Mr. Speaker, where is Canada after this last, lost, anti-development Liberal decade? Only 11 years ago, Canada became internationally recognized as home to the richest and biggest middle class in the world, with more children lifted out of poverty than ever before. Heading into 2015, the budget was under control, with a billion-dollar surplus, and Canada's economy was the strongest in the G7, the last in and the first out of the great global recession.
Today, Canada's economy has fallen behind those of our allies. Productivity lags. Workers cannot make ends meet and wonder whose job will be gone next. Canada's natural wealth sits idle in the ground and offshore. Investment heads south and to other countries. Families, and people with no one else to count on but themself, fall further behind. Young people lose hope for their future and wonder whether they will ever be able to afford a home, build up a nest egg or actually capture their big dreams.
Communities lose opportunities and dwindle. Businesses close due to excessive red tape, taxes, costs and constant uncertainty, and they have to reduce their charitable and community contributions. Violence, crime, mental distress and suicide, especially among rural men, are on a steady rise.
Killing energy projects does not just cost jobs; it also costs communities. It takes away critical revenue to build roads and bridges. It takes away revenue for critical supports for social programs; to build arenas; to support health care, like the long-term partnerships with the Lloydminster and Bonnyville regional health foundations and energy companies; and to build schools and universities.
Today, Canada works for the super-rich, the well established, the elites, the well-connected, the big companies of all kinds, mostly foreign-founded and multinationals. It does not work for the Canadian people who do the work, take big risks and build big projects: individual entrepreneurs, small business owners, innovators, and workers and contractors who fuel, feed and power this country for our Canadian people. That is the Liberal legacy; the cost to Canadians is real, and it is staggering.
Today, we as MPs find ourselves in an odd position. The very same government that inflicted the last decade of anti-energy, anti-private-sector death by delay and uncertainty on natural resource workers and businesses in every corner of Canada, that harmed all the secondary and tertiary sectors that depend on it everywhere, that sent allies away in dire need of Canadian resources, and that divided our country, pitting Canadians, provinces, businesses and sectors against each other, suddenly claims to want big natural resources and infrastructure projects to get built in Canada, so it brought in Bill C-5, with all kinds of big promises.
However, at its heart, Bill C-5 is really a glaring admission that everything the Liberals have done for the last 10 years has made Canada a place where the red tape and constantly changing goalposts get to “no”, and nothing can get built efficiently or affordably.
The real question is this: Would the Liberals' Bill C-5 really clean up the colossal mess the Liberals themselves have made? Where are the projects held back by the lost Liberal decade? Where are the investments that would have created prosperity for every single Canadian? Where are the thousands of well-paid jobs for Canadians everywhere, and especially in rural, remote, northern, Atlantic and indigenous communities that need them most? Where are the revenues for all three levels of government to fund public services and programs, build public infrastructure and support communities?
Where has all that gone, and how much are we talking about here anyway? Well, Canada has lost $670 billion in cancelled oil, gas, LNG and pipeline projects alone since 2015, due completely to the Liberals' anti-energy, anti-development messages, policies and laws.
On Wednesday night, in committee of the whole, the minister and I discussed Bill C-5 a bit. I suggested an obvious, immediate first step, if the Liberals really want to get Canadians working and building to strengthen Canada's economy and sovereignty, that would not require weeks and months of delay, meeting after meeting, and press conference promises with very few details.
The minister said I brought up “hypothetical projects”, and he refused to say whether they met his factors for projects in the national interest, which the Liberals themselves will decide. That was alarming in itself, since the projects I mentioned are real projects, with real proponents, that would offer real jobs with powerful paycheques for Canadians and long-term tax revenue for all three levels of government. Real businesses are paying real money and losing real time trying to get to build their big projects. The problem is that they are stuck in one form of federal regulation or red tape right now.
The immediate solution is blindingly obvious, without all the extra rigamarole, uncertainty and time delays. What was extra weird about the minister's evasion is that of the five vague factors the Liberals have outlined for Bill C-5, which they will use themselves to decide what is in the national interest, two of these factors are that projects must bring economic or other benefits to Canada and that they must have a high likelihood of successful execution. Clearly the top priority action, then, to fast-track efficiently should be all the projects and proponents stuck in red tape right now by the Liberals' own conditions.
Where is the Crawford nickel-cobalt mine project near Timmins, Ontario? It was proposed in 2020 but is stuck in the regulatory mess the Liberals created. Where is the Troilus gold and copper mining project in Quebec? It has been stuck in the regulator since 2023. Where are the Rook I uranium mine and Denison uranium mine projects in northern Saskatchewan? They were proposed in 2019 and are both still stuck. Where is the Bruce C nuclear project planned for Ontario? It is stuck in double layers of regulatory review.
It is no wonder Canada ranks dead last in the G7 for development. The projects are not only lost in red tape; they also seem to be lost completely from consideration by the minister, since he was so adamant on Tuesday night that they did not exist. They are five projects, five chances to grow Canada's economy, five chances to lead the world in energy, innovation, responsible resource development and indigenous opportunities.
Of course, it is not only those five projects. In fact, there are dozens of major energy, nuclear, critical mineral and indigenous-backed resource road proposals that are stuck in limbo right now at the federal level. These projects are not theoretical; they have names, investors and local support. They have involved years of engineering, technical, environmental and consultation work, risk and investment.
The missing piece is a federal government with a will to fast-track the assessments through the regulatory maze it created itself, to approve them efficiently and to back proponents once they approve them so proponents can actually build on their time and on their dime. In Bill C-69, as would also be the case in Bill C-5, cabinet is the final decision-maker, with all the power.
Currently, both officials and ministers already have significant sweeping powers to start, stop, restart, extend, delay and suspend, and to change the rules and start all over again as many times as they want. It is no wonder things cannot get built. The government also has the power to fast-track the projects right now. Instead, it ignores all the real and ready projects, proponents and people, and has brought in a short-term workaround of its own bad policies and laws, Bill C-5.
The Liberals talk about emissions reduction and imposed electric vehicle mandates, and they want so-called green growth, but they stalled the very projects needed to make all that happen. We cannot build electric vehicles without nickel, lithium and cobalt, currently dominated by China. We cannot power a reliable, affordable modern grid without uranium and natural gas. We cannot reduce emissions and build new technology without the innovation, jobs and revenues that come from responsible Canadian resource development, mostly from traditional oil and gas, and from pipeline companies.
Alberta is an example. By 2023, Alberta oil sands reduced emissions intensity while growing production by 96%. Alberta leads the country in alternative energy development too, as in fact it always has.
According to the federal government's national inventory report from 2025, Alberta had the largest absolute reduction in emissions of any Canadian province between 2022 and 2023. That is the truth the Liberals will not tell Canadians. Albertans cut emissions not by shutting down, but by showing up and building through free enterprise, innovation and technology, getting better emissions reduction results, real emissions reduction results, without killing jobs or driving away investment. However, the Liberal government still treats as problems not solutions Alberta and every province that develops resources, those of us in the so-called ROC, the rest of Canada, that politicians in Ottawa usually ignore. The Liberals punish the most responsible energy producers in the world and give a free pass to foreign polluters. They celebrate emissions reductions in Canada when they come from lockdowns, lost jobs and bankrupt businesses.
Canadians cannot afford essentials because the government drives up costs and imposes unrealistic targets on power and fuel. It is worse when the facts do not fit the Liberals' narrative. When it turns out that Alberta reduces emissions the most, the Liberals stay silent. When LNG could displace coal from growing energy demand in Asia, India and Africa from B.C., or help secure European energy needs and cut dependence on Russia, the Liberals turn allies away. When western provinces want to build major projects or northerners want to mine and drill offshore, the Liberals deny, ban and delay. When Atlantic Canadians want to drill offshore, ship LNG to Europe or have a pipeline to bring western oil to eastern refineries so future generations of Atlantic Canadians can stay home with jobs and abundant opportunities, the Liberals interfere and then look away.
Let me pause here to tell members how important that issue is to me, because the fact is that Atlantic Canadians and Albertans are inextricably linked. We have helped build each other's provinces in the best interests of all Canadians. I say that as a first-generation born-and-raised Albertan and the daughter of a Nova Scotian and a Newfoundlander.
The Liberals spend years talking about reconciliation, yet delay, risk or kill pipelines, roads, mining projects and LNG opportunities that so many indigenous leaders, elders, youth, entrepreneurs and workers spent years negotiating with businesses to get jobs, to get their own-source revenue and to do environmental oversight in a good way. The Liberals claim to support first nations but deny them the opportunity to own, to build, to partner and to profit. It is not reconciliation when Ottawa decides who can build and who must wait. It is not partnership when one side always says no. It is not respect when indigenous voices are ignored because they want to make their own development decisions and exercise their rights and title.
The bill that we are debating today proves what Conservatives have said all along: The Liberals' antidevelopment agenda kills Canadian jobs, kills Canadian investment, weakens Canada's security, unity and sovereignty, and has made our country a risky place where nothing can get built and where uncompetitive, pancaked and incoherent taxes, laws and policies; uncertainty; and constantly changing goalposts deter big projects from our own country.
Canadians deserve a plan based on facts and results, not vague statements and delay from the same government that caused the problems it suddenly now claims to want to fix. The consequences of the Liberals' antidevelopment decade are growing poverty, not prosperity, and fractured national unity. The Liberals pit Canadians against each other and attack Albertan businesses in particular with constant misinformation and myths.
The reality is that when Alberta builds and grows, so does Canada, and when Alberta is strong, so is Canada. Albertans have been there all along with our friends from Saskatchewan and from Atlantic Canada. We have just been asking the Liberals to help get the country's top export from the industry that is still the biggest investor in Canada's declining economy by far, whether the anti-energy zealots like it or not, to more markets globally so Canada is not dependent on the United States.
Ten years later, ten years of this lost last antidevelopment Liberal decade, Canada faces economic, security and sovereignty threats from our closest ally, the world's biggest economy, our biggest customer and now, because the Liberals held Canada back every step of the way, our biggest competitor. Canadians cannot afford essentials, because the government drove up the costs of power and fuel for everyone.
Make no mistake; it did not have to be this way. With all due respect, by which I mean almost none, the time to “build Canada” and make our country self-reliant, secure, united and strong was the last decade. The answer has always been to unleash Canada's natural resources and increase production and export customers, as Conservatives and only Conservatives have consistently and unequivocally advocated the entire time. This was never actually an even-sided theoretical or philosophical debate. It has always been simply the fiscal and economic reality of our country.
Canadians deserve a government that backs them, not a government that blocks them and not a government that pees down our leg and tells us it is raining. Bill C-5 is breadcrumbs and baby steps, not a real breakthrough of Liberal-inflicted barriers on Canada. Our country needs real change and long-term, concrete certainty for the private sector and for Canadian workers to make us autonomous, resilient and secure, as the Liberals say they want to do now, even though they have been in charge around here for the last 10 years.
What would that actually look like? It would mean fixing the fundamentals and repealing the failed “no new pipelines, never build anything” bill, Bill C-69, which is rife with uncertainty; which has no concrete timelines despite Liberal claims, arbitrary and unrelated conditions, political interference and jurisdictional overreach; and which the provinces, territories, businesses and indigenous groups all oppose or want to overhaul. The Supreme Court declared Bill C-69 unconstitutional for every single reason that Conservatives, and it happened to be me, warned about during the debates. However, Liberals ignored this entire Conservative team, all the premiers, all the territorial leaders, the private sector and the Senate and rammed it through anyway.
The government should repeal the shipping ban bill, Bill C-48, which blocks dedicated export routes for Canada's much-needed energy to countries with actual emerging markets that need Canadian energy and technology in Asia, like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, and to European allies like Germany, Latvia, Ukraine, Greece and Poland.
The geopolitical security aspects of this issue, obviously, cannot be overstated. That ban signals that shipping may be blocked by the government off any coast, just like its offshore unilateral drilling bans and antidevelopment zones on land and in water, but it stays. Clearly, the Liberals are A-okay with Canada's allies and other countries getting energy they will continue to want long into the future from the U.S. or from foreign regimes like Venezuela, Libya, Iran and Saudi Arabia over Canada, with much lower environmental, labour and safety standards and where the benefits usually only go to a wealthy few.
The government should repeal the Canadian oil and gas cap that will cut Canadian energy production by 5%, kill over 50,000 jobs and remove over $20 billion from Canada's GDP. That is self-inflicted sabotage that no other country in the world is doing to itself and totally nonsensical for what is actually a radical anti-energy government suddenly plagiarizing, like someone's thesis, the former Conservative government's vision for Canada as an energy superpower.
While the minister and his Liberal buddies laughed when I asked questions about job losses, Canadians stress, wondering where their next paycheque will come from. In 2021, TD Economics projected that of Canadian oil and gas jobs, up to 75% could disappear by 2050. The Liberals call it a transition for Canada. It is devastation.
The Liberals should repeal the globalist, top-down economic restructuring, just transition plan in Bill C-50 that they already know will threaten the livelihoods of 2.7 million Canadians and cause labour disruptions, which is bureaucratese for job losses, for 642,000 workers in the transportation sector, almost 300,000 agriculture workers, 202,000 energy workers and, get this, 193,000 in Canada's important manufacturing sector, which is maybe more important than ever before, given this world becoming more dangerous and the global threats that Canada faces because this Liberal government has failed us.
The truth is, the future does not look brighter with the same government pretending to be a new one. TD reports the unemployment rate in Canada has risen to its highest rate since 2016, outside of COVID, to 7%, and 100,000 jobs are to be lost by the third quarter of this year. The job outlook for students is even worse, with a 20% unemployment rate; that is the highest since the 2008 recession. In fact, Canadian manufacturing has lost 55,000 jobs in a period of only four months. This is not getting Canada on track; it is the continued track record of the same Liberal government, and we know what they say about lipstick on a pig.
It was not always this way. Under the former Conservative government, Canada ranked fourth for ease of doing business of all countries in the world. However, by 2020, with the Liberals, Canada had fallen to 24th, behind Georgia and Thailand. Today, Canada ranks near the bottom globally for construction permits, property registration, securing electricity and cross-border trade. In fact, Canada is ranked second worst in the OECD for construction permit timelines because of the Liberals.
The Liberals' blocked projects, hiked taxes and doubled debt have made Canada 30% less productive than the U.S. today. Since 2015, $5.6 trillion has left Canada for the U.S. That is not a coincidence; that is a Liberal consequence. The trend of Canadian investment up in the U.S. and U.S. investment down in Canada is a historic anomaly caused squarely, and for the first time ever, by the Liberals' damaging economic and energy policies.
Just last week, StatsCan reported a more than 5% decline in forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas since last spring. Declines in primary and resource-producing sectors impact everything else. Ontarians now face the worst unemployment, outside COVID, since 2013. In April alone, Ontario lost 33,000 manufacturing jobs. Tens of thousands of real people lost their jobs while the Liberals patronized and laughed at opposition MPs fighting for those workers. It is a travesty that it has taken global instability, external threats, growing conflicts and a cost-of-living crisis that the Liberals created for them to even appear to take notice.
Canadians now know, without a doubt, that energy security means food, job and national security for Canada. Last year, the energy sector contributed 7.7% of GDP, or $208.8 billion, to Canada; 446,600 Canadian workers, including 10,800 indigenous people, relied on natural resources. My point here is that none of this is accidental or externally inflicted on Canada. It is the direct result of domestic antidevelopment laws and policies. Canada's top global energy and resource competitors have ramped up their production of all kinds in the same time period, with much lower standards than Canada.
We now arrive at Bill C-5. The current Prime Minister, who advised the last one for half a decade and is well known for his global advocacy to keep resources in the ground, has not actually explained whether he has had some kind of major philosophical metamorphosis, transformation and awakening from all his previous values and views but nevertheless has met with premiers and businesses and suddenly claims to want to do what Conservatives have been urging the gatekeeping, road-blocking, radical Liberals to do the entire time, which is to build, build, build.
However, there are a lot of questions. Let us start at the beginning. As of right now, the Liberals say five factors will be considered to determine whether projects are in the national interest. Bill C-5 says a project must “strengthen Canada’s autonomy, resilience and security”; “provide economic or other”, whatever that means, “benefits to Canada”; “have a high likelihood of successful execution”; “advance the interests of Indigenous peoples”; and “contribute to clean growth and to meeting Canada’s objectives with respect to climate change.”
Now, it is worth a a pause here to point out that most Canadians would likely be shocked that these factors are not already part of regulatory and cabinet decision-making and may rightly wonder what the heck the government has been thinking about for the past decade.
Also, it is worth noting that these concepts are broad enough that any interpretation or any argument could be made about each factor either way for any project, which is, of course, automatically and inherently uncertain, and wide open to manipulation and ideological or politically connected decision-making. So much for objective, technology- and sector-agnostic, predictable, clear, certain and evidence-based decision-making in Canada.
As of right now, there is no public list of projects. Now, the Prime Minister says he is getting lists from provinces, and some premiers have said what their asks are, yet the minister claims there is no list and that that will happen after Bill C-5 is law. The minister specifically said on Wednesday, and I meant Wednesday earlier when I said Tuesday, that “when the projects are designated, they will be made public.”
Do the projects drive the legislation, or does the legislation drive the projects? Do they have a list from premiers or do they not? Nobody knows, because of mixed messages and misleading answers. What is clear is that the whole thing is a politically driven and determined process, which is, actually, already exactly what the Liberals have been doing for the last decade. That is the opposite of clarity and certainty--
