Mr. Speaker, today I will speak about the softwood lumber agreement, an agreement signed by Ottawa and Washington.
The agreement reached by the Canadian and American governments is not the agreement of the century. I am certain that several MPs have had the opportunity in the past few months to meet members of the forestry industry who told them that an agreement had to be signed because they were on the brink of disaster. What must be understood is that the industry had no choice. The agreement concluded on July 1 was not a good agreement, but the forestry industry could not afford to wait any longer.
If the Bloc Québécois supports this agreement, it is because it is acting responsibly towards the thousands of sawmill workers. However, as a result of consultations in the past few months with the industry concerned, we have come to realize that the structural crisis of the softwood lumber industry cannot be remedied by the softwood lumber agreement alone.
Both the Liberal and the Conservative governments caused incredible harm by not supporting the softwood lumber industry in recent years. No company can emerge from a four-year trade crisis and hope that all will return to normal. It is even worse when an entire sector of the economy is in trouble.
Over the past four years, a number of companies working in the forest industry have closed their doors, and this deal does nothing to ensure the sustainability and survival of the industry. The industry is still in bad shape, so it is up to the government to implement a series of measures to help forestry companies that are facing serious difficulties.
During the dispute, that is, since 2002, 17,000 jobs were lost in Quebec. As you may know, in Quebec, forestry is the main employer in 260 communities. In 134 of them, 100% of jobs are in forestry. Consequently, it is important to ensure the viability of this industry.
Quebec is the second-largest exporter of softwood lumber to the United States. Fifty per cent of the province's lumber is exported south of the border. Now that important measures have been implemented with respect to softwood lumber, particularly with respect to quotas, a lot of companies have begun to rationalize their workforce in light of the agreement. I say “quotas” because it seems that Quebec will choose one of two options—either option A, a tax percentage, or option B, fixed quotas.
This is therefore a worrisome situation for thousands of workers. Given the growing supply of wood from China and new conditions in the industry, many companies will have to lay a lot of people off over the next few months.
Over the past few years, this crisis has had a dramatic impact on some communities in my riding, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. One of the largest forestry cooperatives in Quebec, located in Laterrière, went bankrupt in December 2004. The bankruptcy indirectly impacted on many sawmills in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. Some shut down for a few weeks, while others closed their doors for good. That is what happened with the Produits forestiers Saguenay sawmill in La Baie. In March, it decided to close the mill a year earlier than planned for economic reasons.
In addition, since the softwood lumber agreement was reached July 1, several sawmills in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean have continued to have financial difficulties.
To cite only a few examples, in early September, the Bowater mill at Saint-Félicien was forced to lay off 140 employees for an indefinite period. As well, one million dollars are needed to get the Coopérative forestière de Girardville back on its feet. For its part, the PFS mill at Petit-Saguenay has just reopened its doors after being closed for a month, two weeks more than initially planned. In addition, because of current market difficulties, the mill has decided to do away with a second shift. These are just some examples. However, a great many mills, such as the PH Lemay mill and the Péribonka mill have been affected by the crisis during the past few months.
The softwood lumber crisis has caused the loss of 3,000 jobs—yes, I said 3,000 direct jobs—in Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, and the situation is getting worse.
I would simply like to give one last example to illustrate the general situation. Three weeks ago, the sawmills at Saint-Félicien and Dolbeau-Mistassini shut down for an indefinite period in order to reduce financial losses. As a result, the company was forced to lay off some 350 employees of the two mills. One of the spokesmen for the mills made the following comment, which sums up the situation very well:
We are going through an unprecedented crisis and it is difficult to meet the conditions for profitability. Like all the other forestry companies, we have no choice but to reorganize our activities or mills in order to remain competitive.
That comment sums up the situation concerning the softwood lumber crisis.
The root cause of the problem is still there. The situation will continue to get worse if measures are not introduced quickly. The problem is aggravated in the regions outside the large centres and we cannot close our eyes to this problem.
There are many reasons why the socio-economic problems are worse in the regions. The main reason is that the forest industry plays such a major role in many communities. For workers in the regions, the forestry crisis, combined with cuts to employment insurance in recent years, has worsened the economic situation. Many employees affected by this dispute have been left without income and have been forced to leave the region.
Between 1994 and 2004, cuts to employment insurance resulted in a direct and indirect loss of $875 million for the entire Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region. This was due to the numerous cuts in the employment insurance program.
When we look at data for my riding of Chicoutimi—Le Fjord in particular, based on the cuts to employment insurance in the past few years, we can say that the population was directly denied some $221 million during those years.
We are proposing other measures to this government, namely the implementation of POWA, an income support program for workers who were part of massive layoffs.
In closing, I also want to point out that Bill C-24 does not resolve the structural problems of the market. In the coming months, measures will have to be implemented to prevent the forestry sector from collapsing. It is important that all stakeholders take action to maintain and consolidate the forest industry because many jobs in the resource regions depend on this sector of activity.
To that end, the Lac-Saint-Jean-Est RCM passed a resolution on September 19. I will close by urging the federal government to provide more support to the forest industry. I hope the government will implement measures that will help forestry workers and the industry.