Mr. Speaker, I rise today on Bill C-24, the bill put forward by the Minister of International Trade, the softwood lumber products export charge act, 2006
As I was considering the fact that I would be speaking today, a thought crossed my mind that this softwood sellout kind of matches a definition I have used for years relative to some folks who have passed through the House, ministers, members, even governments, that we ordinary folk call rogues and scoundrels.
Mostly, the common people on the street will say it is their view that far too many people who have sat in the House or held official positions in the House have been quick to bow to an American policy on one file or another. One of the first that comes to mind, maybe even the most notorious up until this point in time especially in the minds of working Canadians, was the act of former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker when he caved into Dwight D. Eisenhower in the late 1950s. It was that prime minister, a Conservative prime minister by the way, who bowed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and cancelled the Avro Arrow project.
In fact, we were reminded just this week that there is a prototype of the Avro Arrow that has been restored and taken to one of our national museums to be put on display I guess to say what might have been. At the time of the cancellation of that project there were five leading prototypes of an aircraft that was 20 years ahead of its time.
What happened on Black Friday? Prime Minister Diefenbaker cancelled this project and cancelled the futures of over 15,000 workers when he did that. One has to sit back and wonder why. Why would a government turn on its own people in that fashion?
Then again in the 1980s many of us, including myself in the Hamilton labour movement, saw then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney sign the free trade agreement which basically sacrificed over 500,000 manufacturing jobs in Ontario, not to mention across this country. My riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek was affected in major ways.
I can recall when the draft text of the free trade agreement was signed. That very day Firestone Tire announced the closure of the plant in Hamilton because it no longer needed a plant. It could simply bring goods across the border. Thus, 1,500 people lost their jobs.
Not to pick on just the Conservatives, but maybe to throw a little fire across the way to the former Liberals, it was in the 1990s, as we will recall, that the Liberal Party ran on a platform in the 1993 election saying that it would not support the GST and would cancel it. It would not sign NAFTA. I recall a full page newspaper ad that had five priorities of things it would and would not do and those were the top two on that list. Lo and behold, what did it do? It kept the GST and signed the free trade agreement and again workers in my city were sold down the river.
We will recall not too long after that event the member from Hamilton at the time resigned on the basis that she had given her word that if the GST was kept, she would resign. A byelection took place. In fact, I was the candidate for my party in that byelection. We went from fifth place to second place just simply on the anger that the people had at the time for what was going on.
Steelworkers and manufacturers in my area wonder what is next. They see this softwood sellout. It is little wonder they do not trust the government after the previous Liberal and Conservative governments have sold them down the river. Now there is a spectacle by the present government. In the campaign it ran on being a fresh face, accountability and all of those grand words. What happened? Lo and behold, just before the House convened it had an unelected person appointed as a senator.
Then, further embarrassing to the House I would suggest, we had the minister who had the file on softwood lumber cross the floor two short weeks after the election. People in that member's riding, who worked hard to elect a Liberal, suddenly found themselves waking up one morning with a Conservative member.
Maybe I should have said switching allegiances because he did not physically get up and cross the floor. I think that would have taken a bit of courage and I do not see too much of that.
The government expects steelworkers, autoworkers and other workers in manufacturing in my riding to have faith in the Minister of International Trade. I can say there is not a chance of that. They are cringing. They are wondering what industry is next, that perhaps it will be one of theirs.
Our critic on this file from Burnaby—New Westminster has been warning the people of the country and the members in the House of what is happening. The critic has been in the House day in and day out drawing the attention of Canadians to this file. He has exposed the hidden costs of the softwood agreement to Canadians. He has also exposed the bullying tactics of the Prime Minister as the government goes after the industry to force it to support the agreement.
I have a quote from our critic. He said:
The [Conservative] government, who used bullying tactics to force support from the industry, is now using the tax system to punish his opponents.
The word is today, at least in some of the circles I was travelling in this morning, this deal may well be in trouble. If that is the case, it is certainly good news to this member's ears.
He also said:
Under the softwood lumber agreement, [the Prime Minister] and the [Minister of International Trade] are coercing Canadian softwood companies to hand over to the United States $1 billion of the $5.3 billion in duty deposits illegally collected by the Unites States Customs as a result of the softwood lumber dispute.
On top of that, we have had case after case where we have won rulings on this dispute. It is beyond me why our government would cave in and position us in front of the Americans as people who are on our knees when we do not have to be. We can win the next round of legal battles, the future litigation that is going to carry on, but more importantly, we have to prepare the way for the next sector that comes under attack from the Americans.
The Conservative government is again slapping on the Canadian softwood companies that refuse to join in this fiasco, for the lack of a better word, a 19% charge applied as a percentage of the refunded deposits. The charge would not be collected from companies who abide by the agreement. This is an abuse of power, especially when we have won, as I have said before, in the court of law. Canadian companies owe nothing to the United States. It baffles me why we are giving a billion dollars to the Americans.
Steelworkers and members from Hamilton are very concerned. American litigation will likely resume on future files. The Bush government recently moved to overturn the U.S. court decisions of April 7 and July 14 on the NAFTA and the Byrd amendment. This is clearly a very plain and simple, even simple enough for the government to get it, indication of what is coming.
We have a dispute settlement mechanism within NAFTA that we are flouting with this agreement. It is beyond belief that our government would do this to the workers in the softwood industry.
Our leader was in Thunder Bay recently. He was there to show the workers that at least some members in this House were standing with them on this. It was very clear that the members of the government were not.
In the words of our leader, “The Prime Minister has sold out northern Ontario”. That is a fact. “This is a total failure,” he said. “One billion dollars left on the table in Washington”, he said, but worse, “the Bush administration now has a direct say in how we manage our forestry industry”.
Clearly, the actions of the Minister of International Trade fly in the face of democracy. I say the minister has sold out our country. He deserves to be ranked among the rogues and scoundrels that I spoke of in my opening remarks. I think the government will go down in history for this, maybe not ahead of the Diefenbaker government for cancelling the Avro, but it will be very close on the sellout of softwood lumber.