Debates of May 28th, 2002

Supply

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief so that other questions can be asked of the parliamentary secretary. He made so many difficult comments to try to comprehend, I am sure there are a lot of questions as to what he was really trying to say.

I have two questions. First, it is that member and the government who were totally opposed to any type of a free trade agreement. Now all of a sudden the NAFTA agreement is the end all and be all to the government in attempting to solve trade disputes within the United States.

The fact is that we and the government knew, because of the softwood lumber and agriculture issues that were before us, that these issues would be very difficult to deal with. Eighteen months to two years ago the minister for trade knew about a softwood lumber issue. We have been telling these people about the U.S. farm bill for months and months but there was no action at all from the government.

The member is now saying that since other countries could not solve the problem why would we expect his government to.

Is the member simply going to throw up his hands and let agriculture go by the way of the dodo bird without having any kind of opportunity to find a positive solution to this particular impasse with the American government?

By the way, simply going to the WTO will take years. The fact of the matter is that will be too much time for our producers in western Canada. What are the other solutions that this member has with respect to the trade issue?

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if that is brief I would hate to hear longwinded. I will give the member a real quick history lesson because he obviously needs it.

A quick read of the history of this country will tell anybody that the party of protectionism, starting with John A. Macdonald, right through the 1980s, was the Conservative Party. The party for continental trade was--

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Who brought in free trade? Was it the Liberals?

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I know the hon. member does not want the answer but I will ask for the same indulgence that I showed him.

The reality is that throughout that time of Canadian history, despite his ignorance of Canadian history, the party of continental trade was the Liberal Party. Yes, for a brief time in the 1980s those two principal parties reversed their trade position. That is the reality. Unfortunately the member needs to read some Canadian history.

When the member finally asked his question he wanted to know if we were just going to throw up our hands over agriculture. Of course not. The ministers were out last week talking to the farmers in Saskatchewan. They did not say what the Alliance members said, that there would be no assistance for agriculture at all. It was quite the contrary. We said there would be appropriate assistance and that it would need federal and provincial involvement.

[Howard Hilstrom, Canadian Alliance, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, there is a lack of confidence in the government with regard to its reaction to the U.S. farm bill and what it will do about it. We cannot do anything about what it has done in the past but we can react to it on behalf of our Canadian lumber and agriculture people. As to the issue the member spoke to regarding when to use the WTO and NAFTA, the United States uses the WTO and NAFTA with regard to our supply management sector and the wheat board.

I have two questions. First, why is the Canadian government not explaining to Canadians why it will not use the WTO and NAFTA immediately with regard to the agricultural issues of pulse crop additions and country of origin labelling?

Second, why did the agriculture minister hide the fact that Manitoba lost its TB free status in 1997 thereby jeopardizing the trade in cattle we have with the United States? Why is the Riding Mountain National Park elk herd not being reduced so we can have a disease free country?

I would remind the member quickly that--

[The Deputy Speaker]

Respectfully, I have tried to accommodate as many members as possible but the old trick of asking three or four questions within a short period of time, which I understand, is prevailing from either side of the House. If that is the option selected, which seems to be the case so far today, 10 minute speeches with five minutes for questions and comments leaves very little time. I can therefore only try to accommodate as many members as possible.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I knew they would not slide that kind of trick past someone with your experience.

The member obviously does not expect me to address his question about the agriculture minister hiding facts. It is quite the contrary. No agriculture minister has consulted as widely with Canadians as the current minister of agriculture. He is a farmer and a person who has been through the vicissitudes of farming. I am not about to address a question where the member is proposing or purporting that the minister of agriculture hid something from farmers.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief and to the point. This is a very serious motion. Like workers and business leaders, I feel betrayed by the government because it has led us to believe that we had to take part in the consensus with the Canadian government.

Could the parliamentary secretary tell us today why there are no measures to help businesses, such as loan guarantees, which he himself suggested in committee?

So far, the plan is all backwards. Export markets are going to be expanded. Today, we are told that it the government is conducting a campaign in the United States, but why is there no assistance for our own jobs, workers and industries right now?

That is why the government is going to lose the confidence of the House.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am willing to engage my hon. colleague in a bet about whether or not the government is about to lose the confidence of the House. I rather think his assessment is incorrect.

The reality is that there are programs in place to assist workers and communities who are being penalized by the unfair U.S. trade action. Further to that, the Minister of Human Resources Development recently announced $13 million more would be made available to provide support and services to softwood workers in British Columbia. That is a positive response.

As for assistance to industry, a number of options are on the table. The government is carefully reviewing all of them. It is keeping all its options open and will take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I found the points expressed by the parliamentary secretary to be persuasive and very much on topic.

The motion before us today is quite scandalous. It would take away from the consensus we have in Canada and the great job our trade minister has been doing to build a consensus in the forest products sector on the softwood lumber dispute. It is not a simple task because we have very disparate groups such as the coastal industry in B.C., the interior industry, the pulp and paper industry, the softwood lumber industry, and east versus west. However the trade minister has been able to achieve consensus and unanimity. That is not always an easy task.

We should be focusing on the real problem which lies south of the border in Washington, D.C. We know for sure that the U.S. government has embarked on a huge period of inward looking protectionism. It is almost like the period of the Munroe doctrine many years ago when the U.S. government of the day and the American people said they would focus inward, forget about the world and look after themselves.

We have worked co-operatively with the United States on many fronts. The Americans are great friends of ours. However if the U.S. administration had really wanted to deal with softwood lumber it could have dealt with it. The president could have asserted pressure on the various stakeholder groups, lobby groups, and powerful U.S. senators and congressmen and women.

We often underestimate the power of the White House. When the president invites the players in to have a discussion and make a point of view, they listen. What has the U.S. president done in this case? He has done nothing. Has he brought in the players explain to them that Canada is an ally with which the U.S. has an important relationship? Has he put pressure on them? He has not because the U.S. is going through an inward looking period of self interest.

What about Kyoto? We can all debate whether Kyoto is a good or bad deal but President Bush unilaterally said the U.S. was scrapping it. Did he have an alternative plan? No, he did not. Greenhouse gases are a problem. This has put Canada and the world in a difficult position because the United States is one of the biggest generators of greenhouse gases.

This is all is part of a process of drawing inward during a period when the United States is going into congressional and senatorial elections. Does the U.S. administration have the guts to call in the players and tell them Canada is an important ally and friend? Has he told U.S. lumber producers that Canada has won every time? Has he told them they should look more clearly at whether their actions are appropriate and that they had better go back to the drawing board? I very much doubt it. If he had done so it would have had an effect.

The same could be said about the U.S. farm aid bill. The same could be said about steel or pasta. I recently became aware of a company in Toronto with 300 employees that is fighting subsidies paid by the U.S. administration to U.S. pasta producers. It is creating an uneven playing field for pasta producers in Canada.

This is one of a litany of U.S. inward focused protectionist actions driven by self interest and partisan politics. The U.S. president wants a majority in the senate but at what cost? He has said to cut Canada and other allies adrift because it is so important to him. It is nice that he has the self indulgence to forget about the rest of the world.

It is ironic that we had the Prime Minister stand in the House during question period to welcome the new leader of the official opposition. He said we had a lot of information on positions that had been expressed by the leader of the official opposition, one of them apparently being support for Mulroney style trade tactics and policies. That is interesting.

In 1986 when Brian Mulroney was looking for fast track support in the U.S. and he and Ronald Reagan were singing blarney and When Irish Eyes are Smiling and were the greatest of buddies, did he have the guts to tell the U.S. administration and the president they were hurting our softwood lumber industry? No, he did not.

Everyone in the House should read a book called Who's In Charge Here, Anyway? written by Adam Zimmerman of Noranda Forest Inc. Zimmerman was very much involved in the softwood lumber disputes and was a mentor of mine. The book talks about Brian Mulroney and Pat Carney, the trade minister at the time who sold Canada's lumber industry down the river. Did Brian Mulroney raise the issue with U.S. president Reagan? Of course he did not. He wanted to fast track to get the NAFTA. What did he do? He cut loose thousands of Canadians who sacrificed their jobs so he could get his 15% lumber export tax. Is that not nice? Those are the kinds of policies the opposition party wants. It wants Mulroney style trade policies. Is that not grand?

There are alternatives to the current process of countervailing duties. I had a discussion one day with Gordon Ritchie, one of the lead negotiators in NAFTA and the FTA. I asked him about concepts like net subsidies, serious prejudice, and fighting trade disputes through the prism of competition policy. Among trade gurus, and I am not one of them, there are alternatives to the countervailing duty process.

The countervailing duty process is skewed in favour of the Americans. All we can do as Canadians is defend our system. We cannot attack their system. If we had a system of net subsidies the Americans could only launch countervailing challenges if they could show that on balance net subsidies were greater in Canada than in the United States. Then we would not have this problem.

When I was in the forest products industry I went to the United States to meet with the governors of several states. If one wanted to put up an OSB mill, a saw mill, a pulp mill or a paper mill they would roll out goodies like sales tax abatements, property tax abatements, tax holidays of all descriptions, cheap industrial land, and cogeneration agreements that would knock one's socks off. However can we attack U.S. subsidies? No, we cannot. Because they are narrowly defined through U.S. trade law all we can do is respond with ours.

We can argue about trying to change trade remedies under NAFTA. However while the U.S. congress and senate guardedly protect, and from their perspective rightly so, the domain of the U.S. congress and senate over trade law we can talk until the cows come home about trying to get better trade remedies. We can talk until the cows home about getting a better definition of subsidy or dumping because the Americans will not agree to it. They will not agree because they look at their own narrow self interest instead of trying to be a world player. If the U.S. was a world player it would only look at whether action in Canada was non-competitive in nature. In other words, it would ask whether it constituted predatory pricing or price fixing.

The Americans could look at these disputes through the prism of competition policy. It is the biggest competitive nation in the world. Does it do that? No, it focuses on subsidies and dumping through the narrow confines of its own trade law because that is what suits its self interest.

It is terrible to have this motion before the House. The Prime Minister has had the guts to raise softwood lumber and U.S. farm aid with the president on many occasions while Tory prime minister Brian Mulroney rolled it under the carpet. Brian Mulroney did not have the guts to take it up with the U.S. president but our Prime Minister has. Our trade minister has been able to forge a great consensus in the country on softwood lumber and a whole range of other issues.

Instead of focusing on this side of the border we should be focusing on the White House, the U.S. congress and U.S. senators. We should be trying to build awareness in the United States about what the issue is doing to Canadians and to house prices in the United States. I am glad our government has responded with a promotional campaign which will attempt to do that.

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have had two speakers now from the government side. They have managed to avoid the main substance of our motion which deals with the lack of support for laid off workers and for the agriculture and softwood industries. I am most amazed.

I would like to pose a question to the member for Etobicoke North on the softwood lumber issue. He dragged up some history from 1986. Let us talk about 1996. In 1996 the government insisted it had done a cost benefit analysis before it signed that agreement. The member for Okanagan—Shuswap determined through over a million pages of documentation from access to information that the government never ever did a cost benefit analysis before it signed that agreement.

An additional hypocrisy or misleading of the public was dealing with the pulp mill subsidy in Quebec. Against the advice of the government's now minister of revenue and the fact that it would go against the WTO, the government proceeded to do it for electoral purposes.

Is the member for Etobicoke North proud to revise history and drag our leader into 1986 history because he is not proud of his government's 1996 history?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member for Vancouver Island North has raised this point again. He raised it previously in the House and I guess he was not listening. In 1996 and before I was elected I was working in the forest products industry. The then trade minister was Roy MacLaren. I was elected after Mr. MacLaren in Etobicoke North. Mr. MacLaren is a good personal friend of mine.

I was working with the forest sector advisory council on competitiveness issues. Mr. MacLaren came to my home one night and we were having some Christmas cheer, and he said that the forest industry in Canada was begging him, not the provinces and not the bureaucrats, the forest industry was begging him for five years of trade peace with a system of managed trade, which is the system of quotas. The forest industry was begging him and it was totally anathema to his view on free trade. He asked me what he should do?

I find it so repulsive that the parties opposite keep trying to tell Canadians that the five year softwood lumber quota agreement was an invention of the bureaucracy in Ottawa or the government at the time, or the trade minister. The industry begged for it. I know that for a fact. The member for Vancouver Island North should check his own history.

If he were to focus on finding better solutions to this countervailing duty process that is what we should be fighting for. We should be convincing the Americans that we should be implementing systems such as net subsidies, serious prejudice and looking at these issues through a competition policy instead of laying problems with the government.

The government has been fighting hard on behalf of all Canadians. We should identify the real enemy and go down to Washington and convince the Americans of their folly.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver Island North is absolutely correct when he points out that the two members on the government side who have spoken on this issue have failed utterly to refer to anything dealing with Canada's failure to implement offsetting trade injury measures for the agriculture and resource sectors. It is an important part of the motion. The members have chosen instead to talk about it being silly, scandalous and a terrible motion.

Let me ask the member for Etobicoke North who was referring to the protectionist congress and saying that we could talk until the cows come home and we are not going to make any changes. In the context, Mr. Member, that the Minister for International Trade announced yesterday of $20 million for advertising into the U.S. market, could he explain if that is going to solve the problems that we have today?

[Roy Cullen, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I find the wording of the motion about offsetting trade injury measures a bit confusing. This normally comes up with a WTO challenge. If a country is seen to be offside then the country that puts forward the challenge can launch various offsetting measures.

What the hon. member is probably after or what the motion addresses is support for the forest products industry and the farmers in Canada. The member opposite conveniently ignores the fact that the government has announced $75 million to help the forest products industry with market access, to help with research and development with value added products, and a $20 million launch not too long ago to deal with sales promotion. The $20 million advertising and promotion campaign is an important initiative. Americans need to understand that with the tariff in place the cost of their housing is up by about $1,500 per year. We need to tell Americans that this is hurting them as well as us.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this motion by the member for North Vancouver. I would like to read this motion, which I am going to support. It states:

That this House has lost confidence in the government for its failure to persuade the U.S. 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.

I will address the softwood lumber sector in particular. I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Lotbinière-L'Érable, who will deal more specifically with agriculture.

This is indeed a highly responsible motion and the House can no longer have confidence in the government. Let us recall that we here were nearly unanimous in adopting a position in support of free trade for softwood lumber. The Minister for International Trade had promised us that there would be a firm position, that he would defend the workers, defend the industry. At every stage, when the Americans reacted in a protectionist manner, he backed down. He is no longer doing anything. Because of him, the Americans are making the decisions for us.

When we hear members like the Liberal member who spoke before me bashing the Americans, saying things like “their protectionism is what is to blame”, is this not an admission that the federal government was unable to persuade the U.S. government when this campaign was first launched? Did the Minister for International Trade not know there was an upper house in the United States as well, that there was a Senate and a House of Representatives? That the President of the United States would be pro-protectionist as we now see that Bush is? These are things the Minister for International Trade knew, as did the people in the industry. The workers knew it too. But we never thought that the federal government would get us into such a thing and would then, when backed into a corner, abandon the industry and its workers, who are now losing their jobs as a result.

This is why today's motion is so appropriate. The government must be condemned for its inaction. It strikes me as very important that it be done today. This government, and the Minister for International Trade in particular, has been irresponsible in its dealings with the Americans.

As regards the softwood lumber issue, during the past year we travelled through our various regions and everyone was saying “We will stand up to the Americans”. We went to Washington with the parliamentary secretary to defend our position. He himself was then saying “If it takes loan guarantee programs to help businesses, so be it”. I believe he said this before a parliamentary committee.

Today, we can see that the federal government always reacts after the fact. Now that the Americans have decided to impose a tariff in excess of 20%, the federal government is going to conduct an ad campaign in the United States to inform Americans of the plight of our producers and of the loss for Americans. The government is now going to engage in market prospecting abroad. This government is always one step behind; it reacts after the fact. When the house is on fire, it calls the fire department. Why did it not do some prevention in the first place? It could have conducted this campaign in the United States two or three years ago, when it was time to convince Americans, to correct public opinion, so that members of the House of Representatives and of the Senate in the United States would not have taken the position they now hold. We could have convinced these people then. We could have acted and been proactive at that time.

The motion condemns the government because it is not proactive. Now, we are faced with a fait accompli, as can be seen again in today's newspapers.

For example, the executive vice-president and general manager of the Free Trade Lumber Council, Carl Grenier, indicated, and I am quoting an article published in today's edition of La Presse , that “his organization had proposed the use of loan guarantees to help the industry, a plan that should not result in new reprisals on the part of the Americans”. He said that “As the impact of the 27.2% duties begins to be felt, there will be more pressure to make an announcement”.

It goes without saying that pressure will be exerted now that we are closer to reality, but the government had a duty to be proactive regarding this issue. From the moment it knew that the Americans had decided to impose a tariff, the government should have told our industries “Yes, we will protect you, yes, we will ensure that a loan guarantee system is in place”. Should losses not be as high as anticipated, this will not cost us anything, and we will have supported our businesses. However, if there are losses, then we will have given our businesses a chance to weather the storm.

They were not proactive on the government side, even less so when it came to workers. They completely abandoned them. In Quebec alone, 2,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the short term.

In all, some 10,000 jobs are at stake because of the dispute and 7,000 have been affected since the beginning of the campaign. We are unable to get the government to do anything to help these people and to announce that it will help them.

In my region, the only news is that next year, instead of receiving EI benefits for 32 weeks, seasonal workers will receive benefits for 21 weeks. This is the opposite of what we are hoping for. Workers were told “We will go to battle, we will fight the Americans and win the war”. Yet, once in battle, they have disarmed them and not given them any means to defend themselves. This is why we need to denounce the government's behaviour, which is completely unacceptable.

In my riding, there are multinational lumber companies such as Bowater and also local and regional companies, such as GDS, Lebel, Richard Pelletier et Fils. These are all companies that our region depends on. Today, they are waiting for the federal government to come up with an action plan to help business, a loan guarantee program that will keep people from getting the impression that this government always reacts after the fact and intervenes once things have happened.

Rather than sending the Americans a clear political message that we are ready for battle, that we will ultimately win the war and that we are supporting our industry, yesterday we heard comments such as those made by the Minister for International Trade, who simply said “Oh, we will see. We are open to new things”. It is like saying “Give us your best shot, hit us hard, we can take it, we will take it all and not react”. This is the type of attitude that we find unacceptable and that must be corrected.

I would also like to add a few words about a specific situation. In 1996, if Quebec had been sovereign and had negotiated with the Americans—they were charging 0.04% at the time—we would now have a free trade agreement. But no, we had to go with all of Canada to come to a situation where the maritimes were exempted from the tariffs and accept tariffs to compensate western Canada. We have all learned a lesson from this situation.

Today, nothing has changed. The federal government is not able to negotiate effectively with the American government. We are not saying that the United States is not a major world power; we are not saying that it does not have a lot of clout. But when the government launched us into this fight, it knew this. Now we are even seeing the price of softwood lumber continue to drop because, now that Canadian lumber has been excluded from the American market, lumber from other countries is entering the United States. The Americans are going to see a new situation. They will perhaps have to adopt protectionist measures against every other country in the world. But here in Canada, we are going to go on paying the price if the federal government fails to reduce offsetting trade injury measures for the softwood lumber sector.

For all these reasons, I think that it is important for Liberal members, who are going to vote on this motion and who live in areas of the country where forestry is a major industry whose survival depends on the assistance it can expect, to call around in their ridings, to go and see business owners and workers on the weekend and ask them how, in all conscience, they should vote on such a motion. I hope that they will not have to vote before the weekend. If they do, they should check around today. In the end, if they listen to what the public and business leaders want them to do, I am sure that they will vote in favour of the non-confidence motion.

When it comes to softwood lumber, this government is headed for complete disaster. We are still looking at getting through two difficult years while we wait for the WTO ruling. If things keep on like this, in two years the government will win its case but the industry will have died. The federal government must take speedy action. When can we expect loan guarantees? When can we expect tangible action to help our industries?

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to my colleague's comments. He made the statement that the government reacts to facts. I agree with him. That is exactly what any government should do. One cannot react to anything else and make good decisions.

He asks why we as a government did not take preventive action two or three years ago. My question is, does the member not understand that all of the key provinces involved, with their provincial industries and governments, as well as the government of Quebec and its industry, deliberately were part of a consensus to let the softwood lumber agreement run out? It was not the kind of deal we wanted to have again. We would see what the facts would be: Would the United States live up to free trade in softwood lumber or not? It decided not to live up to free trade. Now we are pursuing every legal avenue open to us at the WTO and NAFTA.

Does the member not understand that it was a conscious decision fully supported by the Quebec industry and the Quebec government? Does he not understand that two or three years ago there was a totally different administration, a different president and a different set of circumstances? We have to deal with the facts. He said that as a government this is what we do and he is quite right. I would like to hear his views on those facts.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the industry was expecting the government to be proactive and for some pre-emptive action to be taken on this.

When we went to Washington last summer, we realized we were on a different planet. The representatives of the United States Senate and House of Representatives had no idea whatsoever of the reality of this market.

Why did the government not react immediately at that point? Why was there not far more real and extensive action taken at that time to convince them? If we decide to fight the Americans on softwood lumber, we need to make use of all the weapons at our disposal, and particularly the most important one: American public opinion.

If we wanted to win the fight, that was when we ought to have reacted. Today we are going to try to change public opinion three months away from elections, when representatives will be elected on the basis of how they vote on major issues such as this. It is certain that each American sector of activity will want to defend itself.

It is terribly late to react. We must never forget that the one who is in charge of negotiations with the United States, and this cuts to the core of the issue, is the Minister for International Trade. We cannot be polite when it comes to the things that are working well, on the one hand, then refuse our responsibilities when it comes to things that are not working, on the other.

The Minister for International Trade tried to calm things down, to have everyone behind him, but he was not prepared to do battle with the United States on the issue of softwood lumber. Today, we are dealing with this, with the consequences of this fact. This is what our businesses and workers are realizing: that the one who was in the lead, who was supposed to be the leader, turned out to be spineless. Indeed, this government is spineless.

This is why we need to condemn the government today. The House must tell the government “There must be a change of attitude. There must be a change in behaviour. The industry must be given the means to defend itself. Workers must be given a guarantee that they will not experience a gap with no income for eight, ten, twelve or fifteen weeks, because of this government's decisions”.

This is a responsibility. We decided that we would not enter into another agreement like that of 1996. We decided that we would fight, when it comes to softwood lumber. We must fight this to the end and stop being timid, like we are currently doing, because the minister himself, by his attitude, is saying to the Americans “Hit me harder. I like it. I like getting hit. I do not react. I do not give business what it needs to defend itself. I do not defend my workers”.

All of the messages that the government is sending, as it has in all of the negotiations, is that Canada is not ready. We have not taken the necessary measures and today we are forced to defend ourselves when we have not prepared ourselves to do so.

We still have time. We must react. The government must learn from this motion. The government must learn that it has lost the confidence of the House on this issue, and that ultimately, it must correct its behaviour, perhaps change the minister—it might not hurt to have someone who has some clout with the other ministers—and free up some money to defend our workers and businesses in a responsible manner.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I too am very pleased to support the Canadian Alliance motion, which condemns the adoption, by our American neighbours, of the infamous U.S. Farm Bill, and which particularly condemns the inaction of the Liberal government and its agriculture minister, who is continuing his consultation and is being buried under numerous reports that do not provide any solution to the agricultural crisis that will soon hit Quebec farmers hard.

As members know, I represent one of the most rural ridings in Quebec, the riding of Lotbinière—L'Érable, where agriculture plays a key role in our economy.

The whole supply management system that governs Quebec's dairy industry is in jeopardy. With its protectionist legislation, the U.S. government will allow the payment of billions of dollars in subsidies, which will create a distortion on the market.

The UPA, the Federation of Dairy Producers of Canada and agricultural co-operatives are all condemning the action taken on May 13 by President George Bush, who signed what is now known as the infamous U.S. Farm Bill. What is left of the family farm in the regional economy, which is already seriously affected by the massive industrialization of its agriculture, will disappear.

I have with me the headline of La Terre de chez nous . This weekly publication owned by the UPA does not mince words about this U.S. legisllation, which is one of the most protectionist in the agricultural world.

The headline reads “Farewell to freer trade”. The author of the text is very critical of the U.S. administration. When commenting the American approach, the journalist writes “Hypocritical, perverse, reactionary, protectionist, election-minded”.

This is rather clear, is it not? La Terre de chez nous also alludes to the outcry that followed President Bush's decision. The European commissioner for agriculture said that the American position is the opposite of the position that the United States defended at the last recent WTO conference, held in Doha.

At this point, I should remind the House, so that Liberal members opposite know exactly what this infamous bill is all about, that it provides for the most generous subsidy program in U.S. history, and the most unfair to Quebec and Canada.

Indeed, over the next 10 years, an additional $5 billion will be given annually to U.S. farmers, thus bringing to $22 billion the annual amount of money earmarked for special production.

The purpose of the WTO rules on the liberalization of markets established a few years ago was to make producers less dependent on government financial support.

Through this bill, the Americans are breaking not only their WTO commitments, but also those they made during the last Uruguay round, which led to the World Trade Organization.

In an obvious vote-getting ploy, the Bush administration has, for some time now, been adopting a series of protectionist measures which are penalizing its economic partners.

Again, I would like to know how the Americans define “partner”. My feeling is that their definition is quite different from the one we use on this side of the border. Free trade seems to be one-sided, benefiting only U.S. made goods. The members across the way appear not to understand this.

The Americans' expansionist aims are more obvious than ever and do little to hid the interests of an agricultural industry which no longer leads world markets.

I would like to come back to Quebec. On behalf of his organization and its 40 affiliated federations, UPA president Laurent Pellerin fully supports the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's urgent appeal to the federal government for compensation for Canadian farmers to offset the infamous U.S. Farm Bill.

Farmers in Quebec and in Canada, farmers in my riding, have trouble understanding how the government could put off acting any longer.

This time, it is the responsibility of the federal government. It must act, instead of starting off in search of a kind of consensus in order to try to enlist the help of the provinces in connection with unassumed responsibilities. What is more, this government has at its disposal all the surplus funds it may need to take immediate action. It must accept responsibility for its inaction. It must act because what we are dealing with here is a trade dispute between two countries.

As far as the Minister of Agriculture is concerned, this great specialist in consultation, we give him the green light right away today to adopt positive measures to provide farmers with some reassurance.

The Minister of Agriculture, the Minister for International Trade, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, and the majority of the Liberals have the cash in hand and the power to use it. We know that, like his counterparts, the Minister of Agriculture has spoken out against the Farm Bill.

But the Canadian government must not stop at merely speaking out, it must take action immediately.

I would like to see the Prime Minister being as quick to act as he was this past weekend with his cabinet shuffle, in an attempt to cover up and put an end to the wave of scandals affecting his government these past few weeks.

Yet, he is being patient as far as agriculture is concerned, and particularly unaware of the disastrous consequences of the position taken by his neighbours to the south. The Liberal government is far quicker to give nice little contracts to its cronies than to take action to help the agricultural producers of Quebec and Canada. It is shameful to see the Liberal attitude. Quebec and Canadian agriculture is disappearing. What are they doing about it on that side of the House? The Liberal federal ministers have worn out their knees groveling to the Americans. It is unacceptable to have a government so lacking in leadership.

In conclusion, this government must immediately speak out against this law before the World Trade Organization. I would like to just add a comment made by my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, the official Bloc Quebecois agriculture critic. In a recent press release, she gave a good summary of the weakness of the federal minister of agriculture:

For too long now, the government has been following the policy of turning the other cheek as far as the Americans are concerned. We demand a firm stand in this matter and some tangible support for farmers.

I doubt that the present Liberal government is likely to exhibit such an attitude, since it has backed down to American imperialism.

[John Duncan, Canadian Alliance, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I appreciated the comments by the member for Lotbinière--L'Érable and the speaker before that, the member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

I have an important question that relates to a couple of things. We had firm statements saying that maintaining resolve on the Canadian side in the fight for free trade required a couple of things. The first one was to support companies.

The Minister for International Trade told the B.C. producers last week that if they wanted support they should see the Minister of Industry. About a week and a half ago the trade minister said that there were no job losses due to the softwood dispute, that rather it was a restructuring issue.

I wonder if the members from the province of Quebec are getting the same message as British Columbians are receiving, which is essentially that the Liberal government does not care about the agriculture and softwood lumber issues.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on June 2, I will have been a member of this House for five years. I attended all the consultations on both agriculture and softwood lumber. On each occasion, I saw ministers from the Liberal government make commitments. On each occasion, they made me feel a little more optimistic about the economic situation in Canada and Quebec. However, on each of these occasions, they mostly made my frustration level go up, because they did not make good on their word and their commitments.

If agriculture and softwood lumber are now in this situation, as shown by today's debate, it is because the federal Liberals did not do their job. It is because the Prime Minister should have looked after the economy, instead of dealing with scandals. If the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister for International Trade are not able to do their job, then the Prime Minister must act and replace them.

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I have now heard that the two previous speakers from the Bloc intend to support the motion. Well they can answer for that.

Could the member who just spoke on agriculture address the following point? Almost a year ago the Alliance member, who was appointed critic for the World Trade Organization, said that Canada should agree “to open up its now-protected dairy, poultry and egg markets. It is critically important that agriculture be on the table and be totally on the table”.

I wonder if that is what the Bloc member's constituents want. I wonder if that is what his dairy farmers want.

The Alliance member for Selkirk--Interlake said that we were not standing up for agriculture. I just quoted his World Trade Organization critic. I hope I will have a chance to put that to the Alliance member later on.

I wonder if the Bloc member who spoke so passionately about agriculture and who will be supporting the motion, supports the Alliance policies to get rid of our dairy system and so on.

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as we know, Canada is a very vast country with regional disparities. Quebec has a position on dairy production, eggs and poultry, and the Canadian Alliance has another position on agriculture.

I cannot provide an answer right now because, as we know, negotiations are underway. The Minister of Agriculture is always consulting with his provincial counterparts to try to achieve a consensus. As I said earlier, the federal government is always trying to achieve consensuses, to find solutions. It keeps telling us that it will set up good action plans, but nothing happens.

At any rate, it is well-known that the Bloc Quebecois has the solution. Once we have achieved full control over our economy, we will not ask the federal government to get involved in our business, because we can manage our own economy. The Quebec agricultural industry will then be better off and better protected.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Churchill.

The debate today deals with two essential elements. The first one is the hypocrisy of the U.S. government which parades as the champion of markets and free trade but which is prepared to support narrow and sectoral business interests. That is the one that the Liberal members have spoken about.

The second important element of the debate relates to our Canadian government and its failure to protect the livelihood of tens of thousands of Canadians, whether they are in the farming or the forestry sector.

Free trade was supposed to be the panacea. We were promised that it would win us secure access to the American market. Free trade, in other words, was supposed to prevent exactly what is happening now.

The U.S. senate has just passed an amendment called the Dayton-Craig amendment after the names of the sponsors. It will make future trade negotiations even more difficult. The amendment allows U.S. senators to pick apart and renegotiate international agreements. Up until now it has been an all or nothing arrangement. We either rejected the whole package or we accepted it all. Now they will be able to pick and choose. It will render U.S. trade negotiations impotent because their word will not necessarily be their bond.

New Democrats and Canadians alike are all for trade but it has to be fair trade, not some ideological slogan that leaves us vulnerable every time there is an American lobby or an American election.

The farmers and the forestry workers have a great deal in common. They are both primary industries harassed by the Americans and they have both been virtually ignored by the government.

Like the forestry workers, Canadian farmers have endured years of harassment from the American administration. It has threatened to stop beef and pork at our border. It is now talking about country of origin labelling on a voluntarily basis. It has charged time and again that we are dumping our wheat into its market and at one point the Liberal government agreed to put a cap on wheat exports to the U.S.

Time and again the Americans have attacked the Canadian Wheat Board just as they are attacking us now on softwood. The Canadian government has been completely inept in our opinion in its handling of the softwood lumber dispute, as it has been on a wide range of trade matters.

The government has been passive when we have the tools, limited though they may be, to be more aggressive.

Just on that point, we note that $20 million was announced yesterday in a public relations campaign to convince American consumers that their government is wrong and we are right on the softwood lumber industry. That will certainly bring the Americans cowering to the table. What happened to the threat by the Prime Minister a couple of months ago when he was all puffed up after Canada won a couple of Olympic gold medals and he promised to hit the Americans over the head with the proverbial 2x4? I doubt that a $20 million advertising campaign going into the U.S. market will have any effect whatsoever. The money might as well go up in smoke.

I think Canadians are asking for some strength here. The Americans need Canada's approval, for example, for a northern gas pipeline route. So far our government has been tripping all over itself to co-operate. Why does our trade minister not tell the Americans that the pipeline approval process will be slow walked if the U.S. continues to harass the people working in our forests and on our farms?

Canadians want that kind of action. In a poll that came out last Friday in the Globe and Mail , some two-thirds of Canadians felt that the government was out of touch on trade issues and they believed that the Americans got the better of this country in trade deals and trade disputes. That is related to natural gas, agriculture and certainly to softwood.

The U.S. is so large and powerful that it inevitably gets the better of Canada in trade agreements and during trade disputes. That comment received a 65% approval rating in the poll.

This substantiates what a P.E.I. farmer told our agriculture committee when we were in Summerside this past winter. He said that when it comes to free trade the United States has rights and Canada has obligations. Another way to put it is as the Mexicans say: that when it comes to the United States they are so far from God and so close to the United States.

Seventy per cent of Canadians polled said it is unwise to have so much reliance on one trading partner. We have heard the parliamentary secretary say 85.1% of our trade is with the United States. We should be seeking other markets. We should be broadening the basket, but we have put all our eggs in this one and we are dropping and breaking those eggs. Twenty-six per cent of Canadians want Ottawa to retaliate by blocking exports of other Canadian products heading south. In other words, they would like this government to poke that government in the eye with a sharp stick.

Further on agriculture, there have been nine trade investigations into the Canadian Wheat Board and every one of them has said that the CWB is acting and trading fairly. The Americans pose as the champions of free trade and unfettered markets but their actions speak much louder than their words. They have just introduced this 10-year package which, coupled with previous packages, will amount to more than $180 billion in subsidies to American farmers, a program in which the vast majority of the money goes to the biggest and wealthiest of U.S. farmers.

The U.S. subsidies allow American farmers to produce grain at prices that may be well below market price and thus put our farmers at a great disadvantage. For the first time anywhere in the world pulse crops such as peas, beans and lentils are now subsidized in the United States. No other country in the world subsidizes those commodities.

The U.S. farm bill definitely has the potential to put thousands of our farmers out of business. This could not come at a worse time because, as we know, Statistics Canada has just reported that we have lost 30,000 farms in the past five years between 1996 and 2001. Canadian farm and political leaders are urging the federal government to provide a trade injury compensation package worth at least $1.3 billion. About $500 million of this injury will occur in the province of Saskatchewan, which has 47% of Canada's arable farmland.

Members of our caucus have supported this request. We have raised the issue in the House of Commons on many occasions, thus far to no avail despite the meeting last Friday in Saskatoon.

After its election in 1993, the Liberal government, aided and abetted by the Reform Party, began to cut support to Canadian farmers to levels well below what was allowed under the GATT agreement, the Uruguay round. As a result, today Canada's support for farmers is among the lowest of all industrialized countries. Only Australia and New Zealand are ahead of us in that.

The Americans and the Europeans argue that the subsidies they provide to farmers fall within the limits allowed by the WTO. If that is true, then Canada's support for farmers falls well short of the support limits that are allowed under the WTO.

The parliamentary secretary says he is concerned about punitive trade actions. The fact of the matter is that the agriculture committee was told many years ago, in about 1998, that Canada could put $2 billion a year into agricultural support payments without running any risk of problems with the WTO.

I realize that my time is up, but I will just make one or two very quick points in 30 seconds. First, it has to be the federal government, not the provincial governments, that steps up to the plate on a trade injury compensation package. This is international trade. It is not agriculture. Finally, we have sold away a good deal of our sovereignty but we have not lost all the tools. The world belongs to those who show up and the government has so far failed to show up on this issue. More important, it has failed to stand up for our country and its people. It had better soon do that or we will not have a country at all.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the gentleman speak on this issue and I know how he feels about a number of things along these lines. However, earlier today one of the Liberal members came out rather strongly on what a horrible job the Mulroney government did when it was in power.

I want to remind this member and the Liberal Party that in 1992 the Conservative government at the time opened up the market on barley. It opened up the continental barley market. For the first time in a number of years in my riding, barley farmers were making the kind of money that they just never dreamed they would ever make again. Things were really on the go. It was working well. Even the wheat board increased its sales because it suddenly saw some competition. Its sales went way up.

Along came the Liberal government in 1993. It slammed the door on this positive initiative and in the last nine years it has not even come close to being successful in this area. Once we had something that worked. The Liberal government came along and slammed the door on it and this member and his party supported that slamming of the door.

Why is it that when initiatives are taken and a good decision is made somebody has to come along and, for whatever reason, ruin something that is working really well? Consequently the member now can rest assured that probably 25% of these farms have been sold in the last nine years. They have gone under because of these kinds of decisions. I would like to hear his comments.

[Dick Proctor, NDP, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. It is painful to recall, but between 1993 and 1997, as the member will know because he was sitting here then, the New Democratic Party did not have official party status in the House. Therefore we had very little to do with what happened during that four years. The Reform Party, on the other hand, had a great deal to do with it and that explains why we are in some of these problems when it comes to trade policy.

I would simply say on the question today that I know the member and his party are opposed to the Canadian Wheat Board. They know we support the Canadian Wheat Board, but the position of the New Democratic Party is that with an elected board it is now up to the farmers themselves to decide the future of that board and what it will or will not do. Whether it will change its policy on barley or whether it will not is entirely up to the voting members. There are elections coming up this fall. If farmers in those regions where the elections are being held want to make a change to the Canadian Wheat Board, they will do so.