Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak on Bill C-57.
I want to make a comment in response to the Liberal member for Vancouver Quadra. He made some comments with respect to the bill. He indicated that some of the amendments before the House would actually force the minister to stand up for Canadians. The member is opposed to that. He wants the bill and these types of laws implemented on an international basis so that ministers of our government and our people will not stand up for Canadians whether it be in supply management, the steel production area or any other manufacturing sector.
I want the House of Commons and the people of Canada to understand that the Liberal member from Quadra who represents the Liberal government in the debate does not want to restrict the minister to making any commitments or standing up and fighting for Canadians across the country when it has to happen. I find that very shameful.
I want to make some remarks with respect to the bill on behalf of steel producers of Canada. A steel producer in my constituency, IPSCO, is one of the larger producers or manufacturers of pipe and steel in North America. It actually has some operations in the United States as well, as do many Canadian steel producers. This industry is quite concerned about Bill C-57 as it is presented before the House today because there are no equal legislative footings in the act which would support it in cases respecting anti-dumping.
For example, in the United States there is detailed drafting of legislation and a law in effect which support American anti-dumping processes. Bill C-57 does not provide an equitable amount of protection for Canadian steel producers. The technical wording of Bill C-57 as it applies to anti-dumping should be revised in the view of the Canadian steel producers to mirror as strictly as possible U.S. implementing legislation.
The steel industry in Canada is quite important to the Canadian economy. In 1993 there were $8.6 billion in sales. It is a fully competitive operation, having dramatically raised productivity in Canada over the number of years it has been in existence. We have over $3 billion in exports from Canada mostly to the United States. The Canadian Steel Producers Association employs 33,000 employees, not counting all those who work in downstream operations such as distribution, fabrication and wire production.
Trade is increasingly important to the Canadian Steel Producers Association and in particular to our country. Trade in all goods and services increases economic growth which on its own is good for the steel industry. Trade in steel is becoming increasingly important to Canadian steel producers. It is reflected in the sense that they are concerned about some of the NAFTA and some of the American legislation which is protectionist. They have undertaken to initiate businesses in the United States to get around some of this, thereby costing Canadians jobs in the end. The volume of steel shipped from Canada for export has risen from 30 per cent in 1983 to nearly 40 per cent in the last year.
With respect to Bill C-57 I would like to talk about the sort of proposals the government might consider implementing to ensure that steel producers are not at a disadvantage with respect to American producers. There have been anti-dumping actions between Canada and the United States over the past two years. They have been involved with 11 different anti-dumping cases, 9 of which involved trade between Canada and the United States.
We believe such actions have no place in the free trade area. It would be to our mutual advantage to stop anti-dumping actions between our two countries. A NAFTA working group has been established to look at alternatives to the present anti-dumping regime in North America and has a deadline of December 1995. We want this effort to succeed so that steel can be traded within NAFTA on a basis of price, quality and service, not lawsuits.
So far lawsuits still play an important role. There is a major imbalance between the way American and Canadian anti-dumping processes work. This puts Canadian firms at a disadvantage. It weakens the bargaining leverage of the Canadian government in negotiating change. Bill C-57 does not address this particular issue. That is what I am calling upon the government to do today.
For example, data requirements under the U.S. system are so onerous as to be a barrier in trade to themselves regardless of the outcome of a case. If dumping is found, the Canadian system allows the company either to adjust prices to eliminate any unfair trade practice or pay a known duty. The American system does not allow an exporter to simply adjust his price. He has to pay the duty deposit. Moreover, the exact amount of the duty is unknown until months or years after the sale has been made. The Canadian exporter thus faces uncertainty and financial risk by continuing to export. Anti-dumping actions between Canada and the U.S. should be stopped, but as long as they continue Canada should do nothing to diminish its leverage to negotiate change.
Unlike the American implementation of legislation the Canadian bill provides no guidelines on what would be acceptable evidence. Without guidelines it would be very difficult for a Canadian company to know how to demonstrate foreseen and imminent threat of injury. American companies will have an easier task under their legislation, even though the same principle of the WTO is being implemented.
The U.S. implementing legislation also provides that if dumping diminishes in reaction to the filing of a complaint, the International Trade Commission may discount evidence after the filing in its assessment of injury. This makes it easier for an injury charge to stick. There is no comparable provision in Bill C-57. Again the legislative support for Canadian producers will be weaker than that for American producers.
We have the member for Vancouver Quadra saying: "We don't want the minister to be in charge of providing some support for Canadian producers; we want the American and the international fields to be speaking for our producers". We all know they will not be supporting or speaking for our steel producers.
With the U.S. legislation spelling out in detail options for interpretation for its responsible agency, it will be easier for American companies to get injury findings and for those findings to be defended in any process of review and appeal. There is also a concern in the steel production area with respect to assessing the threat of injury at the time of sunset review, which is after five years.
Bill C-57 does not say anything about how the threat of injury should be interpreted at the time of review of an anti-dumping action, but the American implementing legislation does. It states that the International Trade Commission, in determining whether the threat of injury meets the WTO criteria of clearly foreseen and imminent, may consider that the effects of revocation or termination may not be imminent but may manifest themselves over a longer period of time. And it may consider indirect effects including whether the imports would potentially inhibit a domestic producer from developing improved versions of the product.
In short, if we compare the wording of the U.S. and Canadian legislation to implement the sunset requirement of the WTO, it will clearly be much easier for American than for Canadian companies to prove the need for a continuation of anti-dumping action. It will also be easier for such a finding to be defended on appeal because of the latitude of interpretation spelled out in the American legislation.
There are other things that are quite important to the industry. I want to summarize by saying that the detailed drafting of the legislation should not be allowed to widen the gap between Canadian and American anti-dumping processes which already puts Canadian companies at a disadvantage with respect to their primary market and weakens the leverage of the Canadian government negotiating alternatives to anti-dumping under NAFTA.
The technical wording of Bill C-57 as it applies to anti-dumping should be revised to mirror as strictly as possible the implementing legislation of the United States. That is what we in the New Democratic Party caucus are calling for. That is what the steel producers of Canada and their association are calling upon the government to implement. We are asking that it happen by supporting the motions we have put before the House.