moved:
That this House has lost confidence in the government for its failure to persuade the US government to end protectionist policies that are damaging Canada's agriculture and lumber industries and for failing to implement offsetting trade injury measures for the agriculture and lumber sectors.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise before the House today to present this supply day motion for the official opposition. As the international trade critic for the official opposition and speaking first, I will focus my comments on the softwood lumber side of the motion and will split my time with my colleague, the member for Selkirk--Interlake, who is our senior agriculture critic and will focus on the agriculture industry side of the motion.
The importance of the motion should not be underestimated. First, there are Canadians sitting at home not working because of belligerent comments about Presidents Bush, senior and junior, by the Prime Minister and his nephew. Canadians are very aware that the Canadian government essentially has no influence on the Bush administration and its increasingly protectionist policies.
Just last week, from May 16 to 20, the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group met with senators and congressmen in the U.S., and the kinds of problems we have became very clear. For example, we had the Minister of Natural Resources make a $75 million announcement on some programs for the forest sector that have direct implications for the softwood lumber dispute. Despite the fact that Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had full knowledge of our visit, despite the fact it knew softwood was on the agenda, there was no follow-up to ensure that the government members in the meeting were aware of what had been announced.
Fortunately, or maybe from the government's perspective unfortunately, I was the only one who could really respond to questions put forward by a U.S. senator and a U.S. congressman about whether or not the program was a subsidy. I had been made aware through my office that this announcement had been made and I had already put out a somewhat critical press release.
My point is that the government is not results oriented. It only knows how to throw money around. When it comes to following through and working in the trenches, it is simply not there.
There is a host of examples of areas in which the government has gone out of its way to alienate our major trading partner. Our motion asks the government to re-evaluate its basic approach to Canada-U.S. relations.
In addition, the official opposition has been trying to engage the government for months on the extension of EI benefits to accommodate forest workers laid off as a consequence of the softwood lumber dispute and on designing a softwood tariff trade injury program that would prevent the closing of significant parts of the softwood industry in the face of the punishing 27% tariffs. Not only does the minister of trade not want to talk about these trade issues despite extensive questioning, but he also sent a strong signal to the minister of human resources by stating that no softwood lumber jobs have been lost due to the softwood lumber dispute. This statement is factually wrong. Is it any wonder that the minister for HRDC has been impossible to move on the plight of unemployed forest workers when her responsible cabinet colleague makes statements denying that a very real problem exists?
We have asked the minister of trade to apologize for his comments, and despite letters from industry and workers, the minister has neither apologized nor retracted his statement.
One of the employers wrote a letter on May 6. He said:
I am very disturbed that you do not feel our forest employees are negatively impacted by the softwood lumber dispute. I have on many occasions, advised you of the layoffs our employees have faced due to the unresolved softwood lumber dispute. You have indicated that the forest industry is going through a restructuring process. May I remind you that all industries go through a restructuring process when demand is low, as higher cost operations are shutdown or curtailed. I have informed you in the past that U.S. lumber consumption is very strong, however a 27.22% duty cannot be absorbed by our customers and we will continue to lose market share. This is not due to a restructuring process, this is due to the unresolved softwood dispute.
The employer went on to complain:
One year later there is still no plan B and yet you have told us since last year, that the Government of Canada will assist companies when we fight these unwarranted duties.
I am advising you today, that our Company will once again take significant downtime as a direct result of the softwood lumber issue at many of our operations causing job loss and further loss of market share unless a non-subsidized program is put in place promptly for forest companies.
That in a nutshell summarizes much of our concern.
The Minister of Natural Resources, when the minister of trade did not have the opportunity to be in the House, was questioned on these comments and he suggested they were taken out of context. He denied that forest workers were out of work because of the dispute. However we all saw the television scrum. We all know the government is into damage control regarding scandals, cronyism and corruption.
In the last week the Minister of Natural Resources and the minister of trade have announced $95 million worth of spending in the forest sector. These public relations damage control announcements will do nothing to address the real issues which are unemployment and mill closings. What the government is announcing is long term spending and it is deeming this to be for innovation, diversification, research and development and forest industry advocacy.
We should take a moment to analyze what the announcements mean in substance. The advocacy should have been started years ago. The all party natural resources committee which I sat on in June 2000 suggested exactly that. The leader of the official opposition and I called for this advocacy last August.
Our government talks tough domestically and then treads lightly with our U.S. trading partner. I will summarize my comments as they relate to the $75 million announcement on May 16 by the natural resources minister. This funding is an attempt to obscure the fact that the government is avoiding the real issue of tariffs and that this will affect our competitiveness in the U.S. marketplace.
Diversification and innovation are areas in which the government has had a poor track record in picking and choosing winners and losers. Any development of markets is long overdue but will hardly address the current issue in a timely way.
Six weeks ago this same minister echoed my call for a tariff management scheme through Export Development Canada or some other vehicle while Canada continued its challenge of the U.S. tariffs at the World Trade Organization and before NAFTA. He has been distancing himself from those comments ever since.
I put the Minister of Natural Resources on notice at the premiers' summit on softwood lumber in Vancouver on April 29 that we had not forgotten his support on March 29. We will continue to call him to account for those statements which he has refused to support ever since.
The $20 million announcement from the international trade minister yesterday is months overdue. It does nothing to address the real issue of forced worker layoffs and mill closings. The announcement is simply public relations and damage control.
This announcement is not new money. The minister is reannouncing a $17 million program planned prior to September 11 that was shelved. The minister's announcement of $3 million in additional resources for our trade consulates to deal with U.S. trade issues is long overdue. These announcements continue to do nothing to address the substantial measures needed to assist laid off forest workers and to deal with the tariff burden that is threatening large sectors of the Canadian forest industry.
We will continue to press the minister on these issues and that is what today's debate is all about.