International Trade Committee on Jan. 30th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

The motion is to table your motion until we have heard from the finance committee, who dealt with this yesterday. That's what the debate has been about for the last 15 minutes.

I think there may have been some confusion there. We'll continue with the vote.

(Motion negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We are now resuming debate on Monsieur Cardin's motion, and Mr. Dhaliwal has the floor.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to make a friendly amendment to this motion to delete the word “recommendations” and insert “decisions”.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Monsieur Cardin, we have a request for a friendly amendment so we don't have to go through a vote, if you would simply change the word “recommendations” in the English version, on the fifth line, to “decisions”. On the sixth line, in French, recommandations is changed to décisions.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Yes, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We have an agreement on a friendly amendment. The motion would now include trade measures where they systematically implement the “decisions” of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. That's what we're dealing with.

The debate resumes on the amended motion. Is there any further debate on the motion?

Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know if the analyst, or anybody, can clarify this, but by making this motion it's my understanding it will systematically implement the decisions of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal. The unelected trade tribunal would be making decisions. That takes away from the elected officials. The government wouldn't have an ability to make a decision. Our flexibility would be taken away because the tribunal would be making that decision. We'd have no flexibility, as a government, whoever the government is.

That's my understanding. Would anybody be able to answer that? I would like the opposition to realize the amendment is that we're taking away the flexibility of the government to be able to decide on a case-by-case basis and allowing the balance between, as I mentioned before, industry and consumers. We're allowing this unelected tribunal to take away any decision of the elected officials.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Cannan.

Mr. Pallister.

[Brian Pallister, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Again, for us as a committee to adopt recommendations that would go to the House and be reported to the House that dramatically change the nature of how we do our trade policy as a country and how we have done it under successive governments is ill-considered.

For example, on the issue my colleague just spoke of, in respect of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and safeguards, these are complex areas that require latitude in terms of decision-making. For us to come out with a recommendation as a trade committee suggesting that every size is the same and one size fits all, in dealing with trade issues as complex as these, is demeaning to our committee and to the respect we deserve to have as a committee.

Secondly, on the issue of bringing Canada's trade laws in line with those of the United States and the European Union, which I am interested in, with all the attempts that are made on a regular basis to link the government with George Bush's Republican demons, that we would now be seeing a recommendation coming that proposes we should adopt the policies of the United States government when it comes to the issues of anti-dumping.... These as well are more restrictive than our own policies in some ways and in fact are a rather significant proposal to be attempting to deal with in a two-hour session of our committee.

Finally, on the issue of carrying out open and thorough studies, again, we have determined what our priorities are as a committee. We are in the midst of studying a very important issue, which we can do, I hope, with some significant outcomes in a cooperative way, and which I hope will carry some weight. But it always concerns me when I see resolutions such as this that attempt to do everything in a few short sentences out of an expressed desire for compassion and to demonstrate compassion, which when one considers the detail of them would not achieve those compassionate goals that are supposed to be linked to this motion.

I would suggest to my colleagues that were this a genuine crisis that they are describing.... The NDP member consistently refers to statistics, which I would invite him to table at this committee, about job loss. Of course failing to mention that Quebec unemployment is at a 30-year low, he fails to pay respect to the workers of Quebec and of other parts of the country who have shown the ability to find work and who pursue other opportunities on a regular basis and have done so for a long time. He shows disrespect for them when he attempts to inflate the concerns that he has at their expense. These are Canadians, who like Canadians across the country have been able to find employment in record numbers and are doing it.

If the members wish to deal with this issue in a meaningful way, there are a number of other avenues for them to do so. They could propose an opposition day. They have. The government has given the opportunity for opposition parties to have opposition days, seven in the next six weeks, if I'm not mistaken, and there would be a great opportunity to fully debate this issue in an intelligent way at that point. Also, they could propose an emergency debate as well, and there are other avenues available to them through private members' work and so on.

Here we are being asked to essentially approve a motion that addresses several areas of very complex trade policy without background documents, without hearing witnesses. And I'm surprised again at the NDP member's readiness to rubber-stamp a resolution such as this without hearing from people who would be profoundly affected by this resolution. There are people across this country who have strong views on this, and I'm sure the committee would like to hear from them before it tacitly gives approval to a resolution that proposes to make such dramatic changes in trade policy. This is surprising and I think disrespectful of those who would be affected by such a resolution were it adopted by the government.

So again, if we want to be taken seriously as a committee, we have to do our work, and to do our work effectively we have to work in cooperation with our colleagues in other committees, and we have to have the background on this and the technical answers to the questions that some of my colleagues have already asked on some aspects of this before we should be considering giving approval to such a resolution.

The debate about the amount of aid is fine. I have no trouble with the first provision of the resolution, which suggests somehow that the government's level of aid or support is inadequate. I believe that's the intention of the wording, anyway. I have no trouble with the member bringing the suggestion forward that we should be more generous in our aid programs. I think that's fine; I think that's a debate we could have.

But these other provisions that are in the resolution here today are, as I've said, highly complex and profoundly require us to consider the impact they will have on other Canadians and on the Canadian industrial manufacturing sector—and others, because they do not stop exclusively at the impact they would have on those sectors. Rather, they would impact significantly, if adopted, upon many other sectors of the economy as well.

In attempting to show a concern—a genuine concern, I have no doubt—for the people of this country impacted by changes in manufacturing employment and in the forestry sector in particular, I think the member has in this resolution shown a bit of disrespect for the very issue he wants to raise; he is asking us to give approval to so many different provisions in this resolution that go so far beyond what his stated desire has been in his preamble to this particular motion. His stated desire was to give voice to the concerns he has about the employment “crisis”, as he calls it, in these sectors. It's quite within his rights to do that.

I would propose an amendment that deletes every word in this resolution after the word “sectors” in the third line of the English version.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Pallister.

We have another motion proposed by way of amendment to the report; that is, that we delete those words occurring after “sector” in the second-last line....

Oh, he wants to end at that “sector”.

Just so we're clear on the amendment, the amendment would delete all words following the word “sectors” in the fourth line of the English version. If this amendment is passed, the motion would read en anglais:

Given the seriousness of the crisis rocking the forestry and manufacturing sectors, that the committee recommend that the government introduce as soon as possible an improved aid package for the forestry and manufacturing sectors.

The motion is to delete everything after that.

Is there debate?

Mr. Julian.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Chair, my colleague, Mr. Scissorhands, has never seen a motion he hasn't wanted to cut into pieces. He's cutting out the most essential parts of this motion. I simply don't buy the arguments that he's using to raise this. He is essentially saying that after Mr. Cardin gave us basically about a week's notice to look into this.... We were all supposed to do our homework. We may have had some questions, as Mr. Maloney did, following that. It's normal to bring those to committee. But we all had the opportunity to look into this and to ask questions of Mr. Cardin. So to cut out all those essential trade measures makes absolutely no sense. It's gutting the motion.

I have to say, I'm pretty appalled, Mr. Chair. What we have is a Conservative government that last year put in place, on October 12, the softwood sellout. The softwood industry basically blew up, exploded after that; 10,000 jobs were lost as a direct result of imposing those punitive tariffs at the border. The government was well aware of the consequences of that, even though we had won. We had won in the U.S. Court of International Trade, so we had passed that final step. What the government had was four aces, and they folded, and gave away all of the money, a billion bucks, and 10,000 jobs.

So now we have Mr. Cardin bringing a motion forward to address that, and we have my colleague, Mr. Scissorhands—Mr. Pallister—saying about the people who are unemployed, the 200 families losing a breadwinner every day, that it's somehow their fault they're unemployed, that somehow Mr. Cardin is showing disrespect by identifying this problem and wanting to take action.

If I were a partisan person, Mr. Chair, I would be taking those blues and going through the Conservative comments. There are lots of juicy little quotes that in British Columbia would turn people absolutely ballistic that the government would say such things—that this motion is a waste of time, that it's the people's own fault that they're unemployed—when it is the government that put the softwood sellout into effect.

So, no, I'm certainly not voting for this amendment. I think it's silly. It certainly wastes some time of the committee, and it cuts out some of the most essential parts of the recommendations, including the fact that this committee is recommending these measures to the House, so in Parliament we can have this debate, where it should be held.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Julian.

Is there further debate on the proposed amendment?

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I'm obviously going to be supporting this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Excuse me just a moment.

I asked if there was further debate.

Do you wish further debate on the amendment, Monsieur Cardin?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

I want to debate it. My friend may want to call the vote. In any event, I am ready, Mr. Chair.

I would like to give Mr. Pallister high marks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We're asking for debate. Do you wish to debate the amendment?

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Yes, that will allow me to reply to Mr. Pallister, who moved the amendment.

I want to congratulate Mr. Pallister for one thing, that being his eloquence. He has succeeded in persuading us that there are industries that could be harmed. I assume he was referring to the fishing industry, given all the red herrings he has thrown out. He talked about opposition days, but he left without giving us the calendar. Are there going to be any? There are none scheduled by the government at this point, and I don't think it is going to be anytime soon.

I think that this is really an attempt to avoid debate about the forestry and manufacturing industries. If the government doesn't want to hold opposition days, my colleagues in the opposition, and even some in the government, would probably be prepared to pass my motion, including the corrections made by my Liberal colleagues.

Obviously I am going to vote against this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Kevin Costner, move over; Peter Julian is on his way. You missed your calling, Mr. Julian.

Mr. Chair, I'm obviously going to be supporting this amendment. I think that Mr. Pallister and members of the committee here from the government side are trying to be non-partisan and make this work. I know those are strange words to Mr. Julian and some of the opposition members.

It still speaks to the main part of Mr. Cardin's motion, and what have you. Obviously the last part of his motion deals with things that other committees are.... I think they call that, in plain English or plain French, duplication. I'm not sure what the word is in French. Quite often governments are criticized for duplication. I wasn't aware when I came here today that this was before another committee, and maybe more. I think that to continue that type of stuff is simply that. We should wait 24 or 48 hours and hear what possibly comes out of that.

I'm opposed to this. I think this is a compromise. I'll certainly be expecting opposition support for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Is there any further debate on the motion?

Monsieur André.

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

I believe, as has already been said, that the government doesn't want to do anything on this issue, because if we agree to Mr. Pallister's amendment, we are eliminating the entire aspect of international trade, and that is the reason why we are here. This is quite simply a motion that should be presented to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. The international aspect is important when we are talking about competition in the manufacturing sector and the resulting job losses. I cannot vote for your amendment, Mr. Pallister. I want to deal with the international trade issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Maloney]

Is there any further discussion on Mr. Pallister's amendment?

Mr. Cannan.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to elaborate on a couple more points. First of all, I fully support the spirit intended in this amended motion from the fact that forestry is a significant economic generator for British Columbia, as members around the table know who are from B.C. and of course from those communities across the country.

There are a couple of other extenuating circumstances that are beyond government's control, specifically in British Columbia. We're supposed to lose about 78%--this was the figure I heard yesterday from Premier Campbell--of our pine forest due to the pine beetle. That's obviously created all kinds of havoc for the industry. As we mentioned around the table, the high dollar has been a triple whammy. The hat trick portion is the housing market going down about 25% in the U.S. Those are circumstances that are extenuating, and obviously the softwood lumber agreement has mitigated the damage to some of our Canadian forest industries.

There's been a lot of retooling. People are re-equipping. I've had the chance to visit some of the mills, and those that have re-equipped and re-invested and found markets that are going to help them stay competitive and sustainable into the future....

I really support the fact that we need to be cognizant of the downturn of the forestry and also the manufacturing. I've got the largest private boat manufacturer in Canada. Campion produces about 1,000 boats. I've toured their facility and am working with that industry as well because it's been affected by the increased dollar.

I'm fully supportive of doing all we can as a government to help during these difficult times, and as alluded to, we have sectors of the economy that are very bullish. One of the big challenges in my riding is that other employers don't have enough people. So we have a shortage of skilled labour. There is work available with certain industries, and there are definitely certain pockets of the economy that are being challenged.

I think that by supporting this motion we can work together as all elected officials to see that our men and women out there throughout the country will have food on their table and are not going to be laid off and lose jobs. We do have some challenges ahead, but we do have great opportunities, so I support the motion.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, John Maloney]

Is there further comment?

Mr. Cardin.

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

I call the vote on Mr. Pallister's amendment.