Debates of Nov. 29th, 2006

Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary said the Prime Minister delivered on a deal, but the truth of the matter is that he did not deliver on a deal. He simply caved in to American pressure.

I want to remind the member for the Bloc that I chaired the committee on international trade. The issue we focused on was softwood lumber. The members from the Bloc at that time agreed, given the presentation from the lumber industry. I have pointed out in my presentations in the past that representatives from his beautiful province of Quebec asked for financial support. The report, supported by the members from the Bloc and all, said to provide funding for final arbitration, which we felt we were going to win. Had it not been for the betrayal of the NDP and the Bloc Québécois, the funds were there to continue. Simply, it is important for Canadians to know this.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has just made comments about the reasons why we supported this agreement. However, I would like him to remember the needs of the Quebec industry, the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation regarding softwood lumber when he was in government.

We asked questions of the Liberals in the House. We asked them on many occasions—pressed them hard on this issue—to provide loan guarantees to these companies so that they could weather the dispute with the Americans as it went before the courts, NAFTA tribunals and all other avenues, and they did nothing. Today, he is asking why we are supporting the softwood lumber agreement. The industry was on its knees, was losing money and human and financial resources. It was no longer able to ride out the never-ending storm. The Liberals did absolutely nothing in this regard.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Questions and comments.

The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster will want to know that there is less than a minute for both the question and the answer.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thought it was interesting that the Liberals said earlier that we should not support the agreement, when they did everything they could in committee to make sure the agreement went through. As usual, I very much appreciated the speech and the presentation by the member for Berthier—Maskinongé. I also appreciated his comments about our work together.

Nevertheless, we have to ask ourselves some questions, including the following question. In Quebec, 2,000 jobs have been lost since this agreement took effect on an interim basis. We are talking about 2,000 jobs. With all the policies in the agreement, Quebec is losing the ability to manage its own forest policies effectively. The question arises: why does the Bloc still support an agreement that is taking away Quebec's powers and has led to massive job losses in Quebec?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé will want to know that the time is up, but I will give him a few minutes to respond.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer the question from the member for Burnaby—New Westminster.

We had a lengthy discussion in committee about the question he is asking me. I will repeat what I said then, and I know that he knows the answer I am going to give him.

Quite simply, we also have to respect the analysis that our industries have made of this agreement. I have told the member for Burnaby—New Westminster that. We must not believe, as the member for Burnaby—New Westminster seems to think, that our unions and our industries do not understand the issues this agreement involves. They, too, understand the issues. They have their own lawyers and their own human resources, and they are telling us to support this agreement—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to again have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-24, the softwood lumber agreement. I have done so on several occasions this session because this is very important legislation. It is very important to people in my riding of Burnaby—Douglas. It is very important to the people of British Columbia, as indeed it is to people all across Canada.

I have to say that this is a very badly botched deal. It is a very badly botched deal and this is a very badly botched piece of legislation to enact that deal. There is always more to be said about the ineffective nature of this bill and its discrepancies and the problems with this piece of legislation and this deal.

I want to begin by paying tribute to my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, for the outstanding work he has done on this legislation and this deal, which includes his hard work, the hours he has put in and the dedication he has shown to getting the best possible deal for the people of Canada, for the lumber producing communities in this country and for the people who work in the lumber industry.

He has put in the hours. He has done the work to get a decent deal for Canadians and to then have a piece of legislation that actually was effective and worked. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, we have ended up with neither of these, because the government botched the negotiations to begin with and because the legislation has been so badly prepared.

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was the one who fought to have summer hearings. He was the one who was prepared to come back from his summer vacation, to come back to Ottawa in the summer, which is no joy, as I am sure hon. members will know. We are from British Columbia and we enjoy the cool summer weather, while here in Ottawa there is none of that. To work through an Ottawa summer is giving up a lot when one is from British Columbia. It was something that he was prepared to do to take on this important work. Those hearings did go ahead. We were able to hear from people who had concerns about this legislation.

As well, during those hearings in the summer there was a further promise to have hearings in the regions. There was a promise to have hearings in Quebec, in northern Ontario and in B.C. A promise was made to go to the Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean region, to Thunder Bay and to Vancouver to hear from communities that were directly affected. We were to hear from the people who were directly affected, the elected officials who represent those communities locally, the companies located in those communities, and the other businesses affected by this deal and this dispute.

Unfortunately, those hearings were cancelled. After the member for Burnaby—New Westminster worked so hard to get those hearings for the people in the regions of Canada that are directly affected by this legislation, after he got it on the agenda, the committee later turned around and cancelled those hearings.

The member for Burnaby—New Westminster fought so hard to get those hearings and I think that was a despicable turn of events. Those people needed to have the opportunity to sit face to face with members of Parliament working on this issue and tell them about the problems they were having with the deal and this legislation. That opportunity was snatched away from them. There is no excuse for having backed out on that promise that was made by the committee.

I also have to say that I think the process the standing committee undertook when it was looking at this legislation, the process that shut down debate on the legislation in committee, is one that I think is particularly reprehensible.

My colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster, over the course of his hard work on this legislation, came up with 98 proposals on how this legislation could be improved and clarified. He worked hard to develop those 98 amendments and get them on the agenda of the committee.

Unfortunately, the committee decided to limit his ability to put them forward, to limit the debate in the committee, and to put time limitations on how long he had to address his proposals before the committee. The first limitation was a three minute limitation on each amendment.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That's bad enough.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Yes. The member for Winnipeg Centre is right when he says that three minutes is bad enough. My colleague had only that much time to address each of these important issues he was raising with regard to this legislation.

Then the committee decided that the three minute amount of time was too long and should be reduced to one minute, but in one minute members can barely get the topic they are addressing out on the floor. A member cannot make a serious argument in one minute about what is important in an amendment and why that change needs to be made.

Even that was too long for the committee and the members moved to eliminate the ability to address any of the amendments all together. What a travesty of the parliamentary process. What a ham-fisted attempt to just shut down any discussion and any serious attempt to address the problems of this legislation.

I have very serious problems with what happened in that committee. A member, who was taking his responsibility seriously to represent the people of Canada, to represent people in forest communities, to represent workers in forest communities, to represent their families, to represent other industries affected by this agreement and this legislation, was shut down and did not have the opportunity to raise those concerns and speak for those Canadians and those communities.

I cannot imagine why that was done. What possible good did that serve, to shut down someone who had done that work and brought those concerns to the committee? In fact, in doing that, over half of the bill was not even considered by the committee in any serious way. The committee only heard from two witnesses in this process. Other witnesses were suggested by the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. They were key witnesses and trade experts who could talk about the problems with this legislation, who could try to fix some of the very serious issues that have not been addressed in this legislation. They were shut down as well.

Between the time limits, the refusal to hear key witnesses, and the refusal of the committee earlier to travel the country, I think a real disservice has been done both to Parliament and to the people of Canada.

I am also very disappointed that at this stage of the debate in the House, which is the report stage, there was a limitation placed on the member for Burnaby—New Westminster and his ability to table amendments at this point in the process.

We know that many of his amendments were not considered seriously and were not considered at all in the committee process when the committee was doing the clause by clause review of this legislation. He attempted to have the House, as is his right, address those issues here during the report stage debate. Unfortunately, most of his amendments were ruled out of order.

I do not know how we in this place could say that an effective and complete debate took place in committee when many of those amendments were not considered. I would think that a standard would be that if a committee had a chance to have a reasonable discussion of an amendment then maybe there would not be a reason to have that discussion here in the House, but unfortunately that was not the decision that was made.

I think the problems with this debate, the problems with this process, and the problems that were made respecting the democratic process of this institution continue with this phase of the debate as we are looking at amendments at report stage in the House.

I know that the argument is always made that a committee is a master of its own destiny, a master of its own decisions, and it can make those decisions in committee. However, when a committee clearly limits debate or fails to consider amendments, I believe that opportunity should exist here in the House for a member who did not get that chance in committee. I am disappointed by that decision as well.

Some 4,000 jobs have now been lost because of this agreement, because of the way this agreement was negotiated, and the botched nature of this agreement. That has affected people all across Canada. It was a bad agreement because Canada was on the verge of a victory. We know that the appeals were coming to an end. We know the decisions that were made all along the process were favourable to Canada. There was no need for Canada to cave in, to put our tail between our legs and run from this process to try and get justice for the softwood lumber industry in Canada and for the Canadians who work in that industry in those communities.

There was also no reason to give away $1 billion of illegally collected tariffs by the Americans. We know that half of that went directly to the White House and the other half went to the American lumber industry to mount its next campaign against the Canadian industry. That is just unacceptable.

In my own region recently there were almost 300 layoffs at Western Forest Products in New Westminster. Yet another forest community, another softwood lumber community, is affected by this bad deal and by this bad legislation. Another 300 people are out of work because of this bad deal and this bad legislation. There is no excuse for that. This has been happening time and time again across the country.

This is a botched deal. It is botched because even the government had to introduce an amendment because it forgot to deal with the maritime exclusion appropriately. It is botched because of the punitive taxes that are in it. It is botched because of the oversight it gives the Americans.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the hon. member's speech and I have been watching the debate unfold for weeks now in the House of Commons. The NDP continues to spread the gospel message from the U.S. lobbyists. I just do not understand why the NDP is working with the U.S. lawyers and the U.S. labour groups who are opposed to this deal.

The reality is that this is a great deal. This is a deal that will put litigation behind us once and for all. The U.S. lawyers are of course upset about this and they have got into the minds of the NDP members, which is not that difficult to do, and have them being their puppets up here in Canada.

All the NDP cares about is keeping this in the courts, never coming to a deal, and keeping our communities and our lumber industry up in the air without any final result. The NDP has a lot of explaining to do when jobs are at stake here in Canada. The lumber companies in Canada want this deal. They want it finalized. They do not want any more politics and games being played by the NDP.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know who is making the lawyers for the lumber lobby in the United States happier. I have a feeling that it is probably the government, which gave them a bonus payment of $500 million, so that they can pursue their next plan and their next attack on Canadian industry. We have seen them do it time and time again. We have seen them do it with the forest industry. We have seen them do it with steel. We have seen them do it in the agriculture sector. So here we have given them $500 million to pursue their next campaign against our industry, against our jobs, against our communities, and against our families.

I will not take any criticism from that side of the House for making Americans happy about this because we know that the big smile on their faces came directly from the actions of the government on that issue and the big paycheque that came from the government when it caved in on this deal. We were on the verge of winning every step along the way and all of a sudden we up and caved in. We caved in and we sent them a big cheque along with it.

That is absolutely unacceptable in this corner of the House. Frankly, I do not think that anything we are doing is making much joy in the lumber industry in the United States.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the presentation from the member for Burnaby—Douglas. Like so many of his colleagues, our colleagues, this corner of the House is the only corner of the House that is making sense on the softwood sellout.

What we have is a court judgment. On October 13 it said that the United States had to pay back every single dollar of the illegally taken tariffs. We have the Conservatives giving a birthday gift to George Bush of half a billion dollars and a birthday gift to the lawyers for the American softwood industry of another half a billion. A billion dollars in total was given away frivolously, shovelled off the back of a truck because the Conservatives just did not understand what was at stake.

I have a question for the member for Burnaby—Douglas. We had Conservatives and Liberals combining to force this bad deal through, including Conservatives and Liberals from British Columbia. B.C. has been the most impacted by this bad deal, this softwood sellout, and in fact, we have seen hundreds of lost jobs as a result in the last five weeks when it was put in place provisionally. Why does the member think Liberals and Conservatives in British Columbia were so willing to sell out the B.C. softwood industry and softwood community, and when did these Liberals and Conservatives stop representing B.C. and start representing their political leaders from Ottawa in British Columbia?

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could understand the motivation of Conservative and Liberal members from British Columbia when it comes to this deal.

In fact, the other day I was here in the House when the debate was going on and I heard a Conservative member from Vancouver Island recounting how people in Port Alberni were counting the number of trucks leaving that community with raw logs on the back of the trucks that had no post-logging production and no value added production on that lumber. They were counting those trucks leaving day after day and in the port of Port Alberni raw logs were being loaded on to ships to be exported out of Canada, again, with no further production of that wood into anything secondary.

It is unbelievable that the member could stand there and report this kind of activity when we know that is one of the flaws with this deal. It does nothing to stop the export of raw logs from British Columbia. That will be a huge--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Scarborough Centre.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier to Bill C-24 and I could not help, as this debate is closing, but to take the 10 minutes that I am accorded to add my voice to this most difficult situation. I want to use this opportunity to tell Canadians some of the facts that occurred. We come to this honourable chamber to deal with facts and not innuendoes.

When we sit in this honourable chamber, we sometimes say things that are not accurate. I do not want to use the words “not truthful” because that is unparliamentary language, but members say things that are not accurate. Yet, we walk out of the chamber feeling pretty comfortable. I choose not to take that position, but to take this opportunity as the debate closes on Bill C-24 to put some facts on the table.

As the member for Burnaby—Douglas concluded his remarks he said that we were on the verge. I assume he meant we were on the verge in final arbitration to once again have a ruling in Canada's favour.

I had the privilege, if I may say, to chair the committee that addressed this issue. As I mentioned in the past and I will take the opportunity once again, the entire industry literally came before the committee and gave testimony. Members from the Bloc spoke about this earlier. Let me put on the record who attended. The committee heard from the Québec Forest Industry Council; the BC Lumber Trade Council, mentioned by the New Democratic representative who just spoke; Canfor Corporation; West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd.; and Weyerhaeuser Company. We are talking about all the industry representatives.

What did they tell us in committee? They thanked us for the support that the Liberal government had been providing throughout this ordeal. They were here to tell us that they needed our financial assistance and government support because they knew they were going to win and they wanted to be there.

We do not just cut cheques. Obviously, there has to be a committee inquiry and we have to hear from witnesses. As a committee we have an obligation to summarize all the findings and make recommendations, which is exactly what we did. There were recommendations which are here in the report.

The parliamentary secretary and the member for Burnaby—Douglas were present. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster was also on the committee and knows very well the recommendations. He heard them firsthand. There were recommendations from the New Democratic Party that members from the Bloc approved. The recommendations from the Liberal government of the day included a provision to provide financial support.

Having said that, the response will be that I am still upset. No, I am not upset with what happened. Canadians spoke in the last election. Liberals respect the outcome and we have to work with it.

The member for Burnaby—Douglas said that we were on the verge. If we were on the verge, why did the Conservatives betray the lumber industry and overthrow the Liberal government prematurely when there was a commitment to have an election at some point in time as the then prime minister indicated? There is no question. I agree with the NDP and the Bloc Québécois that this is a bad deal.

When the Minister of Industry signed the agreement and members of the community and the industry did not agree, the new Conservative government, as it wishes to be called, turned around and said it had been muzzled to put this deal together and asked how to do it. This is how it put the deal together. It went to the players in the lumber industry and said that if they did not accept this deal, the government would tax them on top of it.

Let me quote from the newspaper. It says here, “Ottawa plans to tax holdouts”. In other words, if they do not accept the deal, the government will tax them on top of that. It does not matter that it has taken over $5 billion their money.

On the money, there is great concern. I challenge the parliamentary secretary, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Industry. I am hopeful that one day they will show us a cheque for over $4 billion. Quite frankly, the people I speak to and I hear from do not feel that money will come to Canada. That is a challenge I hope the they will pick up on and some day stand proudly, if they have that cheque, and say that they got our money back. I do not think that money is coming.

During the presentations, over and over again, we talked about the NAFTA dispute mechanism. We know very well there are some problems in it. When the deal was first put together, it was put together with the thought of that day. Along the way, things change, such as environments and conditions, and on an ongoing basis we try to refine and improve it.

Unfortunately, what has happened is that in the middle of the game, the Americans decided to change the rules. They are trying to punish us because we have developed a very efficient and cost effective product where we can put our lumber out to the international community and compete fair and square.

What I am upset about, as are many of my constituents, is they are going to hold over $1 billion of our money of which they say half a billion is going to go to supporting the Katrina fund. That is an honourable thing to do. However, as we know, parliamentarians and Canadians responded to the call of the Katrina disaster. We raised money. I do not think that was a wise decision. On the other hand, we do not know up to this very day where the half a billion dollars will go.

Would the parliamentary secretary get us some information on this? Canadians want to know where their money is going.

From the day the deal was supposedly made until now, it has been almost a year. If an average Canadian had over $5 billion in the bank, that would provide him or her with some interest. Is that interest coming to Canada, or is that interest going to stay in the United States of America? That is another question Canadians are asking.

The member earlier said that this was a great deal. Canadians are still asking what the deal is all about. Why is this deal so great? Is it great because we have been robbed of over $1 billion? Is it great because if conditions change overnight, the Americans can change the rules? Is it a great deal because it has already cost us jobs? I want to know what is so great about this deal so I can tell my constituents.

It does not affect me personally, coming from an urban riding such as Scarborough Centre, but it does affect the peripheral industries around me, whether it is housing, et cetera. Directly it does not affect employment in my riding, but it affects my province of Ontario as a whole. However, when it affects the province of Quebec and the province of British Columbia, rest assured it affects each and every Canadian, and I bring that to the attention of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister.

I want to thank the member from New Westminster, who really did work hard on this file during committee, and the members from the Bloc. I am sad today because they do not reflect on what happened and what the recommendations were in that committee. They know very well, as the member for Burnaby—Douglas said, we were on the verge of putting this deal properly where it belonged.

Unfortunately, and I am not going to go into it, the government was no longer there. Here we are today, succumbing to the pressure of the Americans, giving up well over a billion dollars, and it is costing us jobs on top of that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my Liberal colleague talk about a deal that his party was not able to secure. When we became the new government and secured this deal, we found out that the Liberals were willing to sign on for only $3 billion to be returned to the Canadian industry. We arranged for over $5 billion being returned back.

The hon. member is bragging about something that he and his Liberal Party were unable to achieve. After 13 years, they were unable to do anything for the industry to the point where the industry is now in a desperate state. That is why we needed this deal. That is why we see so much support from the industry, from all the provinces and from the Bloc. I appreciate the comments of members of the Bloc when they talk about the inability of the previous Liberal government.

I also point out that we heard from a very important witness, Gordon Ritchie. He told us that in the very beginning when NAFTA was negotiated, softwood lumber was carved out in a memorandum of understanding because the Americans did not want it included. It would not work within a dispute mechanism system. There is a new dispute mechanism within this deal that will work. It is taking it out of U.S. trial law and bringing it into international trade law.

Would the hon. member perhaps comment as to what he thinks about this process which the industry very much supports?

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in a constructive way, the parliamentary secretary does not have a clue what she is talking about. If there had been a deal for $3 billion, we did not want it because we knew it was a bad deal. If we thought it was a good deal, we would have accepted it.

[Helena Guergis, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

You did nothing. You should apologize.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Apologize for what? We have nothing for which we should apologize. It was a bad deal then and we did not accept it, and it is a bad deal today.

The parliamentary secretary should read the report. I am sure she has not read it because her question tells me that she has total ignorance of what happened in committee. It was confirmed by the member for Burnaby—Douglas when he said, “We were on the verge”. Industry testimony is on the record. All the people that the parliamentary secretary referred to are on the record.

The Liberal government chose in its wisdom to do two things. First, it decided to support the industry with financial support, but unfortunately the government fell. Second, it chose to walk away from that proposal of $3 billion because it was a really bad deal as is the Conservative deal.

We did not muzzle the industry. We did not tell the industry that if it did not accept the $3 billion deal, we would penalize it. We made the decision, unilaterally, because it was a bad deal for Canada, a bad deal for the industry and we said we would not take it.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite a sight for Canadians who are watching to see the Liberals and Conservatives fighting out who has the worst deal. It was the Minister of International Trade, the soon to be ex-member for Vancouver Kingsway, who had the deal with the Liberals, took it across the floor to the Conservatives and received about 3¢ on the dollar better. All the other components were there. Both deals are sellouts and both deals will be rejected by Canadians. When Canadians in softwood communities across the country get the chance, they will vote against Liberal and Conservative candidates who sold out our country this fall by trying to push through this deal.

I always appreciate hearing the member for Scarborough Centre speak, but today he used a very interesting term. He talked about the election of January 23 as being an overthrow of the government. That is a very curious term. This is a sense of entitlement that goes quite beyond belief, that a democratic election is an overthrow of the government. It was not that. It was a chance for Canadians to judge the government of the day. We will see the same judgment on the Conservatives in the next election as we saw on the Liberals on January 23.

We were on the verge of winning on October 13. In fact, we did win. Why did the Liberals cancel the hearings in regions across the country? Why did the Liberals cancel hearings in Ottawa? Why did the Liberals force this bad bill through committee?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Scarborough Centre has 25 seconds to reply to those three questions.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in those 25 seconds I want to talk about the deal. I have great respect for the member, but I believe he is being intellectually dishonest with the wording he is using. He said “a deal”. There was a proposal under the Liberal government. We in our wisdom saw that it was wrong and did not even propose it. We did not have a deal. The Conservative Party had a bad deal and it accepted it.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for that warm welcome and for this opportunity to convey some of the concerns the good people of Winnipeg Centre have about this bill.

Let me start by taking a moment to recognize and pay tribute to the valiant work done by my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, who perhaps above all others, who dealt with this long, complicated piece of legislation, actually stood up for Canadians. He has tried every possible angle he could think of to negotiate a better deal for Canadians and to sound the alarm that what we are doing today is fundamentally wrong on so many levels that it constitutes a betrayal of the best interests of Canadians.

I have learned a great deal from my colleague from Burnaby—New Westminster about this softwood lumber deal, or sellout as he is fond of calling it, throughout the process. He has been a tireless champion not only in the House of Commons, not only at the standing committee, in spite of a conspiracy to silence him at the committee, but around our caucus table and throughout meetings across Canada, in which he spoke to concerned citizens. They are mystified. Their minds are boggled by why on earth we would do this deal at this time at this fragile point in the history of the softwood lumber industry in our country. It is beyond reason.

Reason and logic do not seem to enter into it, as I understand it. Listening to speakers from the other two opposition parties, I am no further ahead. I still do not understand their motivation in helping the Conservatives to complete this deal and to sell it out.

On this conspiracy to silence the truth about this deal, I do not know if they met in backrooms or if they woke up with some Jungian collective unconscious or something, but they conspired to undermine the best interests of Canadians. At the very least, they owe us an apology. In fact, they owe us about $1 billion because that is what it costs in real material terms.

In actual fact, more harm was done than just the damages that we have suffered in a monetary way. The real damage, perhaps the less measurable and less tangible damage, was the way they bastardized democracy and undermined the rights of my colleague, his privileges as a member of Parliament, and denied him the opportunity to do his job at the standing committee.

My colleague from Burnaby—Douglas outlined the atrocious conspiracy. Members on that international trade committee should hang their heads in shame for the way that they treated my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster. I witnessed some of it and I was ashamed. As a long-standing veteran member of Parliament in this chamber, I have never seen anything like it. I have never seen a chair abuse his privileges as a chair. I have never seen such a bunch of cowards on the other side, the members of Parliaments who fell in line and took part in this conspiracy to silence my colleague.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Lemmings.