Thank you very much, Minister Thompson. MP, where is he? There you are. He fits right in there in the caucus. My fellow caucus members, Chairperson Williams from the Squamish Nation, Councillor Alec Garren from the Musqueam Nation, dear friends, conservation officers, thank you for joining us today. We are gathered on the shores of the Pacific, where Indigenous peoples, including the Musqueam, the Squamish, and the Tsleil-Waututh nations, have lived since time immemorial.
They were the first of these waters. They have cared for them for thousands of years. Water is where life begins for each of us and for our planet. And many Indigenous teachings begin with this truth: the ocean is our first water. Life on this planet began in the ocean. Today, the ocean is a life force that produces half of the oxygen we breathe. It feeds billions of people. It helps to steady our climate. And these waters connect us to the world. Our food, our trade, our transportation, our way of life, all depend on the ocean.
Canada is an ocean nation, with the longest coastline on Earth, touching three oceans, long enough to circle the equator six times. That's an enormous strength, one we've drawn upon from our first fisheries to new trade corridors that are poised to transform our economy. But when something comes first, we should treat it accordingly. So, first and foremost, we must protect our oceans.
Long before Canada had an oceans policy, Indigenous peoples protected these waters. Governments are now beginning to catch up. The Government of Canada has taken major actions to restore our waterways and marine ecosystems. Over 25 million square meters of aquatic habitat, the equivalent of 20,000 Olympic swimming pools, have been restored. We've removed over 2,500 tons of ghost gear, deadly marine pollution that harms turtles, fish, and other marine life. We've recovered more than 1,600 wrecked, hazardous, and abandoned vessels from the water.
And now we're going further. In March, Canada's government launched a force of nature, a $3.8 billion strategy to protect and restore critical habitats, to harmonize our growth strategies with our conservation, and to mobilize new capital for nature. At the core is our plan to protect 30% of our lands and 30% of our waters by the end of this decade. A decade ago, Canada protected barely 1% of our waters. In the intervening years, there's been steady progress.
In the past six months, we've added two more percent in marine protected areas, with two new ones in the Arctic: Kikat Sarvar Juak in Nunavut, and the Amiiala Haligjoan marine conservation area on BC's central coast. Today, in total, with those extra areas, we're protecting more than 17% of our oceans. That's over a million square kilometers. That's more than 50 times the size of our Lake Ontario.
Indigenous partners are helping shape these decisions. Indigenous knowledge, as we know, has stewarded these waters for thousands of years, and that knowledge will help us to ensure that they remain safe, sustainable, and healthy for future generations and for all the life that lives in them. To that end, I can announce today we will expand the reconciliation framework agreement in the Northern Shelf bioregion. That's the region that stretches from the top of Vancouver Island to the Alaskan border. This new $185 million investment will support a five-year agreement with the Province of British Columbia and 18 First Nations to strengthen collaborative governance, conservation, and emergency preparedness.
And where the Fraser River meets the Salish Sea, we're investing in Indigenous-led stewardship and the restoration of the lower Fraser River estuary. More broadly, we will continue to identify additional marine protected areas over the coming three years to conserve that additional 13% of Canada's marine heritage to which we committed.
Ocean conservation must go hand in hand with our ambitious agenda to build Canada strong. Canadians know that we need to diversify our trade with reliable partners, but we can't trade more without greater port capacity. And that's why the Government of Canada is investing $10 billion to help transform the Port of Vancouver and the Roberts Bank Terminal 2, and why we're currently determining whether this project will be in the national interest.
It's also why we're expanding the Port of Prince Rupert and the Port of Stewart. And it's why we're replacing the George Massey Tunnel, cutting travel times for commuters and speeding up our exports. Collectively, these measures will unlock over a hundred billion dollars in new trade capacity. They will support hundreds of thousands of new jobs in BC and across Canada. But they will also mean more ships on the water and more pressure on the habitats that we are all working to protect.
And that means we must further strengthen our conservation efforts through fast, effective response plans and by changing how we build, how we travel, and how we operate on the water to minimize impact. To these ends, my colleagues and I are proud to announce a historic investment of $1.2 billion to keep our waters safe, to protect marine life, and to strengthen frontline conservation enforcement.
You know, Canada is already a leader in ocean conservation, so we're starting from a position of strength. For the past decade, Canada's robust Oceans Protection Plan has made considerable progress. But those growing trade volumes that I just referred to, and intensifying climate change, mean we must now redouble our efforts.
So we're expanding the Coast Guard's capacity to monitor marine traffic. We're upgrading search and rescue stations. And we're extending the very high frequency radio and radar network. We're improving seabed mapping, fisheries conservation, and protection through new digital and autonomous tools. And we're developing a new national nearshore ocean forecasting system to better predict weather and currents, both to prevent marine incidents and to respond more rapidly when those incidents occur.
Now, as many of you know, we're in the final stages of deciding whether one of Canada's biggest infrastructure projects, a proposed new pipeline to the West Coast, could be a project of national interest. This project would diversify our economy, create almost 150,000 new jobs right across Canada, and make us much less dependent on the United States. But we know it's not just what we build, it's how we build. And this government is taking a protect-while-we-build approach to new investments.
We made it clear that the pipeline should avoid highly sensitive areas. The proposed route would follow a similar southern corridor to the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, and the North Coast oil tanker ban will remain in effect.
But between our increased trade requirements, more ships will enter the Port of Vancouver. So, we must scale up our systems to protect marine life in the event that something goes wrong. We're investing in a national marine mammal oil spill response plan and working with local partners to respond more quickly and effectively right across Canada. And every project we advance must fully assess its potential impact on the environment and have a plan to mitigate it. For example, the extensive conditions for any Roberts Bank Terminal 2 expansion will include detailed measures to protect the habitats of killer whales.
We are establishing noise thresholds and implementing marine protection procedures. To put it simply, if a killer whale gets too close to the site, work must stop. These measures and others like them are the product of years of detailed analysis and consultation. They'll add significantly to the cost of the project, but it will be worth it to protect our first waters.
I want to come back to whales. As you know, whales in Canada's coastal waters live by sound. It's how they find food. It's how they find their family. It's how they traverse these great seas. That means that a loud ship can be disorienting, deafening, and dangerous. So, we're investing an additional hundred million to build a national long-term capacity to monitor, assess, and mitigate underwater noise across Canada's oceans.
That means we'll work with companies and individual owner-operators to reduce noise with proven technologies such as low-noise propellers, electric and hybrid motors, and hull improvements to make vessels more hydrodynamic. In the Arctic, we will monitor underwater noise and marine mammals, understand baseline noise levels, assess the impact of increasing ship traffic, and address mitigation issues.
And that commitment, I just referenced that hundred million, builds on the $258 million we announced earlier this year to protect southern resident killer whales, North Atlantic right whales, and St. Lawrence estuary belugas. And it builds on the vital work in the Salish Sea to protect whales by reducing underwater noise, improving real-time whale detection, and responding faster to marine mammal incidents.
Our ocean protection approach has to be comprehensive, and that means replenishing the food source on which whales depend. So, our Pacific Salmon Strategy, a $412 million plan to protect the lifeblood of the West Coast ecosystem, and I want to pay tribute to my colleagues who helped design and make that a reality, to restore habitats, rebuild wild salmon stocks, and transform fisheries in partnership with Indigenous peoples and coastal communities.
Let me be clear about what all this will mean for the unique ocean ecosystem around Vancouver. We're setting a goal, a clear objective, to keep ocean noise here at 2023 levels, even as vessel traffic increases. We'll do that through the combination of rigorous conditions around construction and investments in noise reduction. For the whales we're protecting, we will plan according to their patterns, not ours.
And to maximize the effectiveness of these initiatives, we'll need more effective monitoring and better enforcement. And that's why we're also investing more than $90 million to increase frontline capacity and modernize fisheries enforcement. We'll equip fisheries officers with digital surveillance tools, including drones. And we'll invest in recruitment, training, and retention of skilled officers. We'll have more eyes on the water, above and below the surface.
The action we're taking today will advance Canada's position as a global leader in ocean protection. Getting ocean protection right is the prerequisite for sustainable growth. With today's measures, our government is now investing more than $3 billion in ocean conservation. In the coming months, we'll release the other two pillars of Canada's ocean strategy, namely our plans to secure our waters and, secondly, to build our ocean economy. And all this work will accelerate as we prepare to welcome the world for the 12th Our Ocean Conference in May, convening governments, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and coastal communities to turn ambition into concrete action for ocean protection and sustainable use.
Let me end at the beginning. Let me end at our beginning. First water. The waves. The waters. There's a lot of waves today. Light waves. The waves behind me. The waters behind me sustain life, and they're a gateway for the exchange of trade, of people and ideas. They've shaped the Canada we know today. And how we treat them will shape our future.
Canada is building big again. And we're doing so to strengthen our shared prosperity, to reinforce our sovereignty, and to carry us further than ever before. But the further we reach, the greater is our responsibility to protect what sustains us. We inherited these oceans, and it's our obligation to pass them on better than we found them. And so we will. Canada is an ocean nation that will protect our first waters. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Prime Minister. We'll now turn to questions. First question, Georgie Smith, CBC. Is phase two of LNG Canada going to be built with Chinese steel like phase one, or will it be built with Canadian steel? It's a great question for the proponents of phase two. They've taken their first investment decision. The process runs for the next five, six years. I'll leave it to them on the precise timing in the early 2030s when it's expected to be operational. There will be full opportunities to buy Canadian steel, and we'll continue to invest in the Canadian steel industry to make sure that's the case, but it'll be for them to decide.
Follow-up. President Trump said yesterday he thinks Canada will apologize in the next three to four weeks and say, 'We're going to get rid of all the tariffs.' Mr. Navarro today told Canadians lobbying in Washington to get the hell out of the country. What do you say in response to this? I take note of both comments. How's that? No response to either. Next question. Okay, I'll just say this on trade. It continues to be the case that Canada stands ready to negotiate in good faith what is there, which is a mutually advantageous trade arrangement that respects both our countries' sovereignty.
Can we get that answer in English, please? Which part? Sorry. Well, how do you respond to the... Oh, sorry. In the elections. Yes. Well, the first is the announcement at the Davie shipyard, which was the biggest investment in shipbuilding in Quebec's history, was made prior to the start of the campaign. And naturally, of course, I would be there and other officials would be there. Today's announcement, the timing of it was determined by the five private-sector partners for LNG2. The Canadian government made major efforts over the course of the last year to get to this point, to help them get to this decision point for what is the second-largest private-sector investment in Canadian history. So, it's an enormous investment. And the final point that I made was that I think that we're able to do multiple things at one time. We have to protect as we build, and the ocean conservation efforts that we're taking today, as part of a much bigger nature strategy and what will follow from this, will be bigger determinants for future generations of this country. Thank you.
Next question. Mike Hager, Globe and Mail. Lots of new information has come to light since the 2024 federal government's review of what happened to Canadian diplomats in Havana. The Globe and Mail has reported that Canadian and American intelligence were collaborating during that time when Canadian and American diplomats began to experience symptoms. The US just reported acquiring a directed energy weapon, their testing that could be responsible for Havana syndrome, and they've deemed their findings serious enough to brief the House and Senate intelligence committees. Former CSIS and national security officials are calling for you to open an investigation into what happened. Will your government open some sort of independent investigation or refer this to NSIOP for review? I expect to be briefed on the situation. There's some new information, as you say, that's come to light. And I'll take a determination after that's happened. Follow-up. Thanks. So do you think the government owes these diplomats to look into the new information, and to Canadian diplomats around the world who could be at risk for similar exposures? Let me answer this fundamentally. We owe a responsibility, and we discharge a responsibility, a duty of care for Canadian diplomats who serve on the front lines on behalf of Canadians. And those front lines, the fact of that service can change very rapidly in a variety of jurisdictions and circumstances, and we take those responsibilities seriously. Issues of national security and ongoing investigation, there are appropriate ways and times to pass that on. As I've said, I expect to be briefed. I haven't been briefed in more detail about the latest revelations, and I commend you for raising them. And I expect to be briefed and take action from there. Thank you.
Next question. Push and kiss. Hi there. Brena Owen with the Canadian Press. So BC's attorney general, I'm sure you're aware, has asked the federal government to make changes to the Criminal Code to hold AI companies accountable following new details about the conversations between the Tumblr Ridge shooter and ChatGPT. So is this something that you are considering? Thank you for the question. Independent of the BC attorney general, our government has been looking at and consulting on issues around a series of issues around safe social media, extending related but different, extending to AI, the responsibilities, the various responsibilities these providers have, and any liabilities that they may have. This will be one of the issues that will be addressed in Parliament in this session. Follow-up. Thank you. So yeah, the American bans on Canadian alcohol and other imports is ticking in today. The clock is ticking down to the US midterms. Are you considering applying new trade pressure at this time, or have you ruled out further escalation? Never ruled anything out. I'll stand by my earlier comments and the position of the government, which is, look, the reality is that the cost of living is very high in the United States. And there's things that Canada can do to help lower that cost of living. The reality is there's a number of industries that are under medium-term pressure, competitive pressure in the United States, related industries in Canada. And those industries were stronger together. The reality is the world's more dangerous and divided, and that energy security, food security, information security, financial resilience and security, all of those are fundamental issues that are best addressed through reliable partnerships. Canada is a reliable partner, and we're ready to work in any or all of those areas. Our timing isn't dictated by any specific aspect of the US calendar. The resources are there. That said, today's events, today's announcements, I think, demonstrate something. Canada has what the world wants. There is a host of strong partners around the world who want to do more with Canada, and Canada is going to build in the right way. We're going to build in full partnership with Indigenous peoples. We're going to build sustainable. We are going to protect before we build. And we're going to build for the benefit of all Canadians. This country is getting stronger. It's getting more independent. It's getting more resilient. And we're a better partner. That's better for Canadians. All of that. And in the end, we're a better partner for whoever we do deeper trade relations with. Thank you.
Next question. Mark Finson, National Observer. In the last few weeks, there's been a lot of talk of Canada getting closer with Europe. How do you intend to integrate our pesticide regulatory regime, which your government has been kind of gutting, with the more stringent European measures? Well, I'll say a couple of things. One is that, and it follows from the previous question, the world wants to do more with Canada. And there's a tremendous opportunity that is being created with an alliance for the future with the European Union. That's an alliance that will make us stronger, make us more independent, and really, in our view, and I think the view of the European Union, provide an example for the world. What comes with that is high standards. Now, the specific aspects, specific pesticide standards or phytosanitary or other standards, it depends on the nature of the partnership. And you will hear more about the nature of the partnership at our summit, the Canada-EU summit in Montreal at the end of October. But so it depends on the breadth and the depth of that. It's not clear that those specific areas would necessarily come to pass and be included, given all the other opportunities that are there. Follow-up case. Thank you. You've been asking Canadians essentially to make a trade-off to some degree between development, you know, build Canada strong, and environment. Just yesterday, the Canadian Energy Regulator announced that it will be approving a lower toll rate for the Trans Mountain pipeline, which over 20 years will amount to about $22.5 billion of lost revenue. Are we actually benefiting from this essentially business-friendly approach, or are these handouts to corporations? No, I agree with virtually everything you said. What we're creating in building Canada strong, first and foremost, is the independence, the sovereignty that we need to live our lives as we choose, to not have another country, a trade partner, you can guess which one, that dictates what we watch on our streaming, what language we speak, what environmental rules we have in our country, what we eat, how we prepare our food, all these aspects. We're taking our future into our own hands and making ourselves stronger. Now, if you go specifically to the issue around Trans Mountain, the Trans Mountain pipeline feeds about $2 billion, more than $2 billion a year now into the federal government, which helps support, and it will continue to do that year in, year out, on top of that's directly from the pipeline itself. But then there's a series of other benefits in terms of higher prices for our products, more diversification that comes from that, and that provides the strength that we need, or more strength, I should say, again, to live our lives as we choose, to support our social programs, to move forward as a country. So, look, I'm not familiar with the specific what the Canadian Energy Regulator... I've got a lot of things on my mind. I didn't follow up. I'll go back and read it. I suspect it's probably something as basic as the change in the cost of capital that they have, and that flows through, and that's what happens with rate-based regulation. But that's a guess. I haven't looked at the detail. But the general point is what we're doing, and let's just go to, and I'll pan back, but to what we're talking about today is whether it's LNG2 or the potential expansions of Roberts Bank Terminal or a Port of Vancouver, which is going to be at full capacity by the end of the decade, which is already at such tight capacity, and we're so inefficient in moving goods from this port to the rest of the country that if you go beyond Stanley Park, there's a bunch of ships idling out there, polluting out there, because they can't just come in and drop and leave, right? So part of the expansion of the capacity, the very expansion of the capacity itself helps address some of these issues that we have. But then it creates the ability for us to trade more with different partners, to diversify, to reinforce our sovereignty. But the only way we're going to do that is if we make these big investments now to protect our ecosystem. So, and the only way we're going to build it is if we build in the right way. We build with partners. We use the knowledges here and build in the right way so that construction literally stops when there is the beginnings of threat to the, in this, you know, as of today, 74 southern resident killer whales, as one very important example of that. And we do all of those things because we're Canadian, because we value, yes, the growth, but we value our natural heritage and the environment, and we believe in building in partnership. So, it is connected, not a trade-off. That's the core point. And, you know, it's a message. Well, I'll leave it at that. I've probably gone on too long. You nodded very that I should leave it at that. Yes. Okay. Sorry.
We'll have time for one last question. My apologies. Hi, Prime Minister. S. McDonald, Global News. Kind of along actually the same lines as that last question. On phase two energy announcements, obviously always gone or a lot of strong response on either end. There's protesters downstairs right now. What do you say to the environmental groups and the critics who say that your government is handing taxpayer money to foreign gas giants, and on top of that, to expand a facility that we now know burned off more methane than any other LNG export facility in the world last year? Your response? A couple of things. One, in terms of the tax regime, and one of the things we've been doing with the tax regime is to equalize broadly the tax, this is the productivity mega deduction, if I can put a plug in for that, which is to equalize the incentives for tax, for investment that's going to grow the economy, irrespective of the type of investment that's going to grow the economy. So whether it's in the energy sector, it can be in tech, it can be in traditional manufacturing, precision manufacturing, agriculture, etc. All of that treated the same way so that we're creating that level playing field. So that's the first part of that. The second is, you know, it is a fact that this is a facility and a train which is the lowest GHG, it's top decile GHG in terms of scope one, scope two. So that's the answer to that. And look, there is transition fuels, and natural gas is one of the core transition fuels, and that's the role there. Okay. And a question on... And maybe the other thing I would add, which is an important thing, is to look at the entirety of what the government is doing on energy. So it was six weeks ago, two months ago maybe, that I was at the other coast announcing the largest ever investment ever in North American clean energy, 14 gigawatt in Churchill Falls, an investment made possible by the federal government and demonstrated by the fact that through the process of getting that agreement, the new agreement between Newfoundland and Labrador and the province of Quebec, an additional 4 gigawatt of clean energy was found, and the federal government will be an equity participant in that. That's great for Quebec. It's great for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is a big step to our very clear goal, which is to double the electricity grid, which is the biggest return to emission reduction that this country has, and a huge, huge competitive opportunity Canada has, and that's why we're pursuing it so aggressively. Follow-up, an unrelated question on the Stelco news that we heard yesterday. Can you outline what kind of financial support the feds were willing to give to Cleveland-Cliffs to avoid steel layoffs in Hamilton? And is your government considering legal action to make the company respect its agreement with the government to not have any layoffs? Yeah, I'll make a couple of observations. One, we're very disappointed at this decision by Stelco. My personal and our thoughts are with the workers and the families who have been betrayed by the company. Let's put it bluntly. There's money on the table from the federal government, number one, and the company made representations and has legal obligations for employment. We intend to use all powers that we have and pursue them to the full extent of the law. And I would just take note that this situation is caused by the US tariffs, and that the ultimate owner and the CEO of the ultimate owner of Stelco, Cleveland-Cliffs, applauded President Trump for putting those tariffs on. Thank you. This would conclude the conference.
