Bill C-101 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Customs Tariff and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act

This enactment provides for the repeal of subsections 55(5) and (6) of the Customs Tariff and their subsequent re-enactment two years later. It also makes consequential amendments to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act.

Customs Tariff

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

I thank the member for bringing that up. That is exactly where I was going before the point of order came up. We will have to have some discussions about banning all traffic in the back unless the people are with an MP who can control the people or the volume of the people he or she is with.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first I too would like to acknowledge the significance of the 75th anniversary of D-Day and pay tribute to those 14,000-plus soldiers who contributed so we would have the types of freedoms we have in Canada. I appreciate the member making reference to that at the beginning of his remarks and want to echo those comments. We will make sure we never forget and continue to pay tribute to the women and men who serve us day in, day out in our forces.

Having said that, I am a bit taken aback by the Conservative Party's approach in regard to this tariff. At the end of the day, with the support of Canadians and industry, the Government of Canada was successful at bringing this thing to a conclusion. It will be protecting literally thousands of jobs in different regions of our country. This is a good-news piece of legislation.

I ask the member across the way to recognize good legislation when he sees it and to support it. Recognizing the importance of the jobs that would be protected within this legislation, does he agree that it is time to attempt to pass this legislation before the session winds up? Does he support that?

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad we can recognize this special day today.

We have said from the outset of the NAFTA negotiations and the risks to tariffs that we want to work with the government. In fact, our amendments would mitigate against some of the negative impacts of this legislation. The reason we are putting it in an amendment is that when we asked for this safeguard debate over a year ago, the government did not comply. In fact, as I said, a day before tariffs were applied, the finance minister finally put tracing mechanisms in place in response to U.S. concerns about transshipment.

The government has been lurching from crisis to crisis. We are now at the final weeks of Parliament, and now it has a proposed solution to the latest crisis. What we are suggesting is some improvements to recognize critical regional infrastructure projects and jobs in western Canada. We can mitigate against the impacts with some modest amendments.

That member knows that the Liberals have collected in the range of $2 billion in tariffs from Canadian companies, such as retailers and steel producers that needed to fabricate U.S. steel to re-export it. They have had to absorb the costs of the trade disruption the government has handed them. We want a commitment that this $2 billion will go to small and medium-sized enterprises. That is what the Liberals said at the beginning.

The Prime Minister is very good at going to Algoma and putting on a jacket or a hat and making promises. Most of the time he has not come through.

We want to support the Liberals, but we want to see some mitigation aspects. We want to see them recognize the impact this would cause to western Canada, in particular on construction costs for key projects such as Site C, Muskrat Falls, the new Champlain Bridge and LNG Canada. In fact, the fabricators in those projects provide five times or more the number of jobs of the steel producers, so let us try for a win-win.

They are not used to a single win in this Parliament. Let us try for a win-win.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Durham made some very good points. I think he would agree with me that the government has made a real mess of this file. It is putting jobs at risk right across our country.

Does the member agree that it is imperative for the government to impose safeguards immediately following the passage of this legislation? This is something the steel workers and the steel producers are united in asking the government to do.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton Mountain and I are in full agreement on his definition of the Liberals' handling of this. He used the term “mess”. I agree wholeheartedly. We in the Conservative caucus want to stand up for the members of that union, and not just workers in and around Hamilton, but also others.

I am not sure if the member is on the trade committee, but he might know that a year ago Conservatives asked the minister about safeguards. We knew that it was critical to have this debate to find out how we could apply safeguards but mitigate against some of the real impacts on fabricators, on critical infrastructure projects and on western Canada in particular. The member would know, because the union members in his riding are akin to some of the pipeline workers and union members in western Canada, that those industries are suffering. We do not need to pile yet another economic challenge on top of that.

Our modest proposals to the government should be a way of constructively addressing some of the impacts of this big, quick trade action. As I have said, the government knows that it violates the WTO rules. It formed a little Ottawa group to modernize the WTO, and it has lost a lot of credibility on this issue.

Let us try to blunt some of the negative impacts of this legislation. Conservatives have been wanting to have the debate on safeguards for over a year. Let us get it right. I hope the NDP and the Conservatives can both push the Liberals to finally do the right thing.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleague to go back to the mitigation that he was speaking about. I have a situation in which small businesses in the recreation area have had to purchase inventory for the coming season because winter is over, but the steel tariffs have increased the cost of carrying an inventory of recreation vehicles, boats, campers and that sort of thing. In this one case that I am looking at, it may not be as much as the greater steel industry, but $35,000 to one small business is a lot of money. I would like the member to expand on what he thinks we could do.

In his speech and in answers to questions, he mentioned the $2 billion that the government has obtained from the tariffs that it imposed, but I want to follow up on it again with regard to mitigation and how we could best convince the government to make it part of an amendment and move it forward before we pass this legislation.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the fortune of being in the riding of the member for Brandon—Souris and know he has a great relationship with the chamber and a lot of businesses, and those are real concerns. The aluminum recreational boat industry has been hammered, and Conservatives have raised this issue in the House.

I have talked about the Junkin family in my riding at LakeView Marine in Port Perry. It now has stranded inventory. It has some inventory for which it had to absorb the cost of the tariffs, but consumers now know the tariffs are off, so how is it going to deal with this stranded inventory that it paid tariffs on? Some of that $2-billion fund that the government has collected could be put toward that. That is all Conservatives are asking on that front.

That would help in Brandon, that would help in Port Perry and that would also help fabricators like Mielke Industries in the Fraser Valley and in areas like Abbotsford and Chilliwack. There are a lot of fabricators in western Canada that have imported steel to fabricate into world-leading products. They are some of our best exporters, but they are now becoming uncompetitive because of the trade disruption that happened because we could not avoid the section 232 tariffs the way Australia and South Korea did.

The government has put them in a place where they are uncompetitive. Let us use the $2 billion the government has collected to provide some relief, to make sure they do not lose international contracts and to make sure small businesses—family-owned, in many cases—in Brandon and Durham do not have a loss this year and next.

The government promised that small and medium-sized enterprises would be helped by this relief, but we have seen none of it. Time is running out.

The government will see Conservatives co-operate if it addresses these geographic and small and medium-sized business issues. We have given it some ways to do that. It could also help provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador or Quebec with the Champlain Bridge. Our recommendations are not only effective but modest. We can make this bill better. Let us all get on the same page by addressing the shortcomings of this bill quickly so we can pass it and remain competitive.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today to Bill C-101, an act to amend the Customs Tariff and the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act.

The bill looks to repeal subsections 55(5) and 55(6), thereby eliminating the two-year waiting period on the imposition of provisional safeguards. I am somewhat pleased to see the government finally taking this good first step to protecting Canadian steel producers and the hard-working people employed in the industry.

The NDP will support the bill as it will temporarily help the steel industry, but the government should never have let the deadline go by without imposing permanent safeguard measures, which the NDP has been calling on for years. When the finance minister allowed the safeguard deadline to pass in April, he placed workers and business at great risk. Now he is temporarily changing the timeline through legislation.

However, let me be very clear. The NDP is adamant that we see this measure as only a small step and it absolutely must be followed by the imposition of, at the very least, provisional safeguards over the five remaining unprotected product categories of the seven listed by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, also known as the CITT.

These measures must also protect and stabilize the Canadian steel industry over the long term. Having worked in the steel industry for 35 years and representing a community in which the steel industry plays a large part in the economy, I have a very personal interest in this issue along with other workers.

For the past three and a half years, we have tried to deal with this and many other issues facing the steel industry through the ineffective and Liberal-dominated all-parliamentary steel caucus. The commitment of the government to the work of that committee has been disappointing and half-hearted at best.

The measures in the bill also seem half hearted. While these provisional safeguards are satisfactory, we in the NDP have been calling on the government and the Minister of Finance to put permanent safeguard measures in place for well over a year. This would, of course, provide more stability to this already shaken and targeted industry.

Like so many things the government does, this bill, it reaction to the tariffs imposed by the Americans on the Canadian steel and aluminum industry and the issue of the dumping of foreign steel into the Canadian market, has half measures at best.

Speaking of half measures, by taking away the two-year waiting period, the bill would only allow the government to put into place temporary and somewhat superficial protections for unprotected steel product categories listed by the CITT. We will be watching and fighting to ensure the government follows the legislation up with real action. Our steel industry and workers deserve real solutions to the predatory pricing efforts of steel importers worldwide.

For years, the NDP has urged the government to address the very real problem of cheap steel imports directly and/or indirectly entering the North American market, including the provision of increased resources to the CBSA to allow them to investigate and respond to the increased dumping of steel products. In our view, Canada cannot be a dumping ground for foreign steel or be a back door to the American market.

It must also be recognized that, while the U.S. has dropped section 232 tariffs on Canadian steel, tariffs remain on other steel producing countries. That leaves Canada vulnerable to surges of foreign steel heading through Canada to the U.S. market. This is a dangerous position that must not be tolerated.

However, please allow me to take a step back and provide some context for why this is such an important issue.

Canadian steel producers generate over $14 billion in annual sales, while supporting over 22,000 direct jobs and over 100,000 indirect jobs. All of this is done through 19 facilities across five different provinces. The production of steel acts as an anchor for a much larger supply chain of secondary manufacturing companies in fabrication, construction, automotive and many other sectors throughout the Canadian economy.

I know that in the greater Hamilton area, the steel industry provides over 10,000 direct jobs and supports an estimated 30,000 secondary jobs.

In Sault Ste. Marie, the steel industry is anchored by Algoma Steel and Tenaris Algoma Tubes. These two companies alone directly account for over 41% of the community's gross domestic product. About 30% of their workforce are directly and secondarily employed in the steel sector. That is over 9,000 jobs.

In the Windsor-Essex region, Atlas Tube, which is located in Harrow, Ontario, employs 220 workers and exports over $250 million of product each year. It is interesting to point out that Atlas Tube is the most efficient producer of structural steel in the world.

EVRAZ is another steel company and it employs over 1,800 people in western Canada, including in the pipe mill in Regina.

It is also interesting to note that the Canadian steel industry is a world leader in labour and environment standards, something of which we should all be proud.

Dumping is a form of predatory pricing when a country exports its product below the market price, driving out competition and creating a global monopoly. Many of these foreign companies are able to offer lower prices precisely because of their lack of environmental or labour regulations.

We have been after the government for years to provide protection against the dumping of foreign steel. The Canadian Steel Producers Association has repeatedly asked the government to be proactive in finding solutions to the dumping steel issue, which has hurt the steel industry across the board. The government only took action, and temporary action at that, in reaction to the tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on the Canadian steel and aluminum industries.

We were given a heads-up almost the first year of this session. The government kept saying it knew what it was doing. However, it all comes down this. What the government did unilaterally became a real mess. It kept having to fix its mistakes, as more and more were made. Now we are debating the bill today.

That is clearly not good enough. The Liberals should have put permanent safeguards in place as soon as they came into power. They knew then that the illegal dumping of dirty steel into Canada was a major concern for our steel industry.

In April, the government decided to allow the safeguards in place to expire on imports of five types of steel products. Because of current legislation, those safeguards cannot be restored for two years, regardless of potential threats to Canada's steel sector. The legislation we are considering today would allow the government to waive the two-year waiting period and impose the safeguards again. That is a good thing, but it is not nearly enough.

It is always interesting to gauge the response to government legislation through those who will be affected.

Ken Neumann, national director of the United Steelworkers, had this to say:

We hope the legislation announced today will be passed swiftly in Parliament, before the summer recess. In the meantime, Canadian workers and producers need an unequivocal commitment from the federal government that it will implement safeguards or other strong measures to defend our industry....The government must signal that it is prepared to retroactively apply safeguards or other measures to protect Canada's steel sector from potential surges in imports....These safeguards or other measures must be reintroduced to stabilize Canada's steel sector and defend Canadian workers and producers from surges in foreign imports.

With respect to surges, one thing was very concerning for many producers across Canada. Although they wanted the tariffs lifted, they did not want them traded off for a quota system that would stop the growth of the steel industry in Canada. The government said that it listened to this and said it did not have quotas. However, it has what are called “surges”, to offset concerns. The government believed that since it did not use the word quota, it could fool producers by saying it had surges. However, I think surges is just another name for quotas. We are not sure what surges actually means.

Recently, the United Steelworkers asked the government to use sections 53 and 55 of the Customs Tariff, which gives the federal cabinet the authority to respond to tariffs as well as act against countries participating in dumping. For example, the government can apply a surtax to any goods that are being imported under such conditions as to cause or threaten serious injury to domestic producers. The Liberal government declined.

Interestingly, the United Steelworkers also recently sent a letter to the government, detailing its concerns about the new North American free trade deal. In that letter, it addresses concerns about the steel industry. It says,“The USMCA should never have been signed absent the removal of steel and aluminum tariffs. While we are happy that the tariffs have finally been removed, we are concerned with some of the details in the agreement to remove the tariffs: The ability of the U.S. to legally apply new tariffs if there is a surge of imports about the historical average.” Is that quotas or is that all of a sudden a bigger supply? “The lack of measures to protect and stabilize the Canadian steel market leaves us vulnerable to import surges. This threatens not only the domestic Canadian industry, but also leaves us vulnerable to the reimposition of tariffs; Our ability to respond to tariffs if they are imposed. Canada will be limited in its response and only able to impose counter tariffs on the same products; this limits our ability to impose counter tariffs that are proportional but based on products that are actually produced in the U.S.” It says, “We believe that the USMCA should not be ratified until the details of the tariff agreement are finalized. We must ensure that we do not agree to provisions that allow for the re-impositions of tariffs or that are, in effect, a quota.”

Catherine Cobden, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, also commented on the legislation, saying:

Today’s announcement by [the finance minister] represents an important step to ensuring Canada can respond swiftly to changes in global steel markets caused by overcapacity and trade actions taken by other jurisdictions. Safeguard measures are an important trade tool for preventing diversion of foreign imports into Canada’s domestic steel market. The Canadian steel producers believe these trade measures continue to be necessary in today’s global context.

Roger Paiva, general manager of Gerdau steel in Whitby, had this to say,"We seek your support to extend the Government of Canada's provisional steel safeguards. The safeguards have stabilized the Canadian rebar market. They are securing middle-class jobs in your riding and beyond. They are growing the economy while protecting the environment. Please show your support for good steel jobs, and please encourage [the finance minister] to extend the safeguards."

Finally, Francis Miner from lvaco near Hawksbury, says

The European Union and a number of other jurisdictions have recently implemented safeguards on steel products following restrictions to the US market caused by the section 232 tariffs. Without safeguards Canada will stand alone, and the domestic steel industry will be heavily exposed to large volumes of low-priced imports being diverted into the country. This places Canadian producers at a significant competitive disadvantage and thousands of jobs at risk....Without the extension of a safeguard measure on wire rod, market conditions for producers in Canada will deteriorate further.

I totally agree with him on the wire rod. That was my business for 35 years. We took wire rods and made wire anywhere from as thin as a hair to an inch and a half. It would used for ball joints or car parts, such as steering wheel rods. They made it into fencing. They made it into all kinds of different thing. We were a big market, but with the tariffs and the safeguards, there was nothing. It really hurt our competitive edge in Hamilton.

It is clear that Canada's steel sector still faces daunting challenges. Canada cannot continue as one of the few countries in the world that allows foreign steel to flood into its markets. The federal government must protect our producers and our workers.

I have spoken with many workers from the steel industry, from across the country and many in my own community. They are all feeling some sense of insecurity. While they are all happy the tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum were finally dropped, many of them do not trust the government on this issue.

When the Prime Minister visited Stelco to make the announcement the tariffs were being dropped, one of the workers asked him what he had to give up to get the tariffs lifted. He did not answer the question. As we have heard in recent reports, this could have been more than what the government first let on.

I am told that the mood among the workers at Stelco is that while they are happy the tariffs have been lifted, they still have a healthy dose of skepticism. Like many workers across the country, they are concerned the government is not tough enough to stand up for them and the steel industry against the U.S. and other countries.

As the president of USW Local 8782 in Nanticoke pointed out recently, one would think the government in Ottawa would have the interest and common sense to protect Canadian interests and the industry, but that is apparently not the case.

In closing, I would like to say that I listened to the comments from the member for Durham and I agree with the suggestion that we should all work together on this. All parties should work together. We have found that the government cannot do this unilaterally. It has made too many mistakes. We have to make sure we get this right, to protect not only the Canadian industry but our Canadian workers. We can only do that by working together. Therefore, I encourage all members to join the same team and work as hard as we can.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member's very last comment with respect to a team. There has been a team effort by this government from day one in trying to address the very important issue of steel and aluminum tariffs. It is something that has had a profound impact on workers in different regions of our country. That is one of the reasons we have members of Parliament from within our caucus, led by our Prime Minister and ministers, working with the many different stakeholders, going out and visiting some of these plants first-hand and talking to the workers to look at the industry and continue to have the dialogue, which was absolutely critical.

Canada is not alone with respect to what has been taking place with these tariffs. I am pleased we have been able to take it to the point we have, where we now have this legislation. I hope that over the next period of time we will see the legislation pass, because it will provide some additional certainty. We owe it to the workers to do what we can.

Does the member across the way not agree that one of the ways we can jointly support our thousands of workers in Canada, who are so dependent on providing those quality steel and aluminum products, is by recognizing it and ensuring that this legislation passes before we rise in the next week or so?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very important question, because I believe we should all work together. I can only tell the member that I am not on the trade committee; I am on the all-party committee for the steel caucus. However, I know of some of the problems that came up on the trade committee with listening to people's amendments and trying to get stuff going. It seems the government took the unilateral approach of listening but not doing anything. It took it its own way, and that is why we are where we are today.

I truly believe that if we all work together, listen to each other, accept those proposals and adopt them, because they are good amendments, we can all come up with a great agreement that would be far better than anyone could do alone.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain, the place where I was born. I have to say that I still have that steel guy inside me. In my community of Oshawa, steel is so important for the auto sector. He mentioned a friend of mine, Roger Paiva, from Gerdau Ameristeel Corporation, and how important the steel and aluminum sector is to my community.

Earlier on, the member mentioned the uncertainty and the mess the current government has created, and I am extremely concerned. I know both our communities are very happy this bill is being debated in the final days of the current government. It is a very important issue.

My colleague from Durham spoke about how this is something the bigger companies want to see moved forward as quickly as possible, but for regional suppliers, fabricators and different communities there needs to be something else done. We talked about this $2 billion the Liberals are sitting on and holding. That could be spread to the companies that are going to be so negatively affected, especially if we go forward and implement this bill as is.

In order to decrease the uncertainty out there, I was wondering if the NDP would be supporting our amendment, which my colleague from Durham read into the record. He said he agreed with my colleague from Durham. Because there is such a short period of time, we do not have the time to debate this as well as we could. Therefore, could he give us some certainty and let Canadians know if the NDP will be supporting our amendment, which would make this better by working together?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the amendment was just put on, and it is going so fast that I have not seen it on paper. I think there would be some great points in there, and I would like to have our party investigate that to make sure we are all on the same page, dotting the i's and crossing the t's, before we take a position on whether or not we are going to support it.

We need more time to look at it and study it.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Hamilton Mountain for his speech and his tireless efforts to defend the steel sector and steel workers. I also want to mention the work done by our colleague from Essex on this file. This sector and the quality jobs involved are very important to the NDP.

After waiting for far too long, the government is taking a step in the right direction, but is taking only half measures and temporary measures. The federal government should follow the European Union's lead and establish permanent safeguards for, among others, seven steel products threatened by dumping, which could harm the stability of Canada's steel sector.

If Europe can do it, why can't we?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we too are trying to find out why we did not take that position.

I can only say that the all-party steel caucus was meeting at the beginning of this four-year term, and we have not met in over a year. No information was going back and forth. Many requests were made to meet and discuss certain issues, to see if we could come up with something and to see where we could make recommendations. However, those requests failed. The Liberals wanted to keep waiting and see what was going to happen.

The answer is that I do not know.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his intervention today and for bringing up the importance of steel to Sault Ste. Marie. We have Algoma, Tenaris and all the other ones. It is 41% of our GDP. It is absolutely massive and critical.

Would the member join us in calling on the Conservatives to move forward with what we are proposing today? After all, the leader of the opposition said on May 29 that he would put safeguards in place.

Would he agree that the question is, “What is the holdup?” Will he call on the opposition to join us in moving forward expeditiously?