Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today. I hope I can be heard over the roar of approval from the American southeastern softwood lumber producers as they listen to the NDP talk once again about scrapping the softwood lumber agreement.
There are visions of prosperity going rampant down in Georgia and those southern states. Without a softwood lumber agreement, they could simply impose whatever punitive penalties they wanted on Canadian products coming across the border. Given the recession in the U.S. housing industry, those folks down there, who cheer for the NDP on a daily basis, could probably supply almost all the softwood lumber for constructing houses down there. As that cheer for the NDP gets louder about killing the softwood lumber agreement, I will try to talk about some positive things that our government is doing.
There is no doubt that the forestry industry has some serious challenges. The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley did not mention that the current softwood prices are somewhere in the neighbourhood of $155, $158. Some of the mills were selling it off for $130 just to get it out of their yards.
The member also knows that the break-even point is somewhere in the high three hundreds for a mill to be profitable. Yet that is fault of the Canadian government. He chooses to blame the government, not the fact that there is a recession in the U.S. The housing starts are down the tube and the price is at a point where the mills in Canada are losing money on every stick.
Notwithstanding the so-called disparities in the softwood lumber agreement, about which the member talked, if the prices are at $158, no mill in Canada will make any money anyway, even if there were no tariffs.
The government has a role to play and Canada's recent economic action plan will help industrial sectors like the forest industry. We are investing $8.3 billion to help retrain and upgrade the skills of our workers in the forestry industry and other industries. That is our Canada skills and transition strategy to address the most pressing needs of workers who are facing layoffs so they can transition into a different type of employment.
That is good news. There are $8.3 billion going into that program. The NDP does not like good news, let us remember that. Also, let us remember that NDP members have not read the budget, yet they said they would vote against it. The NDP members will vote against the $8.3 billion to retrain and help upgrade the skills of our workers in the forest industry.
Canada's economic action plan will also temporarily provide additional support to workers and the unemployed facing transitions through some tough economic times. I am proud to talk about some of the measures we are taking. This is all good news.
Of course the NDP will not like it, but we will provide nationally the benefits for the current five week pilot project that has only been provided in the highest of unemployment areas. We have increased the duration of the EI benefits by another five weeks, raising it from 45 to 50 weeks at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. The NDP voted against the extension of the EI program. We are not voting against it. We are supporting it. We brought it forward. That is in our budget, but the NDP does not care about that because it is good news and NDP members do not like good news.
We are providing another billion dollars over two years for provinces and territories through the existing labour market development agreements for skills training. They have a closer contact with the real needs of the workers in their communities. That is good news, but the NDP is voting against that as well.
I would like to wrap up by talking about the work-sharing program. We are extending it by 14 weeks. We are allowing mills in the forestry sector that have had their work-sharing program expire to have another whole year, another 52 weeks. NDP members are voting against billions of dollars in that program as well. I would like them to tell that to the workers who are facing layoff in the forestry industry--