Debates of Oct. 19th, 2017

Opposition Motion—Support for Forestry Workers

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Speaker, I wish to assure the member that softwood lumber and forestry are very important to this government, which is why we have invested more than $800 million in a softwood lumber action plan. Also, we have heard both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade talk about the importance of taking the time to ensure that the agreement we come to is the right agreement for Canadians.

I would ask the member if he agrees that it is important, because this is such an important file and industry for us as Canadians, that we take the time to get this agreement right for Canadians.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I do not think it is a question of taking our time, but rather a question of not taking time forever. The Liberals have been in power for the last two years, and time, according to me, is running out.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Durham.

The forestry industry is extremely important. The amount of forest land in Canada is 347 million hectares. We cut 594,000 kilometres a year, about 0.6%. That is all, and 60% of the land we harvest in the commercial forest industry is reforested. The forest industry has a great environmental track record.

In fact, I am going to focus on the environmental track record of the forest industry. Previous speakers spoke at great length about the economic issues related to the forest industry. I will look at the environmental side.

Some 321,000 people are directly and indirectly employed in the forest industry, with $8.6 billion in wages and salaries. The value of exports is about $28 billion a year. That is the economics of the forest industry, which is truly remarkable.

In my own life, I had the honour of being the environmental director at a forest company. It was the Pine Falls Paper Company in Pine Falls, Manitoba. It used to be part of the venerable Abitibi-Price Inc., the greatest newsprint company in the world. It fell on hard times and divested itself of the mill in Pine Falls. The employees bought the mill. It was a tremendous experience. I joined the mill shortly after the employees purchased the mill, and I became the environmental director at the mill. I managed the environmental operations of the mill itself. I managed the waste-water treatment plant. My comments on the forest industry are coloured by my direct experiences with the forest industry.

In my own constituency, I have two great forest products companies. There is Louisiana-Pacific, which produces oriented strand board, and now produces SmartSide siding for the international market. The other is Spruce Products, which is a softwood lumber company. Both are extremely efficient producers.

In addition, I had the honour of owning 300 acres of forest land myself. I have lived on my farm since 1979. One needs to do that in order to understand forestry from the standpoint of forests having a life cycle of their own, and very few people have experienced the life cycle of a forest.

For example, in 1987, on our own farm, my wife and I clear-cut a small piece of the farm, about half a hectare, for firewood for a year. This writ large is forestry, but in our case it was very small. Nevertheless, about four or five years ago, I went back to that clear-cut and saw a stump we had cut. I could see it was rotting away. It was about 30 years after we had cut it. Standing beside that stump was a brand new tree. I felt so heartened by that, because it told me the management that I was doing on my land was appropriate. I actually knelt beside that stump, grabbed that tree, and had my wife take a picture of me. I will admit to the House of Commons right now that the member of Parliament for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa is a tree hugger, and I am very proud of that statement. Conservative and conservation, the two words work well together.

Let us expand this small example of my own little farm to forestry across the country. There has been an ever-increasing improvement in technology in the forest industry. I saw that as the environmental director at the Pine Falls Paper Company. For example, before a forest company can harvest forest over a large piece of land, it goes through an environmental process. There are hearings and licensing, and what comes out of that are terms and conditions that the forest company must follow.

The notion that it is a free-for-all in the forest is nonsense. Every single commercial forest company has to follow the terms and conditions of a publicly provide licence, and there are inspections.

Reforestation in Canada is largely a responsibility of the forest companies. For example, in the last couple of years 594,000 hectares of forest have been harvested in Canada and forest companies replanted 347,000 hectares of forest land. The rest of the forest land was regenerated through natural regeneration. Our industry exemplifies sustainable development.

The woodland side of forestry is one part of what the forest industry does. The second part is the processing. Again, I use my own example of the Pine Falls Paper Company that I used to work for. Unfortunately, the Pine Falls Paper Company does not exist anymore. It was a newsprint company that only produced 500 tonnes of newsprint a day. As a result of smart phones and the Internet, we are using far less newsprint than we used to. The loss of the newsprint industry in Canada is tragic in my view but inevitable perhaps because of technology. When I think of these venerable mills across the country that are now defunct, I am quite saddened. To see a site that used to be a flourishing town and a paper mill lying vacant is truly saddening.

Nevertheless, I go back to 1995, when I joined the Pine Falls Paper Company. By the way, I would remind the House that Brian Mulroney was named the greenest prime minister in Canadian history. Brian Mulroney's Conservative government in 1989 implemented the pulp and paper effluent regulations that mandated every single pulp and paper company in Canada to construct waste-water treatment plants. The company that I managed for three years did exactly that at a cost of $25 million. Our effluent went from being a somewhat toxic effluent to effluent that you could actually drink. That is the progress that the forest industry has made over many decades. That is a feature of modern industrial societies, constant environmental improvement, and again today, we see the results of that: blue skies and clean waters. We have not solved every environmental problem by far but advanced industrial societies are one of constant environmental improvement.

I have two major forest product companies in my constituency. One is Louisiana-Pacific, which is located in the Swan River area. It has produced in the past oriented strand board but recently it converted to creating a product called SmartSide siding. It is a hardwood mill that uses poplar pulp. What was interesting about the SmartSide siding conversion was that wood consumption was decreased, it increased value-added, and increased employment at that mill, the essence of sustainability.

The other company in my constituency is Spruce Products Limited. It is a small softwood lumber-producing company. Many members, regardless of which partly the belong to, have toured lumber mills to see the laser technology they have employed to minimize waste. I saw logs come off the line and immediately the computer said 2 two-by-fours would come out of it, a two-by-six, and so on. The forest industry is not a sunset industry by far. It is an industry that is on the march.

The last part of our motion talks about the effect of environmental groups on our industry. There was an article in the March 3 edition of the National Post that described the Greenpeace attack on Resolute Forest Products. This was an interesting article. Greenpeace went after one of the largest forest companies in this country. The article reads “Greenpeace admits its attacks on forest products giant were 'non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion'.” One of the largest environmental groups in this country basically lied about what a forest products industry did and it admitted it.

I am going to paraphrase what Greenpeace said in the lawsuit that was filed. The publications used the words “forest destroyer”. It is of course arguable that Resolute did all of this. Greenpeace adds that its attacks on Resolute, and this is important, “are without question non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion and at most non-actionable rhetorical hyperbole.”

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Unfortunately, the member's time is up. He will probably be able to finish any comments within the comments and questions period.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Speaker, my friend from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa has given an excellent summary of the forestry industry and how it works. He talked about his 300 acres, which I assume used to be 600 acres before it was worked on. With all this great understanding of the forestry industry, which is a huge part of my riding as well in the Laurentians, as we have tens of thousands of kilometres of forested lands, why is he supporting a motion that calls for an agreement now instead of a good agreement when we can get one?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I deeply respect the hon. member's attachment to his constituency and the rural community he comes from.

We do not trust the Liberal government, to be quite honest. For the last couple of years, the government has talked about getting an agreement. It has not done so. Again, one of the reasons we lost some of our mills was the lack of an agreement with the Americans in terms of the softwood lumber dispute.

The government had better come forward with something concrete, or else we will not support it.

[Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development]

Madam Speaker, the member and I have had a number of great conversations. He is a fantastic and interesting guy, clearly demonstrated by his life cycle of a forest speech.

Unfortunately, I will have to oppose this motion, even though I am a tree hugger as well. I oppose this motion because of the language in it saying that we have failed the softwood lumber industry. We have made investments of $150 million to support clean technology in the natural resources sector, something the company Louisiana-Pacific can appreciate, which is located in his riding. We have made investments of $850 million in an action plan. We will continue to raise the issue of softwood with the U.S. administration and the President.

Does the member not agree that it is important that we continue to negotiate until we get a good deal for Canadians?

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member's kind words are certainly reciprocated. I have a deep and abiding respect for her work in mental health, and in my view, she is a member of Parliament for all the right reasons.

I am not going to dispute what she said in terms of how important it is that we get a good agreement, but quite clearly, the sooner the better.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa talk about the environment, because he is a Conservative and an environmentalist. He is to be commended for that.

Unfortunately, his time was cut short in talking about some of the falsehoods that have been repeated by environmental NGOs. I would like him to take some of the time he has left to continue where he was cut off.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, let us take a forest that has been harvested. It looks bad initially. In fact, a clear-cut has been described as a bad haircut, but haircuts come back. What happens in forest succession is that an old forest starts to become a young forest. The biodiversity in a young forest is significantly greater than it is in an old forest. What I mean by biodiversity is the number of plant species. What happens when the biodiversity in a forest increases in terms of the number of plant species is that the number of wildlife species increases as well. Species that people really want, such as ruffed grouse, moose, white-tailed deer, and many songbirds, prefer young forests. The creation of young forests from forestry is actually a good thing, under the proper management regimes.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Durham. I will advise the member that I may have to cut his time short.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour for me to follow my friend from Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, one of the most passionate and knowledgeable people in the House on the environment, forestry, hunting, and angling. I am very proud to call him a friend and to have explored with him a lot of really innovative approaches to the environment and forestry, which he discussed in his speech, but also alternative land-use systems and a whole range of issues that I think we will be hearing more about from him in the coming years.

The opposition party has brought to the floor today an opposition motion on the softwood lumber sector and forestry workers. The current government is now at the two-year mark, and it has failed those Canadians, almost 400,000 families that rely on our access to the U.S. market. As all members of the House should know, 96% of imports of softwood in the U.S. are generally Canadian. A few lumber barons in the U.S. from time to time try to stop that, which ends up raising prices and actually makes home affordability less accessible for Americans and will halt and make more expensive the rebuilding in Texas and Florida. Therefore, we have to articulate why it is in the American national interest to secure a deal on softwood.

As much as I respect the Minister of Foreign Affairs, for two years she has been saying that they are working hard on it, but there are no results after two years. I remind the government, at its two-year mark, that it took the last Conservative government three months in office to secure a deal on softwood. We know it is a complex issue, but for the 400,000 families that have been hearing the minister's constant line that they are working hard on it, it is not enough. We need a deal.

I will spend a few minutes on why this is one example of the U.S. relationship eroding terribly under the current government. Image, state dinners, photo ops, and magazine covers are one thing, but we are not getting results for Canadians and families in this relationship. This is turning into a one-sided relationship, regardless of which party is in power in Washington.

The motion today talks about how we are world leaders in forestry sustainability. My friend from Manitoba just mentioned that. He talked about the importance of this deal to our economy. There are 370,000 direct and indirect jobs related to the forestry sector, and our softwood lumber exports, from west to east, are critical to the economies of those provinces. Let us not forget that. This is not an issue for just one region of our country. It is truly a Canadian issue.

We all know that in April, the U.S. commerce department introduced tariffs as high as 25%, effectively barring our exports to our largest market. Under the Conservative deal, 96% of all imports in the U.S. were Canadian softwood, the best in the world. We need a deal desperately.

In 2006, as I said, three months into the Harper government, a deal was struck with the Americans, and then in 2012, that deal and the terms of it were given an extension to 2016. As much as the Liberal government likes to kick the can down the road, it had a full year of a mandate to at least extend the terms further. That is usually what parties can do when there is a renewed agreement between two friends and a renewal period, which the Conservatives had already accessed. The government could not even get a renewal period, let alone a new deal. We have now seen that deal collapse. We have now seen layoffs, and we now see duties of up to 24%.

The minister was charged with this from day one, first in her role as Minister of International Trade and now as Minister of Foreign Affairs. What did she say on February 26? She said that the Prime Minister of Canada brought it up in a meeting with President Obama and that they were working hard on it. The last time she raised this issue was in committee in August 2017, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. She said that it is a priority of hers personally and that they are working hard on it. I have no doubt that they are, but they are not getting the job done, and there are thousands of families seeing that first-hand.

We all remember the Prime Minister introducing President Obama in this chamber and talking about the bromance and talking about dudeplomacy. We did not get a deal. We got Vogue magazine covers. We got state dinners. We did not get a deal for our people. This is what concerns me.

Even the press gallery is fooled by the image branding of the government, making it look like it is doing a lot in the United States and continuing the work actually started by Rob Merrifield, who started working with governors, tracking how much we export to states, and building congressional relationships. In fact, Rona Ambrose and members of this caucus worked with the government to continue the work started under the Conservatives. It did not start with the election of the government two years ago. I applaud the Liberals and have continued to applaud them for continuing, but unlike in the past, under both Conservative and Liberal governments, this is not a relationship of mutual respect anymore. We have had two years of a priority and working hard on it, and zero results on softwood.

What else did we have under the bromance between Barack Obama and the Prime Minister? We had him cancelling Keystone XL. That is what his dude buddy did. He cancelled a key job for our energy sector. We had a carbon tax introduced in Canada, praised by the U.S. president, but the U.S. president did not introduce a carbon tax. He let the Canadian Prime Minister put his own economy at a competitive disadvantage to our friends in the United States. They probably laughed all the way to the bank, praising it, but certainly not mimicking it.

However, I think the most egregious action under the Prime Minister and former President Obama was that our Prime Minister went to Washington and signed away 10% of our Arctic waters and 17% of our land mass in our Arctic, and banned any development, even if it was in the interest of Inuit, first nation, and indigenous peoples or the territorial leaders. Despite the language on reconciliation, which we hear from the Prime Minister, and the duty to consult, he gave provincial and territorial leaders and first nations leaders a cursory phone call while he was in Washington. We have heard my friend from the NDP try to insert a change on “duty to consult” today.

The Prime Minister of Canada went to Washington and did not consult indigenous leaders before he told them what they could do in their lands and their waterways. It is probably the most egregious action I have seen from a Canadian prime minister in dealing with our American neighbours. At the very least, there should have been a summit of territorial and indigenous leaders before the Prime Minister acted unilaterally on a priority of the U.S. president.

That is how well the relationship went under the bromance between this Prime Minister and President Obama. How has it been with the new U.S. President? Well, we stand on the brink of losing NAFTA, with two million jobs dependent on that trade relationship. A speech by this minister, with help from the Prime Minister's Office, no doubt, did not even mention the auto industry as a priority in July. We would not have free trade in North America were it not for the auto industry.

Between NAFTA, the tax and competitiveness imbalance, and the softwood lumber lack of a deal, we have seen a relationship erode. I want to see that rectified and the government start standing up for workers in forestry and all other industries.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 5:15 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #368

Business of Supply

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion defeated.

The House resumed from October 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-57, An Act to amend the Federal Sustainable Development Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Federal Sustainable Development Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at the second reading stage of Bill C-57.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #369

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development.

(Bill read the second time and referred to a committee)