44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 16, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, we have debated this bill on a number of occasions at second reading, and we will debate it again this afternoon. It is important that this bill move to committee where it can be thoroughly examined and MPs can hear from experts on this bill. It is extremely important that we move expeditiously to capitalize on the enormous economic opportunities that are associated with offshore wind.
Public Policy Forum released a report yesterday that showed just how important this is for the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. I would encourage my hon. colleague to perhaps have a conversation with the Conservative premier of Nova Scotia, who has worked collaboratively on this and wants to see it move quickly.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. minister knows the debate that took place on Bill C-69. Where is it today? How fulsome have those consultations been with the provinces?
I am looking at the proposed change to subsection 56(1), which basically says that, if there is going to be a future oil development and there is a possibility that it could be turned into a future marine protected area, the Governor in Council could then pull the permit. That is the Prime Minister and the federal cabinet. The industry has said to me, “Cliff, this puts in black and white what we feared all along.”
If Bill C-69 could not do the job on Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore, this bill here will not do the job. Bill C-49 needs to be amended.
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Madam Speaker, I would say a few things.
The first is that the legislation was developed in concert with the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. The mechanisms under that are joint mechanisms that would require the federal government and the province to agree on a range of different things moving forward. That is the essence of collaborative, co-operative federalism. That is the essence of how the offshore accord acts have worked for a long time.
I would say to my hon. colleague that it is amazing to me that he would oppose something that is so important for the economic future of Newfoundland and Labrador. Also, if he is interested in discussing amendments, he should let this go to committee to have that conversation.
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Madam Speaker, I find my colleague's speech a bit odd. This bill provides for an offshore wind farm, a clean energy source that will, of course, be very important for the future of Nova Scotia's and Newfoundland and Labrador's economy.
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Madam Speaker, last week, the Supreme Court confirmed that Parliament can enact environmental assessment legislation focused on environmental effects that fall within federal jurisdiction. The offshore area is an area of federal responsibility that we jointly manage with the provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador under the accord acts. This is a great example of co-operative federalism that we have managed jointly for over 35 years.
We certainly work very collaboratively with all the provinces in Atlantic Canada that he cited. In fact, later today, the premier of New Brunswick and the premier of Nova Scotia will be sitting down with me to talk about exactly those issues.
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Madam Speaker, we know that there is enormous potential for a thriving offshore renewable energy industry in Atlantic Canada and that we need to make sure that those benefits are felt by local communities and local fishers.
Will the government guarantee that the benefits from offshore wind projects will flow directly to local workers and that the local fishing communities will be supported?
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Madam Speaker, I will ask the minister again.
I will read clause (g) from the summary. The enactment would amend the Atlantic accord to, among other things:
provide that the Governor in Council may make regulations to prohibit the commencement or continuation of petroleum resource or renewable energy activities, or the issuance of interests, in respect of any portion of the offshore area that is located in an area that has been or may be identified as an area for environmental or wildlife conservation or protection...
This is otherwise known as a future MPA. The oil industry in Newfoundland and Labrador has come to me; these stakeholders have said that clause 56 in this legislation would put in black and white what they have long feared.
Would the minister be willing to delete clause 56 from this legislation?
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned in my opening remarks a couple of days ago, Bill C-49, an act to amend the Atlantic accord, desperately needs amendments. As with all Liberal legislation, the devil is in the details, or, in this case, the lack thereof.
Bill C-49, as it stands, would end all future expansion of the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore oil and gas industry. In addition, the entire fishing industry in Atlantic Canada is fearful of the mass installation of wind turbines on its fishing grounds.
The fishing industry is not against the development of offshore wind energy; however, Bill C-49 pays lip service to consultations, from its point of view. That industry has a history of a lack of meaningful consultation with the Liberal government, especially when it comes to the setting up of marine protected areas, otherwise known as MPAs. MPAs have been arbitrarily created, oftentimes on prime fishing grounds, even though objections have been raised by fishermen. Their concerns are never taken into account, but the Liberal government goes ahead and forces fishers off their lucrative fishing grounds, endangering their livelihoods.
Why am I talking so much about fishermen and their experience with MPAs? It is because they fear that the exact same thing will happen in the designation and development of offshore wind farms. Bill C-49 is far too inadequate in relieving those fears. The process of consultation, negotiation and, in some cases, compensation needs to be clearly defined in this legislation. Fishermen are sick and tired of attacks by the Liberal government on their livelihoods, and they tell me that it is time for them to have an effective seat at the table. The bill before us needs to address this.
The fishing industry is not the only industry concerned with the arbitrary implementation of MPAs. The oil and gas industry has similar concerns. Bill C-49 would effectively kill all offshore oil and gas exploration and development in the future in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. Any significant petroleum discovery or renewable energy project not yet developed would be governed by amendments to the Atlantic accord.
I see my hon. colleague, the member for Avalon, looking across at me. I am sure he has read the bill inside and out. However, I will read from the summary of the bill. It says:
the Governor in Council may make regulations to prohibit the commencement or continuation of petroleum resource or renewable energy activities, or the issuance of interests, in respect of any portion of the offshore area that is located in an area that has been or may be identified as an area for environmental or wildlife conservation or protection
That is an area that may be identified as an MPA. Also, item (h) would give out the power to decide whether or not to compensate for the cancellation of such projects.
We all know that the Liberal government and its extreme environmental restraints have one goal in mind when it comes to Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore oil and gas industry, and that is to shut it down. The stakeholders I have talked to say that Bill C-49 puts the long-held fears of their industry on paper in black and white.
The Liberal government destroyed the Bay du Nord project by delaying approval after the longest environmental assessment in Canadian history. It used Bill C-69 as its tool to do that, and it can still do that in the future because that part of the bill was not destroyed by the court, unfortunately. Bill C-49 would be another tool in the anti-oil tool box, and Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada, especially those from Newfoundland and Labrador, should be ashamed to support the bill as it stands.
What oil and gas company would want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to explore the offshore in Atlantic Canada and have a significant find, only to be told that it cannot develop because the area may become a future MPA? The answer is none. This bill would drive much-needed investment dollars out of our offshore, which is already protected by the most stringent environmental regulations in the world, and would send that investment into jurisdictions with not only a poor environmental record but also a poor human rights record.
I cannot, as the lone supporter of Newfoundland and Labrador's oil and gas industry in the House of Commons, vote for a bill aimed at killing that industry. Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada should feel the same way, but they do not. They tell me that I need to vote with them to support this bill for the good of my province. I ask if they are cracked. How can a bill that has the potential to kill all new oil and gas production off our shores be good for my province? This bill was created to wedge Conservatives in Atlantic Canada, and our propaganda machine, the CBC, even said it itself.
The member for St. John's South—Mount Pearl said that the Conservatives should not be meddling in the Atlantic accord, that we should support their amendments. If he is in this place, where he should be, he can get on his feet when I am done speaking and explain how members on my side of the House are meddling in the Atlantic accord when it is his party, under his ineffective guidance, that brought these amendments forward. How can Conservatives be meddling when we did not bring these amendments forward?
Then there is the Liberal member from Nova Scotia, whom I chatted with not that long ago. He said that consulting with non-indigenous fishermen was looking for trouble. It is unbelievable. If he wants to stand and clarify what he said when I am finished, he can do so as well. The fishing industry is all ears.
Trying to use this Liberal legislation to wedge Conservatives, the only party in this House that supports the oil and gas industry in Canada, is just a distraction. It is a distraction from the eight-year record of the current NDP-Liberal government, which sees Canadians reeling from the effects of the carbon tax on everything they buy and from food bank usage at the highest rate in 42 years. However, we will not be distracted. Not only do we support the oil and gas industry, but we support the mining industry.
Guess what else supports the mining industry. It is the wind power industry. To produce a single gigawatt of wind power, it takes 44 million pounds of copper, 150,000 tonnes of steel, 24,000 tonnes of iron, 1,000 tonnes of aluminum, 700,000 tonnes of concrete and a whopping 12,000 tonnes of fibreglass. That is what is required to produce one gigawatt. Where does fibreglass come from? It will not come from oil produced on the Grand Banks if the Liberals have their way; I can say that.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Nova Scotia for addressing this legislation and for speaking the truth about the negative impacts it would have on both offshore petroleum development and the future of renewable offshore development.
I wonder if he would expand on how disastrous it would be to proceed with Bill C-49 now, given that sections from Bill C-69, sections 61, 62 and 64, which are all embedded in Bill C-69, have now been declared by the Supreme Court of Canada, on Friday, to be largely unconstitutional.
I wonder if he would expand on exactly the perils of proceeding with this legislation, which they are rushing through on time allocation, given that we would all know that we were passing a bill with significant clauses that are unconstitutional.
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Madam Speaker, as a Newfoundlander with roots in Newfoundland and family still in Newfoundland, I am personally very excited to see the potential for a thriving offshore renewable energy industry in Atlantic Canada. I know many Newfoundlanders and east coasters are excited to see good jobs, a lowering of energy bills and the fight to end the climate crisis.
Could the member please share if he supports a thriving renewable energy industry for workers and communities on the east coast, or is he more interested in protecting the interests and profits of rich oil CEOs?
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Madam Speaker, I heard the Liberal member, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, talk about the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Premier of Nova Scotia. Those premiers will answer to their electorate if they do the wrong thing by their electorate and by the industries that are going to be impacted either positively or negatively by offshore wind or offshore oil and gas.
There is a little paragraph in the summary of Bill C-49, and if our Liberal members from Atlantic Canada do not have the time to read the bill, they can read this. The bill provides that the Governor in Council, the Prime Minister and his cabinet, can “make regulations to prohibit the commencement or continuation of petroleum resource or renewable energy activities, or the issuance of interests, in respect of any portion of the offshore area that is located in an area that has been or may be identified as an area for environmental or wildlife conservation or protection”. Does the member agree that item (g), referencing proposed section 56 in this bill, could be removed? If so, I would support a bill that takes out—
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Madam Speaker, when we look at this particular bill, it is focused on establishing a regulatory framework and is basically amending the existing act to include offshore wind, hydrogen and renewables. However, I think any economic development opportunity in Atlantic Canada absolutely needs to be tied to set-asides for jobs and working with first nations communities in the Atlantic region.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to debate Bill C-49 in the House today. Before I begin, I would like to note that we are standing on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.
There is immense potential for offshore renewables, including the offshore wind industry in Newfoundland and Labrador and in Nova Scotia. It has the potential for new sustainable jobs and the potential for a supercharged Canadian low-carbon economy. With some of the fastest winds in the world off our east coast, with Bill C-49 we could build one of the world's greatest offshore wind industries, powering countless Canadian communities with clean, reliable and affordable electricity.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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Madam Speaker, my Conservative colleagues do not like when I say “reliable and affordable electricity” because they want to increase electricity rates for Canadians.
We are going to bring immense economic opportunity and provide the world with the hydrogen it needs. According to the Public Policy Forum's new report published today, the installation and maintenance of massive onshore wind generation will create jobs and incomes at high levels of intensity for several decades during build-out, and continuing indefinitely with ongoing maintenance and replacement activity.
It also determined that the installation of 15 gigawatts of offshore wind generation would create an average of approximately 30,000 direct jobs annually during several years of construction and installation and about 1,200 permanent jobs for ongoing operation and maintenance.
Canadian businesses know a good thing when they see it. They are more than ready to invest in offshore renewable energy. They are already doing it. Over the last several years, a number of Canadian companies have bought into international offshore wind projects according to Marine Renewables Canada. This includes Canadian financial institutions like the Bank of Montreal and CIBC, and Northland Power.
Northland Power is a Canadian company that has not waited around to invest billions in offshore wind. Headquartered in Toronto, Northland Power is already a global leader in offshore wind with three large operational offshore wind projects in the North Sea in Dutch and German waters and over 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind projects in development from Scotland to the Asia Pacific. It is a great example of how Canadian experience and ingenuity is moving offshore renewables in the global energy transition forward. That experience was most recently demonstrated in the last few weeks when Northland closed just over $10 billion of financing for two additional offshore wind projects in Poland and Taiwan, despite a challenging economic environment.
Northland is a Canadian success story. It has grown from a purely domestic business 10 years ago to having offices in eight countries; deploying more than 250 people in offshore wind; establishing a centre of excellence for offshore wind in Hamburg, Germany; investing roughly $6.5 billion into assets already in operation; and committing about $9.5 billion into developing more offshore wind projects.
Perhaps the best news of all for Canada's workers and the economy is that it has confirmed that it wants to bring its experience and expertise home. It is so important to it that it decided to come to Parliament earlier this year to be present when the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources introduced this bill. It wants to be a part of fulfilling our offshore renewable energy potential, bringing jobs to Canadians and helping to grow our low-carbon economy. As we speak, the company is exploring opportunities in the Atlantic Ocean that will support both decarbonization efforts and electrification of the burgeoning green hydrogen sector.
I am sure all members agree that Canadian companies are more than willing to invest in this industry. If this legislation goes forward, it is only a matter of time. We are bringing billions of dollars and hundreds of jobs, or even more, to Canada's offshore. This can only happen if we work urgently to pass Bill C-49. That is why I find it so disturbing that Conservative members are so against bringing these economic opportunities to Atlantic Canadians.
I have seen this in my home province of Alberta, where Conservatives in Alberta have put out a moratorium. It is impacting over 118 projects, up to $33 billion in potential losses of investments into our economy, impacting billions of dollars of investment and up to 24,000 jobs. Then, the premier started a misinformation campaign, spending $8 million of taxpayers' money to drive a bus around Ottawa to misinform Canadians. That is $8 million of Albertan taxpayer money being spent to misinform.
The natural environment off of our coasts makes us capable of becoming one of the strongest players in the world in the offshore renewable industry. If we look at the Global Wind Atlas, the winds off our east coast are stronger than those around the U.K. and northern Europe, where there are already wind farms. If we compare our winds to those off the upper east coast of the United States, our offshore area is simply bigger and has higher wind speeds.
According to experts, and as published in Policy Opinions, the online magazine put together by Canada's Institute for Research on Public Policy, the price of electricity generated by offshore wind has also dropped significantly, in part, due to developers backing more efficient and bigger turbines. Now is the time for Canada to board this train, and the sooner the better.
The “Global Offshore Wind Report 2023”, published by the Global Wind Energy Council, is predicting that the industry could face supply chain bottlenecks in every country that produces offshore wind energy by 2026, except for China. We have a timely opportunity here to be a part of minimizing that bottleneck and be part of the solution by developing the offshore wind industry in Canada, and encourage new investments into companies that could supply needed materials and parts to the world.
According to Marine Renewables Canada, getting this legislation passed will only help Canada expand its renewable energy industries. Perhaps this expansion of affordable, clean, renewable energy is the cause of the Conservative Party's opposition to this bill. The Conservatives have been clear that they want to make pollution free again, and now they are voting against Bill C-49 and all of the jobs it would bring to Canadians.
As I wrap up my speech, I would like to briefly remind members that we have so many things already in place that will make Canada's offshore renewable energy a resounding success. Both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador are fully on board with this legislation. We created the Canada-Germany hydrogen alliance, so that we can supply Germany and hopefully other European allies looking for secure sources of energy.
Canadians have excelled in so many renewable energy industries. They want this chance to show the world that we can lead in the offshore renewable energy sector too. The door is wide open. We just need to walk through it.
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Madam Speaker, last week, the New York State Department of Public Service denied an application from developers of energy in that state developing offshore wind resources to do exactly what this member is a proponent of. It denied the request for billions of dollars of additional subsidies and concessions. Why was that? It was because the developer said that without it, there was no business case.
I am wondering if the member across the aisle has seriously considered whether there is really a business case that is viable without costing Canadians billions of dollars in subsidies and concessions. I also want to know why that member is not supporting his home province of Alberta.
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Madam Speaker, I noted earlier in debate that some members incorrectly said that the findings of the Supreme Court of Canada in the reference case on the impact assessment meant that there would be overreach in this bill, Bill C-49. As a formerly practising environmental lawyer who did not think Bill C-69 was constitutional, I would like to say that Bill C-49 is absolutely constitutional. There is nothing more federal than the offshore. This is federal jurisdiction.
Is my hon. colleague aware that the race is on right now between the United States and China to see who can get more offshore wind in faster?
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Madam Speaker, I did oppose Bill C-69. Some of the hon. member's colleagues have said that anyone who voted for it obviously did not understand environmental assessment.
I do support Bill C-49. The Canada-Nova Scotia and Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador offshore petroleum boards need to have an expanded regulatory capacity to approve offshore wind.
I want to know if he would not agree with me that the tremendous potential for the economy in Atlantic Canada is in wind-generated hydrogen.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the constituents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
I rise today to speak on the government's latest attempt at over-regulating, bureaucracy-building legislation, Bill C-49.
I have noted in this debate that several speakers on the government side have scarcely spoken about the details in their own legislation. They have spoken solely on the offshore renewable revenue they believe this bill would potentially offer to applicable provinces. I say “potentially” because if the government members had taken more time to study their own bill in greater detail, they would have found that Bill C-49 features such a mess of new red tape, it would be surprising if anyone could complete an offshore project of any kind, let alone have it generate revenue.
This is symptomatic of the government's approach to Canada's resource sector. For every talking point, there are miles of new regulations, new levers for federal bureaucracies to kill jobs and projects, and endless delays. Shovel-ready projects that start with Liberal photo ops are left to be strangled by bureaucratic Liberal laws and regulations.
After eight years, the Liberal government has continued to drop the ball on project after project. We would think the government might act with some humility after last Friday when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the government's previous pipeline-killing legislation, Bill C-69, was unconstitutional.
Conservatives warned the Liberals repeatedly that their no-more-pipelines act, Bill C-69, did not respect provincial jurisdiction, and was a power grab by the Prime Minister and his career activist environment minister to phase out these key sectors.
Liberals were called out by energy workers who wanted to keep their livelihoods; by indigenous communities wanting to sustainably develop their lands; by stakeholders in multiple sectors, including wind, hydro and critical minerals; by nine out of 10 provincial governments and every territorial government; and now by the Supreme Court of Canada.
I could speak for hours on the comments made by provincial and business leaders on the Supreme Court of Canada ruling against the unconstitutionality of the Liberal bill, Bill C-69, but I will mention just a few.
The Premier of Alberta said, “The ruling today represents an opportunity for all provinces to stop that bleeding and begin the process of re-attracting those investments and jobs into our economies.” The premier also said, “And we will continue to fight against Ottawa’s unfair overreach”.
The economies of British Columbia and Alberta have been closely intertwined, especially with the resource sector. Many residents in my community of Kelowna—Lake Country have worked in the resource sector in Alberta in the past.
The president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C. said in an interview on Bill C-69 that there is complexity, confusion and cost, and as a result, investors did not know if they were going to be investing in Canada, and whether or not they could get projects to “yes”. That was causing investors to pause and look at other countries rather than Canada.
The World Bank came out a few years ago and ranked Canada number 64 in the world in the length of time it takes to approve a project. That is a very embarrassing statistic for the country.
A 2019 C.D. Howe Institute report titled “A Crisis of Our Own Making: Prospects for Major Natural Resource Projects in Canada”, stated:
With investment in Canada’s resources sector already depressed, the federal government’s proposed Bill C-69 would further discourage investment in the sector by congesting the assessment process with wider public policy concerns and exacerbating the political uncertainty facing proponents with a highly subjective standard for approval.
That is exactly what happened. The cost of the Liberals' refusal to reverse course was billions of dollars in potential investment that was taken out of Canada. Energy projects that would have been built in Canada were instead built in countries with lower environmental standards and fewer labour protections.
This new bill, Bill C-49, should be removed by the government and completely revised because it applies provisions from that now unconstitutional bill, Bill C-69, to Canada's Atlantic offshore sector.
Looking at the core details of Bill C-49, it is very clear in the needless political roadblocks it seeks to create that it would stall projects in our offshore industries.
It triples the approvals timeline from the current framework and takes the final authority in the decision-making away from on-the-ground regulators to ministers in Ottawa. This is once again the Liberal philosophy of “Ottawa knows best”. What would be the result of handing the final approval of offshore energy projects to our Greenpeace activist environment minister? The answer is obvious: no good-paying jobs for hard-working Canadians and instead, political decision-making. We know this from other legislation, like the government's just transition bill, which is seeking to take away jobs from energy workers in exchange for employment that cannot guarantee the same levels of benefits or pay.
Why is the government seeking to hand operational control of the Atlantic offshore industry to a Liberal environment minister who the Newfoundland Liberal member for Avalon said did not understand the “issues of the region”? It is a question only the Liberals can answer.
Regulators who have worked in this sector and this region for years are better placed to make these decisions on a timeline that already works for both regulators and industry. Adding more red tape, which often does nothing more than repeat pre-existing environmental reviews, will do nothing to create good-paying jobs, particularly in renewables. We know this because of the unmitigated disaster the government made of a viable tidal energy power project in Nova Scotia.
Sustainable Marine Energy's Bay of Fundy tidal energy project had enormous potential to deliver clean energy for Canadians. Had it been built, it could have generated up to 2,500 megawatts, while bringing in $100 million in inward investment and eliminating 17,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of taking nearly 3,700 cars off the road. The project was proceeding at pace under the Harper government, but after the Liberal government's election, Sustainable Marine Energy was snagged in a forest of red tape from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
After eight years, that company withdrew the project completely last spring. Despite $28.5 million of taxpayer money having been invested into the project, the government refused to release this clean green project from a regulatory trap of its design. The result: taxpayers are out $28 million, Canada loses out on a powerful source of green energy, and the people of Nova Scotia, who had this environmentally friendly project killed in front of them in Ottawa by bureaucrats, are forced to pay Ottawa's carbon tax now.
Bill C-49 will never deliver a dime of renewable revenue to provinces so long as the Liberal government regulates renewable projects like tidal energy out of existence. It will also not deliver revenue from vital offshore drilling projects when the now unconstitutional Bill C-69 enforces impact assessment reviews that last for more than 1,600 days, or when Bill C-55 allows the fisheries minister to select prohibited development areas solely on her call, the power which the legislation today also reaffirms.
The Prime Minister, in the aftermath of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, said there was no business case for LNG exports to be shipped out through Atlantic Canadian ports to our European allies. The United States became the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas in 2021, as projects ramped up production and deliveries surged to Europe to alleviate the energy crisis there.
Just last week, one of Canada's closest and historic allies, France, signed a 27-year deal with Qatar for its LNG production. A 27-year deal would have been a fantastic way to generate revenue for Newfoundlanders, Nova Scotians, Albertans, British Columbians and Canadians. Instead, the Liberal government has no clue about the value of Canada's resources. Instead, it is focused on gaining more political control and its ideological job-killing agenda. It is not even a green agenda because, as I mentioned earlier, the government is happy to kill green projects just as slowly.
A Conservative government will support Canadians in every region by responsibly building energy projects of every variety that bring home jobs for Canadians. We will build green projects to sustain our environment, not just regulate them out of existence. We will champion Canada's world-class resources to our allies and we will deliver results.
The Liberal government only creates more red tape, regulates projects out of existence, drives away investment and brings more control to Ottawa. The Liberal government is just not worth the cost.
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Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to Bill C-49. The legislation would amend the Newfoundland and Labrador accord act, as well as the Nova Scotia accord act, legislation that governs and regulates offshore petroleum management between the federal government and those provinces: Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. The legislation before us, in short, would establish a single regulator with respect to conventional offshore petroleum, as well as offshore renewables.
I will say in that regard that Conservatives fully support the principle of establishing a regulator responsible for all offshore energy projects. Moreover, we recognize the need to establish a regulatory framework in order for Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Nova Scotia, to leverage the opportunity to take advantage of the shift toward offshore wind, in particular, and the opportunities that this would provide those two provinces.
That is not the issue. The issue is in the details of the bill, and a very quick review of the bill evidences that it is a badly drafted piece of legislation. It is indeed another disastrous bill from the disastrous Liberal government.
With respect to the environmental assessment process, the bill incorporates the Liberals' anti-energy Bill C-69's Impact Assessment Act. This is legislation that, last Friday, was largely determined by the Supreme Court of Canada to be unconstitutional. Indeed, of the provisions of the Impact Assessment Act that have been incorporated into Bill C-49, each and every one was determined by the court to be unconstitutional.
Members can think about that for a minute. We have a bill, a substantial component of which pertains to something as significant as the environmental assessment process, and it incorporates a statutory scheme that was deemed to be unconstitutional. The environmental assessment process is a pretty big deal when it comes to offshore energy projects.
One would think that a responsible government would go back to the drawing board to get it right. One would think that a responsible government, at the very least, would reflect on the impact of that very clear repudiation of the government's disastrous Bill C-69, which was supported by its coalition partner, the NDP, against the objections of all 10 provincial premiers. However, this is not a responsible government. It is a reckless government.
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada in no uncertain terms repudiated the government. On Monday, the government's response was to shut down debate and impose time allocation to see that the bill receives as little scrutiny as possible. It is a bill that would achieve the opposite of what it is purported to do.
The bill would kill offshore renewable projects before they even got off the ground as a result of a significant amount of new red tape, delay and uncertainty. Indeed, if the Liberals were honest, they would call the bill what it actually is: “an act to kill offshore renewable energy”.
I will give you, Madam Speaker, and all hon. members examples of why that is. Pursuant to the accord acts at this time, the minister has a 30-day period to respond to a decision of the regulator as to whether to approve or reject a project. With respect specifically to renewables, not oil and gas offshore, the current government would double the time for the minister to respond from 30 days to 60 days, which is more delay. This is from a government that talks so much about championing renewable energy. However, that is just the beginning, because this bill would provide that the minister may initiate multiple 30-day extensions, so even more delay. This bill would provide the possibility of an indefinite bidding process, even where the regulator gives the green light to a project. That is an indefinite delay.
Where have we seen that before? It was none other than with the Liberals' disastrous and now largely unconstitutional bill, Bill C-69, the no pipelines bill, the Impact Assessment Act. That law came into effect four years ago, again, with the full support of the NDP over the objections of all the provinces. More than 25 projects have been in the queue for approval. How many projects have been approved over four years? The answer is not one, zero. Therefore, the bill has done what we said it would do, which is kill energy projects as a result of delay, uncertainty and red tape. It has also negatively impacted Atlantic Canada, with the $16-billion Bay du Nord project, which is hanging by a thread.
Therefore, they have a disastrous record of zero projects in four years, almost all of them languishing at phase two of a four-phase process. Moving ahead, in the face of that, Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada have the audacity to stand up and say that the way to develop renewable offshore energy is to duplicate, copy and paste the very regulatory regime that has resulted in zero projects moving forward. It is really quite incredible.
However, it gets worse—
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