Mr. Speaker, I am happy to participate in the debate on Bill C-35 at report stage. This has to do with Canada's Special Import Measures Act and the legislation that would represent. Essentially it is countervail and dumping duties.
In a perfect world I do not think we would require either of these, but as we know it is never quite perfect. I think we simply have to keep this kind of legislation at our disposal if we need it.
With the advent of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and then the expansion into NAFTA many integrated industries have developed. The auto pact was one that developed prior to the free trade agreement but there are others now. The steel industry has become quite an integrated industry in North America. I am thinking of the cattle industry where there are two way flows of product.
In many of our industries there really is no dumping in the true sense. There is movement across the Canada-U.S. border every day with trucks bringing in products. But there are other countries that dump into Canada. In some cases it is shiploads of steel and other types of products.
I think we want to keep this legislation at our disposal. There has been an important development in recognition of a public interest component in Bill C-35 to be discussed today as well. I welcome that.
I think we have to look at public interest especially where Canadian industry sometimes is in a shortage situation for a period of time when Canadian suppliers cannot supply products and Canadian importers need to purchase on a short term basis in order to fill their needs.
In the public interest section as well I think we have to look at where Canadian producers are inefficient and do not supply much of the market. Perhaps dumping is not such a big problem because the Canadian public consumer can benefit a great deal.
In particular I want to deal with Motion No. 1 which we are discussing today. If a Canadian industry or company decides it is being harmed by a dumping action, the process starts by filing a complaint. If it can document and prove its case there is a process that kicks into gear to determine whether there is injury as a result of that and whether there need to be duties applied to stop that dumping process. At the end of that process the public interest hearings could kick in if there is a requirement for that.
But the case being made today is that only the complainant should provide the documentation material and the appropriate government department would consider whether it is adequate documentation. No third party should be able to interfere in that process. The Reform Party agrees with the motion being proposed by the Bloc to correct this.