Mr. Chairman, I think that is what I am doing but I appreciate the guidance.
The other thing that occurs to me is that this is a new format, a different format. We have some existing formats in the House of Commons that are used inappropriately.
For example, if I get up in the House of Commons during question period to ask a minister a question and do not get the full answer because of either time constraints or the minister is not really familiar with what I might be asking, I have the opportunity to file a piece of paper with the clerk and go on what is called the adjournment proceedings or the late show. I have done that on numerous occasions. Guess what? The minister who responded to my question was never been there for the late show. It was always a stock prepared answer. It was as if it did not matter what I asked because the answer was just simply read. Some things could be done a whole bunch better around here. That is all my unprepared speech for tonight.
There are three things I wanted to touch on. I will do it very quickly. One is we spent two years in this place. I was on the natural resources committee in 1999 and 2000. I know the secretary of state was on that in 1996. We prepared a report called “Forest Management Practices in Canada as an International Trade Issue”. We tabled it in June of 2000. It was also a unanimous report and I think we said some very good things. Of course, the government's response did not occur because of the election call. Now we have resubmitted to the committee a request for the government to respond, which under the rules is within 150 days. We are already looking at next September. That is a year and a half after submission.
There are some emergencies out there. A lot of this report dealt with the mid-coast of British Columbia because that was like a litmus test for what was going on regarding the environmental pressures on international market access for forest products on the Canadian basis.
We had recommendations in there for pro-active delivery of Canadian forest practice messages in our major markets. We had a very practical program presented to our committee. The committee was enthusiastic about endorsing that. The commitment from the federal government was a minor one because industry and the provincial government in British Columbia had already bought in. The financial commitment being asked for was simply to demonstrate real commitment. It was not to extract a bunch of money. Guess what? It fizzled. There was nothing.
In the meantime, we have companies operating in the mid-coast, the provincial government to some extent, environmental organizations, Greenpeace and so on have signed some protocols. This was been a huge struggle. Last week International Forest Products, a major operator on the B.C. coast, announced layoffs of 500 direct employees, 400 contract employees and the closure of a sawmill, which will have tremendous other implications as a consequence of what is happening on the mid-coast. There are going to be other announcements from other companies.
All of this is happening and it is as if the federal government is blind to it. The federal government has a mandate for international trade and international access to market issues. It is doing nothing to fulfill that mandate compared to what it could be doing. Yes, I know we have an international partnership program run through the embassies, diplomats and so on. This was a practical program that would have had real buy in. It could have gone somewhere. It could have done something. There is no excitement. There is no response. Everything is flat when it comes to the government response.
That is a very strong suggestion from the Canadian Alliance in terms of something the government could do to help in the natural resources sector, that is, to implement the program and do it immediately. There is no reason why it could not.
The program is a practical market access initiative put forward by forest workers, in this case IWA Canada, the international woodworkers and their largest local, which covers their coastal loggers, some forest workers in northern Ontario and also a fair chunk of the sawmill industry.
Secondly I want to touch on the softwood lumber dispute for a just a few minutes. We cannot ignore it if we are going to talk about natural resources. All I want to say is that it is a great disappointment to me that although the official opposition, the Canadian Alliance, was proactive on that issue and had its position out as of June 7, 2000, until February of this year the Alliance still did not know what the government's position would be upon the expiry of the softwood lumber agreement. We went through a federal election campaign never being able to extract from our British Columbia candidates or from our rural candidates where they were on the softwood lumber agreement. That is not leadership.
Mr. Chairman, an ex-Liberal member of parliament who is now the CEO of the Council of Forest Industries in British Columbia is saying exactly the same thing. Where was the leadership when we needed it? That was another letdown.
The last thing I want to touch on in my remaining 30 seconds is west coast oil and gas. I want to serve notice today to anyone who is unaware of it that this is the next huge issue in British Columbia. There is a coastal rural consensus that it is required and needed, and we have to get there. We need to get there with provincial leadership and either federal leadership or federal non-interference. That is the message I want to deliver. Obviously we would like proactive federal leadership, but at the very least the government should not put obstacles in the way. The senior members of the Liberal caucus from British Columbia need to receive that message very strongly.