Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to pick up where I left off yesterday in debating the Group No. 1 amendments to Bill C-24. At the time, I was reminding Canadians everywhere who have not been following the softwood lumber issue perhaps as carefully as those of us who have been seized with the issue, that it seems the government is moving at almost warp speed to shred any competitive advantage that Canada may enjoy over the United States in the case of lumber and, as I will develop further, in the case of wheat.
Just days before Ottawa bludgeoned Canada's lumber industry into this deeply flawed softwood lumber agreement, the Vancouver Sun published the details of a leaked letter from the Bush administration to the U.S. lumber lobby. This is not a conspiracy theory. This was accurately reported in the Vancouver Sun and its veracity has never been challenged. In the letter, the American administration, the Bush administration, confirmed that its objective was to hobble the Canadian industry for seven years. It is no longer paranoid to assume that this was their goal. This was a stated fact.
Nor does it end there. The most shocking thing has been pointed out in great detail and with great courage and strength, I might add, by my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster, who has been perhaps the sole champion on behalf of the Canadian public on this issue through committee stage and still is now as this plods through the House of Commons. Perhaps the most horrifying statistic that my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster pointed out is that fully $450 million of the $1.3 billion that we left on the table in illegal duties, which the Americans will get to keep, will re-grease the re-election wheels for the protectionist Republicans.
Canada's timber industry will thus be forced to subsidize the ongoing illicit attack on itself, all with the explicit consent of the Canadian government. Let us imagine it. We are fueling the administration by the $450 million in this fund to continue these attacks, and not only on our lumber industry, because the Americans will have won that battle. Who knows what other industry sectors they will be targeting next? I will talk about the Wheat Board in a moment, and my colleague from Hamilton raised the issue of the steel industry, which is of course very concerned.
There is even more. The softwood deal is trade that is managed of, by and for the American lumber lobby. A supposedly sovereign nation, Canada, has signed on to an unprecedented clause in this agreement, a clause that requires provinces to first vet any changes in their own forestry policy with Washington. I say that with some emphasis, because I myself was shocked. I have not been following this softwood lumber agreement as carefully as have some of my colleagues, such as my colleagues from Skeena and Vancouver Island North, where the lumber industry is key and integral to the very viability of their economic regions.
I was dumbfounded, but what confused me even more is that my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois who are in support of the softwood lumber deal are the enablers that are allowing the Conservatives to ram this deal down our throats. On the issue of sovereignty alone, one would think that my colleagues from the Bloc would have blown the whistle on the bill and refused to participate in it to any degree. They, of all people, should acknowledge what an insult to the sovereignty of Canada it is to have to go cap in hand to Washington to make any substantive changes to the way we administer our own forestry industry.