Mr. Speaker, the difficulty we are trying to point out is the lack of competitiveness of Canadian industries.
During our recent leadership campaign, one of the contenders for the leadership, Ms. Stronach, mentioned in her speeches that she had been talking recently with one of the major automotive companies, which her former firm had been supplying. This individual indicated to her that his company was sourcing offshore about $1 billion worth of automotive products this year, primarily from China. He also suggested to her that within two years his company would be sourcing from China something in the neighbourhood of $14 billion worth of goods.
That is a huge increase, from $1 billion to $14 billion worth of goods over a period of two years. The reality is, what does it mean to Canadians? It means that many of those products that will now be off-sourced in China will be products which previously would have been sourced in Canada or, at the very least, in North America, the U.S. or even Mexico.
When Canadian companies lose their competitive edge and global manufacturers begin sourcing products in places such as China, Canadian workers are put out of work. The direct effect of that brings into focus the issue that was raised previously by the member from the NDP about labour standards. The effect of off-sourcing this material in places like China is pressure is put on the existing suppliers in Canada to somehow to produce cheaper. Because these companies have failed to invest in methods of production as they should, they will feel the pressure to exert more and more effort from their workers or perhaps concessions in wages and benefits.
The government, by simply pushing along this tariff, by not considering the impact on national trade in Canada and by putting laws in place that will encourage investment in Canada, is basically undermining the very issues which have made our country profitable in the past.
To give some examples of that, this past year I was visited by people involved in the printing industry. One concern they had was that their write-off period for newly purchased pieces of equipment was in the neighbourhood of seven years. They pointed out that in today's age of computers and advancement of technology in many respects the equipment would be obsolete within a matter of two or three years. Although they had the ability to write down over seven years, the piece of equipment would be out the door within two or three years and would have to be replaced.
They also pointed out that, while a travesty in itself within our tax system and counterproductive to the profitability of their printing firms, they were competing with American companies which did allow the write-off of equipment much more quickly. Therefore, their main competition, American printing firms, had a decided advantage when it came to the tax structure, one which they could not enjoy.
Another issue of concern could be in the farm fishing area. I do not have any particular answers to this. However, we have some real concerns about this industry. We are concerned that it should be operating in an environmentally friendly fashion.
In that regard, the fisheries committee issued a report a while ago to which I attached a report as well. In that report I pointed out the government's failure to put appropriate regulations in place to govern the industry. That met with criticism in some quarters because the industry said that we wanted it to put regulations in place which would make it impossible for it to compete with imports from other countries. That tariff issue needs to be looked at.
This industry is closely tied to the marine environment and the marine ecosystem. If it operates with impunity from environmental standards in one part of the world, such as Chile, but is forced Canada to operate in an environmentally friendly fashion, is there a basis for protecting Canadian industry? Is the tariff in those instances justified?
I raise this point because the government, in trying to rush the bill through the House, has not looked at the big picture of how these tariffs impact on Canadian industry or even attempted to justify their existence, and it should.
The fact that the government has raised the bill just months before the tariffs expire brings to mind its failure to push on negotiations dealing with the softwood lumber crisis in Canada. We knew a couple of years ago that the softwood lumber agreement was due to expire. We were sitting on the sidelines wondering when the government would step up to the plate and address the issue. We wondered when we would to see some action on it. The matter kept being put off.
The agreement was to expire in a few months and there was great consternation in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. Finally there was a flurry of activity on the other side of the House and some effort was made to conclude an agreement. Almost two years later, we are still without an agreement. Those issues have not been addressed.
That is no way to deal with important trade issues. This is a case in point. These tariffs are due to expire in a few months. The government has brought the bill in with great haste. It wants the bill to continue through the House, and for good reason, because there has to be some certainty with the whole issue of tariffs. Nevertheless, the bill should have been brought forward months ago, if not a year or so ago, so we could look into the impact of tariffs on Canadian industry and maybe determine whether they could be raised, lowered or even eliminated.
There has to be concern about the way the nation's business is handled. We are in a highly competitive world. I indicated the softwood lumber agreement as an example and some of the barriers that have been put up against Canadian manufactured goods.
In some countries there will be a tariff against goods manufactured in Canada, but at the same time they will accept raw logs from Canada. Then what we have is a growing sector in the Canadian forest industry in British Columbia dedicated to the exportation of raw logs. What that really means is the export of good Canadian jobs.
Over the past 10 years or so, with our lowered Canadian dollar, as low as 63¢, industry came to rely on the cheap dollar to make its way. Therefore, we have essentially lost 10 years of investment in the manufacturing sector. We should have been investing in upgrading and modernizing our manufacturing firms so we could remain competitive with our international competitors, but we did not. Now we are reduced to giving life to the notion that somehow we as Canadians are simply hewers of wood and drawers of water.
In British Columbia we see large logs rafted out to a freighter and loaded onto its the deck for shipment elsewhere in the world. The logs are then remanufactured and shipped back to Canada. That has to hurt, especially when we look at the sorry state of the economy in British Columbia and when we consider the large number of people who are unemployed who would welcome the jobs those logs represent.
In closing, we will support the bill, but we are concerned it is being rushed through the House, as it is. We are certainly concerned that the issues of tariffs and the levels of tariffs were not the topic of discussion and examination by the House, and we think they should have been.