Mr. Speaker, I will first state the position of the Bloc Québécois on the proposed amendments to Bill C-24, Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, and, then, outline the position of the Bloc Québécois on Bill C-24 per se.
The Bloc Québécois is opposed to the following amendments.
Under Motion No. 4, the government would not be required to enforce the act; that does not make much sense in the context of fiscal legislation. Motion No. 25 greatly complicates the collection of export taxes and the enforcement of the act. We understand that the New democratic Party does not want the act to come into force, but Quebec lumber companies want it to.
Motions Nos. 83 and 84 would have the act become effective as of November 1. The fact of the matter is, however, that the anti-dumping duties were removed on October 12. Adopting these two motions would mean leaving the lumber trade unregulated for two weeks, which is contrary to the terms of the agreement.
To help members understand the position of the Bloc Québécois on the thorny issue of Canada-U.S. relations with respect to softwood lumber, I will describe once more our party's approach.
It is important to understand that the Bloc Québécois is unenthusiastically supporting Bill C-24.
This bill allows the implementation of the July 1 softwood lumber agreement between Ottawa and Washington by: setting the terms and conditions for the return to Canadian lumber companies of countervailing and anti-dumping duties representing 81% of the money currently held by Washington and about 65% of the amount that these companies have paid, taking into account variations in the exchange rate over the past four years; setting the terms and conditions for the return to Washington of the billion dollars that companies have to leave on the table; setting trade barriers that will govern the softwood lumber trade between Canada and the United States, including export taxes and export permits; and authorizing the payment of export tax revenue to the provinces.
The industry has stated nearly unanimously that this agreement was not satisfactory. It has, however, concluded that it was better to accept this bad deal than to continue fighting. In a word, the industry is at its wit's end.
The attitude of the federal government, be it Conservative or Liberal, has left a bitter taste. By refusing its support, it has considerably weakened the industry, forcing it to accept this agreement for fear of seriously jeopardizing its future.
The Bloc Québécois, after consulting the industries and workers in the forestry sector during the summer, came to the conclusion that it had no choice but to support the agreement because the industry, with its back to the wall, could not wait any longer. To act otherwise would not have been irresponsible.
The Bloc insists, however, on stating clearly that although the bill must be approved, the government cannot claim to have settled the problems the industry is facing. The industry is dealing with structural problems and the softwood lumber agreement does not solve them.
That is why the Bloc Québécois is calling for the government to implement a series of measures this fall to assist the forest industry, which is facing serious difficulties at the very moment it has been weakened by a lengthy trade dispute.
We want an income support program for older workers, an economic diversification program for communities that depend on the forests and special tax status for the 128,000 owners of private woodlots in Quebec.
In addition, we want an increase in funding for the Canadian model forest program of the Canadian Forest Service, and special tax treatment for the $4.3 billion in countervailing and anti-dumping duty that will be refunded by the American authorities to recognize the losses incurred by companies. We also want accelerated amortization of equipment; a program to stimulate innovation and improve productivity within the forest industry; a market diversification and wood marketing program; and, finally, financial compensation for maintaining forest access roads.
Some of these measures will become meaningless if they are not introduced this year, a pivotal year for the industry. The Bloc Québécois is counting on the Minister of Finance to properly respond to these needs when he makes his financial and economic update announcement.
Bill C-24 contains legislative measures to implement the softwood lumber agreement of last July 1 between the governments of Canada and the United States.
All of the provisions take effect from October 1, 2006. Since the bill was not yet approved on that date, the measures that it contains will be retroactive to October 1, 2006.
It introduces an export control system in the softwood lumber sector, which I will now describe.
Ironically, this control still takes the form of amendments to the Export and Import Permits Act. This act is normally used to control trade in arms and dangerous substances or to limit trade with particular countries under economic or military sanctions. Here, though, it is the products of Canadian firms that are being hit by the restrictions in the act.
In provinces like Quebec that choose to be subject to a lower export tax but have a ceiling placed on their exports, the bill provides that exporters must acquire a licence, which is a kind of export permit. It will enable Ottawa to ensure that companies cannot exceed the quota allocated to them under the agreement.
The methods of allocating export quotas are not specified in the act. This will be done later by regulation. The Government of Quebec has suggested that 94% of the quota should be allocated to companies on the basis of their past exports, with the remaining 6% available on a first come, first served basis.
The Quebec industry was concerned that the agreement provided for quotas to be allocated on a monthly basis—one-twelfth of the annual quota—and that the possibilities of exceeding this monthly quota in case of especially large deliveries were so limited that companies would be unable to honour their contracts or even reach their full annual quotas. We must remember that the construction industry is cyclical and lumber deliveries tend therefore to vary considerably from one month to another.
This issue still has not been resolved, and the government has not made any specific promises. At the most, the binational group responsible for ensuring that the agreement works well will deal with the problem. The Bloc Québécois hopes that the government will try through this binational group to make the monthly export ceilings more flexible. In order for this to be done, the bill already provides all the latitude needed to accommodate greater flexibility because things are done through regulation.
I could go on explaining the entire bill in this way, but I will stop here, Mr. Speaker.