Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion brought forward by our Bloc colleagues. The Canadian Alliance certainly supports the motion as it supports free trade.
What is wrong with what is happening is that the agreement expires at the end of the month. We have no clear indication from the government of what angle it will take. We have conflicting reports from the Prime Minister. He thinks we should have it all linked together with other issues. The trade minister says that it will be negotiated on its own. We have to speed up the government or get it interested in the issue to have some resolution of it.
Previous to the softwood lumber agreement there were challenges against our trade with the U.S. in softwood lumber. Every time a challenge has been brought forward we have won. It has been proven that there is no subsidy issue which would allow the Americans a countervail tariff against our industry.
I know very well how hurtful a countervail tariff can be. It happened in my area of the country last year, when a challenge was brought by R-CALF in the United States against our cattle industry. Canadian producers had to post bonds at the border while this challenge was ongoing. Money was taken off all cattle that went across the line; a proportion of the amount was taken away.
In the end after months of investigation they actually came into the offices of feeders and went through their books. It was an horrendous process. It cost not only the amount of money that was taken in tariff, but millions of dollars to fight the issue that could have been better used. We won in the end. The tariff money that was taken was given back.
What is wrong is that the U.S. passed a law last year to say that if there were a challenge, a countervail put against our lumber, it gets to keep any money taken, even if Canada wins in the end. It could cost our industry billions of dollars, and that is totally unfair. That is an unjust law and the trade minister should have straightened it out by now. If we are talking about free trade with the United States, let us talk about free trade. Let us make it free, fair and rules based trade that we can all live by.
Here we are a few weeks away from the expiration of this agreement and we do not have the rules in place to move on.
One thing on which we have to be absolutely certain is that we do not do this alone. If only four or five provinces sign on to the deal then we are lost. We cannot be separated on this. We must hang in together. If the trade minister can keep us together as a country, then I am sure his leverage and power would create a fair package for our softwood lumber industry.
The softwood lumber industry is huge and, as has been pointed out by members opposite, it is important to Canada. It needs to have the government's full focus.
I feel that in many ways we have let down certain sectors of our country. Certainly one that I want to bring into the debate is our grain and oilseed sector. Because of some of the agreements the government has made with reducing tariffs and support to our producers, they have been put in a hole that I cannot figure out how they will get out of unless we support them ourselves.
We need to be more aggressive when we fight the Americans and the European Union on subsidies. We need to beat down the unfair subsidies that distort markets and production. We need to use more force. We do not think enough effort has been put forward by Canada.
We trade a lot of goods and we are a good trading partner. Trading partners can count on us to have good quality products that will be delivered on time and at a fair price. When we have those kinds of deals and that kind of reputation, why are we not using that as a bigger hammer when we go into these negotiations with the European Union and the United States?
The other challenges that have been brought forward in the past against the softwood lumber industry have crashed. The United States has done everything it can to try to point out that our industry is being unfairly subsidized, and it is not. If it does go to a challenge, let us use the present systems of WTO and NAFTA to deal with that. I am sure we would be successful.
However the thing that is really scaring the industry is the law that the United States has passed that says that any tariff collected would be kept. I cannot understand how on earth that would work but that is what it has done.
I had the opportunity in the last parliament to meet with some U.S. senators in Montana: Senator Craig, Senator Thomas and Senator Burns from Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. We were only able to meet for a morning but it was good to be able to do that. I think five or six of my colleagues attended the meeting in Great Falls. My realization from that meeting was that we need to have more open discussion.
There were many issues at that time but the one that was important to me concerned cattle. A lot of the stories on both sides of the border were not true, were mistruths or were misunderstandings. Even for the couple of hours that we sat down and went over a few issues we were dumbfounded on both sides by the number of things being said that were just absolutely untrue. Opening a line of communication and debate is very important. Just a few hours spent on one morning was very helpful on a lot of issues.
A coalition of senators has come together to lobby the United States government to protect its softwood lumber industry. It is a big and an important issue to them and we have to be aware that there is very strong lobby in the United States to protect its industry, unfairly we think. Getting back to open, free and rules based trade is absolutely essential, not only in this area but in others.
We have seen it in other sectors of our society where some of these agreements have really hurt certain parts of Canada's industry and we cannot be doing that.
The other issue is that of messaging to the people of the United States that these tariffs are increasing the cost of a home in the United States by $1,000 U.S. We have to make sure that we have coalitions built with people there that the message gets out that their own people are being hurt by these countervailing duties.
The importance of one stance from coast to coast to coast in this country on this issue cannot be overemphasized. I believe we have to appear united on it because in the end it will be far better for all if we can do that than to hive off separate provinces and separate parts of the industry to different programs.
It makes me a little nervous that the trade minister and the Prime Minister are not on the same page as of yesterday. We need to be absolutely certain that this will become a bigger priority at the cabinet table and that we do take a united position on this. If the Prime Minister is talking to the vice-president of the United States saying one thing and our international trade minister is at negotiations saying another thing, then the Americans know we are not being cohesive and they can split us apart and make a better deal for themselves.
My colleague, the member for Vancouver Island North, could not be here today to speak to this but he has let me know about all the work that he has done on this file. He is getting together with a bunch of folks on the west coast to talk about west coast issues, and I am sure this will be at the top of the list on their agenda. He has done a tremendous amount of work on this deserves some credit as far as keeping his colleagues on this side of the House informed of what is going on.
I will finish by saying that we need to have this free trade in softwood lumber and it has to be coast to coast. It also has to be pushed with the emphasis that it deserves because of the importance it has to Canada.