Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on the softwood lumber agreement as negotiated by the new Conservative government and the Minister of International Trade.
I am not quite sure how the NDP member who just spoke and the question from the Liberal benches got on to the topic of the Wheat Board in discussion of the softwood lumber agreement. The member from the NDP said that the Wheat Board enabled farmers to get the highest price possible. I am certainly not the expert on the Wheat Board, but my understanding is that producers cannot sell their wheat outside of the Wheat Board. Therefore, they do not have the option of going for the highest price possible. As a matter of fact, they may have to sell their wheat for less money than they could have received if they had sold it independently.
This debate should stick to the facts. If we stick to the facts this is a clear debate and I think there would be unanimity from all parties. There would be nothing but massive support for the bill and for the positive change it will bring to the lumber industry in Canada.
There are a number of issues that I want to talk about. I want to deal directly with a number of statements made by my Atlantic Canadian colleagues in the Liberal Party and in the NDP who have criticized this agreement. This is a good agreement for Atlantic Canada. To spread false arguments based on no criteria except rhetoric, based on no facts, only rhetoric, and the belief that if they say something enough times people will believe them, is not credible. It diminishes the work we do in this chamber.
To begin my debate I would like to read a quote from the Minister of International Trade who spoke in the House yesterday. His opening statement was very cognizant of the issue. It spoke directly to the issue and it is worth repeating:
Softwood lumber for Canadian softwood lumber producers has been an industry that has been plagued by trade disputes--
I do not think anyone would disagree with that:
--border measures and various types of trade harassment for basically a quarter of a century.
After 24 years of nothing but harassment from our American neighbours on the softwood lumber file, we have finally put it to rest. We are talking about organized trade, about clear rules, about definite boundaries. We do not have a quota system in place. We have trade that flows north and south across the long border between us and the United States.
The minister went on to say:
The agreement will provide stability and a dispute-free market access to the United States market. It will provide stability for a period of at least eight to nine years...it will provide a trajectory for the evolution of the softwood lumber industry to a world of complete free trade.
Obviously, complete free trade is what everyone would prefer to have, but we cannot diminish the agreement that we have before us and somehow try to discredit it by telling falsehoods about it.
The member for Beauséjour spoke against this agreement. He has sawmills in his own riding. I asked him about the hypothetical agreement the former Liberal government supposedly was desperate to have signed prior to Christmas and prior to the election. What was it about that agreement that was supposedly better than this agreement? Put it on the table; table it. I did not get an answer to that question.
I would be very interested in comparing the two. As an Atlantic Canadian, the member for Beauséjour would know that the difference in the agreements is that the Liberals were willing, as unbelievable as this may sound, to give up Atlantic Canada's free trade with the United States. We were countervail free prior to this last trade action. We were anti-dumping free. We had free trade with the United States. The Liberals were willing to give that up in order to get a trade agreement with the United States. It is unbelievable.
There are a number of issues that we know are factual. The Americans are protectionists. Is that a big surprise? Nothing has changed. The Byrd amendment makes it almost impossible for our exporters to work on an equal footing. The idea that somehow the next court case would have changed it is absolutely fictitious. The next court case would not have changed it. As long as the Byrd amendment is in place in the United States and the American industry feels it is being treated unfairly, feels there is a subsidy in the Canadian marketplace, the American industry can bring that action to the American trade board and can claim countervail or anti-dumping duties. There is no next legal action that is going to prevent that. If the Byrd amendment, which should not be there, was not there, then the avenue of going to the courts to have it settled once and for all would be open.
This softwood lumber agreement is supported by Atlantic Canadian mills. I have had letters from the majority of mills in Atlantic Canada, from the Maritime Lumber Bureau.
I would like to take a moment to recognize the work that the Maritime Lumber Bureau has done on this file. When the previous government was not looking out for the interests of Atlantic Canada, Atlantic Canada looked out for its own interests. We saw over a period of time a shift from east-west trade in lumber that used to go to Europe to north-south trade with the United States. Some of that was market driven; some of that was driven by the American dollar which was extremely high, but it was driven by circumstance.
We in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, P.E.I. and New Brunswick, with the primary lumber producers being Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, got shut out of the European market. That billion dollars in trade, $900 million in softwood lumber trade that Nova Scotia used to do with Europe suddenly became trade with the United States. There was a dramatic shift. There was a dramatic shift in Europe because of non-tariff trade sanctions by the Europeans. The non-tariff trade barrier that the Europeans put in place was the pinewood nematode. They came up with an excuse that insects would somehow infest the pine forests of Europe.
Of course, after 500 years of trade with Europe and no insect infestations from pinewood nematode, we thought we had a scientific argument to actually prove that would not happen. However, we could not have that argument heard clearly by the Europeans and much of that market was lost, unless the lumber was pressure treated or kiln dried.
I want to continue for a while longer on my Atlantic Canadian colleagues' non-acceptance of this treaty. This is a good agreement with the United States. It is a great agreement for Atlantic Canada. More important, the members opposite yesterday were saying that we need to read the agreement. Unfortunately, they had not because the one small change that needed to be made to this agreement to ensure Atlantic Canada's continued exemption from countervail and anti-dumping duties actually was the fact that we have been exempt. That exemption had unfortunately been neglected in the bill and all of the Liberals who were stating that they had read it so closely obviously had not. The member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley actually picked up on it, spoke directly to the minister and was able to have that exemption guaranteed.
It is a matter of dealing with the facts, not falsehoods, not fiction, not fantasy, but only the facts.