Mr. Speaker, I will share my time tonight with the member for Etobicoke North who is in the Chamber with us. I have listened with significant interest to the debate in the last few hours. I will change the tone of the debate and look at a bit of the history and background of the lumber industry, both in Canada and in my riding of Miramichi in New Brunswick.
In the 1780s the first Hubbard, George Hubbard, came to the Miramichi. He came to be involved in the masting industry. At the time they were providing masts and lumber for the British navy which was involved in a war in Europe with France.
For a number of years the Miramichi was famous for its pine masts. We were also involved later with selling lumber to the American states. The point is that in the 1780s my family came from the New England states and moved to the Miramichi to be involved in the lumber industry.
In the 19th century people from the Miramichi travelled all across North America and worked as lumberjacks in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and, later in the 20th century, in the woods of northern Ontario in places like Thunder Bay, the old Port Arthur and Fort William.
In moving across North America the names of the Miramichi can be found. I am not sure if they were involved with the famous lumberjack Paul Bunyan and his great blue ox Babe, but they certainly were involved in opening up the American west.
My people in the Miramichi have been historically involved in the lumber industry. In the 1870s my great-grandfather died in a lumber camp in northern Michigan, so we have a long history.
If we go back in that history we find that our connection with our American neighbours has involved sharing not only a common continent but a common industry. The industries of Canada included the fur trade which opened our nation to white settlers, farming and lumbering. Primary industries have always been very important to our country.
I was doing a bit of research today. I was reading a book by a former professor of mine, Stewart MacNutt, which reviews one of the famous treaties written in the 1850s, the reciprocity treaty of 1854.
In the context of that treaty it took about three or four years for the British colonial office and our local so-called colonies in North America to negotiate trade with the Americans in lumber, fish and other products.
It is interesting to note the similarity to the problems we have today with our American friends who are trying to make us pay heavy duties. In 1853-54 two states held up the treaty for a significant period of time. The treaty dealt with coal from Nova Scotia, something the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania felt should not enter into the United States duty free.
There is a long history of our relationships with Americans. Of course we are concerned today. I hear members from British Columbia being critical of what our government is doing.
The forests today, as members know, are shared by federal and provincial trade regulation. When Americans look at our forestry practices they spend a lot of time looking at the forestry practices of British Columbia which apparently supplies about 60% of the lumber that goes to the American states.
Last summer in a place called Blue River, British Columbia, I met with an American group of senators and members of the house of representatives. We discussed the issue of lumber and what they call forestry practices and stumpage.
They were from lowland states where lumber is cut by people who walk on level land. As we looked up into the hills of British Columbia I asked them what stumpage would be worth in British Columbia if they had to go up the side of a hill with a power saw or a machine to bring the lumber out. They then realized that the stumpage business was different in different areas.
British Columbia has a definite responsibility to look at the stumpage practices the previous provincial government placed on the industry. It was concerned about jobs and was able to modify its stumpage to make sure the jobs continued.
Tonight we are talking about tariffs and trade but the real people we need to talk about are those who work in the forests and sawmills. There has been a tremendous change in our forestry practices.
About a year ago the Senate wrote a report on forestry. For that study the senators not only visited Canadian forest centres but went to the United States and travelled throughout Europe. One senator said to me recently that in the forest industry, and the Canadian forestry industry in particular, the tremendous mechanization which has occurred has meant that one forestry worker today does the same amount of production that 20 to 25 people did 20 years ago.
Although we want to mention the importance of jobs, sometimes in the House we fail to recognize these tremendous changes and the displacement of workers that has occurred in the forest industry in the last generation.
There are machines today which can cut 100 cords of wood in an eight hour period. They have put a great number of people out of work in my province, in Ontario and across the country. Mechanization has changed the whole principle of how our mills operate. With new techniques such as the use of laser beams to make cuts, the production of lumber is being done with an ever smaller workforce. As a country we must somehow make up for the loss of jobs in the industry.
All of us are perplexed with the way the Americans have treated us in terms of trade. What is most perplexing to me is that the Americans seem to want to centre on a specific product. Last year as chairman of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food I was perplexed by the attitude the Americans had toward people in Prince Edward Island and their potatoes.
We hear that mussels today in Prince Edward Island are being looked at. We hear about the tomatoes that are produced in the greenhouses of the country. As a House and as a government we must deal more effectively with Americans and get better attitudes from them in terms of trade practices.
I was in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1992 when the then president of the United States was there visiting. It is unfortunate that the current president perhaps does not have such a good attitude toward us in this part of the northern hemisphere. His study and his stay in Texas probably mean that he does not pay enough attention to his northern neighbours.
I hope that in our relationship on the governmental level our Prime Minister can impress on the president and the American people that it is they who are suffering as a result of these trade embargoes and duties, and that as householders and builders it is they who are paying the extra costs.
I know the people using our lumber want Canadian lumber products. They are some of the best in North America. I hope they will get them.