Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good day, committee members.

My name is Kevin O'Donnell, and I am the executive director of the Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada. I have the honour of serving tens of thousands of Canadian unionized pipeline workers as well as the innovative Canadian pipeline construction companies that build our future.

Despite what has often been a convenient way to unjustly attack one of our most important national assets and the workers therein, I am attending today as a champion of Canada's energy workers and our constructors.

I sit before you today as a proud pipeline professional for over 30 years. I am proud of Canada's energy workers and of their ingenuity, determination and expertise. I'm proud that they, every working day, battle the elements, often for prolonged periods of time away from friends and family. They employ their expertise. They build an energy infrastructure that powers our incredible way of life here in Canada.

I sit before you today proud of Canada's natural resource sector. Since the 1950s, Canada's pipeline infrastructure has transported millions of barrels of oil safely, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars annually to Canada's economy and creating tens of thousands of sustainable union jobs. These jobs carry wholesome family health and welfare coverage, defined pensions, excellent wages and high commitments to safety and continuous training.

Further, Canada's pipeline industry and, more specifically, the members of the PLCAC have been at the forefront of indigenous reconciliation for years. We are the front lines. While conferences in large cities do exchange and develop very important thoughts and promises, and I attend them regularly, we have delivered.

In fact, in the last seven years, our member contractors alone have collectively invested over $3.3 billion directly into indigenous businesses and communities. This includes direct hire and training, joint ventures, supply chain purchases and community projects, as well as charitable initiatives. The overlay of this is that we have delivered sustainable methods for generational wealth, shared ownership of pipeline-related businesses and shared stewardship of protecting our environment.

Committee members, I believe it is obvious that the world needs energy, and that's a fact. That's a fact that isn't going to change any time soon. I believe that Canada, the jurisdiction with the highest safety and environmental standards, with shared partnership with indigenous communities and the best human rights and workplace safety regimes, should regain its role as a worldwide energy superpower.

Let's be sure, the world is waiting for us. We are leaders. We are a cold weather nation that has flourished with ingenuity, generations of hard work and a balanced approach to natural resource utilization. Now is the time to follow through on that responsibility.

However, as a result of Canada's inability to get projects approved in an efficient manner, creating unpredictability in Canada's marketplace, the world is forced to buy energy from other nations with substandard environmental and social responsibility performance. That can and should change. We have a duty to get our safe and abundant product to market, and, bar none, the safest way is to do that with Canadian-made pipelines.

Honourable members, I do not believe that we should have ended up here today, but I do believe that now this is part of a necessary process. The Trans Mountain pipeline should never have landed in a position of government intervention, but we are here to ensure that the conditions are course corrected and that we regain our efficiency. The Trans Mountain pipeline has far surpassed the original cost estimates. I'm sure there's been significant testimony and research exchanged, and I hope this will serve us all well in the future.

I offer my personal summary of the key causes. Let me call them the four Cs. The first is COVID. We all know what a dramatic effect it had on the world market, specifically energy markets, and the ability to get projects completed. The second one is commodity pricing and inflation—inflation spurred on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Coastal gas is the third C. Again, there is lots of documentation of the constraint on supply of labour and resources. I think the last and most important factor was the cadence, the cadence of pipeline building. Traditional pipelines are built in a continuous linear fashion, where we can exploit our decades of expertise and create efficiencies. That simply was not the reality for the TMEP construction. The permit delays and ever-changing regulations and policies, as well as the burdens of reactionary requirements, all led to unprecedented production inefficiencies.

All of these and others were the result of bad timing. In hindsight, most, if not all, of these would not have occurred if the construction phase had a permitting process that worked properly.

As a result of these hearings and learnings, we should now recreate the conditions to enable the private sector to unleash the innovation and ingenuity of Canadian pipeline workers. I would submit the primary factor is policy efficiency and certainty.

I look forward to your questions as we strive so that our association and our craft workers help ensure our industry does not find itself in this situation in the future.

Thank you for your time.