Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a member representing thousands and thousands of constituents who are facing job loss as a result of the government's mishandling of the softwood lumber file.
It was nice to hear that the minister met with the former governor today and that he is enthusiastic about that. It was nice to hear that he was speaking today to some mayors from across Canada. It was also nice to hear him say that he was impressed by where we are as a country today on this issue.
However I submit to the minister and to his government that we have known for a long time that this agreement was going to be up and that we should have started these talks two years ago because, as I mentioned, I have thousands of people in my constituency out of work today.
Not only are we facing a general economic slowdown across the country but also, through the government's inactivity, Canada is facing a prospect of losing a further 15,000 jobs in the forestry sector. This is on top of the estimated 15,000 jobs already lost because of the government's handling of the softwood lumber file.
Just last week we heard the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade calling British Columbia lumber leaders and workers nervous Nellies.
I submit that someone losing his or her job has strong cause to be nervous. If the parliamentary secretary were losing his job tomorrow would he not be nervous? If the major employer in his riding was going under would he not be nervous?
Forest workers are worried about how they are going to pay their mortgages and how they are going to feed and clothe their families. They are wondering how and when they will get back to work. That is why this file should have been opened up a couple of years ago, not eight months after the contract was over.
I am sure a mill worker in Squamish, British Columbia is pleased to know that the parliamentary secretary of this government is taking such a personal interest in the situation. I invite the parliamentary secretary to come to British Columbia to tour a mill and hear the reaction firsthand. I hear the parliamentary secretary saying that he already has. I invite him to come to my constituency with me because I probably have more papermills and more people cutting down trees than most constituencies in British Columbia. I would love for him to come there and sit down, as I have, and talk to those people and see how concerned they are.
Before I finish today, I will read some letters from a few of those people from my constituency.
These workers, their families and the communities are the innocent victims in a ridiculous trade dispute between the two countries that are supposed to be best friends. I agree with the minister, this is a ridiculous dispute.
The 19.3% countervailing duty has already cost an estimated 15,000 Canadian jobs and forced the shutdown of dozens of mills. Many lumber producers are now facing a 12.58% anti-dumping duty on top of the countervailing duty. Export duties on Canada's lumber industry now total 31.9%. What industry can afford an additional one-third in costs?
The government was urged almost two years ago to begin addressing this issue, knowing full well that the five year softwood lumber agreement was soon to expire, yet the Prime Minister and the international trade minister failed to act or even recognize the importance of engaging the United States early on.
So here we are, some eight months after the expiry of the agreement, Rome burning around us, and all the government can say is that everything is under control. To quote the minister, he said that he was impressed by where we are in Canada today.
Analysts suggest that job losses resulting from the countervailing and anti-dumping duties could reach more than 30,000 as more companies are forced to post bonds covering what they would have to pay if duties are made final next March. Let me repeat that 30,000 jobs have been lost or threatened and still the government dithers.
Thirty thousand job losses means hardship for workers, bankruptcy for small businesses that serve their communities and the eventual destruction of some of these communities.
Since last week we are already feeling the impact of the additional punitive duties.
In the past week, Interfor closed its Hammond Creek cedar mill in Maple Ridge, putting 450 people out of work, along with the primary mill, two remand mills, McDonald Cedar and Albion, will also close.
Forestry company Tembec is closing its mill at Cranbrook, British Columbia next week as a result of the latest U.S. penalties on Canada's softwood lumber. The Quebec Lumber Producer said Friday that it would shut down the mill in southeastern B.C. on Monday, affecting another 37 jobs.
Norseskog is shutting down mills. Shutdowns are planned at the company's mills in Crofton, Elk Falls, Port Alberni and Powell River.
Over 500 more job losses in less than a week, and this looks like just the beginning. Yet from the government we see nothing but an inadequate response. We have dismissive attitudes and even insults.
The government is standing by and allowing the very lifeblood to be sucked out of the province of British Columbia. The forest industry in B.C. is B.C.'s number one industry and is a huge economic generator. It contributes more than $4 billion a year in revenue and taxes, and employs more than 270,000 people, directly and indirectly.
The government pays more to turbot than it does to lumber. It pays more attention to split run magazines than it does to lumber. It pays more attention to Bombardier than it does to lumber in British Columbia. It pays more attention to a mismanaged national airline than it does to workers in British Columbia. If any of these were losing 3,000 jobs, let alone 30,000, the government would jump. Why is the forest sector being treated differently?
I heard a member from the other side say that it is not fair to compare. I am from western Canada and I am telling him that it is damn fair to compare because we see it too often. It is a long way from British Columbia to downtown Ottawa. These people in my riding are out of work. They cannot buy shoes for their kids. Christmas is coming up. There are 30,000 of them, not 3,000. We have seen the government operate a lot quicker closer to the central Ottawa area than it does in British Columbia.
The Prime Minister's response has been tepid at best. He is travelling to Vancouver this week, not to calm the fears of workers in communities but to hold a Liberal fundraising dinner. He is going to the province where the number one industry is getting the stuffing kicked out of it and he is going asking for money. It is a cruel and insensitive twist but a glowing example of the government's lack of understanding of the issue and of its compassion for jobless British Columbians.
We can almost get the sense that the government gets some perverse pleasure out of encouraging western alienation. Why else would such a double standard be applied to such a significant part of our export economy?
Yesterday Canfor Corporation took aggressive action in the softwood dispute. With patience straining, forced into a corner and abandoned by the federal government, Canfor Corporation initiated a lawsuit under chapter 11 of NAFTA against the United States for $250 million, the amount it is losing in this protracted exercise. Canfor Corporation and other lumber companies will be on their knees before the government acts.
Let us not be deluded here. The Canada-U.S. trade relationship is the largest in the world and forest products make up the largest part of that relationship. What we are talking about here is the largest export market in the world for any product anywhere. We are talking about a $44.2 billion a year export market, of which 31% is lumber. For those in the government not paying attention, that means lumber accounts for almost $15 billion a year in exports from Canada.
Lumber exports alone are double our agriculture and fishing exports. They are almost equal to our energy exports. Our Prime Minister has time to contemplate a North American energy policy while at the same time ignoring an industry of equal size.
Where is the logic in the government's trade policy? Why is it so hard for the government to understand? What the government does not realize is that if our lumber industry suffers we all suffer.
Canada needs to act now to protect these thousands of jobs at risk. It needed to act two years ago, not when we are into this panic situation.
The government must make solving the softwood problem its number one trade and economic priority. We cannot wait years for a litigated decision. We cannot afford to spend years at the WTO just to have the Americans change the rules of the game once again.
How many times do we have to beat them before we can sit down with them between Prime Minister and president and solve this problem?
I agree with what the Prime Minister said today about natural gas. We are all paying more for gas in western Canada because of free trade. We agreed to pay the same price as the highest bidder anywhere that bought our natural gas in North America. Because the people in the southern United States like our natural gas we are shipping a lot to them, and we are all paying a little more for it. That is part of free trade. It is part of what we do as brothers and sisters living on a continent that we all share, but the softwood lumber agreement is not sharing.This agreement is to help a few Americans but not even the masses.
Many hardworking Americans trying to buy their first homes will be gouged another $1,000, $2,000 or maybe even $3,000. Has our government taken ads out on American television to tell those consumers that this is what some of their wealthy people, people like former President Carter, are pushing on Canada? Why have we not gone after them to tell Canadians and Americans the facts of this matter?
The American Lumber Coalition has said that if it loses at the WTO it will just turn around and lobby for a rewrite of its trade laws. It has definitely declared that it will not be bound by international trade laws. Its actions to date have proven that because we have won every case up to now.
Three times Canada has fought for free trade at the international level. Three times we have won and three times the Americans have changed the rules. Why should this time be any different? Does the government enjoy being made to look like the fool?
British Columbians and other Canadians employed in the lumber industry cannot wait. Mortgages cannot wait. We sit here in these wonderful buildings. We all make good incomes. We all have guaranteed salaries for another two or three years but tonight 15,000 people in British Columbia, with Christmas coming, are wondering how they are going to make their mortgage payments. Their kids cannot wait. Credit card bills cannot wait. These people are no different than we are. They have credit card bills and other things and we are not doing anything to help them while they are in this situation.
It is time the government recognizes the country's dependency upon the forestry industry. It is time the government recognizes that there is a country west of Ontario.
Forest industry workers across the country want the government to finally turn its attention to the problem. Simply waiting for the lawyers is not enough. I urge the Prime Minister to direct the Minister for International Trade to enter into serious negotiations with the United States to end this problem before it is too late for the communities in my riding.
I urge the Prime Minister to instruct the minister responsible to consult regularly the provincial ministers, particularly the British Columbia minister of forests who seems to have a clearer understanding of the issue than the Minister for International Trade. The government might say that the provincial ministers were here today, yes, but where were they here two years ago?
The question is not what we are doing today. The government can say that it met with the governor and the ambassador today, and that the Prime Minister talked to the president in Shanghai, but where was the government two years ago when it knew this problem was going to be here? Perhaps it was more concerned about winning another election than getting at the real issues of the country.
The government allowed the last softwood lumber agreement to lapse without a plan. The government has allowed our largest export industry to suffer immeasurable harm without any consideration for the impact on the lives of those Canadians who are suffering. Now foolish pride refuses to allow the minister responsible to take the necessary action to reach a negotiated settlement quickly. Tough talk is easy when one is not impacted but the loggers and mill workers in British Columbia cannot wait for the minister's ego to deflate.
I urge the Prime Minister to direct the minister to move negotiations to the next level or assign the file to someone more suited to the task. I am sure the forest industry and the forest workers would not begrudge the Prime Minister for recognizing the current minister's failure on this file and assigning the task to someone with a better understanding of the industry and its importance to our country.
Canada cannot afford the loss of 30,000 taxpayers. Small communities cannot afford the loss of 30,000 consumers and their families. Families cannot afford the loss of 30,000 wage earners.
I have received expressions of concern today from some 15,000 B.C. forest workers who face unemployment, the ones that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade called nervous Nellies. This is the human side of the softwood lumber crisis.
Before I close, I would like to read some concerns of constituents which include signatures on petitions and signatures on cards and letters collected on weekends over the last couple of weeks in shopping centres in British Columbia, mostly in my riding. These arrived today by Federal Express. One says:
I am a concerned citizen of the community of Squamish that is concerned about the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. This dispute is about more than lumber, it's about jobs, communities, and families.
A 19.3% duty on softwood lumber exports is unfair, unjustified and wrong. Cedar products should be excluded from this dispute completely, as they have nothing to do with structural building products.
That is a fact. It goes on:
We urge you to beat this situation with great urgency and ensure that all stakeholders are represented with a strong, unified free trade position.
There are cards addressed to the Prime Minister and to the minister. Another letter addressed to the Prime Minister reads:
I am profoundly concerned about the future of the western red cedar (WRC) industry in Canada. Thousands of jobs will be lost unless the Canadian government acts now to have WRC removed from the current U.S. trade action against Canadian softwood lumber. Already thousands of people have been laid off as a result of the 19.3% duty imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Aug. 10, 2001.
As you know, the U.S. lumber dispute with Canada is over structural products, like 2x4s. WRC is not a structural product. It is a high-value appearance product that is more than triple the price of U.S. structural wood products. The U.S. needs our cedar. They don't have any suitable wood product substitutes. There simply is no reason why cedar is part of this lumber fight.
I urge you to demonstrate your commitment to the thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and dozens of Canadian communities that depend on the WRC industry. Please tell President Bush that cedar should not be part of this dispute.
That letter was addressed to the Prime Minister.
There are literally thousands of names on a petition to the Prime Minister which states:
We are profoundly concerned about the future of the western red cedar (WRC) industry in Canada. Thousands of jobs will be lost unless the Canadian government acts now to have WRC removed from the current U.S. trade action against Canadian softwood lumber. Already thousands of people have been laid off as a result of the 19.3% duty imposed by the U.S. Department of Commerce on Aug. 20, 2001.
We the following urge you to demonstrate your commitment to the thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and dozens of Canadian communities that depend on the WRC industry. Please tell President Bush that cedar should not be part of this dispute.
I could go on and on. As I said, there are 15,000 people just in a short period of time.
It is nice that the government and the minister met with the former governor today. It is great that they are talking to mayors in British Columbia. However they should not be impressed as to where we are as a country today. Think tonight about the 30,000 people who will be unemployed at Christmastime because we did not do our job as members of parliament. I do not blame just the government. I blame us in the opposition as well. Maybe we did not put up a big enough fight two years ago to get the Liberals off their seats to do the job. That is why people are unemployed.
We asked the questions, but we did not get any answers.