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.