Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his very wise comments.
First the Conservative government needs to acknowledge that this agreement is not perfect and that it has flaws. In my opinion, no Canadian would voluntarily give $1 billion to the Americans, $500 million of which will be allocated to the U.S. softwood lumber industry so that it can compete with us. This is one of the flaws of the agreement. That does not mean it should not be signed. It means there is a major flaw in the agreement.
However, it is in response to these flaws that an assistance plan comes into play. With such flaws, there needs to be compensation that allows our industry to face increased, somewhat undue, competition, which was financed with our very own money.
Our assistance plan suggests offering preferential tax treatment for the $4.3 billion of countervailing duties and anti-dumping charges that will be reimbursed by the U.S. authorities, in order to take into account the loss the companies have suffered.
This money will be refunded to companies early in December and will be considered revenue. It is being repaid at a time when the Canadian dollar is worth 90¢ American, whereas the payment to the Americans was made when the Canadian dollar was worth 65¢ American, which means that the companies are losing out.
Yesterday, we saw that the Conservative government can announce sudden cuts at the same time as it announces last year's $12 billion surplus. When making economic statements, the Conservative government could decide to give our industries a break by allowing them to declare the revenue for the year in which they paid out the amounts to the Americans. These companies must not suffer an additional loss with the repayment in 2006, when they paid these amounts in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
This is the sort of practical measure we would like to see for the industry. For the sake of older workers, we also hope that the Conservative government will realize that the agreement it signed will continue to have a highly detrimental impact on the economy, the forestry industry and the rest of the manufacturing sector.
It would therefore be appropriate to table a plan to help older workers who lose their jobs. Such a plan would cost $75 million annually, but Canada had a $12 billion surplus last year. This is disproportionate when we consider the individuals who are suffering the consequences of the softwood lumber crisis. The worker in St-Pamphile did not cause the crisis, the federal government did, in the way it negotiated with the Americans.
In the end, the government is forcing us to signed a flawed agreement. But plant workers and their families will suffer the consequences of that agreement every day. That is why our repeated calls for an older worker assistance program are appropriate and justified. It is time for the Conservative government to put older workers front and centre in an assistance plan for the entire forestry industry, in order to deal with this crisis.