Mr. Speaker, I was in my office listening to the presentations from my friends from the New Democrats. I welcome the member for Welland. To give them a little sense of my understanding, in the last two years I have done a study in the port of Halifax, Quebec City, Toronto, Hamilton and St. Catharines. I have been on the seaway. I have been on the Welland Canal. I have been to the port of Vancouver and I have been at the port of Prince Rupert.
This free trade deal is about a 25% duty that will be phased out over a 15-year period, not overnight. Nothing changes in the first three years and then it is a gradual removal over 15 years. If one looks at how much money the Canadian shipbuilders have invested in Norway over the last number of years, it is $16 million. It is like an oil change. One tanker is worth $130 million.
There has not been a tanker built in Canada for the Great Lakes system since 1985. Those skills have gone over there. However, we have a robust shipping business in our country. Our shippers need product that is more environmentally sensitive to be able to move product from A to B. It is a good deal for Canada and it is a good deal for us to have these free trade agreements with different parts of the country.
The members like to talk, and I hear it all the time, about a combined ACCA, or accelerated capital cost allowance, and a combined SFS to make it more economical for a shipper to buy a foreign ship. When I was in Quebec City, the biggest ship owner in Canada was there, and it had put out for purchasing. It could not get anybody to buy. It is paying the 25%, which cannot be financed. What difference does that make in terms of actual cost to a $130 million vehicle?