Madam Speaker, the softwood lumber situation is a very serious one. I was glad to hear my colleague from Mississauga refer to New Brunswick because my city is the one that is closest to the U.S. border. The lumber industry of my province is in my city and the surrounding area . We ship into the United States. Americans love the lumber from our part of Canada. The U.S. industry wants our lumber. Yes, it is cheaper than if they had to buy it in their own country and it is the best that can be bought anywhere in Canada.
I have had a major concern since I have been here when it comes to what the U.S. did to our sugar industry. What happened to it? It is gone. I lost my sugar refinery. It was closed down because the Americans were to ship hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sugar containing products and said we could only ship 9,000 tonnes into the U.S. Also the Jones act protects their shipbuilding industry. They can bid on our contracts but we cannot bid on theirs.
It is very important because they think they are so powerful that they can take over Canada. They truly do. I agree it is not easy to go down there to negotiate. We have to take the strongest stands we can. Like our colleague from Mississauga said about the steel industry, my city is the one that ships the steel as well. I have Irving Steel in Saint John which ships into the U.S. as well.
When I came here in 1993 the population of Saint John was over 85,000 people and today it is 69,000. We have lost almost 20,000 people. It has never been like this in the history of Canada. Mine is the first city incorporated by royal charter.
I ask my hon. friend, and he is a friend of mine, what we can do. How can we turn it around? How do we all work together to make sure we keep our industry moving and put our people back to work?