Mr. Speaker, I take exception to some of the comments that were made on flow-through costs. Part of the difficulty is that truckers cannot pass their costs on because of long term contracts.
The issue is like a nutcracker. High fuel costs are part of it. The other side of the nutcracker is that truckers and the people of Canada are caught in low economic conditions like in British Columbia where logging trucks are facing markets that are non-existent. I talked to a mill lumber manufacturer who said that he was trying to do business where there were no markets for his product. The difficulty is the federal government is responsible for softwood quota agreements that have deprived the industry of the profits it needs to pay the high taxes demanded by the government.
How can truckers pass the costs on through long term contracts which do not allow for this pass through? What recognition has the government taken of the difficulties it has placed on industry through faulty international trade agreements like the softwood quota agreement?