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House Hansard - 129

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 17, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 129 - Nov/17/22
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)
  • Nov/17/22 6:36:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on many points I disagree with the former leader, and possibly the future leader, of the Green Party. We may need to be a little more transparent on the issue. The Green Party, the member in particular, on many occasions in the House has given her opinions on pipelines. To her credit, she has been very articulate in believing that there really is no justification whatsoever for Canada to develop pipelines or put them in place. If we were to further explore her thinking on it, it is more about getting rid of the pipelines that are currently in place. At least that is what I recollect offhand. When we think of the Trans Mountain pipeline, I would argue it was indeed in Canada's national interest that we did what we did when we acquired it, because there was a great deal of interest and a great deal at stake. At some point in time, it will be divested. That is when the member will be able to ensure that there is a higher sense of accountability in terms of how it is divested and where we come out on the balance sheet on that divestiture. The member referenced jobs, and there were well over 10,000 jobs, even during its construction. She might say there will be a relatively low number of jobs once it has been constructed, but the resource is there and it is important, as I said, in the national interest. She did not talk about that aspect of it. I can appreciate why, because she does not believe we should be tapping into resources of that nature. Suffice it to say that when we talk about the Trans Mountain pipeline, one of the things we need to recognize is that there is a difference in political approaches or philosophy on the issue. We constantly get targeted by members from the Green Party and, to a certain degree, the New Democrats and the Bloc, saying we are doing too much to support our resource industries. Virtually every day we are criticized by the Conservative Party of Canada, which says we are not doing enough and we need to get more pipelines built. One of the first things we did, members will recall, back in 2016, was to establish a process to ensure that stakeholders are brought into it, that our environment is of the most significant concern, that it is part of the process and it has to be clearly demonstrated that we will not damage our environment. It also takes into consideration the economic factor, or the national interest. The Trans Mountain pipeline is the reason we are moving forward, because those things have been safeguarded and we very much want to do this in the name of the national interest. At the end of the day, once it is divested, many of the potential answers the member would like with regard to the feasibility of it will also—
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