Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2006

Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order and draw to the attention of the Chair that earlier this day the government used Standing Order 56.1 to basically cut off the debate on amendments and subamendments on Bill C-24 which we are currently debating.

I believe that the use of this Standing Order by the government was actually incorrect. I would draw to your attention debate that took place and a ruling from the Speaker in September 2001. In fact, the member for Winnipeg--Transcona was a part of that debate concerning the inappropriate use of Standing Order 56.1.

In the comments made by the Speaker at the time in 2001, he advised hon. members to be very cautious in their reading of earlier rulings and drew a parallel between Standing Order 56.1, which requires a prior attempt to gain unanimous consent which we know did happen, and Standing Order 78, the time allocation rule which requires notice of prior consultation. The Speaker said:

It seems doubtful to me, having read the ruling in its entirety, that Speaker Fraser really meant to suggest that Standing Order 56.1 was to be understood as another procedurally acceptable mechanism for limiting debate.

He went on to say:

The expanded use of Standing Order 56.1 since 1997 causes the Chair serious concern. The government is provided with a range of options under Standing Orders 57 and 78 for the purpose of limiting debate. Standing Order 56.1 should be used for motions of a routine nature, such as arranging the business of the House. It was not intended to be used for the disposition of a bill at various stages, certainly not for bills that fall outside the range of those already contemplated in the Standing Order when “urgent or extraordinary occasions” arise.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider this and to make a ruling that it was inappropriate for the government to use Standing Order 56.1. It is normally used for routine business in terms of whether the House will sit longer in the summer or whether it will adjourn earlier. The Conservatives have used it incorrectly to cut off debate on this bill when they had other opportunities using other Standing Orders that do require consultation with other parties to do that if they want to.

Again, Conservatives are trying to use the back door to accomplish their own agenda. I believe it is incorrect and I would ask the Chair to consider this and to make a ruling.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Are there any other members who wish to be heard on this same point of order? The hon. member for Abbotsford.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the House and the member that the motion has already been adopted, so she is trying to deal with something after the fact. She is not in a position to do so. I would refer her to Standing Order 56.1(b) which essentially says it should be used for the management of the House's business and the arrangements of its proceedings

Those arguments were made in the House already and it is unfortunate that the member is bringing it up at this time. I would remind her that we have not cut off debate in any sense of the word. In fact, the member and each member of her party is entitled to continue to debate the full time that is allocated to them. So the suggestion that somehow we have cut off debate on this very important subject is not correct.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Any further interventions on this same point of order?

Hearing none, I would like to advise the House and particularly the hon. member for Vancouver East that the Chair will take this point of order under advisement. The Chair is already aware of previous controversies which have existed about the use of this particular procedure and at some point the Speaker will get back to the House on this point of order.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to have a few moments to put my thoughts on the record on this important piece of business before the House.

I represent a constituency in northern Ontario that is very dependent on forestry for its economy. It is important that all of us who represent ridings from this important part of our wonderful country speak clearly, concisely and passionately about subjects that have impacts on us. In northern Ontario, we have an economy that is very exposed and fragile. Government decisions such as this one throw an element of instability into a market that is already unstable because of the vagaries of that market to begin with.

We in northern Ontario--and I use the word “we” in light of the fact that I have met on a number of occasions with representatives of the forestry coalition in northern Ontario and with members of municipal governments across northern Ontario--will feel the impacts of this agreement. These representatives speak to me and to our caucus and members of the Liberal and Conservative caucuses very clearly about the impact of this agreement on them. They speak about the reality as it exists right now in northern Ontario where forestry is concerned. It is “the perfect storm“, as they say, of which this agreement is an important part.

In northern Ontario, we need government to be in partnership with us. As has been done over the years, we need government to work with communities in the north to bring some stability to that part of the country. Without that stability, without those communities and without those partnerships, a very important element of the Canadian economy, the resource sector, the forest industry, will be damaged. In my estimation, that damage will be irrevocable. That is what I have heard very eloquently from concerned community leaders and the industry itself in northern Ontario.

They have said that we had come to terms with the free trade agreement. We were not crazy about it when it was first introduced and passed in the House, but in looking at it, and being as we are in that part of country, resilient people who come up against challenges every day because of the geography, the weather and sometimes the isolation that we experience, we came to terms with the agreement. We brought to the table the best minds we could find and were able to take advantage of it to develop a sector of the economy that was, for the most part, robust and exciting. It provided jobs and supported communities. It contributed to the overall good times that we have had over the last 10 to 15 years as far as the economy is concerned in this country.

However, we have gone to court time and time again with the Americans because they kept fighting back and trying to take advantage of loopholes. They brought grievances to the table that were really non-existent according to the framework of the free trade agreement. The industry and communities and others spent hard-earned scarce dollars to carry out those legal proceedings. In each instance, Canada won the battles.

Yet here we are now with the Conservative government of the day willing to roll over, play dead and be a patsy for the Americans. In a very real and important way, this will have negative implications for the forestry industry in northern Ontario. It sends the wrong message.

As members know, Canada relates with the American economy in some very direct and immediate ways on a daily basis. In almost every sector of our economy, the U.S. is our major trading partner. What if we find ourselves now and in the future having to roll over when any sector in American industry stands up and feels that it is being harmed in some way by our good work, our ingenuity and ability to create product, ship it across the border and sell it at a competitive rate to communities and individuals in that jurisdiction? What if the industry that we are competing with down there can simply stand up, take us to court and play us out over time so that we spend all our money trying to defend ourselves?

Then, when the government of the day, the Canadian government elected by the people of Canada, in partnership with the American government and that industry, simply says it is wrong and it will fix it with a new agreement that does not reflect or respect the legality or even the spirit of the free trade agreement that was in place, or the vehicles that were in the agreement to resolve disputes, what trust do we have or can we have in any agreement that we will enter into with that country down the road?

I can imagine all kinds of scenarios where that in fact will be the reality. More than anything else, we need stability in the economy of northern Ontario. We need to know what the rules are. We need to know, when we invest our money, work hard and do those things required of us to be competitive in the world we are moving into and the global economy in which we now operate, that we will be successful, that we will be able to provide jobs, sell our product and keep our communities not only viable but vital in the world that is ahead of us.

The agreement that we are debating today and have debated over the last couple of weeks, this agreement that the government has capitulated on, that the Liberals have said that they will vote against but really did nothing with when they were in government for 13 years, will have a devastating effect in northern Ontario for that industry sector.

Over the years government has understood that it needed to be at the table, that it needed to be a partner and that it needed to come with some real tools into areas like northern Ontario if we were going to stabilize our resource based economy.

Mr. Speaker, you know, coming from Manitoba, and I know, coming from northern Ontario and having been a member at Queen's Park for 13 years, that the resource sector has been almost totally ignored for about 10 or 15 years. The capital barons of the world, particularly the U.S. capitalists with all the money, have been turning to the very new-fashioned and attractive high tech industry. They forgot about the backbone, the bread and butter, the meat and potatoes of the Canadian economy, which has been there since the beginning of time and will continue to be there and be our staple. They forgot about that and allowed the powers and the winds of the market to batter us to and fro to the point where now we are in difficulty and in some instances in desperate shape.

Governments of different stripes over the years have known and understood that. In Ontario, we have had Conservatives, Liberals and New Democrats. Manitoba has had New Democrats. Here in this place we have had Liberals and Conservatives. They knew they needed to be there in a more meaningful way, not just capitulating and turning over whenever the Americans got upset with us. They knew they needed to have vehicles like FedNor and the provincial ministry of northern development and mines. They knew they needed to be present in those communities and working with us.

The bill we have before us today is a slap in the face. It turns its back on and walks away from that very important resource sector economy, the forestry sector, which is reeling in northern Ontario today. I dare say that if we go forward with this, we will, all of us, in one way or another, reap the negative consequence.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the last two New Democratic Party speakers on this issue. Their failure to be informed on the issue is quite astounding.

The member who just spoke talked about the deal as though it is something that is not supported by the industry. That is false. In fact, it is supported by the industry wholeheartedly. It is a good deal for Canada. It is a good deal for the forestry industry. It is something that has been lacking in this country for a long time now. Instead of standing up and speaking against the deal, the NDP should be congratulating this government for arriving at a deal.

The NDP members talked about a billion dollars going to the Americans to be used by their industry to fight the Canadian industry. I would like to correct them on that. The meritorious initiative is $450 million, almost half of that billion dollars, and that fund is being controlled by a non-profit organization to carry out acts that are going to help. When we look at who is involved in that organization, we see that in fact it will give opportunities to the Canadian lumber industry to sell lumber. There will be opportunity for Canadians to be involved in those initiatives in many ways. It is not money going to the American government at all. That has been mis-portrayed.

In terms of the dispute settlement mechanism, which was mentioned by one of the previous members--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. There are only five minutes for questions and comments. There were a number of people rising. The member has used up almost two minutes, so I am going to have to recognize the hon. member for Sault Ste. Marie.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping there might actually be a question in that diatribe we just heard.

This is an important sector in northern Ontario. This is an important piece of business by this government that is going to very directly affect every last community in northern Ontario. For the member to stand up and simply make personal attacks on my ability to speak on behalf of those communities leaves me feeling somewhat disappointed about the seriousness with which this government takes this very important issue.

There is one issue, though, that the member raised and that I would like to briefly respond to. The softwood industry was bullied into supporting the deal. The Canadian industry witnesses appearing at parliamentary hearings have confirmed that the Conservative government coerced the softwood industry into accepting a flawed deal. This bullying forced the cash-strapped softwood industry to capitulate just a few months away from winning the final legal battle against the American tariffs.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. During the last election, the leader of the NDP said to the nation, “Look what we got you. Lend us your votes”.

As for the member who spoke so passionately about his riding of Sault Ste. Marie and northern Ontario, where the sector really has an impact, I want to ask this member something, because the member for Vancouver East said, “We were that close. We were that close”. If we were that close, I ask that member and the entire New Democratic Party, why did they then prematurely defeat the government of the day when we were that close to making a deal?

Today I think that party has betrayed the nation as much as the government has.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes, we were that close in a legal process that actually should not have involved politics and this government. If the government had left the industry alone to work out its concerns through the legal process that was available to them through NAFTA, yes, we would have had a different deal.

Obviously, it sounds as though the Liberals still have not learned a lesson from that election. That election was about corruption and a culture of entitlement that the Liberal government seemed to have no difficulty with, and obviously it still has not backed away and turned its back on that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

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.

[An hon. member]

Without the deal.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

With the deal or without the deal.

Instead, do we have a free trade agreement? No. Do we have a fair trade agreement? No. We have a very limited market in which we are now expected to compete. If the market in the U.S. drops to any degree, and with the present housing starts it looks like the market is going down, we will be facing even higher tariffs.

What did we give up for that? We are being asked to give up the legal victories that we built up over the years. The present Prime Minister is not being honest with the Canadian public if he expects us to believe that we would have had seven more years of legal wrangling, that we had to get a deal in place in order to get some peace. The fact is we were within our final two appeals. Once we were at that point, there was no turning back.

Why has the forestry industry not capitulated at this point? The government has had a gun to their heads, yet some of them are still holding out because they know that if they give up on these legal rights that they won in court, then they have nothing.

These are the overall facts of the case, but it is important now to really speak about the new level the government has gone to in terms of its puzzling attitude toward our forestry industry. It is not enough that the Conservatives sat down and signed over everything that we had on our side to get a quick deal. With Conservatives I guess we expect them to do that. We have a long history of Conservatives selling out the national interests, so that would not be a surprise. What is surprising here is that they are acting in a predatory fashion against our own companies. This is unprecedented. Let us look at some of the clauses.

Instead of the 10% softwood duty, we are now being asked as Parliament to impose a 15% duty on our own companies. That is supposed to be a deal. On top of that, we are now looking at a government that is adding an extra punitive charge against companies that are still standing up for their own interests. We are being asked as parliamentarians to go after financially the companies that are not buckling under to the government's deal.

That is an unprecedented situation. I do not think we could see in history any other example of a government coming before Parliament and saying that it wanted to punish, to financially attack, our own industry, and this is after a period of major economic crisis. That we are being asked as parliamentarians to target our own industry is a puzzling betrayal.

Clause 10 imposes the 15% export duty as soon as the deal is signed. That is a double taxation above and beyond the existing anti-dumping countervailing duties.

Clause 18 imposes a special punitive tax that is designed to go after the companies that are standing up. If this special tax is in place, companies will be paying 37%. That is not the U.S. fair lumber lobby wanting to bring this in, it is our own Conservative government to force compliance.

Again we have to put this in perspective. We know of the financial drain that has been put on our industries because of the softwood crisis. What the government is saying is that if those companies stand up to the government, they will be facing financial ruin. Because of the limited margins that are left within our Canadian bank accounts for forestry, we are going to have our own government going after them.

On top of that, clause 48 would require a six year burden of record keeping on these companies.

Clause 77 states that the government does not even need a warrant to enter softwood businesses to ensure that our own companies are complying. We have our own government acting against the interests of our industry.

Clause 89 gives the government the right to demand a blank cheque from any of these companies to pay up immediately. A Canadian forestry company that is trying to stand up for its best interests and has not knuckled under to the government's deal, what kind of success is it going to have when it is renegotiating its loans at the bank, when the banks know that their own Government of Canada can come in, check the books and go after them?

The Conservatives pushed this deal. I can understand that. Some of the Liberal members from northern Ontario are supporting this deal. I cannot understand that, in particular in regions where our industry is facing such a severe crisis. What astounds me is that members of the Bloc Québécois are supporting this deal. That is the party that stood in this House and denied motions to get pesticide bans across Canada because it might interfere with Quebec. That is the party that has undermined child care plans for the rest of Canada because it somehow might interfere with the jurisdiction in Quebec. Yet when we look at a bill that would allow the United States government to set forestry policy within Quebec, that is okay. When we look at a bill that allows the federal government to target Quebec companies and go into their businesses and check on their compliance and charge them if they are not going along, that is perfectly fine for the Bloc.

This world seems as if it is turned upside down. We are being asked in Parliament to turn against our own industries and our own communities. This is an unacceptable situation. We need to have it on the record that this deal is one of the most venal and pusillanimous arrangements ever brought before Parliament. On behalf of the forestry, softwood, pulp workers in northern Ontario, I will never support a deal as craven as this one.

[Robert Vincent, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I heard the NDP member say that the Bloc Québécois is really in favour of this bill. I would like to say to the member opposite that he, himself, often whines and complains about pretty much anything, but when it comes time to vote, he votes in favour. So why does he say one thing and then do the opposite? I think that what someone says is one thing and what I understand is another.

Quebeckers support the softwood lumber deal. Obviously, backs to the wall and a gun to their heads, they have no choice but to accept the agreement. And people wonder if we support it. They are asking us to vote to get them out of this mess, to give them some air so they can survive.

That is what the Bloc Québécois is doing. If the members opposite fail to understand this, that is their problem, but they had better not expect us to go along on their bandwagon to places we do not want to go.

I have a question for the member opposite. The president of the FTQ, Mr. Massé, is concerned that in the wake of this agreement, the Americans will take control of all forestry companies in Quebec and elsewhere.

Does the member believe that acceptance of this agreement may lead the American forest industry to buy us out?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I live in the Timiskaming region on the Ontario side and I see the effects of forestry cutbacks, the same as I see in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. What I hear from our producers is that this is a bad deal. This is a deal that has been forced on us by government. If we allow this precedent to go ahead, our forestry industry will be in a much poorer situation two years, three years, five years down the road.

The principle that our provincial forestry policies can be challenged by the United States government is an unacceptable intrusion into the sovereignty of our provinces. We as New Democrats will continue to stand against that.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the member's comments and have found a lot of misinformation in what he has had to say.

I would like to ask why he has chosen to recognize that this dispute really has gone on for the past 24 years. He has also chosen to ignore the testimony that has been placed in front of the committee throughout the summer. The committee sat all summer and heard from witnesses on softwood lumber. We were told clearly from the very beginning with respect to NAFTA that the United States did not want to include softwood lumber within NAFTA. In fact there was a memorandum of understanding where it was carved out. That is the reason we see the United States not accepting the results and why we are not able to reach a settlement.

I will agree with him that the industry is in a really bad state of affairs. It is as a result of the neglect of the previous Liberal government. For 13 years it was not only unable to get a deal on the table, but it actually did nothing for the industry.

My question for the hon. NDP member is, if he is so concerned about softwood lumber, when his party was negotiating the Liberal-NDP budget, why did it not say a word about softwood lumber then? The NDP could have asked for anything it wanted at that point and it never asked for anything for the softwood lumber industry.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was waiting for a big wind-up and I am somewhat underwhelmed by the response.

The question, I find, is absurd. We need to be focusing on the fact that the government came in with the express position of getting a quick and dirty deal that could be signed. When industry saw this deal, and I talked to people in the industry across this country, they said that this is a bad deal. The government said to them, “Well, too bad. We are not going to negotiate anything better”. That is unprecedented.

If I were the assistant to the secretary, I would leave the room in shame as well. It is a shameful deal the Conservatives have pulled on us. It has to be articulated in the House that the Conservatives went back to our own industries and told them, “We will not stand up for you. We will not fight for you. Take this deal or leave it”. When industries still refused, they came back with the 19% tax on our own companies. That is predatory.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

The question is on the subamendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the subamendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

All those in favour of the subamendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.