Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow the leader of the NDP in the debate today who has spoken eloquently on this issue. The member for Halifax has been present in the House and has put a lot of pressure on the government to come clean on its softwood lumber agenda. She has attended many briefings and was at the NDP federal council meeting on October 14 when we passed an emergency resolution on the issue.
This is an issue that is at the top of the agenda for members from B.C. in terms of expressing a very strong concern about what is taking place with the softwood lumber market.
I represent an urban riding in east Vancouver. There is a perception that this issue affects smaller communities that are dependent on the forestry industry, but there is no question that the forestry industry is an economic driver of urban communities as well. Jobs are affected in Vancouver as well as in smaller communities.
This industry is the largest source of Canada's export earnings. It does about $10 billion in exports. It directly employs 350,000 Canadians and indirectly employs about one million Canadians in over 1,000 communities. It gives us an understanding of the significant impact and devastation taking place right across the country and certainly in British Columbia.
As a result of the very unfair countervailing duties that have been dumped on the industry it is estimated that up to 30,000 jobs will be lost and as many as 90,000 additional jobs will be lost indirectly. This is absolutely staggering. These figures cannot be repeated often enough to understand the magnitude of what we are facing.
In British Columbia alone 15 of 25 mills on the coast have been closed entirely due to the U.S. tariff, throwing about 12,000 people out of work. For example, three Doman mills were closed on Vancouver Island and 400 workers from Cowichan Bay, Ladysmith and Saltair have been put out of work. Hammond Cedar and two value added mills in Maple Ridge have been closed with another 450 workers losing their jobs. This closure has meant that Interfor, one of the major companies, has only 1,000 of its total 3,000 workforce currently employed.
The issue that we have to grapple with and the issue we are confronting the government with is: What is the possible way forward? What is the government's agenda on this issue?
The New Democrats have pressed the government to respond to this issue by making it a priority. It must recognize that it is the workers who need immediate assistance. They are either unemployed now or will be facing unemployment with enormous insecurity and anxiety.
There is nothing in trade laws that would prevent the Canadian government from assisting workers who have been adversely affected. We only have to look at what happened on the east coast when the northern cod stock disappeared. Ottawa assisted displaced workers who were crushed by the collapse of the industry.
We can look at the Mifflin plan and the restructuring that took place subsequent to the Mifflin plan. We had our criticisms about that program, but the Canadian government recognized the priority of what was going on and recognized that there were individual communities, families and workers who needed help.
The government has been considering assistance to the airline and tourism industries as a result of what happened on September 11. We have to recognize that the lumber industry is the backbone of thousands of communities and is a very significant economic factor.
We in the NDP want to say loud and clear to the government that it cannot let the workers bear the brunt of this unfair trade action. It needs to step in immediately.
Today in the House, my colleagues, the member for Churchill and the member for Acadie--Bathurst, asked with the government what support there would be for the workers who have been affected. The response they got was pathetic. The government says that there is EI. Well most workers consider EI to be a joke. They pay into it but they get nothing out of it when they are hurting and need help.
When we confronted the Minister of HRDC today to ask whether she would provide a top up or income support to those workers, we heard some vague grumblings and it was back to EI.
We in the NDP say that is not good enough. It is not just a sellout of our resources in terms of what is taking place with these unfair trade practices but it is also a sellout for workers who are now affected.
It was interesting to note today that other members in the House from other parties were calling for a summit to be held for all the parties that are affected. Members of my party have also raised this matter on other days. In listening to the response from the trade minister, I noticed that he was very reluctant to specifically deal with that issue. It led me to wonder what exactly the government's position was on this.
Does anyone actually understand what the government's position or strategy is for dealing with this?
We know the U.S. has appointed a special envoy. We know the minister apparently had a very nice meeting today. However, when we cut through all the rhetoric, does any of us really have an understanding of the government's plan and of what it is actually going to do?
Having listened to the debate today and in earlier days, I really do not have an understanding on what the government is prepared to do specifically to get us out of the mess, to make this a priority and to help the communities that have been affected.
We in the New Democratic Party want to be very clear and say that it is incumbent upon the government, in working in consultation with opposition parties, to have a game plan. I think have heard other members in the House say that today. It is not just me who is wondering where is the game plan. I think we are all feeling like that.
We want to say that the words “this is a crisis” and “this is a problem” are simply not good enough. We want to know what the government is proposing to do to negotiate, to make this a priority and to make sure that these unfair trade deals are put aside. It needs to negotiate a settlement that will support what has already been proven in international tribunals, that Canada is not dumping into the U.S. market.
I want to put forward a message to the B.C. government. The IWA and other organizations have an enormous concern that as this crisis begins to unfold it would be very easy for this provincial government or another provincial government to be picked off.
We want to say very loudly and clearly again that this is another key reason why the federal government must develop a national response and a national strategy to ensure that, for example, the B.C. government does not completely capitulate to American interests by giving away protection to workers, the tying up of manufacturing to harvest rights or increasing raw log exports.
We are very concerned that while this crisis continues if the federal government does not step in and show the leadership that it needs to show, then we will have provinces, whether it is British Columbia or elsewhere, cutting deals and basically ripping off the workers in those communities.
In closing I want to say that it is good we are having this debate but we want the government to tell us its plan, its strategy to deal with the crisis and where its support is for the workers in the communities.
It is not good enough for the minister to say that he met the CEOs and that he has been in contact with them. The livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people are at stake and we want to know what the government will do to protect those communities.