House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 55% of the vote.
Softwood Lumber October 21st, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the softwood lumber industry is absolutely critical to the economic future of Canada, $11 billion, and $7 billion in sales to the United States. It affects 250,000 employees in 350 communities across Canada. We entered into an advocacy campaign that was industry led and I will continue to support that to my dying day.
Government Grants October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, FPAC is the primary voice for the forest products industry in Canada. We are supporting the forest products industry and we will continue to do so.
Government Grants October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. member, that is utter nonsense. The reason FPAC was funded is that softwood lumber is so important to all Canadians: 250,000 jobs, an $11 billion industry. We are going to support that industry and we will continue to.
Textile Industry October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very important point. I met yesterday with the Retail Council of Canada. It has adopted standards to ensure that issues such as child labour are dealt with and that Canadian importers do not bring those materials into Canada. If that is being done, we certainly want to know about it because we do not want the products of child labour in our country.
Textile Industry October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, as everyone is aware, we have already given the industry over $50 million to help it solve its problems. Obviously, protective measures can still be put in place against Chinese imports.
Government Contracts October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, this was an industry-led effort. An audit was done and it was determined that the funds were spent in accordance with the agreement that was made with FPAC.
Government Contracts October 19th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, this was funding by the department to FPAC, an independent group, and the decisions as to how they spent their money were determined by them. This is an industry that employs 250,000 Canadians. It is an $11 billion industry with $7 billion of that going to the United States. It is an industry which is absolutely critical to our future. This is why we will continue to fight the softwood issue.
Agriculture October 18th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, would that we could stop in advance the United States from taking trade actions against us. We have seen in many cases how it has taken actions against us, such as on softwood lumber. We have continually won these actions in the NAFTA and the WTO. We will continue to do this on behalf of our great hog producers.
Agriculture October 18th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, the U.S. trade dispute is very unfortunate. We have an integrated market in North America and once again the Americans have taken punitive action against our hog producers who can compete with the best in the world. We are going to stand behind them and fight this anti-dumping action with all the resources we have.
International Trade October 15th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, we have, in accordance with the rights awarded to us by the WTO to retaliate in terms of Byrd, worked on a preliminary list. This is a list we are working on in conjunction with the eight other countries that will be taking retaliatory actions against the United States. We will be working in conjunction with them.
I think hon. members will probably see our preliminary list within the next month.