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

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, before I start in on debate, I would like to make a point. I realize a lot of people had questions for the last member and therefore you could not recognize everyone. It is always a difficult job in this place. However, I wanted to ask the hon. member a question, and I think I can answer it myself, about the number of sawmills she had in her riding. I have 15, and every one of them supports this agreement. I believe the answer to my question would be a big zero.

When we talk about the industry, we should have some knowledge about the industry. Members in this place discuss the bill as if they have some knowledge about the softwood lumber industry. In reality, it is simply political posturing, and I really begin to lose patience with it. As Speaker of the House, you have lots of patience, and we certainly try to follow your example, but it is difficult sometimes.

There has been a lot of politics and posturing around the bill, but let us take some of those positions that members in this place have brought forward. Let us take the position that we will continue for litigation. We have had 24 years of litigation, and 24 years is a long time with no end in sight. We will litigate, but as long as the Byrd amendment is in place in the United States, we will continue to have litigation. Therefore, it is important to have some clarity and certainty on this issue. Bill C-24 brings that to the softwood lumber industry.

I spent a good portion of my life working in the lumber industry as a logger. My family members are still loggers. My grandfather owned the local sawmill. I can assure the House that It is a tough life, but it is a good life as long as we have some certainty that we can sell our product.

The Liberals great failure was not reaching an agreement, which is the reason they are not supporting this. For the life of me, I still do not understand our Atlantic Canadian members who are all say they will not support the agreement. The agreement is the future for the sawmill industry and the softwood lumber industry in Atlantic Canada. The agreement allows us certainty for our exemptions, which have been hard fought for outside this place.

The previous international trade minister, under the former Liberal government, put Atlantic Canada's exemptions for countervail and for anti-dumping on the bargaining table to try to get an agreement prior to the last election. The Liberals would have given up Atlantic Canada's hard fought for exemptions. The Liberals did not get those exemptions for the industry. Industry got them by proving to our American counterparts that our industry was on the same basis as theirs. Seventy-two per cent of all the land in Nova Scotia is privately owned. Our mills are exempt from countervail because of that. We do not subsidize the industry. It works on a free market basis, the same basis on which the American industry works.

The great thing about Bill C-24 is that it allows flexibility, it allows for change and it allows for regional differences.

If we allow the bill to pass, I fully expect all my NDP colleagues from Atlantic Canada and all my Liberal Party colleagues from Atlantic Canada to support it because it is a good bill for Atlantic Canada and it is a good bill for the rest of Canada. It recognizes regional differences. It recognizes an industry, to be perfectly frank, which was in a state of collapse because of the mismanagement of this file by the Liberal government.

What does the agreement do? It is good for Canada. It is good for the United States. It eliminates the punitive American duties. It returns more than $4.4 billion to producers. It provides stability for the industry. It spells an end to the costly litigation and the long-running dispute between Canada and the United States.

Bill C-24 is a good bill. The return of the $4.4 billion alone will benefit communities, workers, truckers, and the whole sawmill industry from coast to coast in this country. Our deposit refund mechanism has been developed with Export Development Canada and will allow Canadian companies to receive their share of deposits practically immediately, within four to eight weeks after entry into force of this agreement.

Rather than attack the Minister of International Trade, my opposition colleagues should applaud the minister. He more than anyone else worked to bring this agreement to fruition. He went through the tough slogging. As a former industry person he was able to talk on an equal level with his American counterparts. He knew what was required at the bargaining table. He worked for a just end for the softwood lumber industry right across Canada. He did not do that by pitting British Columbia against Nova Scotia. He did not do that by pitting Ontario against Quebec. He did it by bringing in an agreement that has flexibility and recognizes regional differences. Somehow our counterparts in the opposition cannot seem to wrap their heads around that.

I can tell the House what would happen if we did not have this agreement. We would continue with litigation. The American industry is protectionist. No one is questioning that. We know it, and that is not going to change. We had to get the best agreement we could get. We had to get an agreement that would give surety to the industry and move forward from that point. If not, we would be stuck in litigation forever, and companies and sawmills, loggers and individuals, and communities and families would face devastation across this country.

There are 600 communities that depend upon the softwood lumber industry to survive. I can guarantee that many of those communities would not survive this crisis without this agreement. If the NDP do not want to go along with it, fine. If the Liberals do not want to go along with it, fine. But clearer heads will prevail and this agreement will allow those communities and those families to survive.

The termination clause in the agreement is something else that has been misrepresented in this place. With respect to the criticisms regarding the termination clause, let me note that termination clauses are standard features of international trade agreements. The discussion here is as if this is the only agreement with a termination clause. Under international law, without a specific termination clause, agreements may be terminated at any time with 12 months' notice. This has a minimum of 18 months' notice with a year added on to the end of it. That is two and a half years.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being able to speak on this subject today. I fully expect all my opposition colleagues to support this great agreement for Canada.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague from the Conservative Party making his speech. I would like, however, to repeat the position of the Bloc Québécois, which supports this agreement but in a context where the Quebec industry had told us that they were on their last legs and that they had to support the agreement because, in the last analysis, they had no choice.

Since 2002, we have had Liberal governments and now a Conservative government who did not support the companies who were dealing with the softwood lumber problem.

The Bloc Québécois, as everyone knows, asked for loan guarantees from the Liberals. During the election campaign, the Conservative Party told us it was going to offer loan guarantees but it did not do that. We called for flexibility in employment insurance to help the workers who were affected by the softwood lumber problem, but there was no flexibility, either from the Liberals or the Conservative Party. We called for support for processing activities in order to provide new opportunities for the Quebec forest sector but no measures were introduced.

I hope that this House will listen to these remarks. I believe this is a bad agreement but we have no other choice than to sign it, because the industry is on its last legs. However, this Parliament should learn a lesson, including the Liberals whom we kept after for months and months to come to the help of these companies and to support them even in terms of legal costs. To date, the legal costs for companies in the forest industry exceed $350 million. They have received no assistance from the government.

I believe this should be a lesson for the Liberal Party, the Conservatives, and for all members. If we do not support our companies in this kind of dispute, we will wind up with an agreement like this one, which is unsatisfactory for all the companies and all the workers, but in the end we have no choice but to support it.

I would like to hear the member’s comments about my remarks.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my colleague from the Bloc has a real concern for the industry and certainly the sawmill industry in the province of Quebec. As for the rest of Canada, this is a good deal for Quebec. As a matter of fact, there is enough flexibility built into the agreement that it allows for free trade in lumber, the same as we have in Atlantic Canada, for 32 mills in Quebec. Those border mills will all have free trade in lumber. Furthermore, it allows for enough flexibility in the deal that other provinces can adopt Atlantic Canadian and border mill standards throughout Canada and have free trade in softwood lumber.

The great danger, which has been a danger from the very beginning of discussions with the Americans and the very basis for our exemption in Atlantic Canada, in subsidizing the industry is that those subsidies will then be seen as countervailable and we are back into another trade war and another round of talks. That will go on forever. We will never get away from it.

I understand the concern. It is certainly something we talked about and we were willing to do as a government. However, the best agreement and the best thing we could do for industry was to bring surety, bring this agreement to fruition. That is what the Minister of International Trade has been able to do and that is the lifeblood of the industry and the future for the country.

It is a good agreement and I appreciate the member's support for it.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the member has raised the question of the Atlantic exemption.

I must say that I was very surprised when I was participating in the debate on this bill in the House at the end of the September to see another Conservative member from Atlantic Canada rise and say that the government had to amend its own bill because the language around the Atlantic exemption did not actually use the word “exemption”, that it was not strong enough, and the bill was so bad that the government was going to have to bring in an amendment to its own bill to include the actual word “exemption” when it came to the situation of the industry in Atlantic Canada.

I know the Atlantic exemption has support in every corner of the House, but how does the member respond to the fact that the bill is so bad in the way that it has been presented to the House that not even something where there was universal agreement could get worded properly in this piece of legislation?

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, but I am always amazed at the rhetoric from my NDP colleagues. They take something and manage to twist it into another vein altogether that does not resemble at all the point brought forward by the hon. member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley. The point was that everyone was here trying to be an expert on this piece of legislation, but all the opposition parties had not read the bill or they would have picked up the same thing that my colleague from Cumberland--Colchester--Musquodoboit Valley picked up.

I am not a lawyer but the intent is there for the exemption. Whether the language is exact, the intent is there.

The issue is that this bill should be embraced by the member from British Columbia because it is a great deal for British Columbia. If they really get their act together out there, they can follow Atlantic Canada's example and have free trade in softwood lumber. It can be done. We have proven it.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is both a pleasure and a distress to enter into this debate. Talking of rhetoric, we take no lectures or lessons from other sectors of the industry. British Columbia has a proud forestry tradition. My particular riding takes no lessons or lectures from anyone in the House when it comes to the pain and suffering that has gone on in the forestry sector over the last number of years.

We have watched families in distress. We watched the previous government not show up to the table with the loan guarantees. I know it is difficult for members to listen and to actually participate in the debate but they need to understand that when a government starts to spin on the dance of rhetoric and starts to talk about how other parties are playing politics all of a sudden, it is a good indication that the facts no longer support its cause.

The response about the exemption to Atlantic Canada, that the intention was there but that the language was not, is absolutely dumbfounding to me and to many Canadians, both in Atlantic Canada and across the country. How could such an important concept as the exemption that was parroted and chirped across the country for Atlantic Canada not make it into the bill and have to be pointed out by other members in the House as opposed to the drafters of the bill, the government itself?

Skeena—Bulkley Valley, in the northwest corner of British Columbia, which is 300,000 square kilometres and is the absolute heart and soul of the softwood industry in the country, understands the deal well. Just recently I was on a tour throughout the western part of my riding, some 900 kilometres on the road. We held open houses and discussions and allowed people to come in and comment. There was no bias on my part. We just simply sat and listened to what people in our communities had to say about the deal.

From across the political spectrum in my region, people who vote all different ways came with absolute disappointment and dismay at the inherent basic flaws communicated in this so-called agreement which, more and more, is a sellout. I wonder if the government has any excuses or reasons for the 3,000 people who just lost their jobs in Quebec and Ontario and the families that they support.

The government just seemed so desperate in its need for victory. However, in April , on the very day the Prime Minister so proudly announced the deal, the Americans were filing more lawsuits against us. The government needed a victory so badly that it left $500 million in the hands of the American coalition, which has been hurting our communities for so long, to continue to fight us. Somehow the government has twisted itself into believing that it is a good idea, that it is a good idea to get smashed over the head year in and year out.

At the very end, last Friday the Court of International Trade found again for Canada, which is the final place for this decision to go, and Canadians need to know that. There is nowhere else to go for the coalition. However, the government has taken that victory away, has handed the Americans half a million bucks to beat us up some more later and has signed a deal that offers no certainty whatsoever.

I know members from the Conservative benches care for their communities, especially those members who have softwood industries in their ridings. I call upon them to stand in their place today and defend the principles of the bill because they need to be accountable. We have heard so much talk about accountability from the Conservative benches but when we come to a deal like this politics trumps common sense. Why would we leave a half a billion dollars behind for an industry that is dedicated to fighting against any notion of free trade?

The climate for investment in Canada has been destroyed by this deal. Why would an operator who operates on both sides of our borders have any notion of putting money into a mill in Canada when all they need to do is take their money back, place it into a U.S. mill and avoid a self-imposed tariff altogether? I have yet to hear an answer from the government.

I have spoken to the mill managers and the people on the line and they do not get it. They do not understand why the provincial government in Victoria, British Columbia is so keen on raising the export of raw logs thereby raising the export of British Columbian jobs to other places. When I am in my riding I see the trucks drive right past the mills that have shut down and dump the logs in the water, boom them up and send them south.

For heaven's sake, this so-called deal says to a producer, says to a manufacturer, “Do not invest in Canada. It is much smarter to invest in the United States or just about anywhere else, because if you invest in Canada and you value add to any of the wood that Canadians produce, you will be hit with a tariff of up to 24% on your cost of production”.

I wish there were someone in the government who could simply answer that basic sense of economic disequilibrium that has been created by the government's one action, the tendency, the nature and the drive for industry to no longer invest in our country at a time when we have lost over 10,000 jobs in this sector. It is not as if we have any more blood to give. We have already given at work and at home. There is no space left in the industry other than its complete collapse.

The true and deep concern I have in this debate is that for the government to secure some sort of improved relations with our American neighbours, which we all want to see, for that so-called victory it has signed a deal that allows Washington to interfere with provincial regulations on how we cut our own wood. This House of Commons does not have that right constitutionally but somehow we have just cut a deal that allows Washington to comment on our own forestry practices at the provincial level.

Many communities have been through so much, with thousands of jobs lost. I would invite members in this place to take a tour through my community and visit those places that have in excess of 90% unemployment. I wonder if anyone in this place can conceive of that in their hometowns, to go back home next week and find 80%, 85%, 90% of the people willing to work in their communities gone, simply unable to work. Imagine the social devastation, never mind the economics, we know that: schools closing down and hospitals no longer able to operate at a time when industries needed the support.

The Conservatives were with us for a moment when we pleaded for loan guarantees for the industry but the previous government was unable to deliver. The Court of International Trade, the last place for the scoundrels who perpetuated this fraud upon Canadians and Canadian communities were heard, the court sided with Canada. Canada has sent our lawyers down to plead on behalf of the American cause. We are asking the court not to settle this case, to not award the entire $5.4 billion to Canada because we have this incredible deal that gives us foreign change, and which, by the way, perpetuates trade wars into the future.

It is not only remarkable that $500 million will end up in the coffers of the U.S. coalition's war chest to fight again, but it sends a disturbing signal to other industries that try to compete with Canada. What we are saying is that the Americans were right. They must have been right because why else would we leave money behind? We must subsidize our industry.

Conservative members have stood in this place and made the argument that no, there is no softwood subsidy and we are not operating a subsidized system. However, by capitulating to them we are saying that they are right. If the Americans were able to end up with this much of the Canadian industries' money, we must be subsidizing. This opens up the floodgates to other industries that cannot compete.

I only wish we could have some form of free trade. The lie has finally been put to that concept of free trade in this country. We only need to look at the way the Americans have handled themselves and the way that Canada has now decided to place itself in such an incredible position as to harm Canadian industry and communities by simply admitting, through this deal, that we must have a subsidized industry, and by putting in jeopardy all the other industries in Canada that now must try to compete with the Americans who we know are protectionists. We have seen it. The Conservatives just said so, and it is true. They will subsidize and they will protect. They will try to offer unfair competition to our industries, particularly in an industry like softwood where we know the Americans cannot compete.

Canadian mills are the most efficient in the world. I have those mills in my riding. I have visited those mills and we have talked to the foremen and the people running the shop. They know that they are running the best. All they want is a fair playing field and an opportunity to compete but instead they will be hit with a 24% duty on their wood. We are going to self-impose a duty when we have said that we are not subsidizing and that we are operating a fair game.

The problems with this deal go on and on. A lot of Conservative members would like to ignore the fact that there is an actual cap on the amount of wood that can be produced. However, it is not done by company but by region. We have also assisted some of the larger companies that have the capacity to invest more money against some of the smaller ones because as soon as the cap is reached it hits everybody in that region. It does not hit the individual company that may have flooded a market. It hits everybody. Suddenly the cap goes up. The tipping point on this, the point where the tariffs start to be imposed, the price of a board foot of lumber has been below the trigger point for months.

This is an opportunity for the government to finally stand up and admit some of the absolute flaws in this agreement. We each need to stand up and represent our communities, which is what we were sent here to do. We were sent here to represent the people who work every day or who are trying to get back to work. We need to get the job done and get a better deal because this deal sells our communities and our future down the river.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to visit the member's riding. As a former British Columbian and Yukoner, I have gone through Skeena—Bulkley Valley on many occasions, and he is absolutely correct. Not only is it one of the most beautiful areas in Canada but it has some of the hardest working people in those mills and in forestry and, I may say, in many ways in a very environmentally sustainable way because they know the future relies on their jobs in those mills.

It is sad to see a number of businesses in small towns like Fraser Lake, Burns Lake, et cetera, closing down or reducing the number of employment opportunities which has caused people to go elsewhere. He now knows exactly what we on the east coast have been going through with our fisheries. He also knows what the farmers are going through now on the prairies.

I have been here for nine and a half years now and I have seen and heard of countless numbers of farm families shutting their farms down and the large corporate companies taking over. I have seen many fishing communities, like the one in Canso, Nova Scotia, literally shut down and thousands of people having to move away from their homes.

In the last week alone 3,000 jobs have been lost in the lumber industry under the watch of Liberal and Conservative governments. It is a pattern. It does not matter which industry it is, farming, fishing or forestry, which I call the three f's that built this country, they are being decimated by the government.

What scared me the most today was when I heard the Minister of Natural Resources, who himself is from British Columbia, say very clearly, “We need this deal so we can restructure the industry”. That makes me very nervous. My colleague is right when he says that whole logs are being sent out of British Columbia into the United States to be brought back as a finished product that we buy. It is like the world's largest gypsum mine that is just outside of my riding. Every ounce of gypsum is sent to the United States and we buy it back as Gyproc.

Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy and that we need to turn this around? I would like my colleague to elaborate a bit more on that.

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

Mr. Speaker, the consolidation of industries, and the consolidation in particular of this industry, has been staggering. We have watched mill upon mill get bought up. It almost seems like in the last five years, in this particular plight of industry as more and more tariffs were slapped onto Canadian companies, more and more of those sawmills were either shut down or bought outright. When they are bought, it is not as if business continues as usual. Anybody who has been at the bottom end of a consolidation knows what that means. It means job losses. It means losses to entire communities.

If anyone in the Conservative benches would actually like to stand and debate some of these issues about what is going on in northwestern British Columbia, I would urge them to do so, but the interest seems to have been lost. The air is out of the balloon.

The Conservatives just want this thing to coast through and not actually address the concerns of mill owners I just talked to this past week. They said, “What's the point?” They have been struggling to get their mills up and running and were finally able to do it after some months. Then they looked on the horizon and they saw more dark clouds mounting. The clouds were a self-imposed tariff on their industry. Why? Because George Bush needed a deal and the Prime Minister wanted it so bad he could not wait.

He could not wait after this many years to look at the decision by the Court of International Trade. The court said, “It's all yours Canada. You were right. These communities were right to survive and thrive on the industry that they had built”.

Instead, the Prime Minister and the Minister of International Trade needed something so desperately that selling out a few hundred communities, selling out families, was not so bad because in their equation maybe that was worth it in the long run.

As parliamentarians, as people who are elected, we have to go back and look those people in the eye. We cannot have what happened to the Atlantic fishery. All those parliamentarians over the years turned a blind eye to what we knew was happening while the federal government shirked its responsibilities. The cries that came out from those communities that needed a sustainable industry fell on deaf ears. Now, we are watching a repetition of this in the softwood industry. It is an absolute disgrace.

We try our best to look through the legislation, to read this deal, which I have done, and which I hope and pray that the Conservatives at least have done in their blind support for this thing. I cannot find one scintilla of enthusiasm for investing and reinvigorating our softwood industry.

Instead, we have a $12 million cut to a beetle fund that would help mitigate what was going on with the pine beetle outbreak in British Columbia. That was the answer: sell them out down the river one day and pull back funding to help communities transition the next. That is hardly supportive of rural Canada. We are going to have to switch governments as soon as possible.

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 second time and referred to a committee.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to again speak on the softwood lumber products export charge act. I did have the opportunity to address the House earlier in the debate, but needless to say there is a lot more that can be said about this bad deal.

When I ended my speech last month, I gave the final word to the Prime Minister and I would like to start there this time. I want to quote the Prime Minister who said in this House on October 25, 2005:

Most recently, the NAFTA extraordinary challenges panel ruled that there was no basis for these duties, but the United States has so far refused to accept the outcome and has asked Canada to negotiate a further settlement. Let me repeat what I have said before, and let me be as clear as I can. This is not a time for negotiation. It is a time for compliance.

Those were the words of the current Prime Minister here in this House almost a year ago. It seemed like he was making an argument for the United States to comply with the court decisions that were made in the softwood lumber dispute. He was making that argument very clearly.

Sadly, it seems he has reversed his position completely now. It seems he was actually calling for us to fall in line with the desires of the American industry, the American government and the American protectionists. It is a very sad turnabout and a very dramatic one. It is a capitulation to those interests that have been working so hard to destroy the Canadian industry and with it Canadian communities and Canadian jobs.

It is so ironic that the Prime Minister's reversal comes at a time when a just and fair victory for Canada was in sight. It has been said many times that this agreement and this legislation actually snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. That is exactly what is happening here.

Unfortunately, the victory that Canada was on the verge of has been lost because of this proposal and this legislation. That is why it is a bad deal for Canada, a bad deal for British Columbia, and certainly a bad deal for my home riding of Burnaby—Douglas.

The ironies continue. It was just last Friday afternoon that another court case was decided in Canada's favour. That case before the U.S. Court of International Trade, CIT, found in Canada's favour. That court said that every last penny of the $5.3 billion of illegally imposed duties on softwood lumber exports over the years had to be returned to Canada. That money was taken from Canadian companies, Canadian communities and Canadian workers. That court said every last cent had to be returned. This was just last Friday where there was yet another victory in the courts.

Indeed, we were running out of court opportunities. We were getting down to the wire on every last one of them. Incredibly, it was Canada's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Wilson, when he was before committee this summer who said the opportunities for court action on this were coming to an end. We were absolutely on the verge of a wholesale victory on this issue in the courts. Unfortunately, that has all been thrown by the wayside by this agreement and this legislation.

I want to come back to the speech I had hoped to deliver the first time around and some of the points that I did not have time to talk about.

If this is such a great deal for Canada and for the Canadian industry, I have to wonder why page after page of this bill is devoted to punitive measures to punish Canadian businesses that do not comply or do not agree with this legislation. If this was such a great deal for Canada and for Canadian businesses and communities, why has such emphasis been placed on punitive measures in the legislation?

I was surprised to hear in this House last month a Conservative member from Atlantic Canada say that the government would have to pursue an amendment to its own legislation because the wording of the maintenance of the Maritime lumber exemption was not strong enough or clear enough, and did not actually use the word “exemption”.

It is hard to believe that on a part of this whole controversy where there is absolute agreement in every corner of this House around the need to maintain the Atlantic Canada exemption, that the government could not even get the wording right in this legislation on that aspect of the bill. It could not even get it right when everyone agrees how important that is. It could not get it right when its representatives from Atlantic Canada were so involved to maintain this exemption.

I think that is another example of how bad this bill really is. If there is a point where there is no controversy, where there is a clear agreement and where the language has been accepted for some time, why that language could not even make it into this legislation is beyond me. If the government cannot do it on that front, what is happening on the other clauses that are more controversial and more complicated?

Another important flaw in this legislation is that it does nothing to address the serious issue of the export of raw logs. One observer of the forest industry in British Columbia, and someone who has carefully poured over the agreement and the 82 page appendices to the agreement, notes that this legislation goes out of its way to be specific about what is covered, about what aspects of the softwood lumber industry are covered. In fact, he says it is dizzying in its specificity. He also says:

Taxes will apply to “coniferous wood, sawn or chipped lengthwise, sliced or peeled, whether or not planed, sanded or finger-jointed, of a thickness exceeding six millimetres”. In similar minutiae, wood siding, flooring and fencing are discussed.

That is all very well, but not once in this agreement and in this legislation does the word “log” appear. We know that the export of raw logs is a serious issue facing the industry. It is certainly a serious issue for the industry in British Columbia.

To fail to close a loophole around the export of raw logs from private lands is a huge failure. It gives raw logs from private lands a competitive edge over logs processed, for instance, in British Columbia.

This will discourage value added production and jobs in B.C. and will stimulate more raw log exports to the United States where workers will process them. It robs Canada and Canadian workers of opportunities and jobs. Jim Sinclair, the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, has pointed out that:

More than 3,300 jobs in the forest sector were lost to log exports in 2005 alone and an estimated 27 mills closed at a cost of 13,000 jobs between 1997 and 2004.

This is work that should have remained in Canada, with Canadian workers and in Canadian communities. It is an absolute travesty that this has been allowed to happen. It is further unbelievable that this opportunity to deal with this issue has slipped through our fingers and another reason why this is a bad deal.

When we add those jobs lost to raw log exports, as the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour pointed out, when we look at the fact that 3,000 jobs have been lost in the last week in the forest industry alone, we come to realize just how bad this legislation and this deal truly is.

Bill C-24 also subjects any change in provincial forest policy to approval by the United States. It is incredible that we would give up our sovereignty in that way.

I think that Steve Hunt, the United Steelworkers Western Canadian director, said something that is very instructive with regard to this. He said:

This deal doesn't need tweaking, it needs a complete rewrite. The proposed Agreement was part of a “sell-out strategy”. If this is what talks between [the President and the Prime Minister] have achieved, then we'd prefer continued litigation, rather than a Softwood Lumber Agreement that might only last a few years and gives up provincial sovereignty over forest policy.

I think it is very clear that this is a bad deal. It is a bad deal for Canada, for British Columbia and for Burnaby. What will happen with that $1 billion in illegally collected tariffs, which we will not get back because we will forfeit to the United States? It will go directly to the lumber industry to mount the next campaign against our industry. It is incredible that we should even be discussing the bill at this point in the House.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the member from the NDP. NDP members are standing here today saying how bad of a deal it was. It really is shameful that they prematurely overthrew the previous Liberal government when, according to their words, we were this close to making a deal.

The member outlined how the United States of America is now dictating our forestry industry policy in Canada. That is very bad. It is shameful that the new Conservative government does not understand this.

Yesterday the Minister of International Trade, if there is such a department, responded to a question by saying that we would get all of the $5 billion back. We had heard it was $4 billion, but the minister went on record yesterday and said it was $5 billion. Nobody really knows what it is.

If the member knows, will he enlighten the House on whether we will see a cheque from the United States of America for whatever it is, $4 billion or $5 billion? Rumour has it that this money will never arrive in Canada.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot let the beginning comments of the member go without a response. It is quite hilarious how the Liberals are still so heartbroken. It was the decision of Canadians to toss them out of office. It was not the NDP that ended their reign of power. It was the Canadian people who did that, and they did that rather resoundingly in some cases. They should never forget that Canadians made that decision, not the folks who sit in this corner of the House.

He asked if I know if that money will be delivered. I have no faith that the money will be seen by Canada. I find it hard to imagine the photo opportunity with the Prime Minister and the President of the United States standing there, with the handshake and the big smiles for the cameras as the big cheque for the illegally collected softwood lumber levy is handed over to Canada. I just do not think we will see that.

We know that the provisions of the deal mean we are giving $1 billion of that illegally collected money to the United States, $500 million which goes to the association that launched the attack on the Canadian industry. It is unbelievable that we would fund the people who brought us this crisis in the first place so they can plan their next attack on Canadian industry. I do not think there is anyone here who does not believe that the protectionists in the United States will make that move.

It is also ironic that we are giving $500 million to the White House to use as it will. It says it is for reconstruction for Hurricane Katrina victims, but we know that it is a slush fund to be used by the Republicans as their elections approach. There is no way we should be using that to fund the re-election of protectionist American legislators, but that is exactly what we are doing under the terms of the agreement. It is completely unacceptable.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the other day we heard someone from the Conservative government lash out at environmentalists, blaming environmentalists for the decline of jobs in the forestry industry in Quebec. What is next?

My colleague is absolutely right. The deal is so bad it is like robbing the owner of a store of $100 and a judge saying that the robber only has to pay back $80 and he can keep the other $20 for himself. However, for the government or someone who represents the cabinet to blame environmentalists for the decline of jobs in Quebec in the softwood lumber industry is simply unconscionable.

My colleague from B.C. is very concern about this, and I would like his comments on it.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is the lack of enthusiasm for the deal that I have often heard around the House. We hear that it is the best deal possible under the circumstances. He hear that we will be subject to endless litigation for years and years. We hear that we have to accept this because we cannot do any better. I do not accept that for one second.

When we know we are behind the eight ball, when we know we have done a bad thing, we often lash out at absolutely the wrong people. Some of that has been going on around the House as people try to rationalize their support for a very bad deal. I am very disappointed in that kind of behaviour in the House.

[The Acting Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, The Environment; the hon. member Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Softwood Lumber.