Mr. Speaker, it is with disappointment that I rise once again for an emergency debate on softwood lumber. The news that an additional 12.6% has been added to the already existing tax of 19.3% imposed in August of this year is bad news to the people in my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke. Canadian softwood lumber producers find a total of 31.9% slapped on in punitive duties.
What does this mean for the people of my riding and for many other people across rural Ontario? First, jobs are hard to come by in rural Ontario and the jobs we have are becoming increasingly harder to keep. It is not like my colleagues in big cities such as Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener, Guelph and so on whose constituents have options and cash to tide them over. When my constituents do not work, the impact is manifold. When we draw those dollars out of a small community there is less to go around for everyone.
It is a case of the job multiplier in reverse. For every two jobs the federal government eliminates in eastern Ontario in the forestry industry, an additional job is lost for the people who supply and service the forestry business.
People in rural Ontario are frugal, proud and self-sufficient. Members from urban ridings are surprised to learn that people from rural ridings like Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke supplement their winter diet with game meat. They can see why we hate the Liberal gun law so much. The Liberal government is literally taking food out of the mouths of rural Canadians.
Renfrew county is the only county in Ontario that allows Sunday hunting in a majority of its small rural communities. This was done at the urging of the big lumber mill owners. In days gone by the wages paid by the mill owners barely allowed a man who worked in a mill the money to feed his family.
The man worked long and hard six days a week. The Sabbath which was supposed to be a day of rest was the only day available for the breadwinner of the family to go out and hunt game to put food on the family table. The tradition of being able to hunt on Sunday continues to this day, except the Liberal government has taken the job away in the forest and the ability to put meat on the table.
Ontario's softwood lumber producers, already furious over the existing 19.3% duty imposed by the U.S. department of commerce, are further angered by the additional U.S. duty of 12.6%. The U.S. commerce department has specifically targeted six companies, four based in British Columbia and two based in Quebec, alleging that they are dumping products into the U.S. market at below cost prices.
Those companies that have been identified will be required to post bonds of between 6% and 19.2%, while all other Canadian softwood lumber exporters, including Ontario producers that have not been targeted in this dumping of products, will be subject to a standard of those six charges which will average to about 12.6%. The Ontario softwood lumber producer will pay about 31.9% in duties with these new charges.
We have followed this route before in 1982, 1991 and 1996. A trade action was brought forward in 1982 and there was full adjudication. Canadian provinces were found not to be subsidizing. Ontario does not subsidize the lumber industry.
Through the sound forestry management practices introduced by Frank Cochrane, who was a provincial Conservative cabinet minister from eastern Ontario, and continued by the current provincial government, we have maintained government ownership of the majority of Ontario's forests and have made sure that the highest environmental standards are respected, harvested yield is sustainable and our forests are usable for the enjoyment of all citizens.
When I last spoke to this issue the first round of layoffs had just occurred among the lumber producers in my riding. This new duty will have the effect of catching those employers that may not have been initially affected but will now be affected as a consequence of additional duties or being in a spinoff industry or service trade.
For example I have Temple Pembroke MDF in my riding. This plant produces high quality softwood and medium density fibreboard. This product is used in furniture, mouldings and millwork. It can be used in kitchen cabinet doors, decorative baseboards and trim, and MDF laminated flooring because the panels can be machined into shapes,.
What is significant about this plant is that it brings an environmentally attractive solution for local softwood lumber mills. The MDF product is made with pine sawdust, shavings and chips. This mill waste was landfilled or burned in the past. This plant when fully operational consumes 480 tonnes of these raw materials every day and it uses 1,300 tonnes of bark residue daily as fuel to produce energy for board production and building heat.
With a current workforce of 119 employees and a local payroll of about $8.5 million, Temple Pembroke MDF is a significant local employer. Through local spinoffs it injects more than $50 million annually into the local economy. Access to product is paramount to keeping this plant running and keeping people employed.
The employees at this plant are already feeling the effect of the coming recession because there has been a cut in the number of running days at the plant. No product, and this plant shuts down which impacts on the jobs in the plant. There is also an impact on the small mills and the truckers who bring the product to the plant. We can see why the people in my riding of Renfrew--Nipissing--Pembroke are so concerned whenever softwood lumber is mentioned.
When we see the state of the art operation of this plant and the money Canadian mill owners have put into their operations, we see why the Americans are afraid to compete.
One of the side effects of the softwood tariff that was put into place in 1996 was the effort by our mill owners to modernize their equipment to low their costs and remain competitive. At the same time American producers, protected behind a tariff wall, had no need to increase their productivity, further widening the gap between our efficient softwood lumber producers and their inefficient American counterparts. This is a common occurrence when industry uses politics to shore up shortcomings in its business practices rather than in the marketplace.
We have heard the daily denials from the Prime Minister and his junior ministers that there is no relationship between Canada's response to the war on terrorism and the fact that the trade dispute regarding softwood lumber grows worse. The Liberal government would have Canadians believe it is a mere coincidence that a similar lumber dispute with Indonesia was quickly settled once that country firmly established where it stood in the war against terrorism.
Noted military historian Gwynne Dyer said recently in a speech in Pembroke that the price of free trade has been a loss of Canadian sovereignty.
The government has consistently taken the trading relationship we have with our largest trading partner for granted since 1993. If we were talking about cars or steel, the government would have settled long ago.
The Prime Minister is being entirely unhelpful to the cause when he suggests that somehow we have leverage in the sale of our other natural resources and that we could withhold things Americans need to get our way with the softwood lumber dispute.
I say to the Prime Minister that he should not make threats unless he is prepared to carry them out and he should not wish for something too much because he just might get what he wished for.
It has been the practice of the government to take our entire lumber industry for granted as part of its neglect rural Canada policy. Nowhere is that more evident than in the shortsighted decision to shut down the Petawawa National Forestry Institution, PNFI.
Since its establishment in 1918 the institute made substantial and recognized contributions to forestry research and development until its closure in 1997. The research forest at Petawawa had a variety of projects that included forest ecology, growth and yield, silviculture, forest genetics, remote sensing and forest fire ecology. There were over 1,000 annual visits by students, dignitaries and forestry colleagues from all over Canada, North America and the world who came to witness firsthand the work being done at PNFI.
Why did the Liberal government close PNFI? Was it because PNFI could not find enough high powered friends in government like the former president of Canada Steamship Lines, now the finance minister? Was it the same neglect of our softwood lumber industry at work in 1997 that created the crisis today?
This is a trade disaster that could have been avoided. Anyone who was paying the slightest attention to the softwood lumber trade relationship with the United States knew that when the current agreement was set to expire the American industry would push for countervailing duties. However the crisis and the lack of leadership rest with the government.