Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Joliette for sharing his time with me during this debate on softwood lumber. I congratulate him on his hard work and fine performance ever since this issue has been with us. This has been a clear message for workers and businesses in Quebec that the Bloc Quebecois is standing up for them. Once again, I congratulate the hon. member for Joliette.
As my colleague just mentioned, the softwood lumber dispute with the Americans has been simmering for a long time. In 1996, the Canadian government accepted voluntary penalties just to prevent any trade dispute with them. But the Bloc Quebecois has always held that these stop-gap measures were not a real solution. We have always stood for the principle of total free trade in softwood lumber with the United States.
Unfortunately, the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled last Thursday to uphold a 27.22% tariff on Canadian lumber. Clearly, this will have a serious impact on jobs in the forest industry throughout Canada and more particularly in Quebec. In Quebec alone, it could cost the industry as much as $550 million a year and result in the layoff of 10,000 workers.
I take the floor today also as the Bloc Quebecois critic for regional development. My region, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, will be devastated by this situation. It has 30 lumber plants with a capacity of at least 10,000 cubic meters each. Some 2,452 plant workers and 2,435 forest workers work for them. Therefore, of all the regions in Quebec, mine is by far the one that will be the most severely hit by American sanctions.
This fear is unfortunately justified since, as soon as the temporary sanctions took effect several weeks ago, between 12,000 and 20,000 workers lost their jobs according to Canadian lumber industry estimates. This number could rise to 50,000 if U.S. sanctions become permanent, and there is every reason to believe that they will.
I was extremely sad to hear the international trade minister say that those job losses may not be the result of U.S. sanctions but rather due to a natural restructuring in that sector of our economy. You have to be completely disconnected from reality to say such things. The minister should come to my region.
I remind hon. members that during oral question periods, my colleague from Joliette and other members of my party invited the minister to visit their respective regions to talk with workers in the lumber sector. However, the minister did not even answer nor did he accept the invitation.
The government will wake up to a brutal reality if it tells workers such nonsense. People protested last week. I remind the House that in my region, in the Chicoutimi area, hundreds of workers protested and asked the government to take its responsibilities and help workers and businesses face what the Americans are doing. They protested in the streets and they know full well that if they lose their jobs during the weeks to come it will be solely because of the U.S. surtax if nothing is done.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois is asking, on this opposition day, the government to rapidly implement a program to support, until the end of the conflict, the lumber industry and its workers against the unjustified decision of the Americans to impose a 27.2% tariff on Canadian lumber exports to the United States.
These measures are necessary because, with the inhumane restrictions of the EI system, these people are unable to qualify. The measures are necessary in order to ensure the vitality and economic health of Quebec's regions. Many of these regions depend on this industry alone, which is a source of job creation. In Quebec, 135 towns and villages depend directly on these processing plants.
By doing nothing, the Minister for International Trade is telling us that he could care less about these communities in the remote regions of Quebec, as he so disdainfully referred to them during the last election campaign.
Where I live, in the Lac-Saint-Jean area, there is a ghost town, Val-Jalbert, which shut down its sawmill and is now a tourist attraction. We do not want to see all the towns and villages directly affected by the softwood lumber dispute going the way of Val-Jalbert.
There is no doubt that we must continue to press for a return to free trade. But as Frank Dottori, co-chair of the Free Trade Lumber Council and CEO of Tembec said in October:
We’ve been told by Canadian government officials for the last two months that there is a new will on the part of the U.S. government to settle this dispute more reasonably than in the past. A reasonable observer would surely say that the Americans continue to play the only game they know in trade negotiations: hardball.
Given that the Americans are behaving like cowboys, a negotiated or legal solution is clearly not imminent. The odds are that a settlement is still months or years away.
Softwood lumber workers are in no way responsible for the situation in which they find themselves. So why is the government leaving them to fend for themselves without jobs and without coming to their assistance in what is, after all, an exceptional situation?
What is this government actually doing? The federal government, with the help of the very generous Minister of Human Resources Development, is plundering the EI fund, which belongs to workers and employers.
This year alone, $4 billion will be used for purposes other than helping the country's unemployed. It is time to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. This EI fund surplus must go to softwood lumber workers who have lost their job.
Knowing that we must help these workers and the regions of Quebec that have been affected by the softwood lumber crisis, the Bloc Quebecois has proposed immediate measures to support them. Why does the Minister of Human Resources Development not use the $700 million available for support measures to provide special incentives for employers to hire workers who have been laid off because of the softwood trade war?
The program proposed by the Bloc Quebecois calls for a six month grant to cover the full salary, which would be given in conjunction with six months of half of the salary and a conditional commitment by the employer to keep the employee for at least another year. These are good suggestions.
Why does the Minister of Human Resources Development not increase by one year the duration of benefits for older workers who cannot be retrained, and are affected by the crisis and awaiting a real support program for older workers?
Why does she not extend the EI benefits by five weeks? If the government does not want to go ahead with our suggestions, then all it has to do is say that they are the product of the fertile imagination of the Minister of Human Resources Development or the Minister for International Trade.
What is most important is that we help the regions of Quebec, because I and all of my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois believe in regional development for Quebec. It is neither the workers nor of the regions that are to blame for the softwood lumber conflict. It is up the to Government of Canada to propose solutions to help businesses and workers.