Evidence of meeting #36 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
I would. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to again label this amendment another waste of our time and tell the table that we will not be supporting this amendment. It would change the rate of the surcharge for regions under option A as that rate is set out in the agreement.
Call the vote.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lui Temelkovski
I call the question.
(Amendment negatived: nays 8; yeas 1) [See Minutes of Proceedings
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lui Temelkovski
We move to amendment NDP-9, on page 21.
Mr. Julian, would you like to move that?
12:50 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
As we ramrod this bill through, with all of these punitive measures, we have a situation where essentially a monthly trigger volume is triggered at 101%. How easy is it to do that? Well, given the various penalities that are imposed in this bill, Mr. Chair, it is very easy—exceedingly easy—for any company or any exports to exceed that monthly trigger volume.
That's what the companies were crying out for this summer in the hearings we held, Mr. Chair. Company after company said this deal would not work, that it was not commercially viable. One of the clear reasons why it is not commercially viable, Mr. Chair, is that the trigger volume is triggered immediately.
Just think, for example. You're a softwood company in British Company. If you're one of the independent lumber manufacturers left after this disastrous decision to redefine tenure, you'll sell a product—let's say you're selling your product in the same region where a bigger company decides to impose or export a larger than normal quota.
Then everybody's penalized. In fact, it becomes a race to the border to see who can get their quota out quickly, because once we reach the trigger point that is imposed, the penalities start to fall into place. So a small company from northern British Columbia that is trying to export its lumber through no fault of its own sees itself penalized the way virtually every softwood company is penalized by this bad bill and this bad agreement.
Currently in the bill we have 101% as the trigger volume. What we're proposing by way of an amendment is that the trigger volume not be 101%, but rather 200%.
What does that do, Mr. Chair? What it does is give a comfort level for the trigger volume, so that small companies aren't engaged or entrained into that ridiculous series of punitive measures, including up to 18 months in prison, that come from the later punitive aspects of this bill.
We'll have time tomorrow morning, maybe, or tomorrow afternoon to go through all of the punitive measures that are contained within this bill; there's no doubt about that. However, the reality is this is excessively punitive. It's a hairpin trigger, and we know what kind of disaster can be entrained from a hairpin trigger that is set off almost automatically. We have to provide a margin of safety for that hairpin trigger. We have to provide a margin that does allow the softwood companies to export.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lui Temelkovski
Thank you very much, Mr. Julian. Your time is up.
Is there any other debate on amendment NDP-9?
Monsieur Cardin.
12:55 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Cardin Bloc Sherbrooke, QC
Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. With all due respect for Mr. Julian, he has stated a number of times that the entire industry is against this Agreement and this legislation. I simply want to remind Mr. Julian that the vast majority of companies are in fact in favour of the Agreement. The industry even asked us to support this Bill. However, it's also important to remember that the majority of them said although this is not the best agreement, we have to face up to the fact that, given the current situation, they have no choice but to ask us to support the Bill. Place things in the proper perspective. The industry did ask us to support this legislation. Mr. Julian has been saying that the industry is totally against this Agreement. I believe we need to set the record straight.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Lui Temelkovski
That 's a good point, Mr. Cardin. Thank you very much.
Ms. Guergis.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Thank you.
I just want to say that we will not be supporting this amendment. It would increase the amount by which a region could exceed its surge trigger volume beyond the level that is set out in the agreement. Again I label this one another waste-of-our-time amendment.
Thank you.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dick Harris Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
I would simply echo the words of my colleague, Monsieur Cardin. Mr. Julian's objections and stalling tactics on this bill are out and out misleading this committee. In fact, as Mr. Cardin pointed out, it's simply some sort of twisted agenda that Mr. Julian has, which is obviously to waste time. At the end of the day, he and his party will be responsible for any delay in implementing this bill and getting billions of dollars back into the hands of Canadian softwood manufacturers that they are waiting for.
He has grossly overestimated the relationship between remanufacturers and tenure. He knows very well that in British Columbia remanufacturers hold tenure not necessarily to ever cut the trees, but to use as a pressure tool in case the mills that supply them decide they want to cut back on their shipments. Again, remanufacturers in British Columbia that hold tenure seldom or ever use their tenure as a source of fibre. Mr. Julian knows this, but of course absence of truth is not necessarily important to him.
I simply wanted to echo Mr. Cardin's words regarding Mr. Julian's blatant partisan display of.... I can't think of the word, Mr. Chairman, so I'd better not say it.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Okay.
We are now ready for the vote, I believe, on NDP-9. It is on page 21 of the amendment booklet, and this is a recorded division.
(Amendment negatived: nays 10; yeas 1) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
November 7th, 2006 / 1 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
As folks read these transcripts, which will be distributed across the country, particularly to lumber remanufacturers in British Columbia and elsewhere, it will be interesting for them to note that we have two arguments here. One argument is the NDP argument, based on what's actually in the agreement, what's actually in Bill C-24, and the egregious errors made in the drafting of the bill. The other argument, that comes from the government, is completely personal. Rather than defending any aspects of the deal, I guess because it's indefensible, they simply go for personal attacks.
That's very interesting, Mr. Chair, but it begs the question: are they well informed about what they are adopting?
Mr. Harris made a comment about companies awaiting their money. There are two problems with that. Number one, as of last Monday the taxpayers were picking up the tab of $950 million. Tembec received $242 million of that. This is through the EDC, so it's the taxpayers picking up the tab. The companies have received their money through the EDC process.
Last Friday, Mr. Chair, we actually had a situation where customs and border protection in the United States started to make the payments that came from--and I'll cite this--the New York City decision, October 13, at the Court of International Trade, that:
...all of Plaintiffs' unliquidated entries, including those entered before, on, and after November 4, 2004, must be liquidated in accordance with the final negative decision of the NAFTA panel. Judgment shall be entered accordingly.
So Judge Restani, Judge Barzilay, and Judge Eaton said Canada won. We're entitled to all the money back.
What is the debate around Bill C-24 right now? What is the debate around clause 13, where we tried to limit the punishment, the self-imposed punishment, this government is imposing on our softwood industry despite the ruling of October 13? What's at stake?
What is at stake is about $1 billion and thousands of softwood jobs. We've lost 4,000 already, and we apprehend further losses of jobs, because this agreement is not, as every witness throughout the summer has attested, commercially viable.
Companies were bludgeoned into accepting a deal. They expressed their opinion by having only 25% support for the EDC program. If that does not show a lack of confidence by the industry in this government, I don't know what does. I mean, 75% said no to EDC; 75% did not sign up for the EDC process. Why? Quite simply, they are getting 100% of their money back through customs and border protection. If you're getting 100% dollars, why would you go through this bad bill and get 67¢ back--with the double tax here, which we'll be talking about later, maybe this evening--through this process? The folks in the softwood industry have said no, and they've said no very clearly.
The smoke and mirrors from the government does not--
1 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Mr. Julian, thank you. Your time is more than up here.
Is there any other debate on clause 13?
We'll go to recorded division.
(Clause 13 agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)
(On clause 14--Export from Atlantic provinces)
1 p.m.
Liberal
Dominic LeBlanc Liberal Beauséjour, NB
On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could provide some recollection for you. I know it's been a long morning.
We're on clause 14 now. When we got there before, you stood the vote. You'll remember that amendment CPC-3 was passed as amended. We changed the “and” to an “or”. I withdrew amendment L-4. The parliamentary secretary withdrew amendment G-3. We're now directly on, I would think, “Should clause 14 carry?”
Is that correct?
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
1:05 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
This gets back to the complete lack of clarity as we ram through, clause by clause, hell-bent, no matter what the consequences are. We've just given up on independent lumber remanufacturers by giving up on tenure. We have given up on the traditional Canadian support of the definition of who are related or unrelated persons. Here in this particular clause, though we support very much the intent of the Maritime lumber exemption, it is very clear that the wording needs to be tightened.
We had a subamendment offered that would help to address to a certain extent the issue of what indeed constitutes effective wording for Maritime lumber exports. We have New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. The original wording was that you had to have primary processing in all four of those provinces in order to qualify under the Maritime exclusion. Very clearly, Mr. Chair, we're seeing a bill that needed to be changed, with problems that were very significant.
Though I'm happy we are addressing one small part of what is a pretty irresponsible piece of legislation, the reality is that the decisions we're making in all of these other clauses have the same kind of impact we're seeing in clause 14 and in clause 10.
Why would we endeavour to fix clause 10 and clause 14 and not endeavour to fix errors that are even greater in other parts?
When the Independent Lumber Remanufacturers Association ask to come before committee, they are refused; when they ask that tenure be considered on a B.C. basis, and not as defined in Ottawa, we refuse that; this committee just rams through essentially amendments that are appallingly irresponsible as far as the lumber remanufacturers are concerned.
We have here in clause 14 some improvements, some redress. But I cannot stress enough to members of this committee, Mr. Chair, that we as a committee have to realize that the errors that are in the maritime lumber exemption, which should have been an exclusion, are errors that are repeated elsewhere in this particular bill, and they're even worse in other sectors.
We address it part of the way by addressing the subamendment that was adopted earlier, but by no means do we address the entire issue of the mistakes, if you like, or errors in drafting that took place with Bill C-24. It was done far too rapidly. It needed to be addressed, as parliamentarians should be addressing—
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Mr. Julian, your time is up. Thank you very much.
We will now go to the recorded division on clause 14 as amended.
(Clause 14 as amended agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0; abstentions 1)
(On clause 15--Export from territories)
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
On clause 15, the government amendment proposed is inadmissible. The way we deal with this is just to vote against the clause. If you'd like to do that, it leads to the same end result.
We go to the vote now on clause 15.
Mr. Julian.
1:05 p.m.
NDP
1:05 p.m.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
This is again symptomatic, Mr. Chair, of how this bill has been approached generally. The government has thrown in an amendment that presumably they received advice on--I don't know; it's hard to say. The government apparatus has enormous resources, so one would expect they'd be able to get it right.
But we have clause 15 that originally was submitted to delete clause 15, and now we're having to vote on clause 15. I think it's emblematic or symptomatic, if you like, Mr. Chair, of how this has been conducted generally. So far today...and it's only 1:10; we've been debating the clause-by-clause essentially for only about nine hours. What we have done in those nine hours so far is zap the lumber remanufacturers and zap the historic definition of “arm's length”, which I think is something that should be the shame of all Canadians, Mr. Chair, that we're seeing this kind of irresponsible conduct.
Now we have a government deletion that is not in order, a kind of strange approach to clause 15. But it's important to note what's in clause 15. Subclause 15(1) says:
If a person exports a softwood lumber product from Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut, the amount of the charge with respect to that export is nil.
Subclause 15(2) says:
An exported softwood lumber product is deemed exported from Yukon, the Northwest Territories or Nunavut if the product underwent its first primary processing in one of those territories from softwood sawlogs originating in one of those territories.
That is the emphasis in clause 15. The government wants to delete that, yet the definition is there, so it doesn't make sense to try to delete clause 15.
What we actually want and what we should expect, Mr. Chair, is more clarity, not less. We should have greater attention to detail to ensure that the coalition doesn't have the ammunition that they've already gained so far today from the adoption, I'm sad to say, of amendments that are badly botched and actually create more problems than they resolve.
So we now have a government motion before us to delete in a very clear sense the territorial exemption. That is something I would oppose. Why would we delete the territorial exemption? Do we know for sure that what is covered in the amendments that have been proferred on the maritime exclusion--
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Mr. Julian, your time is up. Thank you.
Is there any other debate on clause 15?
We'll go to the recorded division on clause 15, unamended.