Bill C-24 (Historical)

Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006

An Act to impose a charge on the export of certain softwood lumber products to the United States and a charge on refunds of certain duty deposits paid to the United States, to authorize certain payments, to amend the Export and Import Permits Act and to amend other Acts as a consequence

The purpose of this enactment is to implement some of Canada’s obligations under the Softwood Lumber Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States, by imposing a charge on exports of certain softwood lumber products to the United States and on refunds of certain duty deposits paid to the United States and by amending certain Acts, including the Export and Import Permits Act. The charge on exports will take effect on October 12, 2006 and will be payable by exporters of softwood lumber products. The enactment also authorizes certain payments to be made.

SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 13.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-24, in Clause 14, be amended by

(a) replacing line 38 on page 11 with the following:

“Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, as provided in subsection 10.1(2),”

(b) replacing lines 5 and 6 on page 12 with the following:

“responsible for excess exports as determined under subsection (2) shall pay to Her Majesty in right of Canada a charge calculated”

(c) replacing lines 9 and 10 on page 12 with the following:

“excess exports.

(1.1) The charge becomes payable at the time that the softwood lumber product is exported.

(2) A person’s excess exports shall equal”

Motion No. 16

That Bill C-24, in Clause 14, be amended by replacing, in the English version, line 2 on page 12 with the following:

“primary processing in one of those provinces from”

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 17.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to correct you. You were talking about Motion No. 19. You are moving from Motions Nos. 17, 18, and then 19, clause 17 and clause 18.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Thank you. I appreciate the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster raising this. We will check into the accuracy of that previous motion, but I will continue reading the whole group of motions and then we can determine what the point of order is all about. Motion No. 18.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 18

That Bill C-24, in Clause 17, be amended by

a) replacing lines 42 and 43 on page 12 with the following:

“product from the charges referred to in sections 10 and 14.”

(b) replacing line 3 on page 13 with the following:

“charges referred to in sections 10 and 14.”

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 19

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 18.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 22

That Bill C-24, in Clause 26, be amended by replacing lines 26 and 27 on page 17 with the following:

“containing the prescribed information;”

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 28

That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 50.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

moved:

Motion No. 75

That Bill C-24, in Clause 99, be amended by replacing line 31 on page 86 with the following:

“imposed on those products under section 10 or 14,”

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are on to the second set of amendments of this badly botched bill. Anyone who is watching the House of Commons right now would have been able to see, as the Speaker reviewed all the amendments, how badly botched this bill has been.

The Minister of International Trade is now bringing in amendments to his own bill. Why? Because he screwed up, quite frankly. He botched it. He botched the negotiations. He botched the entire process. Now he basically has admitted to all Canadians that the bill itself is so badly flawed that he is bringing in amendments to try to fix some of his errors, but only some.

We have had no due diligence on this bill. We have had no due diligence at all. The government said it would consult. Back at the end of April when it announced a so-called framework agreement, the government said it would sit down and work with the industry to try to put together this softwood sellout, so even if we were very concerned about some of the provisions, we took the minister at word, and we should not have done this. Then we found out in the week prior to July 1 when this agreement was initialled that there was no consultation with the industry. The industry was told to take it or to leave it.

Subsequent to that, the NDP forced hearings this summer. What we heard from the industry throughout the summer were concerns about this bill, concerns about the impacts of giving away $1 billion and having an import tax imposed on our softwood products.

The minister went into overtime. Being very concerned about his political future and his political career, what he tried to do was browbeat and bludgeon the companies into submission. He was able to extract, like a confession from a torture house, little letters saying they would support the deal if--and this is an important if--the minister got 95% support. He never got that support, so the government changed the bill.

The Conservatives changed the agreement. They rewrote what they said they could not do. They rewrote the softwood sellout, making even more concessions to the United States in the meantime, and then throughout that process. As one industry representative said, Canada had capitulated on everything. Another industry representative said that this was the worst negotiation he had ever seen Canada go through. At the end of a badly botched negotiation, the minister came up with an equally badly botched bill.

The bill was presented in the House. With the support of the Bloc, the Conservatives and the tacit support of the Liberals, the bill was taken from the House to the committee. I will come back to the Liberals in a moment because their attitude and behaviour have been absolutely disgusting throughout this whole affair.

The committee should have been exercising due diligence, but the Liberals and Conservatives on the committee refused to hear more than two witnesses. The first two witnesses already had raised serious concerns about the botching in the crafting of the bill. In clause 18, effectively what we have is a double tax on companies. The companies that go through the Export Development Corporation are not getting 80¢ dollars back. They are getting 67¢ dollars back. Those concerns were raised by the only two witnesses the Conservatives and Liberals would allow.

Then letters came in from across the country, from workers, communities and people involved in the softwood industry, letters saying that the government please must have hearings on this. People said the government must have hearings, but the Liberals and Conservatives shut that down. They had already worked together, the Conservatives and Liberals, the two devils working together in their teamwork to sell out softwood communities across the country. They had already killed the public hearings that the NDP had forced over the course of the summer. We were supposed to go to Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. We were supposed to go to Thunder Bay. We were supposed to go to Vancouver. No, the Liberals and Conservatives killed that, working with the Bloc, of course.

The net result is that this bill, even though witnesses asked to come before the committee, did not receive its due diligence and was rammed through over a 12 hour period, with most of the bill not being debated at all. We now have a deeply flawed bill and a punitive bill. As one of the two witnesses allowed by the Conservatives and Liberals to appear before the committee mentioned, it is an extremely Draconian bill. One gets 18 months in prison if one violates the provisions of this bill.

One of the amendments we have brought forward addresses the whole question of assessments. The liability of a person to pay an amount under the bill is not affected by an incorrect or an incomplete assessment. The minister screwed up on the negotiation and on the bill. Now the government is giving itself a blank cheque to go after softwood companies that have either disagreed with it politically or that cannot keep up with these huge financial payments they are being forced to pay, the export tax, the double taxation on the refunds that should be coming back to communities.

What happened next? On October 13, Canada won in the Court of International Trade in the United States. It was an enforceable decision, and we were entitled to every penny back. Instead of saying it had taken the wrong course, that it should never have been that irresponsible, that it should not have thrown away $1 billion when it did not have to, that it should not have imposed an export tax on our softwood companies, and I will come back to the mill closures and the job losses in a moment, the government decided to cover this up, not talk about the victory in the Court of International Trade and pretended that it was many years of litigation to come.

However, the minister and Michael Wilson were unable to say from where this litigation would come. They know the Court of International Trade is the last resort. They know it is a three judge panel. It cannot be overturned. They know all this, yet they are deliberately setting out to mislead the Canadian public because they cannot sell their badly botched deal.

The New Democratic Party will not stand for that. We will be out there talking to Canadians, as we have already. We have been to communities, such as Thunder Bay, which have been hard hit by this, by the Liberal betrayal and by the Conservative betrayal of softwood communities across the country. Since this deal with the devil was put into place, the Liberals and Conservatives working together, in the first week we saw, with that provisional agreement, 2,500 jobs eliminated.

Many of these jobs were in northern Quebec.

We have seen the loss of jobs. In a month we have seen now 4,000 jobs eliminated, including, as I mentioned in the House yesterday, at Western Forest Products in New Westminster, British Columbia, where 284 jobs were eliminated. Communities across the country, British Columbia, northern Alberta, Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, where I was the week before last, have been hard hit by layoffs and job losses, as have northern Ontario and northern Quebec.

The job losses have been universal and all the Conservatives can say is that they are sorry, that maybe it is the Liberals' fault. The Liberals say that maybe it was the Conservatives' fault. They are both at fault. They have both supported this badly botched deal, this horrible sellout of Canadian interests. As the member for London—Fanshawe just mentioned, it does not just affect softwood. The fact that we are throwing away litigation that we have won means that any other industrial sector can be targeted the same way.

What is worse is we are now giving half a billion dollars to the American softwood industry. It was dry. It did not have any legal funds to continue. Now it will have half a billion dollars to come at us again. For those 4,000 families that have lost their breadwinners, because of the incompetence of the Minister of International Trade and government and the betrayal of the Liberals, it is scant conciliation to know that Canada is right and that what should happen has not. What should happen is a reinforcement of our rights. We won in the Court of International Trade. The money has to be paid back. In fact, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has already been sending 100% dollars to softwood communities that did not sign on to the deal.

The minister did not get the required level of support. What did he do instead? He changed the deal, when he said all along he could not change it because the Americans were tough negotiators.

That is the situation we are in now. We have a badly flawed bill, the most egregious aspects of which the NDP has been endeavouring to fix. We have the Conservatives now admitting they screwed up on the bill by presenting all kinds of last minute amendments to try to save a bill that they know is bad. However, the members of Parliament in this House have a responsibility to softwood communities and a responsibility to Canada.

In all four corners of the House, members should be reading the deal and the bill. They should talk to the industry, which has said this deal is bad. In fact, they should talk to the independent lumber remanufacturers that wanted to appear before the committee, but were refused by the Liberals and Conservatives. They should talk to those 4,000 families that have lost their breadwinners because of the incompetence of the government.

We are putting forward these amendments because we, as the effective opposition in the House, are not going to stop standing up for softwood communities, even though they have been betrayed by the Conservatives and Liberals. The softwood workers will know that they have a champion in the House in the New Democratic Party. We will not stop. We will continue to fight for softwood communities and for softwood justice.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the yeoman's work he has done on this file, pressing against all odds. There were motions and courses taken, which have not been taken before in parliamentary history, in an effort to shut down his voice in committee and to remove his ability to be an effective opposition member. It is quite remarkable. It brings to mind the ancient expression “methinks he doth protest too much”. We have watched the government pull out every stop to end talks on this issue.

Usually when people associate themselves with the term “deal”, there is something positive that happens. There is a good trade of terms. When we look at this deal, particularly from the perspective of hard-working softwood communities that rely on value added, they must wonder who is standing up for them in this place. They must wonder if they had the misfortune of voting for a Liberal, a Bloc or a Conservative member. They must wonder where their members on this issue. They must wonder if their MPs are defending their right to have a trade relationship, with the United States in this case, that is fair and equitable so they have the ability and a due right under a so-called free trade agreement to trade freely with our competitors.

Could the member comment as to the processes and the designs used, particularly by the Liberals and the Conservatives in conjunction, to circumvent and shut down the debate? Would the member speak about preventing the democratic right of a member of Parliament to speak to issues and speak to amendments?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question goes far beyond members of the House. It is a shutdown of softwood communities wanting to express themselves.

Softwood communities wrote to the international trade committee. Softwood workers wrote to the international trade committee. Steelworkers wrote to the international trade committee. Lumber remanufacturers and the Independent Lumber Remanufacturers Association wrote to the committee. This is group is based in British Columbia and represents lumber remarnufacturers in British Columbia.

First, the industry said no. The Conservative government browbeat those companies into submission and forced them to send in a letter that was meaningless, it turns out, because they never got the 95% support that was obligatory under this sellout.

After that, working together, the Liberals and Conservatives shut down the hearings. The Liberals did not want to go to Thunder Bay. They did not want to consult with people in Thunder Bay, Vancouver or northern Quebec. They did not want to hear from softwood communities. The Liberals actually moved a motion to shutdown the consultation. It is absolutely appalling to hear Liberals saying they are opposed to the deal. They have done everything in their power to force the deal along. They shutdown the hearings publicly. They refused to have hearings in Ottawa. They refused to do their due diligence.

Now the government is reacting in a panic mode. It is throwing in amendments left, right and centre. We have seen a half a dozen amendments today. The government now realizes how badly flawed the bill is.

The flaws and errors in the bill go far beyond what the government is prepared to fix. There are a whole host of errors, such as the double tax in clause 18, which the government just does not understand. That is a sure recipe for trouble when we have a government that does not even understand the bill or the impact of it. Not a single Conservative MP has stood up for softwood communities in the House.

The Liberal MPs only stand up when the TV cameras are there. Behind the scenes, they are driving that knife into the back of softwood communities across the country.

What has happened has been a betrayal of trust to the softwood communities, softwood workers and their families across this country from coast to coast to coast. It is deplorable.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my question for my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, concerns one of the details he mentioned in his speech. I have heard him raise it a number of times.

I do not think Canadians fully understand the dangerous precedent that is set when we are about to pass an agreement that forfeits Canadian sovereignty. For us to make any significant policy changes about the forestry industry, we have to ask permission from Washington.

How does that make the member feel? Could the member explain to Canadians, if it is possible, how in God's name the Conservative government could think this is a good idea?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, basically anti-circumvention gives the Americans an oversight into any changes in provincial forestry practices, y incluant au Québec. What that means is we have given away the ability to change forestry practices without American oversight. It is unbelievable to me that three parties in the House would agree to it. It is another example of the appalling betrayal of softwood communities across the country.