Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to share my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Kootenay—Columbia
I am happy to rise to discuss Bill C-68, the Pacific gateway legislation. I will be speaking in support of this legislation, but I take exception to what was said earlier about how it may be enough. I say it is actually too little and too late, but let us hope that we can salvage something out of it. We certainly do not want to stop what could be a productive move.
Across party lines, investing in Canada's trade capacity with Asia through a strong Pacific gateway should be a rallying point for us to all come together, but this legislation does not answer that call. The legislation is about delaying commitments, passing the buck while trying to take credit for simply talking about this issue.
The Pacific gateway concept has received much attention, and rightly so. Years of hard work by the British Columbia government, including the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development and the Ministry of Transportation, as well as the BC Progress Board, a provincially nominated blue ribbon panel of experts, resulted in a comprehensive plan with detailed recommendations.
Instead of trusting the hard work and recommendations of British Columbians, the federal Liberal government has announced its own advisory council to help decide how to spend the $400 million announced in support of the Pacific gateway initiative.
This falls well short of the priorities identified by Premier Gordon Campbell's government. The B.C. plan recommends a $4.9 billion investment in British Columbia's transportation system over the next 10 years. The province is asking Ottawa to contribute on a fifty-fifty basis. The federal Liberals are once again late to the table and about $2.1 billion short. Also, the real work that needs to be done was once again ignored in this Liberal plan.
Let me speak of a few of the recommendations that were ignored. One is the Kicking Horse Pass project. Anyone who has driven through the Kicking Horse Pass realizes what a slowdown it is for freight, especially anyone who has driven through there behind a transport truck and ends up down at about 20 to 25 kilometres an hour. The recommendation was for $730 million to improve this corridor through the Golden and Yoho National Park area. The Liberals decided to ignore that, which is a very crucial part of moving not only people but freight through this pass.
The North Fraser Perimeter Road, at a cost of $250 million, was another recommendation. The B.C. government wanted “to improve the competitiveness of the region's integrated intermodal freight system”. This is essential. The province stated that this would be essential to expanding containerized freight in the lower mainland. There is a tremendous clustering of primary industries around there, but the federal Liberals forgot to recognize that this perimeter road is an integral part of that.
The Port Mann-Highway 1 primary east-west transportation route is another one. The recommendation was for $1.4 billion to improve this route. This is very critical to the freight related truck traffic that goes in and out of that very highly congested area.
Another one is the South Fraser Perimeter Road, at a recommended cost of $800 million. This also was forgotten. This was recognized as a primarily new, four-lane, high standard transportation corridor along the south shore of the Fraser River through the municipalities of Surrey and Delta.
Another is the New Westminster rail bridge, at an undetermined cost. The province has identified that this bridge, being 100 years old, is probably in need of repair. Once again, that recommendation was ignored.
Instead of all these real and important investments that British Columbia and Canada's exporters need, another advisory council of political patronage appointments was put in place, and probably the last thing we need is to discuss something that we all know is broken.
Canada's gateway to the Pacific does not need more bureaucracy. It needs action today.
Federal action needs to be consistent with its international trade strategy. That would be easier, of course, if there were an international trade strategy. What is the point of a gateway to nowhere?
Whether we travel by cargo ship, airplane, rail or road, the fastest way to get between two points starts with knowing where we want to go, but the federal government has not committed to a blueprint or a strategy or even a train of thought on Asia-Pacific trade in the last 12 years.
Canada has had to watch Liberals bounce from country to country, spouting the cliché of the day, trying to suck up to or aggravate the trading partner du jour. The long anticipated international policy statement was more of a rambling question on the issue of Asia.
There is passing recognition of China and India, only an acknowledgement of Japan, and then the ill-conceived selection of South Korea as Canada's entry point into Asia. This will be pursued by a free trade agreement that Canada's trade department is working on as we speak.
There are a few significant concerns in regard to the selection of South Korea. By their own admission, the Liberals have agreed that Canada's shipbuilding sector will be negatively hit.
Canada's auto industry also could be left reeling, as import controls on cheap Korean cars could bring unwelcome pressure on production and foreign investment.
So far, these seem like significant concerns for a free trade partner.
The trade potential with Japan far outweighs that of South Korea and Japan is a more complementary partner that builds on the shared commitment to democracy, human rights and free market economics.
The international policy statement described Japan as follows, “Japan remains the region's largest economy by a substantial margin, the most important investor in Asia, its financial hub, its leading industrial power, and a world leader in R&D”.
Why did we not think about a free trade agreement with Japan?
Japan is Canada's second largest export market and our largest source of foreign investment from Asia. No lasting success can be achieved in China or other dynamic Asian economies without involving Japan. As a result, this Liberal Prime Minister went out and started free talks with, let us guess, South Korea.
The Conservative leader, supported by his caucus, has repeatedly presented a bold vision for Canada's future economic relationship with Japan. Securing a free market access agreement with Japan will create jobs in Canada, bring the prosperity of trade back to our communities and increase our ability to share this wealth with the world.
The absence of a strong Asia-Pacific strategy has left our trade partners to question Canada's priorities and commitments.
Japan's ambassador to Canada was recently so mystified by the Prime Minister's trade plans that he felt compelled to go public with his country's frustrations at a press club speaking event. The ambassador publicly questioned the Liberal government's priorities and expressed disappointment in the failure to expand trade between Canada and Japan.
Said the ambassador, “it's important to see things in perspective. China and India are emerging economies, yes. At the same time in terms of the relative sizes of the economy, Japan's gross domestic product is three times that of China, five times that of Canada...”.
Once again, Liberals are hurting job creation and prosperity in Canada. We know that employment rates rise to the tune of about 11,000 new jobs for every billion dollars' worth of exports and it is shameful that export opportunities and jobs are being lost due to the Prime Minister's lack of perspective.
Despite the promise of export trade to Japan, Statistics Canada reported in May that Canadian export trade to Japan has dropped by 11.4% since the same month last year, a trend that has seen Canadian exports to Japan decline steadily since the 1990s.
There are a couple of points I would like to make very quickly. The government is not addressing the agriculture crisis. We have an opportunity to address one of the issues that impacts my producers, and that is a very slow system of exporting grain. We have congestion in the lower Fraser Valley. One rail line goes to Prince Rupert. The terminal in Prince Rupert works seasonally.
We think the government could have addressed some of these issues through the gateway legislation, but once again it has missed the target. We will not see improvements made to rail transportation or truck transportation that could benefit my producers.