International Trade Committee on July 13th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Speaking to the amendments, Mr. Eyking, go ahead, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, you're the chairman here, and we could debate the first few lines all afternoon. The intent of the last line of the motion is to get the minister here to explain why the changes were made in the softwood lumber agreement. That is the intent of the motion.

I ask you to bring it to a question and vote on the motion that stands, or vote on the amendment that's put forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Of course, Mr. Eyking, you know the minister has, in writing, agreed to come on July 31. Why are we dealing with the motion in that case? I think it is more than that.

Mr. Jaffer.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Motion number three asks for a number of people to appear in front of this committee. I need some clarification here. If we're going to be meeting--and let's say meetings have been proposed for the 31st and then again for the 21st--won't we have, subsequent to those meetings, legislation going to the House, which will outline the agreement? Then, are we going to be meeting with the same people again once the committee comes in, or is there going to be agreement within this committee that we wouldn't meet with those people again?

I know how much the opposition cares about accountability and the cost for these sorts of things, and it seems to me that it's a redundant activity, especially during the summer. When I was in opposition, we would never call a committee back in the summer regardless of issues, especially if there was going to be legislation following and you were going to be dealing with the actual details of the agreement. It seems to be redundant. It seems to be kind of like a performance in grandstanding, so to speak. I was at the Calgary Stampede this weekend, and we saw a lot of grandstanding.

I'm curious as to what the opposition wants to gain here. Maybe they're just making a make work activity because they don't have a lot to do this summer. I'm curious, if we're going to do this again in the fall, why are we doing it now? Maybe someone can clarify that for me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Paquette.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Let's be clear here. We heard witnesses with respect to the April 27th framework agreement. The agreement signed on July 1st does not contain the same wording as the April 27th agreement. So, we would like to hear the views of certain witnesses in this regard.

Following that, it is my hope that the Canadian and U.S. governments will reopen their negotiations with a view to meeting the concerns that have been expressed. We can then talk about the legislation to be tabled in Parliament. We all hope that the negotiations will lead to a lasting peace. However, we cannot help but note that there have been changes.

I would like to cite the example of the Conseil de l'industrie forestière du Québec, which supported the April 27th agreement. This is what the Council's members had to say about the July 1st agreement in the letter they sent to Prime Minister Harper:

[...] our industry believes that the agreement signed by your government and the U.S. government is not acceptable in its current form. CIFQ members clearly expressed that view at the special general meeting held on July 11, 2006.

That is quite significant. In order for a council that supported the initial agreement to no longer support it after July 1st, there must be new features that are inconsistent with their understanding of the agreement. That is exactly what we want to ascertain.

If, as we are hoping, the Committee were to make recommendations to the government that it acted on, and we were to arrive at an agreement that all the various councils and associations across the provinces could support, rest assured that the Bloc Québécois would be very happy to be able to support the legislation coming forward. But that is not the case at this time. I think the government needs to be enlightened as to how to resolve this matter. For the time being, it is a complete dead end. I don't see how the government could introduce legislation regarding an agreement that has been rejected by the four main forestry associations.

What we are preparing to do is not redundant. There is new information here, and we want to find out why and how we can correct the situation, in order to arrive at an agreement that the industry as a whole and provincial governments consider satisfactory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Monsieur Paquette, just for clarification, what the member was saying is that the minister and the Prime Minister have said that we will have legislation on this agreement early in the fall, and that the legislation will go to this committee for discussion. So that was the redundancy being referred to; we weren't referring to redundancy with regard to the past hearings that we've had.

Monsieur Paquette, go ahead, please.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I don't see how the government could introduce legislation on an agreement that has been rejected by the main stakeholders.

I just want to avoid that happening, because it would put us in a very delicate political situation; perhaps that is the objective. I believe -- and this is the position of the Conseil de l'industrie forestière du Québec -- that with certain changes, the July 1st agreement could be considered acceptable, at least by the Quebec industry. And that is precisely the message we want to convey to government. If it introduces legislation based on the July 1st agreement, there is no doubt that it will be extremely difficult to garner the support of any of the Opposition parties. In our opinion, we should not wait for that to happen; indeed, we believe such a situation should be avoided. We want to ensure that the message we send to government will be sufficiently clear to allow it to take corrective action.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Now we'll go to Mr. Menzies and then to Mr. LeBlanc--oh, Mr. Jaffer.

Was it Helena? I'm sorry.

Ms. Guergis, my apologies.

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

That's all right. Thanks very much, Leon.

First I really want to point out, going back to the amendment that I had suggested on objections to the agreement, that I wanted to see a period there, because it says, “and explore alternatives”. Well, let's be very clear here. The only alternative is no deal. That's it. The negotiations are finished. It's been initialled, and the Prime Minister has been very clear that this will be a confidence vote in the House. So there are no more negotiations, and there is no other option except no deal.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Who said that--Mr. Bush?

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

That is the way it is going to be--deal or no deal.

Again, I find it very interesting that the motion prejudges the outcome of the testimony here, because the profound changes are actually in the opposition's perception of the public support for the agreement. The terms of the agreement have been augmented only very slightly. You can exaggerate it all you want, but that is fact.

There has not been any significant evidence of the necessity to hold extra meetings to discuss this. We've had the witnesses before us, and the majority of the witness testimony we've heard has been in support of this agreement. We're bringing them back in again. We're going to go through the same process again. Then we're going to have the legislation, and they'll come back here before us for a third time. And then we're going to debate it in the House. There is an exceptional cost to that. I don't understand why we want to be very irresponsible here.

It goes back to the fact that the opposition wants to cherry-pick only testimony that supports its position. If you recall, the Bloc's motion introduced in the previous session was very clearly ignoring 10 witnesses who came before this committee.

I think if we're going to talk about this motion a bit more, we need to talk about what the end result of our meetings here will be. Are we going to add on to this? We need to be sure that we have a report produced this time. I'm really not interested, and I don't think the majority of industry or the provinces are interested, in seeing another motion construed as a report coming from this committee, when it will not include the majority of the witness testimony we've had here.

I'd like to see the researchers put together a report--that is their responsibility--and I think you should be agreeing to that. That's the normal procedure we have around here. I'm not interested in having witnesses come before the committee whose testimony will be completely ignored again. So can we please decide what the outcome will be? And can we decide that we're going to have a report and an outcome and a mandate?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Guergis.

Mr. LeBlanc, go ahead, please.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I fully agree with Mr. Paquette. The difference -- that the government seems to be unaware of -- is that witnesses appeared before this Committee to talk about the April 27th framework agreement. Profound changes were made to that agreement in the middle of the night, leading up to July 1st. I would cite as evidence the reaction of a number of industry associations that were seated at this table several weeks before, and that expressed their support for the framework agreement. That should normally be an indication that changes were made.

I would have thought Monsieur Jaffer would have found it helpful, as the government prepares to draft legislation, to hear from these witnesses who have been in a number of media interviews and a number of discussions I've heard, raising both minor and major concerns they believe can be improved. If the government's position is that it's impossible and there are no changes, as the parliamentary secretary indicated, then that's their position, but that doesn't seem to be the hope of many people in the industry.

We believe it would be very useful to have someone--the minister, for starters--explain why, if the deal is in the best interests of the industry, many of the people whose interests he's seeking to serve are abandoning him. I'd be curious to have that discussion with the minister and to hear from the industry. Perhaps the government could benefit from understanding precisely the industry's concerns before bringing the legislation to Parliament in September.

We don't see it, as the government does, as a useless exercise at all. We see it as an important process to improve the agreement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Jaffer, go ahead, please.

[Rahim Jaffer, Conservative, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I can totally sympathize with Mr. LeBlanc's comments, but I remember the previous government rarely bringing forward consultations in a committee before bringing forward any form of legislation. Usually amendments would be brought forward by the public or opposition members after the legislation was tabled. Obviously things have changed, with the former government now in opposition.

There is something I fail to understand. It's something I know my honourable colleague tried to touch on. If the text of the agreement is going to come forward in the form of legislation in a few months, then whether we deal with that now in committee over the summer—which, as I said, might be something the opposition feels like doing--or we deal with it in a couple of months from now doesn't make any difference, quite frankly, does it? I agree that the wording of the agreement may be changed from what it was initially on April 27. If we're actually going to deal with that in the fall when the legislation comes forward, I don't know why we would want to do that over the summer. I still haven't heard a clear reason for doing that.

We're saying we would allow any form of consultation--and this committee will meet from morning to night if the opposition wants to--once the legislation is tabled. Creating this sort of hype now, when really nothing is going to happen, and then doing it all over again in the fall I think is quite irresponsible. That's the only thing I don't understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Jaffer.

Mr. Temelkovski, go ahead, please.

[Lui Temelkovski, Liberal, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I hear from the government that they don't want to hear from the same groups again, thinking that we would cost the government too much. At the same time, they're forgetting that there was an amendment, or there were some additions and changes to the original agreement that took place on July 1. If they don't think anything has changed, maybe then we wouldn't need the witnesses again. Obviously, there were some changes, and that's why there was some work done in Geneva. Some of us were there in Geneva, and we were kept in the dark by the government. They didn't share any of the information on the softwood lumber deal until after it had happened. We heard it from the media as opposed to hearing it from the minister, the parliamentary secretary, or from other members.

If these signatures on July 1 have no significance, why did the minister go to Geneva? Why was it so important that he sign if there were no changes?

I understand that when there are changes made, the government may need to hear from the same witnesses again, because there were changes. These are the people who know the legislation or the business of softwood lumber a lot better than many of us here understand it. That's why we need to hear from them and from other groups.

I think maybe some of the members from across may be jumping a little and putting the cart before the horse by assuming that we will hear only from the same witnesses. I'm sure there will be new witnesses that we will hear from, and it is the responsibility of this committee, regardless of any cost, to bring those witnesses here so we can hear from them. We--opposition as well as government--can benefit from them in order to come up with a good agreement or legislation at the end of the day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay. We're going to Ms. Guergis, but I do want to remind members of the committee that right now we're debating proposed amendments to the motion, removing the word “profound”--not “profound changes”, just the word “profound”--in the first line, and after “objections”, adding “and support”, and this is in the last line, and ending that sentence after the word “agreement”. That's what we're discussing right now.

Ms. Guergis.

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

It's actually Mr. Menzies. I can see why you mix us up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Mr. Menzies.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

How do you keep getting us confused?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Well, you're almost identical twins.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Well, thank you. You're far too flattering, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

I take that back. I apologize, Ms. Guergis.