Madam Chair, to start, I just want to mention that the NDP and the other parties fully support the idea of loan guarantees and assuming the legal fees for companies that are in this situation because of the government's inaction. It is absolutely not their fault and Parliament must definitively support these companies and these communities. It is because of the government's inaction that we have to make such a suggestion.
We are in a situation now where the softwood lumber industry is bleeding $4 million in punitive tariffs every day. We have lost 20,000 jobs in my province of British Columbia. Softwood lumber tops the agenda of concerns of British Columbians because of the tens of thousands of lost jobs in the softwood sector.
We are now talking about accumulated punitive tariffs of $5 billion. It is important to note that due to the Byrd amendment, millions of dollars of that $5 billion have already been paid out to American competitors and it will never return. We do not really know how many millions have been paid out already.
We are talking about an extremely serious situation, which is why it is appalling that we have seen no action in two months. I will give credit where credit is due. There was one phone call in two months.
Let us go back two months to the extraordinary challenge procedure. Article 1904 states that the committee decision shall be binding on the parties. There is no ambiguity and there are no weasel words. It is very clear that the process is binding. When Canada went through three panel decisions and three remand determinations before getting to that point, we are talking about something that was clear.
What is shocking is the fact that since this clear violation of NAFTA and the dispute settlement mechanism, we have seen no action from the government. The dispute settlement mechanism is tied completely to the concessions that the Conservative government made and that the Liberal government maintained on NAFTA in energy.
With the proportionality provisions of NAFTA, in the event of a shortage, a reduction in supply or in the event of a national emergency, we are obliged under NAFTA to ship most of our energy supplies to the United States. Those wonderful negotiators, the Conservatives, consented to those proportionality provisions. They have real backbone when they negotiate agreements. In return, we were supposed to have a dispute settlement mechanism that would be binding.
Two months later, the dispute settlement has been ripped up and the Liberal government is saying, obliquely, that it will go back to negotiating. The Conservative opposition uses the words “special envoy” to negotiate when the agreement has been violated and very clearly the dispute settlement mechanism is null and void. We have not heard one concrete suggestion from either the Liberals or the Conservatives. We have heard a lot of speeches, posturing and spin but while Canadians wait for some action, what they have seen is 20,000 lost jobs and a bleeding of $4 million a day.
What does the NDP call for? We had a three point plan and said that Parliament should be recalled immediately to debate the issue to see what action should be taken. We did not suggest sending a special envoy to go and negotiate after we had won, which is what the Conservatives suggested. We actually said that we should recall Parliament and take concrete action.
We have called as well for the halt of the deep integration of the NAFTA plus negotiations. It is no wonder the Bush administration sees mixed signals coming from the government. We are currently negotiating concessions in about 300 different areas, including food and air safety, and the Liberal government wonders why the Bush administration does not take it seriously. The NAFTA plus negotiations are continuing. NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanism has been ripped up and the government continues to negotiate further concessions to move even further along.
We also called for the government to impose an energy levy. We are bleeding $4 million a day. The dispute settlement has been ripped up. We are continuing to provide extraordinary privileges that no other country on earth provides to a foreign country. Proportional sharing of our energy means we give our energy to the United States first, even in the event of a critical supply shortage and yet there has been no action from the Liberal government at all on the three point plan put forward by the NDP.
I am not just talking about a failure of the government's NAFTA policy. I am talking about a failure of the government's economic policy. Statistics Canada has been very clear on the impact this has had on the Canadian economy over the last 15 years. The way Statistics Canada does that is to basically divide up the population into five quintiles: the lowest income Canadians, working class Canadians, middle class, upper middle class and the wealthiest.
Since the signing of the free trade agreement in 1989, the lowest income group of Canadians has actually seen its real family income drop by nearly 10%. It is unbelievable. What a failed economic policy when the lowest 20% of the population has seen its income fall by 10%. The working class, the second quintile, has lost approximately three weeks of salary a year in real terms over the last 15 years under the failed Conservative and Liberal, let us say, fair economic policy.
The middle class has lost about three weeks a year of salary because of these failed economic policies. Even the upper middle class has lost in its market income about 1%. One might say that is half a week or a week of its salary but that has a real impact when it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.
This will come as no surprise to anyone. The wealthiest of Canadians, the top quintile, the corporate lawyers and the CEOs, have seen their real incomes climb by over 12%.
What we are seeing is not only a failure of the dispute settlement mechanism and a failure of our government to deal in any concrete way with the Bush administration ripping up NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanism, but we are also seeing very clearly a failure in economic policy, a failure rate of 80%. Eighty percent of Canadians are having a tougher go of it now than they did 15 years ago. Eighty per cent of families are earning less.
We all know that Canadians are working harder than ever. Overtime has multiplied by a factor of three. Canadians are working longer and longer weeks, longer and longer hours, putting more and more in and getting more part time and temporary jobs which means more insecurity.
Statistics Canada tells us as well that most jobs do not come with pensions anymore and in real terms most Canadians have lost substantively anywhere from half a week, one week, three weeks or more of their salaries. This is a failed policy.
The industry minister said two months ago that the Liberal government would take the Americans into the boards, to use a hockey analogy. Our point is this. The Liberals are not even on the ice. They are hiding in the dressing room. There are concrete actions they should and could be taking and we in this corner of the House, in the New Democratic Party, will continue to push. We will continue to stand up for Canadians. We will stand up for those 80% of Canadians who believe that energy should be on the table now that the dispute settlement has been ripped up. We will be standing up for those 80% of Canadians who have seen their real incomes drop over the last 15 years. We will be standing up for Canadians from coast to coast to coast because we are the only party that is standing up for Canada. We are proud to that and we will continue to do that.