It is entirely possible that is what this is about. I certainly cannot think of any other reason for it.
The sole speaker, I think it was, on this debate from the Conservative Party raised the issue of dumping. It was an interesting point. That is what the government is claiming. In essence that is what it is claiming the American companies are doing, that they are dumping product.
We do not need legislation for that. We already have it. If that is what it thinks is occurring it should follow the rules that are already in place. If it is not really dumping then it cannot very well follow those rules. There goes another excuse for the Liberal Party.
The Liberals talk in terms of what the Americans are doing in Canada, that they are running Canadian ads in their magazines. Did it ever occur to them that Canadians want to be able to run those ads? That is how they sell to their market. Have they ever thought of the impact on Canadian producers? God forbid, they have enough trouble nowadays with Liberal taxation policies. Now they cannot even advertise their overpriced products, overpriced because they have had to pay so much in taxes and wages trying to keep their employees above the starvation level as the Minister of Finance takes their paycheque away from them. Now they want to take away their ability to advertise in the magazines and publications of their choice. It is absolutely crazy.
Let us look at some of the other potential impacts of the bill. If one walks up to somebody and punches him in the nose he tends to try to defend himself. If the little giant walks up and tries to do something to the United States, guess what it will do? It will defend itself. It will say that we are being unfair to its companies. There are rules in place. If the government thinks they are dumping it should follow them. If it does not have the temerity to follow that route then it is wrong and retaliations start.
What kinds of things will the Americans retaliate on? We have talked about how it might be dumping. The government thinks this is dumping and it needs this action.
In the western part of my riding in the Okanagan Valley lot of orchardists, particularly those growing apples, are going bankrupt. One of the problems they have is real dumping by the American market into the Canadian market. American orchard farmers, apple farmers, have a completely different set of policies to follow and different levels of subsidization so they dump into Canada.
Is the government concerned about that? No. They are little apple orchardists who do not contribute enough to the Liberal Party to merit concern about that kind of dumping. However, a couple of big publications might affect the Liberal coffers so it had better do something. It creates a bogeyman and goes out to save them even though nobody else thinks they are in danger in the first place. It is interesting.
In the softwood lumber industry it has been suggested the Americans may look for some form of retaliation. I come from a forest reliant riding. That is our major employer. We had agreements with the United States and it tried doing the very thing the Canadian government is now talking of doing in the case of this magazine situation. What did we do? We just acquiesced. Maybe that is why they thought the Americans would do that in this case, but they did not acquiesce. They came out with an insane softwood lumber quota system and the government said “Hot damn, where do we sign?”
All kinds of people in my riding have had problems. I have talked to people in the softwood lumber industry about how this started and how they tracked it. When this started they admitted they had no idea of how it was going to work but they just had to do it.
My riding has been hurt by the softwood lumber quota. As if it were not bad enough the way it started, they said here is the quota and here is how it will work. A lot of people were really opposed to it. Some said the government is too weak-kneed to support them in any other way. At least if they got a little stability, even though they would be cut way back, they would know what they could count on.
Every year for the last three years a lot of the big lumber producers in my riding have been cut back further on the softwood lumber quota. They are hanging by their fingernails right now on the verge of shutting down. They are very close to it. We are waiting to see what happens with the quotas coming out in the spring. If there is another cut, it will wreak havoc on the west.
Of course the Liberal Party does not care. That is Reform country so why should it do anything for western companies. Then it has a western tour to try to determine why it does not get any support in the west. We do not have to look very far for the reasons for that.
If there is any threat of retaliation against western lumber producers, it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back and puts them under—