Bill C-50

Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act

An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy

This enactment establishes an accountability, transparency and engagement framework to facilitate and promote economic growth, the creation of sustainable jobs and support for workers and communities in Canada in the shift to a net-zero economy. Accordingly, the enactment
(a) provides that the Governor in Council may designate a Minister for the purposes of the Act as well as specified Ministers;
(b) establishes a Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council to provide the Minister and the specified Ministers, through a process of social dialogue, with independent advice with respect to measures to foster the creation of sustainable jobs, measures to support workers, communities and regions in the shift to a net-zero economy and matters referred to it by the Minister;
(c) requires the tabling of a Sustainable Jobs Action Plan in each House of Parliament no later than 2026 and by the end of each subsequent period of five years;
(d) provides for the establishment of a Sustainable Jobs Secretariat to support the implementation of the Act; and
(e) provides for a review of the Act within ten years of its coming into force and by the end of each subsequent period of ten years.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

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 C-69, 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 Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources.

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 C-50 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 Prime Minister 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 Prime Minister 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 Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources 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.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I, too, have been waiting for this opportunity to speak and to discuss some of the significant aspects of what we have before us, including, as other speakers have just mentioned, what the order should be as far as Bill C-49 or Bill C-50.

Of course, I think many people are aware of the major concern with Bill C-69, which of course affects all ridings. It affects Timmins; it affects my riding, and it affects every one of the 338 ridings in the country where the Supreme Court has found that there are aspects of Bill C-69 that are unconstitutional.

We then look at Bill C-49, which has, at initial count, 33 references to the points in Bill C-69 that have been deemed unconstitutional. Therefore, the suggestion is made that maybe we should actually look at that which the Supreme Court said was so egregious before we as a committee...or for that matter before the government decides to push forward with legislation that it knows is formed on something that has been challenged.

This, I believe, is the critical aspect of the discussion. When we say there is something that the people in each of those 338 ridings need to be aware of, it is the court's decision on those parts of Bill C-69 that have already been made to the citizenry. How then can we justify dealing with legislation until that has been dealt with?

How is the government planning on dealing with that?

We listened to the Minister of the Environment basically saying that he doesn't think they're right, so we'll just kind of shuffle it around a bit so that we don't have to worry about that.

Well, that isn't exactly what the Supreme Court suggested as the solution to the fact that these points were considered unconstitutional.

We have seen the same attitude since then. The point I want to make has to do with attitude. That is with the plastics ban. Again, the Federal Court is saying that this, too, has remnants that are unconstitutional. The suggestion is just that we'll run roughshod over this, too. It's not an issue.

Of course, then we come back to the stage where we say that this is natural resources, so the fact that the Minister of the Environment chooses to get engaged in that discussion and so on.... Maybe we should just deal with what the Minister of Natural Resources has to say. Of course, we've made reference to having both of them, and even others, come to speak to the committee.

I made a very significant point, when I was on the environment committee, of looking at the mandate letter of the Minister of the Environment. Then, when I moved here to natural resources, I made a special point of looking at the mandate letter of the Minister of Natural Resources.

I challenge people to find where the major differences are. When we have a Minister of Natural Resources who has not been charged with finding the very best opportunities for every one of Canada's natural resources and when he is using the same set of metrics he had when he was environment minister or when the new environment minister came into play, how does that become significant as far as natural resources are concerned?

We have heard, through our discussions in the past, that parts of their legislation have been unfair. It has been unfair to regions. It has been unfair to provinces. Quite frankly, after the many years I spent on aboriginal affairs and northern development, I know it has been unfair to our indigenous communities, because they have a lot of money already in the game of natural resources.

We talk about some of the other features of how the government looks at our natural resources and how we, as a country, can manage them.

I'll go back a number of years to a meeting with the OSCE in Berlin. At that time, there were discussions and different things taking place. Of course, the environment, science and technology were some of the main features there. The contribution Canada brought to the table in an amendment to one of the major supplementary items being discussed on the floor among this group of 50-something countries—it is beyond the European Union—was that.... They wanted that group to more or less rubber-stamp the fact that Canada believed a carbon tax was the very best solution for managing environmental concerns. That was our contribution to the discussion. We had others: some workings on helping women be involved in parliamentary associations and that type of thing, and on helping out journalists who were being attacked. There were a lot of other things there, but that was our contribution—

[John Aldag, Liberal, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to speak. It's something we haven't had a lot of opportunity to do. I am grateful that we are able to weigh in on the subamendment we have today, as well as the amendment and, ultimately, the main motion.

Like my two colleagues before me, I would like to encourage us to move forward as expeditiously as possible. We have two very important pieces of legislation before us. I'm hearing from thousands of Canadians in my constituency office about the importance they see in Bill C-49 and Bill C-50. There's an appeal that we get on with this, and in large part, that we make room for labour at the table.

I need to reflect on the fact that it is interesting how our Conservative colleagues, particularly the leader, talk about being friends with labour; yet, every chance that the leader and his caucus have to prevent things from moving forward, they seem to take that opportunity.

We're seeing it with Bill C-58 and Bill C-50. I really would hope that.... We have these important pieces of legislation before us, and I'd like to see us actually move forward for the benefit of Canadian workers.

We've heard a lot of discussion about whether this is a programming or schedule motion. I'd like to remind all my colleagues here that the original motion, when we finally get to it, will allow us to deal with both Bill C-49 and Bill C-50 concurrently. I think that's a really wise way to go. It would allow us to have witnesses, the minister and others to deal with both pieces of legislation, so we can get them back to the House in a timely manner.

I won't take up a lot more time. I'm ready to move forward with the vote on the subamendment and, hopefully, a vote on the amendment, so we can get to the main motion as soon as possible. We can build on the work that our committee did previously when hearing from many witnesses on Bill C-50 and Bill C-49. We have the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia asking us to move forward with those pieces of legislation as well.

The motion we have from my colleague is a very good motion that will help us advance both pieces of legislation and, ultimately, get them back to the House, so the House can do its job and move forward with the legislation.

That's my intervention on the subamendment we have before us this morning.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

As my colleague Ms. Dabrusin pointed out, we've been caught up in a never-ending tangle since October 30. We've spent a month trying to determine who should be able to speak. We spent a month discussing a subamendment that is perhaps there just to frustrate Mr. Angus. I may not be Mr. Angus's greatest admirer, but the purpose of this subamendment is simply to annoy him by saying that he's not prepared to support witnesses from his region and his riding. It's a political ploy like any other, but I don't think it contributes at all to the public debate.

I have a confession to make, Mr. Chair. My son is a political science student who listens to our debates. The idiotic things he has tuned into in recent weeks were discussed in one of his courses, in connection with how elected representatives can paralyze the democratic system, sometimes, I believe, with questionable intent.

Mr. Chair, I'm telling you this because people do watch the debates we are currently having. I know this because I've taught political science and studied politics for over 20 years. People are getting more cynical about politics. What they might be watching here over the past month would do nothing to reduce the level of cynicism about politics. I don't agree with anything in Bill C‑49. Nor do I agree with anything in Bill C‑50. In fact we voted against the latter in the House.

On the other hand, on what grounds could I possibly express my disagreement with these bills by attempting to obstruct committee studies? I believe that in doing so, I would be acting irresponsibly. I won't be taking that approach, and would rather try to improve the bills to make them acceptable to me. If that proved to be impossible, I would just vote against them. That's the straightforward democratic principle.

I am therefore hoping that we'll be able to quickly finish debate on this amendment, because I don't see what it has to offer. We can invite anyone we want to testify before the committee. It's up to the members to suggest which witnesses they would like to hear from. I don't see what that would contribute, other than causing us to waste valuable time. I would ask my colleagues to show their integrity. People can disagree with bills that are introduced, but at the very least, we can hear what the witnesses have to say and allow the democratic process to proceed freely.

I would ask you to vote as quickly as possible on this amendment so that we can return to what's on the table, meaning the study of two bills that are, after all, rather important, even though we may disagree with them. That's what I encourage everyone to do.

I'll conclude by pointing out that everything we do has an impact, and that people are watching us on TV. People can see what has been going on for the past few weeks. It has been a free-for-all shouting match over whose turn it is to speak next. I don't think that this is helping to advance the democratic process.

Let's be responsible. Let's say what we think about the amendments before us and stop wasting everyone's precious time.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm happy to be able to take a moment to speak about this subamendment that was proposed, as you said, by Mr. Falk. The subamendment is to add specificity to witnesses being called from one riding as part of a study that's proposed within an amendment to our study.

I trust that all members of this committee will make decisions to call everyone we need to be heard as part of our study of offshore wind and Atlantic accords in Bill C-49 and sustainable jobs in Bill C-50. I don't think that we need to be naming specific ridings. There are 338 ridings, all of which may have really important witnesses to call.

I will not be supporting this subamendment. I think that we have, throughout all of our studies, been very able to call the witnesses who need to be heard for a study. There's a process for that.

I was trying to figure out where the location for this meeting was. I realized I had to look back to October 30. This is actually a continuation of our October 30 meeting. That's basically a month that we have been at the stage of continuing to debate, essentially, the subamendment. It has been a long wait. I'm happy to see that today I have been given the floor.

I know that people in our communities are eager to see us study offshore wind in Bill C-49 and sustainable jobs in Bill C-50. This is a moment for us to move forward. Both of them provide economic opportunities for our country.

This is a really nice morning to see us actually get into the debate on the subamendment and talk about how we could move forward with a concurrent study of these two bills. I'm looking forward to doing it, and I'm hoping that we can keep this pace going so that we can all move forward with these very important bills.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Chair, it's a real honour to be able to join you and all of the members of this committee here. It's nice to meet many of them for the first time. As the rookie in Parliament, it's a real special place, to be in the company of so many tenured people.

Today is a really important debate in the finance committee. It's affecting my own province of Alberta, which is a part of the country that was a big part of the solution in recovering from the 2008-09 global financial crisis. It's a part of the country that fuels, feeds and supports our national economy as the backbone of our success as a country. That can only happen if it has a partner in a federal government that understands how national unity works and is an ally to our energy sector, to the energy workers and to the people who do great work every single day across a range of issues.

As I think about what we're here to debate, after eight years of Justin Trudeau, provinces have actually never been as divided. This government inherited a legacy of national unity and of a country confident about its future. It has found a way to pit one group against another and traffic in identities, with one region against another. Provinces are planning to just not collect the carbon tax because of their prime minister's unfair application of a temporary pause. His Liberals voted just against a common sense, fair motion to extend this temporary pause to all Canadians.

I have constituents who I now represent who called and told me that they might be losing their house at the end of this year. Their costs are going through the roof; their mortgage is out of control. They have three children they're trying to feed and put through school. They asked why only one part of the country gets relief from this painful carbon tax. Why, in our own backyard in Calgary, do we not feel like we are eligible for that kind of relief?

Provinces have also taken the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court to fight their unfair energy policies. They are at the natural resources committee now trying to ram through another bill that is bad for Alberta, which is Bill C-50, the unjust transition bill.

With this bill, I think there's some expertise we could reflect on that is non-partisan and comes from a place of love for country and the unity we represent. I'd love to take a minute here, with your permission, Chair, to explain some of the thinking that came to us as early as last year.

One of the greatest scholars in this country is a woman named Heather Exner-Pirot. She's at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. She's a senior fellow there who leads on Arctic, energy and critical minerals. She's one of the most important thinkers of our time. I can say she's a dear friend and former colleague of mine.

Back in May, 2022, she published a really important article entitled “Ottawa's 'just transition' needs to be challenged for encouraging fantasy around oil and gas”. I think that says something. It's about a government that divides Canadians on the basis of region and traffics in fantasies that undermine a wellspring of support for this country.

Our energy industry has the capacity to lower international emissions if we could only get other countries off dirty coal. Our energy has the ability to partner with first nations in true economic reconciliation in this country. Our energy sector would have the capacity to fund whatever entitlements the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal partner, Mr. Singh, would invent next. It would rebuild our armed forces. It would defeat Russia, Iran and China in their ambitions to have hegemony around the world.

I think her article is quite apt and worth paying attention to. Let me share it with colleagues around the table at this point. She writes:

A fantasy has emerged in Canada called a “just transition.” In this paradigm, the transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy in the form of solar panels and windmills will create a prosperous, low-carbon future with a thriving green economy. Taking action now will make our economy stronger and more competitive.

The catch is that workers and communities who depend on the oil and gas sector will be disadvantaged. The “just transition” ensures no one is left behind, with workers given the supports to succeed in other, more sustainable, fields. So committed is the federal government to this version of reality, that it is planning to introduce legislation in its name, to codify its “people-centred just transition principles.”

We've heard “peoplekind” before. Maybe that's not her intention or what the intention was in the preamble for this legislation.

She continues:

The first and most obvious challenge to this premise is that there isn’t much of a transition yet. Global demand for oil and gas is as high as it has ever been. Whether you think this is good or bad, it is a fact. Years of underinvestment in production, now topped with sanctions on Russia, mean that prices for LNG and refined products are at record levels. Energy experts think crude oil will soon hit $180 a barrel or higher. Even if demand does eventually match up with supply, it still makes sense for the western world to maintain some production of its own, instead of relying on OPEC and Russia. Canada, by far the world’s biggest oil exporter that is a democracy, should be the last man standing.

Furthermore:

It seems almost farcical to dedicate legislative effort and taxpayer dollars to training programs for unemployable oilpatch workers, or to help oil and gas regions become economically viable. Canada has never exported more crude and bitumen than it does now, buoyed by the recent completion of the Line 3 pipeline, the reversal of the Capline pipeline, and global markets taking whatever we could muster. But labour, especially experienced labour, is a constraining factor, and is hampering growth, even with wages at three times or more the Canadian average.

These are high-quality jobs that Heather is describing, with people wearing boots, vests and hard hats and getting things done for this country. She adds:

The joke is they need to start retraining coders to become drillers.

This is an argument she's making pitched to modern reality:

Critics might concede that, yes, although there is a temporary reprieve in demand, in order to save the planet we need a transition, the sooner the better. The idea seems to be that we can, or should, stop using petroleum products, and any oilsands project or pipeline we build now is destined to become a stranded asset. This is the fantasy that “just transition” encourages. But it needs to be challenged.

Thank God Heather is doing that challenge here, in stating:

The average Canadian thinks of petroleum use in terms of pumping gas into their vehicle, and therefore subscribes to the fallacy that when we all drive electric vehicles, the need for fossil fuels will disappear. But there are infinite uses for hydrocarbons. They are an incredibly flexible, available, and useful molecule, and even when we stop using them for combustion

[Gil McGowan, President, Alberta Federation of Labour]

Thanks. Good morning.

As you said, my name is Gil McGowan, and I have the honour of serving as the elected president of Alberta's largest worker advocacy group, the Alberta Federation of Labour, which represents workers in all sectors of the Alberta economy.

On behalf of our members, I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to share some of our concerns and suggestions about the economy and the next federal budget. In the short time available to me, I'd like to focus on three issues of major concern to our members: the affordability crisis, the unfolding global energy transition and the Alberta government's proposal to pull out of the Canada pension plan.

When it comes to the affordability crisis, we wholeheartedly support federal initiatives to work directly with municipalities to build more housing. However, we humbly suggest that greater efforts should be made to ensure that those projects pay prevailing wages and provide opportunities for skilled trades apprenticeships. Frankly, too many contractors in the residential and commercial construction sectors cut corners on wages, and most of them are not holding up their end on training the next generation of tradespeople. If they are going to get public money, they should be required to do better.

Another concern on affordability has to do with the temporary foreign worker program. The government clearly has given in to lobbying pressure from low-wage employers and has opened the floodgates to guest workers in the low-skill categories. This is putting upward pressure on housing costs and downward pressure on wages, the opposite of what working people in the province want to see during these inflationary times.

Also on the issue of affordability, we would like this committee to seriously consider the idea of introducing an excess profits tax to discourage oligopolistic companies from using their market power to jack up prices. Frankly, we're tired of inflation being blamed on worker wages and government spending when it's clear that the real problem is that many big companies, including grocery chains and oil and gas companies, have used the pandemic as a pretext to boost profits by gouging consumers.

Here in Alberta, we also have the problem of power companies using market manipulation tactics, like so-called economic withholding, to impose obscene price increases on residential and commercial customers. Our provincial government has refused to do anything about this highway robbery, so we would like the federal government to consider stepping in.

On the subject of the global energy transition, we would like to sincerely thank the federal government for the investment tax credits included in budget 2023 and for the labour conditions that were attached to those credits. However, we want to draw your attention to efforts being made by some corporations here in Alberta to game the system. In particular, a number of big project sponsors are trying to water down and get around requirements related to prevailing wages and apprenticeships. This can't be allowed to continue.

Also on the energy transition, we want to stress the need to pass the sustainable jobs act so that workers have a seat at the table when we're shaping industrial policy. We also encourage this government to start looking at the clean energy regulations as a platform for industrial policy and job creation, not simply as a mechanism for emissions reduction. We would like to encourage the government, again, to look at the Biden administration for inspiration, particularly its strategies to speed up the approval of the diversification projects and its announcement of a youth climate corps, which is an idea that we find very intriguing and that we think would be enthusiastically received by young workers here in Alberta.

Finally, with regard to the Alberta government's proposal to pull out of the CPP, we would like to encourage the finance minister to direct the chief actuary to do more than just calculate the amount that Alberta could take out of the CPP fund should it decide to leave. She should also be asked to clearly outline the impact that this proposed divorce would have on the retirement security of workers and retirees in both Alberta and the rest of the country.

I think my time is up. With that, I thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Natural Resources

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, members of the natural resources committee have had their work brought to a standstill by a reckless and wasteful Conservative filibuster. The Conservatives are deliberately trying to stop workers from getting a seat at the table and trying to end Atlantic Canada's offshore renewable energy opportunities by opposing vital legislation.

Can the parliamentary secretary please share with the House the negative impacts that delaying these important bills, Bill C-49 and Bill C-50, will have on the lives of Canadian workers?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—by taking the floor away from him on the debate on the programming motion on Bill C-50 and Bill C-49.

[Chris Roberts]

Bill C-50 and the sustainable jobs framework contemplate a partnership council that will bring workers, industry and other interests together to address the skills and labour market programming needs to make that transition.

We can similarly fashion institutions that bring workers and their organizations into the process. There is an AI advisory council currently. Unfortunately, it's constituted exclusively by industry and academics. There are no civil society, labour or human rights advocacy organizations, etc.

That would be a starting point—to create a body that can identify skills needs and programs that are required, collaboratively, and instill some of that social licence that's required. Then, I think having sectoral tables as well that identify industry and sector-specific needs in response to AI development and the digitalization of work would take us a long way down the road.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is an absolutely fascinating and timely discussion. Today President Joe Biden tweeted about his executive order on AI. I know that tomorrow the U.K. will be hosting an international summit on AI safety. Again, this is a very, very timely discussion. I want to thank my colleague, Michael Coteau, for bringing this study forward to the committee.

Mr. Roberts, I was very interested to read the report that was published by the CLC and the Pembina Institute and that just came out in September, “A Sustainable Jobs Blueprint”. It talks about how Canada can build a framework of supports that can help workers transition to a zero-emission economy. It's a great read. I highly recommend it. It really dovetails nicely with the legislation that's in front of Parliament right now, Bill C-50, which we brought forward.

Can you talk about some of the parallels or lessons from that conversation or from that process and how they might apply to this conversation about the challenges, whether it's AI or whether it's automation or digitization, and about what lessons and parallels we can draw from that?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I want to clarify what I heard from Mr. Simard. I want to have this clear so that I understand it going forward.

Mr. Simard said if members, say, Mr. Perkins or Mr. Viersen, who are not voting members of the committee attempt to speak, he will object. That will mean they actually have no right to speak, because their right to speak is contingent upon the committee agreeing to let non-members speak.

Is that what I heard from Mr. Simard? It would make Mr. Genuis's point moot, but he could talk all night about whatever he wants to talk about, because we're dealing with a filibuster against Bill C-50.

On the issue of non-voting members trying to speak, if there's an objection raised, they will not be recognized.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her hard work for her community and for workers across Canada. The Atlantic accords act and the Canadian sustainable jobs act are key to unlocking generational economic opportunities for Canada.

The Atlantic accords act would allow for the development of an offshore wind industry, which would create thousands of jobs in Atlantic Canada. The sustainable jobs act would bring workers to the table and equip them with the tools and skills they need to thrive.

I call upon the Conservative Party to end its wasteful filibuster and allow committee members to consider these bills. It should heed the call of premiers, industry, workers and the House to advance Bill C-50 and Bill C-49. It is simply wasting time and the money of taxpayers.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, to the detriment of our economy, the Conservative Party is blocking two vital pieces of legislation that would create sustainable jobs, bring workers to the table and build important renewable energy projects.

First, it blocked workers from speaking at committee. Then it cancelled debate in this chamber, and now it is filibustering the natural resources committee to stop consideration of Bill C-50 and Bill C-49.

Could the minister inform the House of the importance of the sustainable jobs act and the Atlantic accords act?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

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 C-49, 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 C-50 and Bill C-49 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 C-50 and Bill C-49, 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 C-69 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—