to follow. They may even decide that they will consider any factor of interest to be in the national interest, which means that, if it is of interest to them, it is in the national interest, and they can throw all the laws and regulations out the window. This is extremely concerning. When we talk about a pipeline, such as the one that was announced, the Liberals tell us that it will help fight the climate crisis. Environment Canada itself estimates that this oil sands pipeline that will produce one million barrels a day will increase greenhouse gas emissions by 27.7 million tonnes in Canada just to produce the oil that will flow through the pipeline. Those 27.7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases account for more than one-third of Quebec’s emissions. How can a government claim that increasing emissions on this scale—from Canada’s most polluting sector, oil sands production—is consistent with the fight against the climate crisis? Clearly, it is not. We can already see that all the criteria used by the government are phony. There is no environmental protection in this bill, despite the government’s claims that environmental laws will be complied with. If we take a closer look, every single environmental group in Canada has spoken out against this bill. They say that it is bulldozing nature, that it is a historic setback and that it is unprecedented in terms of environmental backsliding. All the environmental rights groups and environmental lawyers are saying that this bill is a serious setback for the environment. How can the government grant itself extraordinary powers to set aside 12 laws and seven regulations, including a number of environmental laws, and claim that this will protect the environment? The government may end up respecting environmental laws, but that is certainly not what it intends to do. Why does the government need this tool that the Prime Minister can use as he sees fit? It is because the government wants to get around environmental laws. Otherwise, it would not be doing that. That much is clear. These “regions of national interest” that appear in Bill C-39 and that we have been talking about are entire regions where projects such as pipelines, for example, would be pre-approved even before an environmental assessment has taken place. Take the project of national interest involving the much-vaunted one-million-barrels-a-day pipeline, for example. Under this bill, the government would effectively pre-approve the project. The company would be able to start building its pipeline even before the project has been assessed. This could mean that, if a somewhat credible assessment were to later conclude that it is not a worthwhile project, the company may have already started work, building its pipeline and investing money. In this example, the company is actually the government. The government is prepared to invest $20 billion in federal funding, as part of a total public investment of $43 billion, in a project that it will champion for lack of private sector investment. Does anyone think the government will decide, after the project assessment, not to go ahead? That is not going to happen. If it is a private company and the government pre-approves a project and allows it to proceed with construction, the company will sue the government, arguing that it cannot stop the work. Clearly, this is literally about bulldozing their way to approving projects. When it comes to pre-approved projects, the government says it may conduct an environmental assessment. That may be the case, but what it is actually doing is dismantling the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada. The agency that specializes in project assessments is being dismantled. It will no longer even be responsible for assessing pipeline projects. That responsibility will fall to the Canadian Energy Regulator, which is widely recognized as a haven for oil and gas industry lobbyists. It is a machine for approving pipeline, gas, and oil projects. I do not think the board has ever rejected an oil project in its entire history. This is part of a pattern of sidestepping laws, rushing through environmental assessments and pretending they are environmental assessments when in fact they are literally carried out by those who want these projects to move forward and have a vested interest in their development. Bill C-39 not only makes no sense from an environmental standpoint, in terms of the logic of environmental assessments, or with regard to respect for communities, but it goes even further because, within its 250 pages, it also targets workers. It was not enough to try to scrap environmental protections. Now they say they are going to scrap the right to strike as well. That means the minister will have the right to decide whether workers can go on strike or not. The minister will decide, based on his own judgment, whether a strike is in the national interest. If this is not one of the biggest setbacks in the history of workers’ rights, I do not know what is. According to the Fédération des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Québec, this is a serious setback, a serious violation of workers’ rights. We are not here to debate whether developing pipelines makes sense. We already know it does not. We are here to debate respect for democracy and respect for a regulatory and legislative framework that took decades to build and that this government is literally going to scrap in a few months. The troubling part is that we are dealing with a government acting in authoritarian ways, with power centred in the Prime Minister’s Office. It claims to want to fight against Donald Trump, and yet, to do so, it is engaging in Trumpism and developing Canada’s oil and gas interests, the majority of which are held by Americans. How does that help fight Mr. Trump? It does not help at all. What interests us in Quebec is to develop the strengths that we already possess and can build on. It is called renewable energy. It is called public transit. It is called the electrification of transportation. We can fast-track these projects, obey the law and respect people without trashing our citizens, our health and our environment for oil companies.
