Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is an absolute pleasure to be back here again in front of the committee to address the future of my home town, my community, of Timmins, Ontario; the future of the province of Ontario; and indeed, the future of Canada. That may sound grand, but I will show in a moment that is the way Prime Minister Stephen Harper used to think of the softwood lumber dispute. I'm leaving it to other CEOs like Mr. Reedy and to other association directors to address the running rules and the woeful lack of commercial sense in this agreement. I want to focus on the situation in which our industries have been placed, the promises that have been made, and our sector's most urgent needs.
I think I can summarize the United States' strategy in six steps: file petitions demanding outrageously high duties, and the Department of Commerce will deliver them; make it exceedingly onerous and expensive to fight the duties, with endless questionnaires and intrusive and costly verifications; stall, dragging out the process, while Canadians are paying outrageously high duties, making the legal process expensive, not because we're getting fleeced by the lawyers but because the U.S. will use every procedural device to run the costs on us; exploit every possible legal ruse so that the cases cannot reach conclusion, and Canadians cannot enjoy the fruits of their legal victories; claim that it is the Canadians who are being litigious and that the U.S. wants to be accommodating, although they refuse to yield even to their own laws, and then declare that the best solution is peace through a deal; finally, with Canadian industry exhausted and many companies near bankruptcy, find a Canadian government willing to make a deal at whatever cost so that the whole thing just goes away. Some companies will take the deal because they do not believe that they can fight the U.S. and their Canadian governments at the same time.
Here's what the Prime Minister told Parliament last October 25 when he did not have all the legal victories that we have today:
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.
We are still without compliance, but Prime Minister Harper gave us negotiation.
Mr. Harper also said last year:
If the U.S. industry is able to pressure the government not to return duties when it has lost its last NAFTA appeal, it will not matter if most other trade is dispute free. If the rules are simply ignored, then the very basis of a rules-based system is threatened and the future of all Canada-U.S. trading relations could be profoundly affected.
As we all know, in the deal negotiated, the rules are indeed ignored. We do not get back all of our money, and timely payments will come as advances from the Canadian taxpayer, not--as according to the rules--from the United States. Not a single company, not one forestry interest in Canada, shares this government's enthusiasm for the deal or believes that it is good, if not perfect--not one. Minister Emerson and the Prime Minister have talked about perfect, but simply even good--not one company sincerely believes that this deal is good.
Deal or no deal, our forest industries are facing an immediate and dire need, as are hundreds of thousands of people who depend on the sector for their livelihoods. Companies are in a fiscal liquidity crisis. We've been robbed for almost five years. Two years ago, all opposition parties, including the party of the government today, agreed that the forest industries of Canada deserved help through loan guarantees--not loans, just guarantees--so the companies could borrow from banks and restore some liquidity as their profits were being illegally drained into the U.S. treasury.
Here is what Mr. Harper said, again on October 25:
We have asked the federal government to assist companies...with loan guarantees.... ... these initiatives are long overdue and the time for action is now. We need to move quickly and decisively to help our softwood industry.
Such sentiments were restated prominently in the party's campaign platform, “Stand up for Canada”, echoing another October 25 statement: “Now is the time to be clear and to stand up firmly for this country”. The new government did not deliver loan guarantees. Instead, it celebrates doing exactly what in opposition it said should not be done.
After the April 27 announcement, there were representations that we would start seeing the return of our illegally collected cash deposits in June; loan guarantees would not be necessary. Then came predictions about payments in July, then September, now October, maybe November. More likely there will be no money for more than a year after Mr. Harper said “Now is the time”.
Meanwhile, mills have been closing and they continue to close. People are being put out of work. The stability and predictability promised through this deal is the predictability of shuttered mills and unemployment. Even if the deal were as great as Minister Emerson says, our industries remain financially hamstrung, and loan guarantees remain an immediate need.
But it would appear the government wants to force us to take a bad deal by starving the industry into submission. There are to be no alternatives. Of course there were and there are alternatives, but not unless this government stands up for Canada.
On April 28, the final decision of a NAFTA panel was to have taken effect, ending the countervailing duty deposits. The industry should have been or would have been paying the United States $40 million per month less, but the Government of Canada joined with the United States to prevent that decision from taking effect. We, the Ontario industry, went to court in the United States to get the decision finalized. Now, instead of promised loan guarantees, the Government of Canada is using our tax dollars to hire two of the priciest American law firms to fight us, to defend the idea in U.S. courts that it does not have to obey the NAFTA rules and that it has a right when it forces Canadians to keep paying illegal duties to the United States.
The government should lift the suspension on the NAFTA proceedings and provide the loan guarantees that will save the Canadian industry and Canadian jobs immediately. Even if it were with the greatest goodwill and intention, the government has for nearly a year put off the financial help Mr. Harper said last October the industry must have. The once certain and predictable outcome of this deal is that by the time any small measure of good can come from the negotiations that replaced the promise of help months ago, the forest sector will be smaller, more mills will be closed and more people—more Canadians—will be unemployed.
Thank you.