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.

[Sgt Guy Ouellette, Retired Sergeant, Sûreté du Québec]

I realize I'll have to be very concise in the next 10 minutes, Mr. Chair.

I was a police officer with Sûreté du Québec for 32 years. I've been retired for six years. I'm highly specialized in organized crime, both biker and Aboriginal organized crime. Most of the case law that was prepared for this committee, whether it be the Leclerc decision, the Carrier decision or the Lindsay-Bonner decision, concerns trials in which I had to testify as an expert witness.

The first anti-gang law was passed 10 years ago on May 2. I followed it, and I'm still very much involved at all levels because I still have to testify regularly across Canada in various cases.

I would have liked to tell you about the opportunity I had to write a book, which unfortunately is only available in French. It concerns the president of the Hells Angels, Maurice Boucher. By the way, those who read the Journal de Montréal this morning will see that picture on the front page. They say the Revenue Department will be seizing Mr. Boucher's houses. I want to tell you that the day we think about seizing their assets, we'll have understood that that's their life blood.

Bill C-53, which parliamentarians passed on November 25, 2005, hasn't yet been used by any police force in Canada. Why? I'd like to tell you right off the bat that organized crime very often takes advantage of the fact that the system is disorganized. It's disorganized because police officers don't talk to each other, because federal agencies don't talk to provincial agencies, because Bills C-95 and C-24, which have become the anti-gang laws, were passed because there were gang wars in Quebec. The rest of Canada didn't care; they were killing each other in Quebec.

We have a bill, Bill C-10, on firearms. Why? Because people are shooting guns in Toronto. And last year in Toronto, 52 murders were committed with firearms, including that of a young girl, Jane Creba, on December 26. Now there's pressure, and we're going to amend the Criminal Code of Canada because, I'm telling you and I repeat, it's the Criminal Code of Canada, not that of Quebec or Ontario.

We've had quite extraordinary results — Mr. Richmond told you about that — with regard to convictions for gangsterism in Quebec. I'd like us to do the same thing in Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta.

You'll be hearing from someone from the Vancouver police department two days from now. Do the same thing for Vancouver, and you'll see that there have been very few gangsterism convictions there. You'll realize that, in the other Canadian provinces, when charges are laid for offences under Bill C-24 and C-95, they are withdrawn in exchange for a guilty plea on drug trafficking charges. That's what's called plea bargaining. It has a harmful effect.

I have two examples to cite on this point: one occurred in Ottawa and concerns the Hells Angels Nomads, who are based in Ottawa, in your beautiful city; the other one occurred in Oshawa, another project of an Ontario police department. The guy is going to be sentenced to six years for drug trafficking. But we have the Canadian Conditional Release Act. On a first sentence for drug trafficking, an individual is eligible for parole after serving one-sixth of his sentence; that's called accelerated parole review. As a result, a guy who is sentenced to six years can get out of prison after one year.

What's been done? If he had been convicted on gangsterism charges, the penalty would have been longer, harsher, but we could have asked that he at least serve half his sentence. That would delay his conditional release by the same length of time and would send a message. However, the message we're sending right now is this: we're charging you with engaging in gangsterism, but someone in British Columbia, the president of the Hells Angels, is filing an application to challenge the wording of section 467.11 because it isn't clear. Oops! Another trial is being held in Quebec in which lawyer Benoît Cliche is also challenging section 467.11. And now the blows are coming from everywhere. If you need information that the Vancouver police department has gathered as part of their investigation, I can't give it to you.

It's very, very hard to exchange information. That goes as far as it went in the Lindsay-Bonner case, which you have in your case law report. The Ontario Provincial Police was required to go and execute a search warrant in the exhibit vaults of a British Columbia police department to obtain evidence that would help it convict criminals on gangsterism charges.

We have to stop making up stories, splitting hairs and believing that we're good and nice. We'll be able to deal with organized crime if we talk to each other and if everyone in the system works together.

You parliamentarians have to decide on the fate of Bill C-10. You're leading the parade. You'll have to decide, to conduct a clause-by-clause consideration of a bill on firearms. Thank you! You're giving police agencies tools. Now they have to use them. Thank you! You're giving Crown attorneys tools. Now they have to use them.

Before Bill C-10, section 95 of the Criminal Code contained a provision stipulating that the minimum penalty for possession of a firearm was one year in prison, if the holder was charged with an indictable offence. But only a fine is provided for if the individual is found guilty on summary conviction. I'll tell you that, in my 10 years of fighting organized crime very closely with the units in the field, in a number of cases, people are charged under the summary conviction procedure in order to avoid work, save time and avoid a trial. So the criminals pulled up, took out their little case and paid the clerk their little fine. And we had to start all over again!

As regards gangsterism charges, subsection 515(6) of the Criminal Code provides that it is up to the accused to provide evidence in order to obtain his release, to give the system guarantees. It wasn't normal that there was an extensive operation in Toronto in which 125 individuals related to street gangs such as Jane Finch and another, the Jamestown Crew, were arrested. It wasn't normal that, for the vast majority of these people, it was the third time this year that they were arrested because they hadn't been charged with gangsterism and that the justice system had released them for all kinds of reasons.

For the majority of people who are charged in Quebec, there are automatic release investigations, particularly as regards organized crime. Moreover, I would say that, in more than 60 or 70 percent of cases, people will be detained following their release investigation, which is conducted with the assistance of police officers, experts and so on.

We have another problem in Canada. We want to have laws, we want to have a lot of things, but we have a big file on the Italian mafia. I checked with Claude a little earlier: we don't have an expert witness who can testify in order to prove gangsterism.

I've been retired from the Sûreté du Québec for six years, but I don't have a successor. I'm retired. When you retire, you're supposed to be at home in a rocking chair watching the cars go by your house. But they call me regularly because they have a problem and have to provide evidence of gangsterism. It takes an expert witness who is able to tell the story. So organizations have to provide for that.

It's not normal for a guy like Harry Delva, who, as he told you, is in the field in Montreal North and Ville Saint-Michel to tell you that, every day, in the pool of emerging street gangs, he sees youths of five, six, nine, 10 and 15 years of age, which corresponds to the real police definition of street gangs. However, every six months, he's forced to fight with various departments in order to authorize a program to train a successor. There's nothing permanent in his work, and he has no security. However, it's announced that there will be 2,500 police officers or more and $10 million to invest in prevention programs. Bu, every six months, he is forced to fight for $90,000 in funding. And yet he's the one who has them in his face every day.

I'll conclude by telling you that, in the few minutes you've allotted me, organized crime has fought the disorganized system. The day we manage to regularize the situation and work together just a little bit, there will be no more criminals. I wrote in my book that I find it hard to understand why 15,000 police officers can't control 150 bikers. The answer is simple: we all have to work on the same side and stop fighting over details. Give us the tools we need, and the police officer in the street will make his observations, the investigator will investigate, the attorney will do his job, the judge will decide, the conditional release guy will manage the sentence, and you'll pass laws to help those people. You have a social responsibility toward the citizens of Canada. But there won't be any difference between a gangsterism crime committed in Quebec and another committed in British Columbia, and no one in British Columbia...

Only three years ago, in 2003, the Hells Angels did a big national run in British Columbia. Quebec police officers who went to help their British Columbia colleagues were told that, if one of them was seen monitoring a Hells Angels member, he'd be put back on an airplane and sent home. Such is the fight against organized crime in Canada. I don't want to be very negative, because I still like doing what I do, and I still say yes when I'm asked to go and testify, but I think we have to stop thinking that we're good, that we're nice and that everything is going to solve itself. We all really have to work together.

You represent different ridings in Canada. Apart from Mr. Bagnell, from the Yukon, where the British Columbia Hells Angels go from time to time, all of you have horror stories to tell, whether it be about the Hells Angels in Windsor, the Bandidos in London, street gangs and bikers in Moncton, or about Asian street gangs that do drive-by shootings in Calgary. The same thing is going on in Montreal with the Haitians. The same is true anywhere else in Canada.

So from the moment we work together, we'll achieve good results. Thank you.

[Randall Richmond, Deputy Chief Prosecutor, Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau, Department of Justice (Quebec)]

Thank you very much.

My name is Randall Richmond. I have been a lawyer and a prosecutor since 1983, and prosecutor for the Province of Quebec since 1988.

I began pleading organized crime cases in the 1990s and I worked in the Proceeds of Crime Bureau (BLPC) from its inception in 1996. In 2000, when the Quebec Ministry of Justice created the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau (BLACO), I was named deputy chief of this office, a position that I still hold today.

In addition to my administrative and supervisory responsibilities, I personally pleaded the cases borne from the shooting for journalist Michel Auger. I also pleaded the trial borne of Operations Springtime 2001 and implicating the Hells Angels Nomad Donald Stockford and his associate, the former Hells Angels national president, Walter Stadnick.

The minutes of proceedings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights indicate that the committee wishes “to examine the overall effect on gangsterism of Bills C-94 and C-24, adopted in 1997 and 2001”.

As a practitioner specialized in organized crime cases, I can say without any hesitation that the legislative changes brought about by Bills C-95 and C-24 have been extremely helpful and have had a significant impact on our fight against organized crime in Quebec. We have used the tools provided to us by these two bills on a regular basis and continue to do so.

The changes that have been most useful to us can be summarized as follows: wire taps are available more easily and for longer periods of time; infiltration of criminal organizations is easier; pre-trial custody is easier to secure; sentences are longer; and convicts have to serve more time in jail before being released on parole.

Quebec was the first province to apply these new measures and remains the one that has applied them the most. In the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau alone, we have charged over 1,000 people since 2001, due in great part to the tools provided by C-95 and C-24 which facilitated the investigations. The acquittal rate in these cases is less than two percent.

Among these people, many were charged with gangsterism, either in its original form as provided by C-95 or in the form modified by C-24.

Since the creation of the Organized Crime Prosecutions Bureau, its prosecutors have secured the convictions of 286 people for criminal organization charges.

Consequently, we have met the following objectives.

First, end the biker gang war that caused 174 deaths and 150 attempted murders.

Second, break up and put an end to the Quebec Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels as well as the puppet club, the Rockers, by securing sentences of 20 years in prison for the Nomads and 15 years for the Rockers, on average.

Third, suppress crime by the Hells Angels across Quebec. Consequently, as of 2005, half of the Hells Angels in Quebec had been neutralized because they were either in jail, on parole, or on the run.

Fourth, break up and put an end to the Bandidos biker club all across Quebec.

Other beneficial effects of our work are worth mentioning: putting an end to biker impunity, putting an end to the climate of fear, and exposing the true nature of the criminal biker gangs. Obviously these results cannot be explained exclusively by the new anti-gang provisions of Bill C-95 and Bill C-24. They must be attributed to the combined effect of the legislative changes with other measures, such as the creation of specialized police task forces, with the participation of different police agencies; lengthy police investigations that targeted whole criminal organizations; the use of civil infiltration agents; the creation of specialized teams of prosecutors, such as the Proceeds of Crime Bureau in 1996 and the Organized Crime Bureau in 2000; the construction of the Grouin Judicial Services Centre; and the renovation of several courtrooms around Quebec, which allowed for the instruction of several mega-trials in different places at the same time.

The results obtained demonstrate that it is possible to prove gangsterism, but one should not conclude that it is easy to do so. On the contrary, it can be arduous. In almost all of the cases where we have charged gangsterism, this came after lengthy investigations of 12 to 24 months, during which wiretapping and physical surveillance were carried out and prosecutors were involved as legal advisers during the investigations.

In addition, in 90% of the cases, the prosecution had at its disposition a special witness, that is, an informant witness or a civil infiltration agent. The special witness facilitates the proof of gangsterism, because he has been a member of that organization and has participated in its activities. He can, therefore, testify to the existence of the organization, its structure, its hierarchy, the identity of its members, and its criminal activities.

A notable exception to this is the recent case of R. v. Aurélius, where 15 people were convicted, including five for charges of gangsterism, without the help of a special witness. In this groundbreaking case, the first to convict a street gang of gangsterism, the prosecution had to rely on evidence from wiretaps, physical surveillance, and about 40 drug purchases made by police undercover officers. It goes without saying that all of these investigative techniques can be expensive.

In conclusion, proving gangsterism with the present legislation is indeed possible, but the necessary resources must be available for investigation and prosecution.

With regard to Bill C-10, it is likely that for most prosecutions of a crime committed with a firearm, proving the use of a restricted or prohibited firearm will be easier than proving a connection with a criminal organization. However, there are cases where long-barrelled guns are used by criminal organizations; for example, see the case of R. v. Rodrigue at the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005. There are other cases where firearms are used in crime, but never found by the police, which can make it more difficult to prove the use of a restricted or prohibitive firearm than to prove the connection to a criminal organization.

So there are indeed circumstances where the connection to a criminal organization can be seriously considered as an aggravating factor in sentencing for a crime committed with the use of a firearm.

Thank you.

Softwood Lumber

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand here in the House as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade and tell members that a lot of hard work and negotiations went into the softwood lumber agreement. Not only am I proud that Bill C-24 passed, but I am also proud to be part of a government that does what it says it is going to do and works as a team.

On Wednesday I was disappointed to see all but two Liberal MPs stand in the House of Commons and vote against the softwood lumber agreement. This is shameful, given the support for the agreement by the provinces, including the province of Quebec, where the new Liberal leader is from, and the support from industry, labour and unions in Quebec.

How could the Liberals not support an agreement that is obviously in the best interests of Canada? This further demonstrates the Liberal tradition of playing political games. By not supporting the deal, the Liberals are putting their own partisan interests ahead of the needs of all Canadians.

Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006

[The Speaker, Liberal, Peter Milliken]

It being 3:10 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the third reading stage of Bill C-24.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from December 5 consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to use the few minutes available to me to offer a brief summary of the situation as it relates to the softwood lumber agreement signed on July 1, between Ottawa and Washington.

As everyone knows, we have not been too eager to support Bill C-24. I come from a region, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, that has been greatly affected by the softwood lumber crisis in recent years. That is in fact the reason why I wanted to talk about this issue again today.

Many of my colleagues from Quebec are going through a similar situation. In our respective regions, when the sawmill shuts down, the entire local economy is affected.

For example, the municipality of Ferland-et-Boilleau, in my riding, falls into the one-industry category, because 80% of local jobs depend on that economic activity. Obviously, the problems the forestry industry has been experiencing for several years have had major economic and social consequences for that municipality.

The situation is not rosy for the forestry sector. This agreement is only one step in the right direction. Once again, last weekend, the municipality of Normandin in Lac-Saint-Jean watched as Gémofor sought the protection of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. I would point out that Gémofor employed nearly 150 men and women. The uncomfortable situation the company now finds itself in is not encouraging for the people in that community.

These are just a few examples. But a large number of sawmills, like P.H. Lemay and Péribonka, have been affected by the crisis in recent months.

At present, the government seems to be wanting to wait for the market to sort itself out while abandoning hundreds of businesses to their fate. This is a dangerous game because a number of rural regions could see their economies completely wiped out by this kind of decision.

This industry is indeed on its last gasp, at the end of its rope. It would be better to accept this bad agreement than to risk losing those businesses. Now that the agreement has been ratified, it is up to the government to put a set of measures in place as quickly as possible to assist the softwood lumber industry, which is facing serious difficulties at the very moment when it has been weakened by a lengthy trade dispute.

The industry needs immediate assistance to avoid these plants having to bear the costs of the federal government’s failure to support them.

I had the opportunity to speak on this subject in September and I would once again like to refer to some statistics that prove the new agreement is not enough to ensure the survival of the forestry sector. In early September, the Bowater sawmill at Saint-Félicien was forced to lay off 140 employees for an indefinite period.

The Coopérative forestière de Girardville announced that an investment of a million dollars would be needed to restart its operations.

Finally, the PFS sawmill in Petit-Saguenay is due to re-open its doors after initially shutting down for what was expected to be two weeks. Meanwhile, the sawmill has decided to discontinue its second work shift due to market difficulties.

These are just some examples of what is happening in many municipalities in Quebec and across Canada.

Although it is a statistic that I have already referred to in this House, I would like to mention it again. The softwood lumber crisis led to the loss of 3,000 jobs in my region of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean—yes, 3,000 direct jobs —and the situation continues to get worse.

We are living through a crisis without precedent and the conditions for profitable operation are very difficult. A good number of forestry companies will have no other choice than to restructure or to realign their activities or their plants in order to remain competitive.

The root cause of the problem remains intact. The situation will continue to get worse if quick action is not taken. The problem is most acute in the resource regions of Quebec and it is difficult to close our eyes to this situation.

For several years, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for the introduction of a support program for older workers. The Bloc Québécois has intervened three times in the House of Commons to demand the implementation of a new POWA.

Unfortunately, the announcement of the Conservative program in October turned out to be worse than we feared because the assistance is not immediate and takes the form of a two-year pilot project that is under-funded and does not respond to the needs of older workers.

Indeed, a large part of the program consists solely in helping workers retrain. When an entire community suffers the hardship of a massive layoff, real action has to be taken. Regrettably, workers who are more than 55 years old and have difficulty finding another job cannot benefit from such a program.

That is why the Bloc Québécois believes that now that we have accepted a sellout agreement, it is incumbent on the government to put in place programs that will enable communities and companies that depend on the forests to diversify their economies.

The Bloc Québécois proposes to increase the budget that the federal government allocates for economic diversification of forestry regions. It also proposes that the funds be transferred to the Government of Quebec to avoid duplication of effort. Consequently, we are talking about a sum of $50 million over three years, strictly for Quebec. The federal government has the means to assist an economy that greatly needs support.

In closing, I would like to point out that Bill C-24 does not solve the structural problems in the market. In the coming months, measures must be introduced to avoid a collapse of the forestry sector. Moreover, I hope the minister will act on the resolution from the RCM of Lac-Saint-Jean-Est, in my region of Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. The resolution adopted in September calls on the federal government to provide greater support to the forest industry.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague was not here for the earlier part of my speech. The NDP is not supporting the bill. The NDP is vehemently opposed to Bill C-24. In fact, my colleague from Burnaby--New Westminster was the sole voice on the standing committee that objected in the strongest possible terms to having this very flawed piece of legislation rammed down our throats.

Perhaps I misspoke or perhaps my colleague did not hear me clearly, but let me phrase it for him one more time. The NDP is opposed to Bill C-24. We will vote against it because we believe that we left $1 billion on the table, notwithstanding the very real point my colleague raises about there not even being any interest on that money. It is in actual fact the $5.3 billion of illegal duties taken by the United States. If we add even a nominal rate of interest, it is actually much more money than that currently.

We believe that $500 million that is going to the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports will be used to launch the next volley of assault toward the Canadian softwood lumber producers. In other words, we are financing through our own money that was taken from us illegally the next trade challenge against us.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there are two key areas that the NDP finds fault with in Bill C-24. The first is the money that was left on the table, the billion dollars that could have been rightfully returned back to the softwood lumber producers.

My colleague is saying that is the past and ancient history. In actual fact we have now financed the next attack of the American softwood lumber producers on Canadian softwood lumber producers because my colleague should not think for a minute that this is the end of the harassment by the Americans. This deal does not protect Canadian producers adequately.

The second objection the NDP has, which I cited earlier, is the whole issue of forfeiting our Canadian sovereignty in the administration of our own softwood lumber industry. I am sure my colleague would agree with me that the notion is fundamentally reprehensible that some other country should dictate to the province of Quebec how it manages its softwood lumber industry in that province. It is an affront to Canadian sovereignty. It is an affront to the jurisdictional sovereignty of the province of Quebec that it would now have to have any of these changes vetted through Washington before it would be allowed to change.

That means a change in stumpage fees, a change in cutting rights, or a change in the way that the forest is managed and administered would now have to be cleared through Washington. The Americans will try to ensure that this does not constitute any kind of a subsidy because in their minds almost everything that Canada does to look after our own best interests constitutes a subsidy.

We are damaged. We are suffering on two fronts: first, the pure financial aspect that we have $1 billion less to create jobs and to revitalize our industry, money that our softwood lumber industry players could have used to reinvest, retool, and use in research and development; and second, this affront to Canadian sovereignty that the Americans will now dictate how we manage our assets in the forestry industry.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-24, 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, be read the third time and passed.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Before we go to statements by members, there will be seven minutes left in questions and comments for the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre when we return to the study of Bill C-24.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the reason Bill C-24 is fiscally flawed is the payout is based on Canadian softwood exporters that are owed the equivalent of 95% of the total $5.3 billion in illegal duties paid to the U.S. We know full well that the Conservative government fell far short of the 95% target, despite contrary public representations which makes the special tax essential and imposes costs on taxpayers funding these advance payments.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the context of debating Bill C-24 I was using as an example the similar parallel trade irritant of the Canadian Wheat Board. I think there is a connection, enough of a one to allow me to finish my thoughts in that regard, and then I will come quickly to a summary of the NDP's view on why we are opposed to the current softwood lumber agreement deal.

I was trying to explain that the reason the dual desk marketing system will not work for the marketing of Canadian wheat is that if the open market price is higher than the initial payment, the board gets fewer deliveries. If the initial payment is higher than the market, it gets all the deliveries but it has to sell the product at a loss. It simply cannot work.

In the case of both of these examples, both of these major trade irritants between Canada and the United States, the Conservative government feels compelled to roll over and do exactly what the Americans want it to do. The Americans want the government to give up, even in cases where it is close to victory. When it could have in fact delivered a resounding victory in the softwood negotiations, the government chose not to. It bailed out too early. It left too much on the table.

I would like to quote Margaret Atwood and her view in this regard:

It's said the beaver bites off its testicles when threatened. If true, the beaver is certainly an apt symbol, if not for Canada, certainly for a succession of governments which, when faced with ceaseless bullying, react by carving off pieces of the nation.

That is, carving off our own independence, and I think the words of Margaret Atwood are very prescient and very wise in this regard.

Let me tell members one specific thing. Above and beyond leaving $450 million on the table for the Bush administration, and $500 million that goes directly to the American softwood lumber industry, again so that it can continue its relentless assault on the Canadian softwood lumber industry, one of the things that bothers me most about this deal is that it actually discourages value added manufacturing of softwood lumber in Canada.

My father used to comment on this. Whenever we saw a truck full of raw logs rolling down the highway, logs leaving the country in their round, raw log form, my dad called it economic treason to allow that raw product to leave the country without the value adding that would create quality Canadian jobs. This particular softwood lumber agreement actually discourages value added manufacturing, because the export taxes are based upon the value of the exported product. The softwood lumber deal therefore discourages value added manufacturing by imposing penalties on the value added production and thus creating an incentive for exporting raw logs.

I will quote Stephen Atkinson, the director of paper and forest products research at the Bank of Montreal. He says, for instance:

Let's say you're paying a duty--pick a number again, 15% or 5% or whatever it is. If you can bring in the log without any duty to the United States, then of course it makes sense to put the lumber mill there and create jobs south of the border.

I would like to think that Canadians have moved beyond this image of being hewers of wood and drawers of water. I would like to believe that we have the ability to manufacture and add value to the export of these natural resources, these Canadian commodities. We should not be entering into any kind of agreement that would limit or discourage value added manufacturing for softwood lumber in Canada.

I have 25 good reasons why the NDP is opposed to this deal, but time does not permit my going through them in any great detail. Suffice it to say that we have launched a courageous battle to warn Canadians and to inform Canadians that we are about to enter into a dangerous, precedent setting bad deal.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the member for Selkirk—Interlake for his point of order. He does know that although we are studying Bill C-24, the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, like all members, does have quite a bit of latitude in doing this. I am sure the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre will get back to the point.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for Winnipeg Centre is going on about the Wheat Board. The debate right now is on softwood lumber and Bill C-24. I would ask that he get back on topic. I would ask that he discuss the matter at hand and not get off track.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter into this debate on behalf of the good people of the riding of Winnipeg Centre, especially as we enter the final hours of the final stage of this very long, drawn out and controversial piece of legislation, Bill C-24, which as anybody watching will have realized implements the softwood lumber agreement.

It would be helpful in this final stage of debate to summarize and perhaps detail for Canadians who may be watching just what transpired in this whole agonizing drawn out process, this roller-coaster ride that we have been taken on, which has led us to the point where we are today.

It seems that the Prime Minister and the new Conservative government are moving at warp speed to integrate Canada's security and foreign policies with the U.S. and to shred any competitive advantage over the U.S. in areas such as lumber and wheat as well as an overall harmonization and integration on any number of facets in our relationship with the United States.

It seems that the Conservative government is voluntarily and unilaterally giving up the competitive advantage that we enjoyed over the years in the softwood lumber sector and, as raised by my colleague from Sault Ste. Marie, the sale of our superior wheat, a Canadian brand of wheat that is in such great demand around the world. I will speak to this later.

Bill C-24 deals specifically with the softwood lumber agreement. To set the context for my remarks I would like to remind Canadians that 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.

In this letter the American administration confirmed its objective was to hobble the Canadian industry for seven years. This should have been shocking to Canadians. Having our competitors reveal in a leaked letter that the administration's intention was not to achieve fairness in the North American marketplace for softwood lumber, but to hobble the Canadian industry should have made us all sit up and wonder who negotiated this deal and wonder if they were really acting in our best interests. I cannot blame the administration for being aggressive that way because it is very good at defending its own domestic industries. This is only the beginning.

What we learned and what our colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster has been trying to point out in every way that he knows how, to alert Canadians to the realities of this deal, is that the Americans will get to keep $450 million of the illegal duties they were collecting. They will get to keep this money to grease the wheels for the protectionist republicans in the White House who were facing tough fights in their mid-term congressional elections. With no strings attached, $450 million goes not to the government of the United States, but to the republican administration to wage war on Canadians who are financing this attack on our trade relations.

Canada's timber industry would be forced to subsidize an ongoing illicit attack on itself. What kind of deal is that? It makes one wonder who would negotiate terms and conditions like that on our behalf. Who are we sending to do our bargaining for us in this regard? It is astounding. All of this is going on with the explicit consent of the Canadian government.

There is even more. This is where a worrisome trend is beginning to develop, a motif, one of the characteristics of the current government. When the industry balked, the current government used intimidation, which is now almost a hallmark of our new Prime Minister.

On August 4 the Globe and Mail quoted a senior government official's warning that industry opponents to this deal “should prepare themselves for the consequences of rejecting it and...might want to start contemplating a world where Ottawa is no longer in the business of subsidizing softwood disputes”.

In other words, they were told that if this deal was voted down, if they did not support this softwood lumber deal, they should not expect Ottawa to help them in any future and subsequent deals. It is some kind of economic blackmail to lord this over the heads of the industry players, saying that if this deal is voted down, if industry players trust their best instincts and vote this deal down, then Ottawa will not help in any subsequent deals. The only conclusion Canadians can draw is that this softwood deal is a deal that is managed of, by and for the American lumber lobby.

Here is the most worrisome thing--and I will say this as clearly as I can because it is a complex notion--even more worrisome than the billion dollars that we are leaving on the table in illegal tariffs and duties collected by the Americans. The most worrisome thing yet is that a supposedly sovereign nation has signed on to an unprecedented clause which requires provinces to first vet any changes in forestry policy with Washington. To me, this is more damaging.

People studying this deal 20 years from now will probably find that the most alarming thing about it is that we have voluntarily forfeited our sovereignty to manage our own affairs in the softwood lumber sector. This is where it raises a question: how in God's name did the Bloc Québécois support the ruling party, the government, to get this deal passed when it is all about sovereignty? I have heard a thousand speeches by my colleagues from the Bloc about Quebec's sovereignty and how they did not want the federal government to trample on the jurisdiction of Quebec to control its own affairs as it pertains to its resources. I support the Bloc in that argument.

How, then, can the Bloc support a softwood lumber deal that has this unprecedented and precedent setting clause that requires provinces to vet any changes they may want to make, perhaps in the stumpage fees, the quotas or the amount of cutting in certain cutting areas? Any of those changes will have to be first cleared with Washington before the provinces can implement those changes. It is an affront to Canadian sovereignty. It is an affront to Quebec's sovereignty. But that is the softwood lumber deal that we are about to sign.

One of the things that people often overlook in all the hype about how thankful we should be that the Conservative government gets along with the Americans is the reality that Canada tossed away a significant victory, which we won not before the virtually useless NAFTA panels but from the U.S. Court of International Trade. It ruled that U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber were illegal.

In other words, we were winning the court challenges that we threw aside when we went into the softwood lumber agreement. We snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory, as it were. If only we had stayed with that route. I have heard the minister and others say that they could not keep throwing millions and millions of dollars to lawyers in never-ending court challenges. That is true, but they were not never-ending. We were winning them. We were within a hair's breadth of winning them. We were almost there. We were within days of winning when the government announced that it was going to accept a far inferior package.

That is what is incomprehensible about the artificial urgency on the part of the Conservative government to accept a deal that is substandard. When we could have had it all, the government left a billion dollars on the table.

This is the second time that a Conservative government has done this. Let me take people back to 1986, when the GATT, the World Trade Organization's predecessor, issued a preliminary finding on the legality of U.S. lumber duties against Canada. The government of Brian Mulroney at the time, bent on negotiating a free trade agreement with the U.S., abruptly aborted the challenge, with eager acquiescence to the Americans.

That is another example of where we were well on our way to winning our argument that U.S. lumber duties against Canada were illegal. That finding, too, was nipped in the bud before it could take effect. The finding was never published. It does not take a paranoid mind to assume that the GATT had ruled for Canada. Mulroney foreclosed on the GATT ruling because it would have wiped out his entire argument about the necessity of a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States.

It seems to many of us that free trade is like a computer virus coursing through Canada's social, economical and political systems, eradicating everything unique. Everything that is unique and special and advantageous must be eliminated, it seems. We must harmonize with the United States, it seems, but we find no fault in leaving the Americans with the advantages they enjoy in the industry sectors where they do things better than we do.

But it seems we are supposed to forfeit anything that we do better than they do. The first agricultural casualty in that regard was the prairie wheat pools. They corporatized. They were hoping to surf on the private American market. Instead, they surfed on losses and put the Canadian Wheat Board on a timeline. The Americans began gunning for it before the ink was even dry on their signature to the initial free trade agreement in 1989.

I live in Manitoba, and for those of us who live in the prairie provinces, I can tell members that since then the Wheat Board has been subjected to 11 separate U.S. trade attacks. The cry, as with lumber, has been “unfair subsidies”. The U.S. does not just want to eliminate a formidable competitor in the world wheat market for its multinational agriculture business; it wants that agribusiness to capture the price advantage enjoyed by superior Canadian wheat. This is the pattern that is developing. This is the worrisome motif that is developing in trade relations as contemplated by our new Conservative government.

It is as if the new Conservative government is prepared to do the Americans' dirty work for them in terms of these two specific trade irritants. As an example, it has now begun a process to abolish the Wheat Board's monopoly. I will not go into that in any great detail other than to say there have been very worrisome things happening in recent days. Mussolini would be proud of the current Minister of Agriculture because he slapped a muzzle on the board of directors of the Canadian Wheat Board.

The directors are not allowed to defend their own best interests. They are not allowed to represent farmers and to advertise in any meaningful way why the Canadian Wheat Board, which has a business case that shows it, is in the farmers' best interests. The government has taken draconian measures to make sure that the Wheat Board directors are not heard, to the point of cancelling a meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food today, in fact, so that the directors could not make their own case. I will not dwell on this except to say that there are such natural and obvious parallels between these two longstanding trade irritants between our two countries.

I will simply say this, and perhaps I can do it best by quoting John Morriss, the editor and publisher of the Farmers' Independent Weekly, who says that a dual marketing board is “a chimera”, that it cannot work. He asks farmers to recall the voluntary central selling agency, which was run by the pools in the 1920s, and the voluntary Canadian wheat board, which began in 1935. Both of these voluntary wheat board organizations had spectacular bankruptcies. They were likely the two biggest business failures in Canadian history. The voluntary Canadian wheat board lost $62 million in 1938-39, which was an enormous sum at the time and the largest bankruptcy in Canadian history.

The way we explain this is really quite simple, even to a lay person like me. The reason a dual market for marketing Canadian wheat will not work is simply this: if the open market is higher than the initial payment, then the board gets fewer deliveries, and if the initial payment is higher than the market, it gets those--