Mr. Speaker, the Western Forest Products mill in New Westminster is closing on February 7. Unless the government steps in to clean up the mess created by the softwood sellout, another 300 families will lose their breadwinner and 1,000 jobs will be lost indirectly.
The softwood lumber sellout has resulted in the hemorrhaging of thousands of jobs throughout Canada. It is hard to keep up with the mill closures and layoffs.
The Conservatives, with the support of the Liberals, have bolstered the incentive to export raw logs and give away Canadian jobs. Some CEOs receiving partial payback of the illegally taken monies are using it to buy American mills instead of reinvesting in communities here. What a mess!
The NDP calls on the government to immediately begin to clean up the mess it created, stop raw log exports from federal lands and implement now an emergency plan to assist softwood mills to stay open.
We demand that the Minister of Industry do his job and take action to prevent the closure of Western Forest Products and so many other mills in Canada.