Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to participate with my colleagues in the debate on Bill C-24, a bill which has very steep consequences for many forest communities across the country.
In my large riding of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, the forest industry is located along highway 11, whether they are sawmills, pulp and paper mills or panel board plants in Hearst, Kapuskasing or Smooth Rock Falls or workers who live in the small villages in between. On highway 17, there is a pulp and paper plant in Espanola, a sawmill in Nairn or Thessalon, forestry workers and logging companies between Thessalon and Espanola, including Elliot Lake, Iron Bridge and Blind River.
These are communities like others across the country that are facing very difficult times, as some of my colleagues have talked about, with energy costs, exchange rates, even government regulation, and the competing demands for the forests and competition from other countries where forest fibres are very inexpensive. All these things and other factors combine to make it very difficult to operate, to be a worker, small business or contractor in the forestry sector. That is why it has been a real challenge for me to try to understand why the government came up with the deal that it did with the U.S.
The Liberals were in office until January for some 12 and a half years and were actually making considerable progress on that file. It is my understanding that in November, prior to the election being called with the help of the Bloc and NDP supporting the Conservatives, it was possible to have an agreement with the U.S. Whether it was better or worse I am not sure, but a deal was possible at that time and would not have been satisfactory to our communities and to the industry, so the government declined to proceed.
Instead, it took the advice of stakeholders. When people were asked if they wanted to settle with the U.S. industry, if they wanted to compromise the gains they had made, if they wanted to give away progress under the free trade agreements or, rather, pursue their legal rights in the courts, under the NAFTA trade panels or the WTO and negotiate, almost exclusively stakeholders, workers and companies said no. They did not want to negotiate, give away what they had gained in their efforts to find softwood trade peace with the U.S. They wanted a solution which was based in the law and due process.
We were getting there and in fact decisions, even since the government came to office, have proven the correctness of that position to follow due process and get what is right under the law and according to trade agreements. The government, sadly, has rushed to find something maybe to make the Americans happy.
I do not want to be too cynical, so I will not go beyond saying that much, but in a rush to find a solution, any solution it seemed, it was prepared to give away all the progress that was made. That is among the many difficulties in this agreement and one of the hardest things to take. Why give away so much progress?
Let me comment further by saying that I have talked to a lot of people in my riding. One person was Guy Bourgouin, president of the Steelworkers local 12995 in Kapuskasing, who wrote in a letter to me in late August:
However, despite this continuing success,--
The success I referred to:
--Canada appears to have capitulated to American demands. Under the proposed deal we are still faced with restrictions on our access to the US market in the form of a tax and/or quota, we are agreeing to allow American oversight of our provincial forest policies, and we are leaving a billion dollars of illegally collected tariffs south of the border. To top it all off, there is nothing in the agreement to ensure the stability of employment in the forest sector or the ongoing viability of forest dependent communities.
Guy Bourguoin in Kapuskasing, president of that local, has summarized it very well. As well, I have talked to René Fontaine, the former Liberal cabinet minister in Ontario, who is so passionate about our forestry sector needing a good deal with the Americans, not this bad deal.
When we consider this deal, if there is one thing among the many measures that we would put at the top of the list of things required, it is stability, at least stability. It is the idea that the deal is bad, but if businesses at least could count on the bad deal for seven to nine years, maybe they could survive. The fact is that this deal can be cancelled by either side, Canada or the U.S., after 23 months. That is not stability. That is not what the industry needs as a top priority.
Yes, we have heard about some U.S. assurances in a letter, assurances that the U.S. will not just casually cancel a deal after roughly two years. What does a commitment like that mean? Our friends to the south went to war in Iraq claiming weapons of mass destruction. They had no evidence for that. So how do we accept some assurance, based on the letter, that they will not cancel this deal after two years? I am sorry with respect to our neighbours to the south who are our friends and our allies, but as neighbours we do expect to be treated fairly. Sadly, we are not.
Let me pick out a few other points that Guy Bourgouin raised in his letter. Let us talk about the over $1 billion that has been left south of the border and which, as some of my colleagues have already pointed out, is being shared. Half of it will go to the industry.
We can be sure that at least some of it will find its way into a legal trust fund for some future challenge once this deal unravels. Those who challenge this deal will be well prepared when it comes to paying for lawyers, court fees, research and so on, whereas our industry has been told by the new government, so new that it is possibly too inexperienced to really understand when it has negotiated a bad deal, that our industry will not be prepared financially to fight back when the other side has a part or all of half a billion dollars to fight with.
The other half-billion is going to be administered through the White House, ostensibly delivering programs, maybe housing, and promoting the use of lumber.
How many among us would actually believe that any of that promotion is going to be of much use to the Canadian industry? I doubt very much that any of it will be of benefit. We are told that the Prime Minister's Office will be consulted on the programs. I will wait to learn if that is actually the case, but I doubt it very much.
There are mid-term elections coming up in the U.S. I suspect that the money will find its way into districts where the Republicans need some help. There is no interest on the side of the U.S. in using that money to help Canadian industry produce lumber here and sell it in the U.S.
I wonder if the stability of this deal depends upon one side or the other determining after two years whether it should abrogate the deal or not. Who is going to make the decision to abrogate the deal? It is not going to be this side. It is going to be the U.S. side. Our side wants stability. Our industry members are fair traders and they are not subsidized.
My colleague from Etobicoke North mentioned the natural advantage. Do we challenge the U.S. because it has more sunlight in a year due to the climate? No, that is its natural advantage.
We have a natural advantage that we are proud of. We have great workers in the industry and great communities, and we deserve a much better deal than we have been shown here.