Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the very broad motion brought forward by the NDP. It is a kind of scattergun approach. It covers almost everything under the sun. Much of it is easy to agree with because it is pretty much motherhood and apple pie.
For example, everyone wants to strengthen the role of aboriginals, Metis and Inuit in Canadian society. The only ones who have not done anything about it or do not seem keen on it are the Liberals. They are continuing the same flawed, paternalistic, colonial based system that has been the bane of aboriginal people in the country. No matter how many reports come out saying the system does not work they continue to plow down the same route.
It is easy to celebrate immigration as a cornerstone of Canada. The NDP motion talks about restoring respect for diversity. I do not see any lack of respect for it. Canada is a shining example of respect for diversity. We do not have a 100% success rate but there will always be flaws in any human based system. In Canada there is broad respect for the diversity in our midst.
There is broad understanding of the need for a good and well managed immigration system. The problem is in achieving the good and well managed aspect. The minister is proposing retroactive changes to the immigration system that would make it almost impossible for people to get into Canada based on the merit system. One would be more likely to get in by going to people smugglers and slipping them the right amount of money than on one's own merits.
That is a shame because Canada is understandably proud of its immigration system. Our nation is built on immigration. All of us who are not aboriginal have immigrant backgrounds. The system needs to be celebrated but it also needs to be fixed. The government would do well to concentrate on that.
I will talk about 3 of the 12 proposals the NDP has brought forward in its 12 point plan. Point number 1 says we should:
Enhance Canada's environment, including a national implementation plan for reducing green house gases, and ratification of the Kyoto protocol--
The proposal is half right. There is broad consensus that Canada should be a leader in reducing greenhouse gases. There is broad acceptance at both the provincial and industry level that reducing gases and pollution is a good idea. It is a good idea not only for health reasons and because we want to do our part. It is a good economic idea. Time and again it has been shown that a clean environment and clean industry is in everyone's interest in the long run. It is in our health interests, it is in the interests of long term sustainable development, and it makes good fiscal sense.
Simply ratifying the Kyoto protocol sometime this year is not the answer. Ratification of the Kyoto protocol in 2002 is part of the motion but I cannot agree with it.
From the day our representatives went to Kyoto we have asked the minister to tell us what his targets are and how he would achieve them. We have asked him to tell us on a sector by sector basis how the protocol would work and what role he sees the provinces playing. We have asked if the provinces agree to it and how it would work for them.
Are we putting so much emphasis on cleaning up greenhouse gases that we are ignoring other forms of pollution? Those who say we could dam rivers and produce clean hydroelectric power are missing the point. We would not have greenhouse gases but we would flood valley basins and displace people in those areas. It would cause other ecological problems. Sure, hydroelectric power could reduce greenhouse gases but it is not as simple as that.
No job analysis of the Kyoto agreement has been done by the government. There is no detailed, sector by sector analysis. There are no numbers. The minister says it would cost $500 million a year. Industry says it would cost 450,000 jobs. The Prime Minister says he rejects all those numbers but cannot provide any numbers himself.
The Prime Minister has not put anything on the table about a cost benefit analysis and how it is going to work or how he got the provinces to buy into it, or how industry will play out. He has not put anything on the table indicating how it will affect our relationship with the Americans.
Nothing has been done on the government side. To ratify Kyoto without any of the facts, if it is not a recipe for disaster, at least it is a recipe for a severe problem between federal and provincial jurisdictions and industry that will hopefully drive us toward economic recovery.
I would also like to talk about the trade agreements. The sixth point states:
Ensure all trade agreements include adequate protection for labour standards, and for human rights and the environment.
This is a longtime NDP wish list.
We should ask ourselves if we are committed to free trade as a principle. The principle of free trade is a sound one. A rules based trading agreement between us and any other country, and certainly between us and the United States is necessary if we are going to have a chance of seeing Canadian concerns addressed in an international forum. Rules based trading is key to our future prosperity.
I want to ring the alarm bells. For the past five years we have watched the Liberals sleepwalk into a potentially disastrous situation which is now facing the country with regard to our softwood lumber industry. We have had five years of advance warning that the softwood lumber agreement will expire. What has the government done during those five years? It has told us not to worry, be happy, that the agreement will be settled well ahead of time. We are now three weeks away from the expiration of the deal.
From coast to coast our softwood lumber industry is being seriously affected by the duty put in place by the Americans. The Prime Minister told us last fall that it would be settled by Christmas. He then told us it would be settled by the expiration date of the agreement. He has been telling us that he is confident it will be done by March 21. Now he is hopeful it might be done. He now says the issue will be taken to the WTO. Maybe the government will take it to NAFTA. Maybe the government does not have a clue what it is going to do about the softwood lumber issue, the most serious trade agreement problem this country has.
Thousands of people have been displaced out of the industry from coast to coast. In my province 20,000 have become unemployed. There is no plan to address their immediate concerns. There is no plan to address industry concerns. There is no plan to address concerns from coast to coast on a file that the government has mismanaged for five long years.
A rules based trading agreement only works when everybody agrees to play by the rules. I do not think the Americans are playing by the rules. The Prime Minister and the international trade minister are also not doing their part by not raising the priority of this issue to the highest level possible or putting as much emphasis and as much time into the softwood lumber problem as was put into the last trade mission to Russia. As much as we would like to expand our trade with Russia, and as good as it might be, the total trade in all products in one year with Russia is not 10% of our softwood lumber industry.
Does the government have a trade mission going to Washington to sit on the doorstep and solve this problem? Not a chance. The government put it on the back burner, wishing and hoping and pleading that something may happen. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. The Liberal government has not done what it takes to get this issue settled. It will come back to haunt the government as it is already haunting the Canadian industry, one of the most important export industries in the land.
Hip, hip, hurray to the hon. House leader of the NDP with respect to the last point in the NDP proposal dealing with modernizing the democratic system. Right back to when he was a keen member of the McGrath commission, back in another era almost, the House has repeatedly said that we need to modernize, we need to democratize, we need to get parliamentarians back on the top of the ladder instead of at the bottom of the pile.
Canadians will applaud us for every effort we make to encourage democratizing this place. I certainly encourage the last point. It is an excellent idea. There is no shortage of ideas, but what there is a shortage of is willpower in the Prime Minister's Office to make it happen. Let us proceed with that last point post haste.