Mr. Speaker, I stand today, as the member for Surrey North, to talk about what this agreement means to my riding.
Most people tend to think of the softwood lumber agreement as being more of interest to an interior area or a coastal area, but I live in an urban area and I know that within my constituency of Surrey North and within all of Surrey there are many IWA or steel IWA workers who are currently out of work and there are more who will be out of work. These are people who spent their lives working in the forest industry and are now losing their homes. They must move their children to different schools. Their self-respect as workers has been destroyed and their lives have been irrevocably changed. This agreement will not, in any way, help the people who are living in Surrey North or in Surrey in general.
We do not have one mill left on the Fraser River, all the way from New Westminster to Surrey and up the coast. The last mill closed a little over six months ago. This was the end of an era.
When these negotiations began, those workers, who were about to be displaced, had hope that perhaps this would make a difference for them, but this agreement has not. The $1 billion that has been left on the table like Monopoly money is of no benefit to these workers at all.
I know the forest industries have been pushed or strongly encouraged to support a deal that they do not really want to support but they have no choice. However, if we were to actually go out and do some consultations with the other people who are affected by the softwood industry, we would hear something very different.
What should be happening to the $1 billion that has been left on the table? Fifty-five per cent of all the wood in Canada is actually in British Columbia. In British Columbia, this is not just a small piece of an overall job base, revenue base or natural resource base. Now that the agreement has been signed, the money that will come back to British Columbia, as an example, will go into government revenue. How does that help displaced workers? It does not.
Many of these workers are no longer young and it would not be easy for them to change careers. Many of them are between 45 and 55 years of age. This money should be targeted to mitigation. It should be targeted toward job retraining. It should be targeted toward those communities that have been absolutely devastated economically by what we have already seen in the forest industry.
The fact that we cut down logs in British Columbia and then we export raw logs to other places to have a product made, surely the money coming back should be targeted toward value added industry and toward mitigating for workers and for communities.
We should remember that in every community where there are displaced forest workers, generally male but not always as a few women work in the forest industry, the other ancillary businesses in the community start to close. It is not just the worker who is affected. It is the worker's spouse or partner. It is the worker's children who may have to move away from the town and go to another school. It is the spouse who has lost the job when the ancillary business closed. The money that will be coming back to British Columbia should be going into the communities but it is not. It is going into government revenue. It could be used for anything and that is not right. It is not in any way a fair deal for British Columbia or for other forest dependent areas in this country.
I do not support this deal and I know many other people do not. I think many of the people who will be standing up to support it will be doing so either reluctantly or for other reasons on which I will not speculate, but may not be doing it because they are in full support of it.
As a whole, this House of Parliament and certainly some of the industries in British Columbia may have said yes, but the population is overwhelming in its rejection of this deal that has been negotiated. I think many people will be giving this deal simply tacit support and I am not sure that is the way we want to do this.
The other concern I have is that the agreement should give some long term hope to the softwood industry. However, if this agreement can be reopened in 18 months time, how much long term reassurance is there in that? Is someone going to buy a house and take out a mortgage knowing that this can be reopened in 18 months? I do not think so. Is someone going to make permanent future plans for themselves or their families based on the fact that this can be reopened that quickly? I think not.
In many ways we have the worst of all worlds in this. We have money coming back that will not be targeted to the workers, to the communities and to building healthy forests again. People have been very clear that healthy forests are part of what needs to happen in that mitigation.
I do not support the bill because workers across the country in the softwood lumber industry will be devastated by this. It is not fair, it is not right and it will not help British Columbians.