Mr. Speaker, I rise to participate in the debate today with mixed feelings. I certainly recognize the need for ratification of this treaty, but I also recognize the need to do the due diligence required to look at a treaty that, by all measures, can be considered as deficient.
We in the official opposition have made clear since the beginning of this debate that Canadian business and industry desperately need the certainty and predictability that ratification of the new NAFTA will provide. Granted, much of the certainty and predictability is that this deficient, retrograde agreement has negative overtones in many ways and many places and it will touch many corners of Canadian society. It will be seen in the dairy and poultry industry, in the aluminum sector and in a number of areas that were not even discussed in the negotiations over the past couple of years by the Liberals and their negotiators, areas such as the softwood lumber problems and of course the American challenges to free trade with regard to the buy America process. These were not even addressed by Canadian negotiators as they were forced to accept an agreement that contains considerably less than the original NAFTA.
I would like to recall the debate that took place in 1988, not in this new House but in the original House of Commons just across the way, when Liberal Party members, led then by John Turner, were vociferously in opposition to the original NAFTA proposal brought in this House by then prime minister Brian Mulroney. John Turner said that he would tear it up if he became prime minister.
The New Democratic Party, in opposition at the time under Ed Broadbent, was also very strongly opposed to the agreement, as it is today, saying that Canada would effectively become the 51st American state of the United States if it was implemented. I regret I have no historic quotes from the Bloc Québécois, because at that time Lucien Bouchard sat in the cabinet of the Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney. The Bloc was still at that point only a spark in the back of Mr. Bouchard's mind.
Looking back at 1988 and the final ratification in 1993, I think we can agree that this new NAFTA is nothing like its predecessor, the original North American Free Trade Agreement.
My colleagues have reminded the House on all sides since the beginning of this debate about the imperfect negotiating process that the Liberals pursued, such as sitting at the table, leaving the table, procrastinating, consulting and then rushing back to the table to be the third party and given a “take it or leave it” trade agreement. I remind the House that Canada's Conservatives support today, and have always supported, free trade with the United States. After all, as I have reminded the House, NAFTA was a Conservative legacy.
Members will recall that when this began, the Prime Minister promised his trade negotiators would come back with a deal better than Canada had before. He spoke of a win-win-win outcome for this negotiation. We know it was certainly a huge win for the United States and a big win for Mexico, but this is definitely not anything like a win for Canada.
When the deficiencies of this backsliding new NAFTA agreement were first presented to Canadians, we in the official opposition asked for, and were assured by the Liberals that they would provide us with, impact analyses of the agreement on the various sectors in Canada with which we saw reason for great concern.
Anyone who ever served in government knows that every department touched by this new agreement, this new treaty, has done a cost-benefit analysis. They have measured the impact in the short term and the long term.
The Liberals promised an analysis statement, and we are still waiting. We hope that the government, which proclaims its commitment to transparency, accountability and evidence-based decisions, will provide this impact data in the days ahead when this debate and study go to committee.
We know that in committee we will get some impact statement, if not from the professional and sectoral associations that desperately want certainty and predictability, even in a negative context. This will address the concerns and fears of the workers, the people and the communities that are about to be impacted by the negatives that this agreement would impose on them.
Of the many deficiencies in this agreement, I mentioned a few at the outset. My colleagues have looked across the spectrum of shortcomings, and I would like to address one that is of great concern to many Canadians. That is the impact on Canada's aluminum sector.
Members will recall that at the beginning of December, when details of the agreement were revealed, we found to our dismay that the deal included a last-minute change to the requirement calling for 70% of the steel and aluminum used in auto production to be purchased in North America.
One of the rules for the steel sector was that the steel must be melted and poured in North America. There was no provision for aluminum. The initial response from the president of the Aluminum Association of Canada has changed in the last few weeks. When Jean Simard discovered the fact that there was diminished protection for Canadian aluminum, he said, “They fought, Canada fought, but they lost....At the very end Mexico said, ‘This is my red line. That’s enough.’ ”
That is the reality, although the Aluminum Association today, again desperate for certainty and desperate to cut its losses, said that yes indeed, it is a good deal, a necessary deal.
I would like to sympathize with those in the sector. In the Côte-Nord, the Lac-Saint-Jean area, Sept-Îles, Alma, Bécancour, Baie-Comeau, Deschambault, Laterrière, Grand-Baie, Arvida, Shawinigan Falls and, of course, on the west coast, in Kitimat, I would like to sympathize with the workers and unions that now see this 70% rule.
The Liberals think this is a great new improvement. They boasted that there was no guarantee for the Canadian aluminum sector in the original NAFTA, and they were right. There was no need for the rule in 1988, in 1993 or until the end of the last century, because until the end of the last century, Canada was a very competitive producer of aluminum. China was an up-and-coming, but still limited, threat to the Canadian market and certainly to the North American market. Under NAFTA, under the Auto Pact, Canada effectively had close to 100% of the aluminum content in the auto production industry.
I understand the negative impact this is having on this major sector of the Quebec economy and the Canadian economy as a whole. Of course, Canadian aluminum is the cleanest.
It is the cleanest around the world.
In conclusion, we will support the bill, but we support it with heavy hearts.