Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Churchill.
I am pleased to take part this evening in the debate on lumber. Since the opening of this session of parliament, lumber has become the culmination of the work of this House, because of its importance.
Since the beginning of 2001, the threat of blackmail has hung over Canadian lumber exports. The dispute over the export of softwood lumber to the United States threatens to weaken and disrupt our greatest source of jobs. In fact, lumber has been the greatest single item of trade between Canada and the United States.
Ever since the agreement on softwood lumber between Canada and the United States expired in March, the American government has decided to impose an import duty of 19.3% on softwood lumber. Now the lumber industry is facing anti-dumping duties of 12.58%, which were introduced in October. I must also point out that these two customs duties were applied separately, one after the other.
Under the previous agreement, the American government guaranteed Canadian exporters access to their market for a five year period, thus permitting the duty free importation of $14.7 billion worth of lumber. Unfortunately, this agreement expired, and we are now facing a national crisis. The federal government, having failed to get these duties eliminated, we have had to turn to the World Trade Organization to rule on our dispute.
How long will this take? Every day the Canadian industry sees businesses in this sector fall behind and accumulate a financial burden. All the employees of this sector are wondering if they will be next to have to go home and apply for employment insurance or find a new job, while the market remains fragile.
The current crisis in the lumber trade is simply the latest in a seemingly continual round of protectionist action by the U.S. The ability of the American lumber coalition to repeatedly harass Canadian exporters and hold to ransom our companies, workers, governments and communities indicates one of the major weaknesses of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The lumber industry is central to the economic and social development of several regions in our country. In this era of market globalization, it has invested thousands of dollars to implement new technologies.
These investments have been very important in enabling businesses to increase their production capacity and to improve their competitiveness on international markets with quality products at competitive prices. How will our forest industry be able to perform on these international markets with these duties?
In my riding, the forestry and forest services sector created 7,550 jobs in 1996. It is one of the most important primary industries in New Brunswick and in my riding.
In 1996, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick accounted for 5% of Canada's softwood lumber production. Over the last five years, their production skyrocketed, increasing by 62%, which represents softwood lumber sales totalling $1.2 billion.
In New Brunswick alone, 90% of the softwood lumber production is exported to the United States. Not being party to the 1996 agreement that expired last spring and being supported by crown lands and by private companies, the Atlantic provinces thought that anti-dumping duties would never be applied to softwood lumber. It was a surprise when they learned that all Canadian softwood lumber producers would be subject to these duties.
As I indicated this afternoon in my question, we are talking about free trade rules, we are talking about fair trade rules, but all we have in fact are the American rules.
During consultations with the forestry industry some representatives told me the United States had done a study on lumber exports from six big lumber companies. Not one was from the Atlantic region. Following the study the U.S. decided to impose an anti-dumping tax on all lumber exported from Canada.
Atlantic companies have had an anti-dumping duty of 12.5% imposed on them. These companies have never been consulted by the United States but must now pay this outrageous tax. How can the United States base its research on six Canadian companies when the forestry industry is composed of hundreds of companies?
What has come over our government to give us such a slap in the face? Have all the fine words and great gestures of the Liberal government during the 2000 election campaign vanished just like that? Or has our government already lost its memory as far as commitments are concerned? This would not be the first time, moreover, for that to be the case.
In recent months, we had a kind of premonition that the federal government would be giving in to such affronts. Just yesterday, the federal government indicated that it had no plan of action for arranging a meeting with the U.S. in order to explore other avenues besides the 32% that is being forced upon the forest industry.
This situation is all the more difficult for workers in this industry, because close to 373,000 people depend on it. Thousands of jobs have been lost because of the anti-dumping tax. The province of B.C. alone has lost 15,000. This is terrible. Unfortunately, we will be seeing even more layoffs if the situation is not settled soon.
The forest industry is in disarray. Those in the industry affected by this tax, the workers and the communities, have great expectations.
The New Democratic Party has, moreover, called upon the federal government to ensure that the trade of manufactured wood products is carried out under equitable and fair trade rules.
What we are now experiencing is exactly what the NDP has always feared about free trade: one way trade that benefits only one country, at the expense of other countries and their industries.
No restrictions should be allowed, as the Prime Minister mentioned yesterday in the House.
The NDP has always fully supported Canadian forestry workers' unions and their employers in this fight to obtain fair access to the U.S. market, and we will continue to support them in the current context. Not at this price however.
The government must work toward levelling the playing field for workers and businesses on both sides of the border. An export plan that offers fair and unrestricted access would not harm lumber producers in any region of Canada.
The NDP supports the idea that the results of the ongoing discussions must lead to unrestricted access to the U.S. market for producers from all provinces and regions of Canada. In addition, we must protect our rights when it comes to managing our forests, especially crown forests.
In closing, the U.S. wanted free trade, but what we have today cannot be described as free trade. This is affecting Canadians. We are therefore asking the federal government to put its foot down and resolve the issue of softwood lumber once and for all. It is high time, because families are suffering.