Mr. Speaker, it is again with pleasure that I will speak to Bill C-24. The last time I was supposed to speak at second reading but, because of the amendment by the Liberals who wanted to draw out the debate, I had to speak about the amendment. I will now speak directly to the bill at second reading.
Just now I heard something completely absurd from the Conservative member. It is extraordinary that such imagination is used to hide a government that is incompetent in the extreme. She said—and I am not quoting her directly as you can look in the House of Commons Debates—that had the members of Parliament accepted an agreement earlier, such as the one negotiated by the Conservatives, there would not be as many unemployed individuals.
In this House, there is no difference between the Liberal and the Conservative Parties. As I just recently became the Bloc Québécois critic for international trade, I decided to do a bit of research. In 2001, almost one year before the agreement expired, the Bloc Québécois proposed several measures to help the forestry industry.
The legal proceedings launched by Canada and by the industry had not yet begun when we proposed measures such as loan guarantees for the companies. At that point, there were not only the countervailing duties that were being paid; there were anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties. The industry had a need for that kind of support.
All the while, the Bloc Québécois strongly recommended and called for loan guarantees to save the forest industry. Those loan guarantees were refused by the Liberals. One of the Liberal ministers became a Conservative and again the loan guarantees were refused. Such loans would have enabled the industry to survive the crisis while the suits to defend those rights, rights upheld by many tribunals, were pending before the courts.
Now, they tell us that they have an agreement. Normally in any economic transaction, in any agreement between two parties, if one party is adversely affected it is not the other party who gains. One does not give 20% of one's assets to the party that has treated one unfairly for years. Who was the winner in this affair? Who won a billion dollars? It was the United States.
How are we to understand that one party, on the strength of a number of decisions by various tribunals, having to wait perhaps only a few months more until the decisions are implemented, should agree to leave a billion dollars in the hands of our neighbour, who for all practical purposes had been exploiting us for several years? How can you explain such an attitude, unless it was to buy a special friendship with the Bush government?
As a result, the Prime Minister, his acolytes, his members and ministers, got together and prepared an agreement that means the forest industry will continue to depend, probably for many years, on the whims of the Americans.
In fact, we know that the Americans can call an end to this agreement whenever they feel like it, even if it is supposed to be guaranteed for seven years. I heard the Liberal member say earlier that, in fact, if the government had done its work properly, if it had guaranteed loans and provided support to the industry and to workers in the forest industry, we could have waited and in the end we would have won at the international court, NAFTA and the rest. It was recognized everywhere that there was no dumping and no subsidies.
Now, with the agreement, we are certain that 15% duty will have to be paid and volume will be limited as well. That fact will create two classes within the forestry industry.
Quebec has agreed to option B. There is sometimes also a degree of latitude in the makeup of binational committees. I hope that Quebec will have its representatives on the binational committee. We will work for this to happen because Quebec is where the most business is done in lumber and forestry under option B.
Obviously, Quebec is going to have to defend its interests directly, given that it is the leading partner agreeing to option B. When I began to speak, I referred to the Conservative Party member. The Conservative Party today seems to be laying the blame for all the problems in the forestry industry at the doorstep of environmentalists, and directly targeting Richard Desjardins. But it is the Liberals and Conservatives who are responsible for the decline of the forestry industry.
If the Liberals had had the good fortune to be still in power after the last election, how far would they have gone in an agreement with the United States?
So it is obvious that we in Quebec were virtually unanimous in not wanting this agreement. The constraints manufactured out of thin air by both the Liberal and Conservative governments, one after the other, have strangled not only the industry but forestry workers as well.
Yesterday there was a vote, and one of the measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois was adopted by this House, a measure relating to a support program for older workers.
Today we learn that the program will probably be selective and will give preference to softwood lumber workers, the forestry industry and the textile industry. Are these rumours? There is always a kernel of truth in rumours. This program gains something for the forestry industry and the textile industry. But a worker who is 50 or 55 years old is still unemployed, regardless of what industry the worker comes from.
As the leader of my party recently asked, how can we completely forget about someone who has worked in a particular field for 30 or 35 years, whether it be forestry or the textile industry? We are dismissing these people with a wave of the hand. As well, eligibility for the program will be based on region. This means that we will be creating several classes of older people who are unfortunately facing unemployment and who are unable to find new jobs.
Overall, no matter whether the government was Liberal or Conservative, we can see that both, one after the other, have completely dropped the ball when it comes to the forestry industry. As we have already said, we will be making a point of supporting this bill, because the survival of the forestry industry and of those workers, and, I hope, the revival of that industry, depend on it.
