Mr. Speaker, let me say congratulations on your new role in the Speaker's chair. I know that is something you have been wanting to do for quite some time, and I am very confident that you will do very well in your new role.

As this is my first speech in the 45th Parliament, I would like to take a minute to thank the voters of Regina—Wascana for electing me for a third time to represent their interests here in the House of Commons. They have my solemn promise that I will do my very best to fulfill this role each and every day.

Of course, I would like to thank the many campaign volunteers who worked so tirelessly on the election campaign by knocking on doors, putting up lawn signs and giving people rides to the polls on election day.

Certainly, I would like to thank my family for supporting me throughout every step of this long journey, including all the way to Parliament Hill for my swearing-in ceremony last week.

Speaking of long journeys, it was certainly a pleasure to welcome King Charles to Ottawa for the Speech from the Throne. Given that this is a new Parliament and Canadians have said that they want politicians to work together, I will start by highlighting some of the positive things in the throne speech.

The income tax cut and the GST cut on new homes are initiatives that Conservatives have been calling for for quite some time. The Liberals did not go quite as far as we would have liked, but if they want to steal Conservative ideas, we are certainly not going to complain.

For the most part, while the King's speech contained many positive words, it was certainly lacking in details in terms of how its goals would be achieved. This is concerning, especially since Parliament has not sat since Christmas and will not sit again until the fall.

Nevertheless, there was one brief reference in the throne speech about making Canada “the world's leading energy superpower”. Given such a passing reference, I do not think the current government fully appreciates just how important the natural resource sector is to our future prosperity, especially for Saskatchewan. In any given year, between 10% and 15% of the provincial government's budget comes from natural resource royalties. That means that 10% to 15% of the budget of every hospital, school and provincial social service comes from getting Saskatchewan resources to market, and 10% to 15% of the salary of every doctor, nurse, teacher and social worker depends on the natural resource sector. However, if we cannot get Saskatchewan resources to market, if we cannot get oil, gas, potash and uranium to their customers, then it becomes that much more difficult to build hospitals and schools, and to hire more nurses and teachers. As a result, government services and quality of life deteriorate.

This raises an obvious question: What is the best way for a landlocked province like Saskatchewan to get its resources to markets, both in Canada and around the world? For oil and gas, the obvious answer is pipelines. We need to get pipelines built in order for the quality of life of Canadians to improve, so it is certainly concerning that the throne speech contained so little about developing our natural resource sector.

There was the mention of creating a new major federal project office, which one would hope would approve and speed up pipeline projects. Unfortunately, in his first question period on Wednesday, the Prime Minister refused to answer whether new pipelines would be approved. He left it to his Minister of Energy and Natural Resources to clarify: “we will support new pipelines if there is consensus in Canada for them.” The Prime Minister cannot even come to a consensus within his own cabinet about getting pipelines built, so how is he going to come to a consensus all across the country? I would suggest that as long as the former minister of the environment, the orange jumpsuit-wearing, CN Tower-climbing member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, is still sitting around the cabinet table, new pipeline projects will never see the light of day in this country.

During the election campaign, when I was doing door-to-door canvassing in Regina—Wascana, just about every day someone on the doorstep shared with me a story about long waiting lists to see a medical specialist, long nights in a hospital waiting room just to see a doctor, overcrowded classrooms, and overworked and underpaid nurses and teachers. These are the direct results of a provincial budget stretched too thin, because for the past 10 years, the Liberal government has refused to let us build pipelines in this country.

However, the benefits of the resource sector to the Saskatchewan economy are not limited to provincial government coffers. Let us not forget about the actual workers who work in the mines and on the oil rigs. There used to be plenty of jobs in this sector so that people could earn a decent living and raise a family. Unfortunately, the resource sector in southern Saskatchewan has shed thousands of jobs over the last 10 years because of the policies of the Liberal government to keep resources in the ground.

Let us not forget one of Regina's largest employers, Evraz North America, which makes pipelines. The members of United Steelworkers 5890, the union that represents Evraz employees, used to have stable, predictable employment as long as pipelines were being built and as long as there were new pipeline projects on the horizon. However, they too have suffered from hundreds of layoffs because of the Liberal government's opposition to pipelines. Many other people in Regina directly benefit from the development of the natural resource sector, including the numerous oil and gas service companies and, of course, the workers at Regina's co-op refinery.

In order to get more pipelines built, the Liberals must repeal Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” law. This law, which was passed by the Liberals in 2019, has made it impossible for the private sector to build pipelines in this country. Once Bill C-69 is finally repealed and we can once again build pipelines across Canadian soil, the next step is to ship Canadian oil and gas across the ocean to other countries. This means the Liberals must also repeal Bill C-48, the west coast oil tanker ban. Take, for example, the northern gateway pipeline project. This pipeline, which was applied for and approved under the previous Conservative government, would have piped Canadian oil and gas to the coast of northern B.C. and then on to customers in Asia. Unfortunately, this pipeline project was stopped dead in its tracks when the Liberals announced that they would not allow oil tankers to transport the oil from the end of the pipeline to customers in Asia and around the world.

The Liberal government can no longer overlook the contributions that our natural resource sector can make to international trade and to international peace and security. Our allies should not be buying oil and gas from dictators in Russia or the Middle East. They should be buying from Canada. This is exactly what has been asked of Canada by the Japanese Prime Minister, the German Chancellor, the Greek Prime Minister and many other countries as well.

The House is scheduled to rise for the summer break on June 20. That means that, due to the Liberals' decision to prorogue Parliament and then call an early election, when the House returns in the fall, we will have sat for only 20 days since Christmas. Twenty days is apparently not enough time for the Liberals to table a budget, so I am not going to get my hopes up too high that they will enact legislation to repeal Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, or to fix the many other problems they have created over the last 10 years. If the Liberals do want to work together and steal even more Conservative ideas, especially ones related to pipelines and the natural resource sector, we are happy to co-operate.

Michael Kram

$500,007.00