Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion presented by the hon. member for Kings—Hants. At the heart of the motion is the fact that, under the Conservative government, a long-standing relationship with the United States has been deteriorating, not just slowly but rapidly deteriorating.
We are a trading nation. Canada depends for 45% of its gross domestic product on trade, 80% of that trade is carried out with the United States, our neighbour to the south. That country has been our ally. We have disagreed, but we have always had a strong relationship. By a strong relationship, I do not mean that we stand there and pound our fists. I mean it is a relationship based on mutual respect.
To create a relationship, we need to have ongoing and open lines of communication. We have to keep the relationship going. We have to continue talking. We have to continue building on the things that we share and stand firm on the things that we do not share.
That was the nature of the relationship, at least under the Liberal government, for 13 years before the Conservative government came into power. The problem is that relationship no longer exists.
The current relationship between Canada and the United States is typified by two descriptors: one is fawning or subservient and the other is reactive. The government either reacts to something that it obviously is not aware is coming down the pipe, or it bows its head and meekly does what it is told to do, at times when it needs to, and I will elaborate on these a little later.
However, I want to talk a little about the fact that the reactivity is what is of great concern to us. If we have open lines of communication and if we maintain a strong relationship, we are friends. We talk to each other. We do not necessarily agree, but at least we know what is coming down the pipe. Even if we were not forewarned in certain conversations that we kept between us as two sovereign nations, one should just look at history and tradition.
During the Great Depression, and in the dirty thirties as it was called, we saw how the United States reacted at that time to a depression. It began to be protectionist. This is the nature of any country, when it is faced with stress, to behave in certain patterns. We should have known those patterns. The reaction to stress by the United States is to immediately crawl in and become protectionist. Therefore, we should have seen it coming down the pipe for two reasons: first, because of tradition and history under stress; and second, because we also had lines of communication open.
Therefore, the government has a failing mark on both of those, on reading the history or on being able to have open lines of communication. Now what we have is reactivity.
Thank goodness for a new president whose administration is one that has decided that it would rather make friends and do the right thing, rather than continue to be strong and pound the table along with other people. We have seen this happen.
President Obama said that he did not want to harm trade relationships with the world. Worldwide trade relationships will be harmed if the Americans resort to protectionism. We saw that happen after the Great Depression when the world trading relationships began to fall apart after the protectionism by the United States.
Here we have something that we could have headed off at the pass without needing to have the President of the United States to turn around and say, “Oops, I'm sorry”. We could have headed that off. In good relationships we do not paint our friends in a corner and have them having to bow out and say, “I'm sorry, I didn't think about that earlier on”.
However, what does it say, when we, as the nearest neighbour, supposedly a country with strong relationships, allies sharing the longest unprotected border in the world, did not know that we were on the agenda. It means we are not even on the radar with the United States. We used to be on the radar. A good example was when President Clinton came to visit. He came to the House. He spoke to the House. He spoke to the senate. We welcomed him.
President Bush came here. He also came and spoke to everyone and was welcomed. We differ on certain occasions, but we maintain that friendship and the ability to lobby and to talk to each other.
It is not by chance that members of Parliament are able to use their flying points to go to Washington, D.C. because we must continue to keep those lines open.
The government has failed on that. The lines are closed. No one knows what is happening. The result, as we have seen with the recession, was too little too late. The government pretends things are not happening. It is always in denial. When things fall apart at the seams, government members suddenly leap into the air yelling and screaming and wonder what to do next. That is the pattern of the Conservative government. We should not have been surprised that this occurred.
I want to also talk about the other part of the relationship which we seem to have developed with the United States. It is not one of a strong partner with mutual respect for each other. It is a subservient kind of relationship, and I go back to the softwood lumber deal because it is something that we must bring to the table as an example of how we are either reactive or subservient.
The relationship between the two countries has always been based on mutual respect and a strong sense that we understood each other. Canada would do what it thought was best and the United States would do what it thought was best, but we totally respected each other. That is gone.
The Liberals made a strong deal with the United States when we negotiated an agreement on softwood lumber. The Conservative government came into power and agreed to a deal that left $1 billion, on the table, money that the Liberal government had negotiated, to go back to the U.S. The Conservatives also made an agreement that increased the tariffs under certain conditions. It was a bad deal.
A legal analysis commissioned by the Free Trade Lumber Council and two Ontario associations had this to say, “We are sharply critical of the April 27th package which is a political bargain forsaking entirely the rule of law enshrined in the North American free trade agreement. It was something that was a political deal brokered between the administration of [the Prime Minister] and George Bush”.
Political deals were made that were not in the best interests of Canada at all. We lost a great deal at the table.
Here is what we also heard from people in the mill industry in British Columbia:
They had phone calls at the mill level from Conservative MPs and they were told very clearly, “If you don't support this, don't count on the federal government for helping you with your difficulties later on”.
We had a political deal based on subservience, brokered just to allow for good relationships to continue.
I used to be a negotiator for doctors in the province of British Columbia. One cannot negotiate from a position of weakness, but must negotiate from a position of strength. There has to be mutual respect at the table if a deal is going to be brokered that is a win-win situation on both sides.
Now we see a new administration in the United States, an administration that seems to be a polar opposite to the current Conservative government. It is sad because there seems to be little in common.
The President of the United States believes in science. He listens to what others tell him. He is not ideological. He is bringing back things like stem cell research and talking about funding groups that are non-advocates and do not necessarily agree with him, but funding them nonetheless. He is going back to dealing with things based on knowledge and information and outcomes and what works. The Conservative government is based on ideology and ideology alone.
I worry for our future relationship with the United States. I worry that this deteriorating relationship is going to slide downhill very rapidly when the intelligent and modern day thinking President of the United States listens to what we have here, which is a retrogressive, ideological government. He can find nothing in common with us.
I hope for the sake of Canadians and all our industries that this never happens.