Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be rising today on this bill because it speaks to the economic part of my region of northern Ontario. I will be glad to speak to the subamendment to a bill which in essence, and we need to really put this in context, is probably one of the most venal and pusillanimous pieces of legislation ever brought before the House of Commons because of what is at stake here. We are being asked in Parliament to put a gun to the head of our own industry to support this government's desire to act in a predatory fashion against not just the forestry industry which is a leading industry in this country, but against the communities of our area.
I have spent much of the past few years meeting with the laid off forestry workers in Kapuskasing, Smooth Rock Falls, Opasatika, Béarn, Timiskaming, people who have seen their livelihoods go down the drain because of an ongoing punitive disagreement with our number one trading partner.
Throughout that period when the former Liberal government was in power, we were asking for a commitment that the federal government would be there alongside our industry. We were asking for loan guarantees. We were asking to see them through the final periods of legal decisions that were being brought down because we were in the final stages of those legal decisions. We did not get that support from the former Liberal government.
In fact the message that was delivered was very clear to communities like Smooth Rock Falls, Red Rock and Ignace. The message was, “Your communities are being cut adrift from the social economy of this country. You are on your own. When it comes to standing up for the interests of the resource dependent communities of the north, you are on your own.”
That message was amplified a thousand times when our friend the floor crosser brought with him a quick and dirty deal on softwood. Let us be really clear what is behind the push to get this deal signed now.
We are looking at a government that is interested in a short shelf life so that it can return to the voters with a couple of photo ops and a few boxes ticked off on its list of deliverables. One of those deliverables will be the sellout of our forestry industry.
During a radio debate I had with the health minister, he said, “We managed to get this deal signed in seven months. That is unprecedented”. Certainly, if they roll over and play dead they can sign anything in a short period of time. That is what has happened.
Let us just talk about the overall deal before we get into some of the more disturbing aspects of it.
We have $1 billion of our producers' money that is going to the United States. Of that, nearly half is going to our direct competitors to be used against us and to retool their communities, whereas our communities are being left with nothing. Our present government will give $1.5 billion a year in oil and gas subsidies to the tar sands in Alberta. It has given nothing to our forestry communities and yet we have $500 million being sent to our competitors.
Ask the Canadian companies that are reinvesting where they are reinvesting. They are reinvesting south of the border. We are seeing that with companies from my own riding that were formed in northern Ontario, that received most of their support year after year from northern Ontario are now reinvesting south of the border because that is where the investments will be made.
Parliament is being asked to deliver money to our competitors. What do we get from that? Do we get a seven year deal? No. Do we get a five year deal? No. Do we get a three year deal? No. We get a bare 18 months. And our competitors in the U.S. can take this money and come back after us at any point. They have already declared that they are going to do that. This past week the U.S. lumber lobby said that they are coming after us with all guns blazing. They made that clear.