44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 19, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question. Why are we talking about sustainable jobs and not a just transition?
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay: Mr. Speaker, I cannot hear myself.
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- Oct/19/23 5:01:57 p.m.
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Order.
The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. People can have conversations in our lovely lobbies. In fact, there are even cubicles just outside where people can have conversations without bothering everyone. They are very comfortable, so I invite members who are not interested in this debate to go there.
My question is very simple. I would like to know why the Liberals and the NDP are afraid of the words, “just transition”. Why are they talking about sustainable jobs instead?
That seems like a very “Canadian” choice of words to me, a well-rehearsed talking point. Why not talk about a just transition?
Why is that not the bill's title?
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Mr. Speaker, words do matter, and when we met with workers about what they wanted, they wanted to know there was a future. That was why the words “sustainable jobs” meant something. We heard that from workers.
In terms of international obligations, we need to ensure in the legislation that this is not just an island by itself. It must meet the international commitments we have made on issues like the just transition.
It is very important, when I am in Edmonton meeting with electrical workers who want to know what their future looks like, to say this is about jobs. This is about tomorrow. Once we have established trust with the working class, we will move further ahead because there is no energy transition without workers at the table. That is why the language matters.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been a member of Parliament for eight years. I have listened to a lot of speeches in this place. Rarely have I seen as many points of order during one speech as what I just witnessed. I think that demonstrates just how thin-skinned the Conservatives are on this issue.
What I was really interested in—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Alistair MacGregor: Mr. Speaker, they are heckling right now. They continue to show how thin-skinned they are.
My honourable friend was talking about oil and gas profits. He made a point about all the wealth companies are generating and asked what they are doing with it. They are not investing in workers. They are firing workers. They are doing stock buybacks. They are doing dividend payouts.
Can my hon. colleague talk about that? It seems to me that rather than standing on the side of workers, we are hearing Conservatives parrot what the CEOs of the oil and gas industry say. I am wondering if he could expand on that.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a very important question because we saw big oil racking up $200 billion in profits in the most catastrophic climate year on record.
Rich Kruger, Suncor's CEO, said there was a “sense of urgency” to make as much money as possible. I think of the 200,000 people who were displaced. I think of the buildings that were lost. I think of the terrifying situations we had and the obligation the CEOs have to deal with this.
The Conservatives live in a bubble of pretending that the world does not exist. Meanwhile, there are over 100 major lawsuits right now against Exxon and Suncor in jurisdictions like California and Colorado because they knew back in the 1960s and 1980s that they were burning the future of the planet. Shell, in 1988, warned that by the time issues became clear in the 2000s, it might be too late, but it took the time to raise its oil platforms six feet on the offshore rigs so that when the ice caps melted, it could still make money.
That is their responsibility and we will call that out.
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Mr. Speaker, I think of Bill C-49 and Bill C-50. Bill C-49 had phenomenal support, not only from the House of Commons but also from the premiers in Atlantic Canada. It was all about renewable energy and future clean, green jobs. There are literally hundreds of thousands of potential jobs from there to Bill C-50, and we recognize the future. There is a need to develop, promote and encourage those green jobs. However, the Conservatives, as they voted against Bill C-49, are now going to be voting against Bill C-50.
The member often makes reference to climate change deniers. Why does he feel the Conservatives are challenging these good, futuristic middle-class jobs that are going to be there today and tomorrow?
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. My grandfather was a coal miner and had to leave the coal mines because there was no future there. That is when he went to work in the gold mines and broke his back underground. My mother is a miner's daughter. This is what we grew up with.
When the jobs went out, I never heard the Conservatives say they cared. We lost jobs and the pensions of the workers at Kerr-Addison, Pamour miners were ripped off and Elliot Lake went down. We are in a situation of transition, and I think of the people in Atlantic Canada who have had to travel too often to find jobs.
Right now, we are competing with the United States offshore in the Atlantic, and it is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore wind. We can either get in the game and provide sustainable jobs for the communities out there or sit on the sidelines and let the Americans take them. I am not willing to let the Americans take our opportunities.
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Mr. Speaker, I see that I received applause from a Conservative. Apart from you, Mr. Speaker, he is the only one who still claps for me. We will see how long that lasts.
The Bloc Québécois's position is clear. It is imperative that we change our energy trajectory so that Canada, which still includes Quebec, for now, contributes to the effort to prevent average temperatures from rising by 1.5°C. That is essential. We are talking about the future of humanity, the health of our people, the safety of our communities and the future of generations to come. We have to make the effort. That means we have to stop ratcheting up our fossil fuel production. That is point number one. The International Energy Agency says we must not start any new oil and gas production projects. By 2030, we need to gradually reduce oil production, which is part of the problem.
It is completely wrong to think that some kind of capture technology is going to let us increase oil production while reducing our absolute emissions. I am not talking about emissions per barrel, but absolute emissions. These are basic scientific facts. By reducing our oil production, we will gain access to large sums of public money, which is currently being disproportionately invested in fossil fuels. This money could be directed elsewhere so that Canada can transition to a 21st-century economy, focused on the long term, on the future of coming generations and on renewable energy.
We stand in solidarity with the workers who will have to participate in this process. When the Trans Mountain project began, we did not just say that the government should not invest money in that project and that there would be cost overruns. We know that the project is costing over $30 billion. What we said was that we should take that money that was in the Canadian public purse and use it for the transition, for good-paying jobs in the high-tech sector that produce technologies that can be exported, namely, energy storage technologies. By so doing, we would not impoverish communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, who are the primary victims of the lack of transition, who will be among those who will pay the most, and who will be even more disproportionately affected when finally do make the transition when it is too late and it is even more urgent.
The government has done enough greenwashing. We need to take action. Obviously, when we talk about greenwashing, I cannot help but think about this bill, which basically contains nothing of what I just talked about. There is nothing about any of that in this bill. The Liberals are saying that they want to train workers in the clean energy sector, but they are investing billions of dollars in dirty energy. Clean energy workers do not need this bill. They need an employment insurance system that works.
We learned from the member for Thérèse-De Blainville that half of all workers are not covered by employment insurance. When I look at the federal government's investment strategies, and when I look at the Conservatives' plans, I am not sure I would want to apply to set up a wind turbine project. It has been so devalued.
What would it take? First, we need commitments and principles. This bill turns the process upside down and says that workers are going to be trained. It does not begin with what needs to come first. There is no commitment and there are no principles and no targets. It proposes solutions to a problem that has not been defined. Kafka himself could not have come up with this.
Next, we need a collaborative approach. They forget sometimes, but we are in a federation. There are provinces and municipalities. There are ecosystems in the labour market. There are communities, regions, workers, unions, employers, chambers of commerce and investors. There needs to be consultation. The democratic and civic process in the communities needs to be respected, but that is not covered in the bill. The bill provides that committees will submit reports, and it is not quite clear what will be done with those reports. We know that endless reports are issued here, and we know where they end up. They end up in a place where no one reads them. That is what will happen.
Once we have done all that, then we need measures to achieve the objectives. We need to think of the workers, the communities and the first nations communities. That is not happening at all. The provincial jurisdictions will need to be respected. There will need to be requirements for the planning and production of sectoral reports that cannot solely be the federal government's responsibility.
Labour law is under provincial jurisdiction. The workforce in Quebec has been under Quebec's jurisdiction since the 1990s. Everyone knows that. There are agreements, there is funding. It has not always been easy, but we have those things today. That is not reflected in the bill.
My take on this bill is that I do not doubt the intentions behind it, although given that the title completely eliminates the concept of the just transition, one can doubt the government's intentions. However, the whole thing feels improvised to me. The bill does not define a problem, yet it tries to find solutions. It is funny how the Liberals think a report is the solution to everything.
Since being elected, I have been bewildered to learn that committees work to submit reports to the government, and we vote on motions, but the government never reads them. Why, then, would it read the reports that are going to be produced under this bill? That is not plausible. That is where things stand.
The worst part is that the bill speaks to the government's utter ignorance, whether deliberate or not—if it is deliberate, then that is even worse—of Quebec's regional realities and Quebec's labour market. It is a bit like what happened with the early childhood centres. We are way ahead when it comes to skills training and collaboration on skills training. It seems like the federal government always waits 30, 40, 20 or 15 years. It dilly-dallies before eventually saying that Quebec is right and that it will try to push the other provinces to follow Quebec's example. That is precisely what is going on here. There will need to be asymmetry.
In the 1990s, Quebec voiced its demands on workplace skills training. In the 1990s, there were discussions about professional training, which led to federal transfers to Quebec for workplace skills training. This bill is on skills training, but Quebec does that, and it is good at it. If results matter, then the government should be consulting Quebec.
On June 22, 1995, the National Assembly passed the Act to Foster the Development of Manpower Training. Since then, Quebec has been in charge of workplace training. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, this reform is based on partnerships. In 1997, Quebec created the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail. This labour market partners commission repatriated active employment measures from the federal government to Quebec, and are working together to find innovative solutions, not just in green energy, but in all sectors, because every region of Quebec is different. Who are these people? The group brings together employers, employees, labourers, the education sector, universities, vocational training schools, community organizations and economic and social ministries that are familiar with Quebec's realities. It is working. Ottawa needs to stop ignoring that.
When we have immigration files in our ridings, we wait months for labour market surveys for each immigration file when those labour market studies have already been done in each region and in each sector. They are meant to determine what the needs are, what the needs will be in the future, how to plan and how to do things better. By deliberately ignoring Quebec with this bill, the government is saying that it does not want to do better. If Quebeckers want things to be better, they can vote for the Bloc Québécois, because we always defend Quebec's jurisdictions.
What should we do with this bill? We are thinking about it. It is not easy, but maybe something can be done with it. We are thinking it over. For starters, the government needs to listen to these concerns. It needs to consult Quebec. When we asked officials in committee if they consulted Quebec, they said it did not occur to them to do so. They turned red as ripe tomatoes, much like the tomatoes grown in my riding, which are redder than those grown elsewhere. When money is being allocated to implementing the strategies in the bill, Quebec will have to get its fair share. Negotiating labour agreements has never been easy.
Moreover, the government has to honour the Paris Agreement. It also has to honour the COP26 just transition declaration. The generally accepted term in the international community is “just transition”, which emphasizes the importance of making the energy transition and doing so in a way that serves everyone now, in all provinces and all communities, as well as future generations. As for the bill's title, my mouth dried out by the time I finished saying it. That is because someone is trying to hide something.
I think there is a lot of work to be done, and I invite all parties to take the blinders off and really consider Quebec's reality and its institutions. If objectives and achieving those objectives is so important, the government should take a step back and consult the Quebec government.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member has read the legislation, which has within it the creation of a council. That council, I believe, would be around 15 members. Within that council there would be appointments of different forms of stakeholders, everything from leading industrial personnel to labour representatives and other types of stakeholders who could really contribute to the development of that strategy. This would ultimately lead to a report on a five-year basis, the first one appearing in 2025.
Does that not fit many of the things the member was talking about in terms of having a strategy and looking to get the expertise coming forward? That, in essence, is what the legislation would do. It would ensure that Canada continues to generate good-quality middle-class jobs well into the future, dealing with green energy jobs.
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Mr. Speaker, that is what I call “Winnipeg-Northsplaining”.
When the Liberals introduced legislation for child care transfers, they asked us if we had read the bill. They told us there was money to fund child care so women could enter the labour market. They asked us if we had read it. They told us they had targets and funding. We told them it had already been done in Quebec. In fact, they were the ones who had not read Quebec's legislation.
Basically, the parliamentary secretary is telling us that he knows it is worthwhile because it already exists in Quebec and it works. The federal government still has this obsession with duplicating everything. Apparently, this government is allergic to efficiency.
When these councils were created in Quebec, I was not yet old enough to vote. Now, I am starting to think about retirement, and the parliamentary secretary has yet to read the Quebec legislation. I invite him to read it.
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Mr. Speaker, one thing we heard at committee recently was that workers in the traditional energy sector have jobs that pay really well. Compare that to the jobs that will be and currently are created by green tech companies, whether in wind, solar or otherwise. On average, they pay about 36% less than what a traditional oil and gas worker earns. If this is a just transition would transfer people from job to job, does the member see anything in the bill that would ensure that the worker who is making money in oil and gas is going to be making the same amount when they are transitioned to a different job?
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Mr. Speaker, I think that my colleague has hit on something. He is asking whether we saw anything in the bill that will create jobs. There is nothing there. There is talk about reports by officials, people appointed from the “Liberalist” who will submit reports, and about things that have already been done. There is nothing there.
I know that this is difficult for people from Alberta and western Canada. They have a resource-based economy. They have good-paying jobs. I understand them. I sympathize with that. The Bloc Québécois is always asking the Conservatives to show some openness, to think about the long term, to discuss this issue. We are debating. We get along. We are able to disagree.
However, when the Liberals come here and say that they want to train people, set up boards and produce reports, they should perhaps put themselves in the shoes of an Albertan who is waiting for the just transition and who is waiting to be convinced. It does not help the environment to have a bill like this one in which the government is unable to define objectives and methods, in which the government is asking people to simply trust it. It is always a big risk to believe a Liberal who tells us to trust them.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we heard from representatives of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents many energy workers across the country. The Conservatives did not ask them questions; they used their time to do a political stunt. When we talk to these workers, they are very concerned about their seat at the table because they know change is coming.
It is really important that we actually have legislation that is strong enough, because this is about the tax credits that would be going out. If the tax credits are done by these functionaries, who knows where this is going to be and how it is going to happen? Will the Bloc be willing to come forward with amendments?
We are looking for the New Democrats to have regional voices and working-class people represented, as well as having public NGOs and youth at the table. We do not want just industry, so that it would not just be a carve-out of pals but would actually ensure that the jobs being created are good, sustainable, long-term jobs, and that they represent our regions.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree. The point of my speech was to defend the very idea that the member for Timmins—James Bay raised. The trouble is that the NDP often talks about the importance of regional voices, but only until Quebec's jurisdictions come into play. In this case, regional voices and respecting regional voices means respecting Quebec, the agreements and the labour market partners commission, and integrating asymmetry.
If the other provinces decide that the framework presented in the bill suits them, and that reports might help them advance because these institutions bring together community stakeholders, the unions my colleague was talking about, if that does not exist in those provinces, then let them take the first step. However, this must never be done at the expense of recognizing what Quebec has already done. Why should we make an effort, advance, innovate and set an example if, every time the federal government is 20 years behind us, it decides not to recognize Quebec for its efforts?
I think that the NDP also needs to keep that in mind when we study this bill and make amendments to it.
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Mr. Speaker, the member talked a lot about what this legislation talks about, which is basically report after report. Ultimately, the first report would not be until 2025, which is over a year and a half away. That is when the report would come in to decide what the government may do down the road.
I am sure the member recognizes in Quebec how he wants to efficiently get Quebeckers to work doing the jobs, but that ultimately, just like with any project, they are being delayed just in coming up with the idea. After that, it is another six years to create the jobs that need to be created. That pushes things down the road continually.
I wonder whether the member would comment on how he sees that affecting Quebec workers and making sure that Quebec keeps its people employed.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am surprised we are having a Conservative opposition day where the Conservatives are asking the government to come up with a plan to balance the budget in eight days. They are saying that five years is too long. One has to be reasonable. It depends on the project. I can tell my colleague that most of what is in the bill already exists in Quebec. We do not need additional resources or bureaucracy, but we will need the money to implement whatever is decided.
Sometimes reports and consultation are needed. The right people need to be appointed in the right places. Unions, employers and educational institutions all need to be included. We have to do it right. We must also not rush to produce as many reports as possible as quickly as possible, only for them to be shelved. There has to be a balance between the amount of bureaucracy and the usefulness of it all. The usefulness of what is in the bill is greatly reduced in Quebec, if not non-existent, because we have already thought of all this. We are simply waiting for the resources to be able to do more.
Obviously, those resources are in Ottawa.
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Mr. Speaker, I hope the tomatoes are the only red things in my colleague's riding.
Who does he think stands to gain from this? Why are we here? Why choose such an ambiguous title? Why put such gobbledygook in something that should be very sensible and straightforward?
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Mr. Speaker, I think people try to complicate things sometimes. They pick a title that is four or five lines long—which is a waste of ink and not very environmentally friendly—so people will not read it.
I said this in my speech, and I will say it again. There will be a transition. It must be equitable, it must be just and it must benefit workers. It must not make them poorer. The transition will create huge opportunities for wealth creation, new technology, innovation, investment and export. If we focus only on oil, we will miss out. We will have to take the time. It will be hard. We need to prepare. That is very important. Around the world, everywhere but here in the House, people are calling this the just transition.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to talk about this alleged just transition legislation brought forward by the Liberal government. Before we talk about this legislation, we should talk about the success of the Liberals with just transitions in the past, because they promised a just transition for coal workers. They said they were laser-focused on it and that anyone in the coal industry who was going to be displaced by their policies was going to get a just transition. They kept saying this, repeating it over and over again, making these false promises to coal workers.
Can we guess what? Those fake and false promises were actually discovered in the commissioner of the environment's independent auditor's report called “Just Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy”. The Auditor General looked at the just transition Liberals gave to coal workers, and let me summarize that it was garbage. They did absolutely nothing for coal workers.
Let us look at a couple of the excerpts in this report. One reads, “Overall, we found that Natural Resources Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada were not prepared to support a just transition to a low-carbon economy for workers and communities.”
This is what Liberals do. They try to beat up on energy-producing provinces with punishing policies, but then they say not to worry, that they are going to be there for them and that they are going to make sure it is a just transition. Those are false promises, much like Liberal promises on housing. They say that they are going to solve housing and that they have a housing accelerator, which is going to accelerate something. However, it accelerates nothing. Liberals come up with other programs where they just line Liberal insiders' pockets with gold, all at the expense of taxpayers, because they actually do not give a darn about the workers' jobs they are going to displace.
The Auditor General was really clear about this. Liberals had years to deliver a just transition for coal workers and did absolutely nothing. The Auditor General's report also states that the analysis is there was “No federal implementation plan”. Liberals said they had a plan. No, they misled Canadians. The Auditor General said there was no federal implementation plan.
The report also said that there was “No formal governance structure”. When one does not have a plan, there is actually not going to be any formal governance structure. They should have just said they have no plan, much the same as they have no plan on housing, the economy or combatting the opioid crisis. This should actually be called the “no plan transition”, because there is zero plan. The terrible thing is that there is also almost zero accountability from the government.
The final thing the Auditor General report stated was that there was “No measuring and monitoring system” put in place. Again, when one does not actually have a plan, when one just says to coal workers that it is too bad, that they are out of a job and that we do not give a damn, of course one does not put in a formal governance structure. One has no system to measure and monitor.
Then the Liberals have the audacity to come back to this place and say to Canadians that they have new legislation, because they care about workers and are going to give them a just transition. The only transition they gave to coal workers was to be out in the cold without a job. That is their plan as they once again beat up on Alberta and Saskatchewan and say that they are going to transition their workers out of jobs, but they are going to have some grand transition plan to take care of them. They did not take care of a single darn thing with coal workers.
Let us look briefly at something the Liberals say about this grand transition plan to take care of workers. They say that they are going to set up a council, to be known as the sustainable jobs partnership council. Its mandate is going to be providing the minister and specified ministers with independent advice through a process of social dialogue. That and $1.50 will buy a double-double at Tim Hortons, which is effectively what workers are going to get with this piece of legislation. The Liberals are going to set up a council. Wow, that is really ambitious.
I do not have a lot of faith in the government, because with anything it touches, it has the opposite of the Midas touch. Do members remember the Midas touch? It turns everything to gold. Everything those guys touch turns into garbage. They say they are going to set this up. I say, “Yeah, right.” They say they are going to do it in a couple of years. I say, “Yeah, right.” I can go back to how they treated coal workers. They treated them as I would not treat my worst enemy. They were indifferent. They set up no program, all the while saying that they were setting up a program and that they were going to take care of the workers.
That is called “gaslighting”, and the Liberals gaslight Canadians constantly. They actually do it on housing, too. We talk about housing, and the minister pops up, puffs up his chest and says that no one has done more for housing, that they have a housing accelerator and that they have this program and that program. However, housing prices have doubled. Rents have doubled, so when the Liberals say they are going to do something, we should actually believe that what they are going to do is cause harm. The policies they have brought in across this country are harmful, including the revolving door of the justice system. It does not really matter what crime someone commits, they are going to be out, because the Liberals reformed the bail system.
People who shot up the street one day are out a couple days later, because the Liberals changed bail. They said they were going to reform it to make things better. Now they want us to believe they are going to have a just transition that is going to make things better for oil and gas workers. No one should believe them, and that is not just because of their absolute failure on other things such as housing, criminal justice, the opioid crisis or the mental health crisis.
I remember when my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo had a bill to implement a three-digit suicide prevention number. The Liberals said they were going to help. It took two years to come up with a three-digit number. I know it is hard; it is three digits. They could not do it in two years, but now somehow they are going to plan a just transition with this unbelievable plan, the sustainable jobs partnership council. It is going to have some meetings, and it will be filled with Liberal list donors, just as they stack all the courts in this country with Liberal list donors. We can bet there is not going to be one person on this council who gives two craps about the oil and gas industry.
It is going to be packed full with their radical left-wing environmentalists. They will probably get the radical environment minister to put a bunch of his cronies on it, who will say they can heat their homes with hot air, like the hot air that comes from the government. They will not need oil and gas. We certainly will not have the electricity, because they do not have a plan to expand electricity generation or electricity distribution as they wipe out the oil and gas industry.
There will be no just transition for a single worker in this country under the current government. When the common-sense Conservative Party has a government, oil and gas workers will not have to be worried about being left out in the cold by a tyrannical, uncaring government. I can assure everyone of that.
Let us go back and look at some of the results from the Auditor General on the “Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities”, because it is a page-turner of absolute incompetence. The government is incompetent in almost everything, but its members really took it to a new level. They worked hard to be extra incompetent for coal workers, and I should give them credit, because that level of incompetence is hard to get to.
Let us look at a couple of things. The Auditor General went through the federal commitments and programs the Liberals said they were going to do. There are 10 of them. Does anyone want to guess how many they actually came through on? It was four out of 10, and they are not even the ones that would actually do anything for workers; they are the easy ones such as having an interdepartmental meeting to talk about something.
As I just said, the Liberals then have the audacity to tell Canadians they are going to plan this transition for oil and gas workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan, where they basically have no seats. They do not care about the people there. They say they are going to plan the transition for them out of oil and gas, even though they left coal workers out in the cold, but they say not to worry because they are going to take care of it this time.
The finding under recommendation one was, “Natural Resources Canada had not led on the reporting on just-transition activities for coal workers and communities.” The Liberals did not report on the just transition activities for a single community. That is the first thing they did not do. Oil and gas workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan should get ready.
Ronald Reagan said the scariest words that anyone can hear are, “I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” If Ronald Reagan were alive today, living in Canada, and heard the words of the Liberal government, he would be bloody terrified. When Liberals say they are coming to help, people should run in the other direction. Oil and gas workers know not only that the Liberals do not have their backs, but also that they are going to push them over the cliff.
The finding under task force recommendation two said, “Natural Resources Canada had not yet developed the just-transition legislation.” Liberals were supposed to do it in 2019. Now they have done this great thing in 2023, four years later, the sustainable jobs partnership council, which they get two years to set up. They are four years behind, and they are going to set up a council that is going to take two years because that is really hard. Setting up a council is hard work. We know how hard these guys work. It is going to take two years to get that set up. It is unbelievable.
We also know that no one on that council is going to care about oil and gas workers. No one on that council is going to care about the effects on the economy for Alberta or the effects on the economy for Saskatchewan. The council is going to be packed with Liberal donors.
With judicial appointments, there is really one qualification to be a judge in Canada right now with the Liberal government, and that is whether the person donated to the Liberal Party. The Liberals check the list and, if a person donated, that is great, he or she is in. On something like this, hard-core Liberals, anti-oil, anti-Alberta and anti-Saskatchewan people are what this sustainable jobs partnership council would be stacked with. The Liberals were supposed to get it done four years ago, but it is going to take another two years, so we would be at six years.
Recommendation three was, “Establish a targeted, long-term research fund for studying the impact of the coal phase-out and the transition to a low-carbon economy.” The Liberals did not do it. I know everyone was holding their breath thinking maybe they did something, but they did not do it. Will they actually do anything in this legislation? This is the question we have to ask ourselves.
Human nature is that we look at the past record to determine what the future performance will be. As the Liberals did absolutely nothing for coal workers, we can anticipate that they will do absolutely nothing for oil and gas workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Why would they? Why do they care? They have absolutely no representation there. Well, they have one MP who seems pretty anti-Alberta from some of the statements he makes, so he might want to try to get a seat in Toronto Centre—Rosedale or something like that in the next election.
Recommendation five of what they were supposed to do was to “Create a pension bridging program for workers who will retire earlier than planned due to the coal phase out.” Did the Liberals do it? No, they did not. Coal workers get phased out, their pension is now going to be less, much like many of the Liberals' pensions are going to be less when they lose in the next election, but has anyone in the Liberal Party on that side apologized to coal workers, saying they promised they would bridge coal workers' pensions when they phased them out and they did not? Did they ever apologize? No, they did not. Why? They do not care because they are energy workers.
Now when Liberals tell energy workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan that they are going to phase them out, but not to worry because they will be there for them, I say that is a load of hooey. There is no way Liberals are going to be there for anyone.
Imagine the devastation for a worker in the energy sector who is phased out and then their pension is not bridged. That is bad enough, but guess what, when we look at a detailed, publicly available inventory with labour market information pertaining to coal workers such as skill profiles, demographics, locations and current and potential employers, since the Liberals ripped them off on pensions, they say that they are going to put together this database so that they can transition workers into new employment. That is okay, because maybe they'll get to punch in somewhere else. However, did they actually do that? No they did not. They stand here in this chamber, Liberal member after Liberal member, parroting that this is great. They bring in time allocation on debate on this after they literally screwed coal workers, and I tell members that they are going to do it again.
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