Mr. Speaker, I intend to address an issue that arose in my riding, the closure of a pulp and paper mill at Prince Albert. Once that plant closes, there will be 700 people out of work.
From what I can gather we have approximately 300 forestry communities across the country that are suffering from various problems associated with the forestry industry. Clearly, one of the major causes of problems in the country is the ongoing softwood lumber dispute with the United States and the $5 billion that has been stripped out of the books and the revenues of our forestry producers in Canada. It is making it very difficult for those employers to weather the storms that exist in that industry.
It is quite apparent that for the past four or five years since this problem began, the government has been hoping the matter would just go away. It has had no action plan to assist communities with the troubles they are facing.
The Conservative Party and its predecessor the Canadian Alliance, back in 2002, proposed a plan to assist these communities and the employees affected by backstopping the industry through the export development agency to turn these accounts receivable, the duties collected illegally in the United States, and have that cash flow into the books of the companies. Then they would have the cash to deal with the many problems and challenges they are facing.
The Liberal government has refused to accept that proposal. It uses Export Development for the aeronautics industry and other things to backstop an industry, but it refuses to stand up for an industry that is responsible for employing a million people directly and indirectly in the country. I find that disturbing.
What is even more disturbing is the recent announcement that the two negotiators, Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Tellier, are now resigning as negotiators. They are saying that the government is not serious about trying to resolve this matter and that it is not going to get resolved until after the election.
The clear implication of that announcement is that the government wants to use the problems of the forestry industry to conjure up its core of anti-American sentiment that it caters to. It wants to use that as an election issue. That is very unfortunate.
I have a very specific question. On October 21 the government announced a $50 million program to assist forestry communities. There was one slight problem. The program was restricted to forest communities in the province of Quebec. There are hundreds of communities outside of Quebec. My community of Prince Albert cannot access that fund.
Tonight I am asking the parliamentary secretary to explain how this NDP-Liberal coalition government could design a forestry program to assist communities that basically leaves communities like Prince Albert and hundreds of other communities on the outside looking in.