Mr. Speaker, this is the second emergency debate we have had on this issue in just over a month. The duties imposed by the U.S. commerce department now total roughly 32%. I do not know what it will take to get people in the government to listen. We just cannot keep having more and more emergency debates without any action.
This is the fourth round of trade litigation on this file since 1982. Fifteen of the past eighteen years have seen the lumber market disrupted by threats of countervailing duty. Canada defeated countervailing and anti-dumping allegations in 1982 and again in 1991. I have no doubt that we will prevail again.
The issue is that the litigation process can take years and these families will be facing bankruptcy and personal losses because people are losing their jobs. Again, there will be hardships on families and the destruction of relationships. We cannot even measure that toll.
There is plenty at stake. An estimated one out of 16 Canadians work in the forest sector. Of 337 communities in Canada, more than 50% of the people in those communities depend on the forestry industry for survival. More than 384,000 Canadians are directly employed in logging, wood industries and paper. The death of our lumber industry will create ghost towns across the country. With the stakes so high, where do we go?
Although there is no question we are morally and legally right, it is never easy to face the economic might of America. We must act in concert. We must think in long term. We must make use of our allies in the United States. We must present our position from the highest level, and I want to emphasize that.
In question period today the Prime Minister talked about being engaged on this file. The Minister for International Trade said the government was doing everything it could, that the Prime Minister was engaged on it and that more people were involved. I want to emphasize that it is not working.
In the 18 year history, have we had 32% tariffs? Have we had 20,000 people out of work and going up to 50,000 people? Have we had people declaring bankruptcy? Have we had families being torn apart? No. It is not working.
If members would come to my province of British Columbia, they would see the human toll that this has caused. There is no other trade issue right now facing this country. The Prime Minister has to make this his number one priority.
We had a quota of 14.7 billion board feet in the past. In the past we were restricted on the softwood lumber agreement. What I am suggesting right now is that another bad deal like we had in the softwood lumber agreement is worse than no deal at all. The facts speak for themselves.
The provinces were covered under the softwood lumber agreement in the past, from 1995 to 1999. Their market share fell by 14.5%. The market share of regions which were not covered in the softwood lumber agreement rose by 130%. Third countries increased their market share by 106%. What happened? Canadians lost with the bad deal which was as a result of the Liberal government.
During the five years of the softwood lumber agreement, what was it supposed to do? It was supposed to give the government an opportunity to find a long lasting solution. Government members sat on their hands. By their own admission, they did nothing. They said that we had to wait until the agreement expired before they could challenge it, instead of being united, having one voice taking the message to Washington, at the very highest level, and letting the Americans know that this action was not acceptable.
We have many allies in the United States. More Americans support free trade than support the protectionist, bullying tactics of the U.S. lumber industry.
In fact American consumers of forest products and lumber dependent industries in the United States outnumber lumber producing industries by a factor of 18 to 1. Lumber tariffs hurt American housing starts and slow its economy. Ultimately the attempts by the lumber lobby to close access to American markets hurt more Americans than it helps.
On August 14 an editorial in the Wall Street Journal stated:
Let's hope the Bush Administration recognizes this irony and abandons its unsophisticated South Park strategy of blaming our friends to the north for our own lack of competitiveness.
One U.S. consumer group referred to the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports as “one of the biggest multi-million dollar bullies on the international trade playground, and it's about time everybody stopped tripping over themselves to appease them”.
To date 100 members of the United States congress have asked President Bush to protect the interests of consumers and workers from potentially onerous import duties seeking to limit the amount of lumber imported from Canada.
We do have friends in the United States. Unfortunately they have been speaking louder than our own government. Some of the lobby groups in the United States have been doing a better job fighting for the Canadian forestry workers than our own Prime Minister. This is not acceptable. It has to change.
Of course the Prime Minister will say the government has been doing everything. I say look at the facts. Look at the job losses. Look at the duties that are being paid in the country today. Nine million dollars a day is what is being paid in unfair lumber duties because of the ineffective ability of the government.
It gets worse. There is the Byrd amendment. It is a piece of U.S. legislation wherein the money that is collected by the U.S. government from Canadian forest companies, at the rate of 32%, is passed on to the U.S. lumber industry that filed the complaint against Canada. I questioned the parliamentary secretary on that specific fact in the House on October 4. Of course he stood up in the House and advised that the Bush administration had suspended that amendment. He was wrong. I accept that.
The point I am trying to make is he is being advised by Canada's trade officials. When mistakes as elementary as this are made on such an important issue, it does not give confidence to our lumber industry. It sends a message that the government does not have its act together and that officials are not on this file. Where is the Prime Minister? We have to think in the long term.
Marc Racicot, the United States trade envoy, was in Canada today. He stated that he hoped for a solution within 30 to 45 days. It is not surprising that the United States seeks a resolution to resolve this issue. On December 15 the 19.3% countervail will expire and cannot be reinstated for at least two months.
How can we get a fair deal quickly? The Prime Minister has to do more than he is doing now. The phone calls are not enough. I was outraged by the first 10 or 15 minutes of question period today. Members were making jokes and laughing. They were talking about people shaking their hair. Everyone was laughing and having a great time. That is not--