Roger Valley

[Tourism Industry, September 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, most of that 3% must be in my riding then.

It makes absolutely no sense to cut such an effective program in the midst of surpluses. The government will also lose revenue associated with indirect sales coming from cross-border traffic. More important, this is a kick to tourism when it is already down. The high value of the Canadian dollar, more stringent entry requirements and difficulties crossing the border have all been squeezing this industry for some time now.

How can the government justify the elimination of a program that helps Canadian communities when they are already facing bleak times?

[Tourism Industry, September 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the ideological cuts we have seen from the minority Conservative government this week will have devastating effects on border tourism.

In my riding thousands of visitors have taken advantage of the GST rebate offered to tourists, stimulating cross-border traffic and tourism opportunities. Jerry Fisher of the Northwestern Ontario Tourism Association maintains this will be a devastating blow to the industry. How can the government possibly justify the elimination of this business-friendly program on the very same day it announced record surpluses?

Is help for the cross-border tourism, in the government's words, mere “fat to be trimmed”?

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, September 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity speak on this bill to maintain 10 seats in northern Ontario.

I have to politely disagree with my colleague, the member for Sault Ste. Marie, on the makeup of the political scene in northern Ontario. There are 10 seats there now. Somehow the NDP managed to confuse a few of the voters so a couple of them are held by NDP members. We are going to correct that in the future. At the same time, we made a very big mistake and we now have a Conservative representing one of the ridings, which has not happened too often, and we are going to correct that also. Mistakes made in the past can always be corrected and I think it is important for us to do so.

There has been a lot of talk about Bill C-290. In my speech, I am going to try to put a face on the bill.

Many provinces already have a guarantee of a minimum number of seats. It is very easy to do this, but when we consider the size of northern Ontario, which I will explain during my speech, it would be a big mistake for us to lose any representation, for us to actually have fewer MPs representing this huge land mass.

Northern Ontario is larger than many provinces. In fact, it is larger than many provinces put together. We have to be careful about what we do. We have to think about the people we are trying to serve.

I will explain some of the distances. In driving from Ottawa to my riding, for example, huge distances are involved. Many parts of Canada are like that, but if I want to drive home it is a 22 hour drive from Ottawa. Even then, I am not anywhere close to the edge of my riding by that time. It is still another 120 miles to the far edge of the riding.

These are absolutely tremendous distances. As people in Canada become more independent with the services that are provided through technology, they can live pretty well anywhere they want, so there are now people in these vast areas where in the past there were no people. The people are there now.

We have hundreds of small communities, both municipal and unincorporated. I will take a moment to explain that. Especially in southern Canada, many people would not understand what unincorporated communities are. These are places where individuals have chosen to live far beyond municipal boundaries. They live there for reasons of their own, whether it is the isolation or the beauty of the place, and they have very few services. Sometimes they band together to get road boards and they provide other services for each other, but the fact is that they want to live in these areas and they are prepared to look after each other. There are no basic structures there for them.

When persons travel across northern Ontario they recognize the diversity of the geography as well as the population. This is not unique to Canada in any way or to northern Ontario, but it shows us that as wild and as beautiful as northern Ontario is, its people are as diverse as they are anywhere in Canada.

We have many first nations communities in my riding. In my own particular area, we have the Ojibway. We have the Cree in the far north. They all come from different aspects and from different levels of service and they all need to be represented by their government.

Across the land we have many communities that celebrate their heritage. They celebrate where they come from in the world and how much they want to enjoy it. I am thinking of the Ukrainian communities and the Polish communities.

Everyone needs to be heard and everyone needs a voice.

We also have a diversity of issues. There are as many issues in our ridings as anyone in the south would have. MPs have to deal with these issues. We have all those and more, simply because of the isolation of northern Ontario. I am not explaining that as a detriment to living there. I am explaining it as one of the pluses of living in northern Ontario.

However, we have to understand that MPs need to serve their people. With the improvement in the information highway, it is a much bigger job for us than ever before. Any services that someone in the south takes for granted have to be hard fought for in the north. We do that job.

I will now talk about my own riding of Kenora. It is an absolutely gigantic land mass. In fact, it is the eighth largest riding in Canada. Sixty thousand people live there, fewer every year. It is about 321,000 square kilometres in size and is an absolutely massive area. The narrowest part is 300 miles wide and from top to bottom it is over 1,000 miles.

Scattered throughout that area are people living in municipal structures and in the unincorporated areas and with all the other challenges we have. These people deserve every right to have services. We provide them now, but we are not sure we can do it if there are fewer ridings in the north.

Maybe I should explain, too, that people can drive many miles through my riding, as most ridings in Canada, but when they hit the end of the road, it is about 600 miles to fly to the top of my riding. At the top, on Hudson Bay, is Fort Severn. Again, it needs service. The constituents need to see their MP. We need to do our jobs.

I am very proud to serve that area, but I want people to understand the sheer size and the challenge. It is rewarding, but it is also a challenge to ensure I am there. People do not want to see us once every two years or once during an election. We need to be there so the people can have confidence in us. We need to be there so they know they can come to us when there are problems. They need to know we will actually get something done on their behalf.

When one thinks of the size of the area, one can understand the difficulty of serving it.

I will speak about the communities now. Municipal communities that have the structure tend to have more services.

Kenora is the largest community, with 16,000 people. I want to remind members that there are only 60,000 people in the entire riding. There are a number of communities, Dryden, Red Lake, Sioux Lookout, Machin, Ignace, Pickle Lake, Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls, all municipal structures. They all provide some level of service. They are all organized municipalities. They all try to serve their constituents. However, it is my job to try to serve them. This is area has been very hard hit by difficulties in the forest sector.

We do not want to leave anybody behind. They do not need less representation; they need more. Many of the issues that I have with the current government are about taking away things. These people need more service, not less.

There are a lot of smaller communities, too. In total, I have about 80 communities, places like Borup's Corners, Dyment, Oxdrift. They are extremely tiny, but they have the need and the right to see their MP as often as they can, and it is a challenge. They are beautiful, quaint, tiny villages. These are where the real people of Canada work. They are independent, strong, hard-working and they need representation. They need more, not less. Quite often the MP is the only government presence that they have in their riding.

When I show up in the communities, as often as I can, it is quite an event for them. Quite often in communities smaller than 100 or 200 people, community halls will have events for us. They need to see their MP. Therefore, we cannot have less MPs serving this area.

Again, I go back to the sheer size of this area. This is a massive chunk of land in Canada and it deserves the right to have MPs serving it. It has 10 right now and it needs to remain at that. As I say, there are many provinces that are not nearly as big as my own riding and they are guaranteed a certain amount of MPs. We need to maintain these areas. We have a presence there now and we have to continue with that.

I will speak for a moment about the first nations and what they believe they need service for.

The southern part of my riding is Treaty 3. It is Ojibway, led by Ogiichida Arnold Gardner, who is a tremendous leader. However, I service more than 20 communities there. These are all serviced by road. They all have the challenges that any other community would when 300 to 2,500 people live in a community. Yet they have many more challenges when they try to get recognized for some of the areas in which they do not feel they have enough service. There is an awful lot of work to do on those.

Then there is the far north. I mentioned the 21 fly-in communities. I am not sure if most members know, but there are rules in the House of Parliament where we can only travel for four days in our ridings. For me to go to these communities, it takes 21 days straight. I have to go home continually because I have to start the four day cycle again. If we took the population ratio that we try to use now, roughly 125,000 people, I would probably have 50 or 60 of these. How could anyone possibly service that? I would do it, but I am not sure if any of the other parties had representatives in that area who would be able to it.

Stan Beardy serves in Treaty 9. There are tremendous challenges, tremendous people, and it is a joy to serve them. Again, how much can one physically do if they lessen the number of ridings in northern Ontario? These people need representation.

A number of decades ago they were all connected. They now see what is in southern Ontario, southern Canada and the world. They want to be part of this. They want a share in what the world is doing.

Kasabonika has a tremendous leader in Gordon Anderson. He has his community thriving. It is an example in northern Ontario, and probably many places in Canada, of what can be done with strong local leadership. These people need to see their MP.

In Fort Severn, Roy Gray lives in one of the harshest areas next to some of my colleagues who serve in northern Canada. It is tremendously harsh and expensive to be there. These are the people who will be hurt if northern Ontario does not have the existing 10 ridings, if we have less representation.

In Fort Hope, Charlie O'keese is the chief. He is a tremendously good guy to work with, but he needs to know that his MP can show up when he needs him and he will not have 160 communities to serve instead of 80.

We need strong voices for Canada. We feel Northern Ontario is as deserving as any of the provinces or any of the other parts of the country that have a guaranteed minimum amount of seats. We need to remember that if Canada is going to have small-town Canada and rural Canada, it needs to support them. I think this bill would go a long way to making sure we maintain the 10 seats so we can do our jobs in an effective way that represents the needs of the people.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, when I meet people on the street, they are not upset with the Americans in any way. In my part of the country there is a lot of tourism traffic and business for the Americans. People do not blame the Americans for this deal. They blame the Conservative government for not standing up for us and not protecting us.

One of the most basic values was getting the money back. This money was collected illegally, these billions of dollars. The government should not brag about getting 83% back. That is not a good deal. We needed 100%. We needed to ensure we brought this money back to Canada to provide jobs in the future, to allow companies to grow and expand, and use technology to enhance what we do in northern Ontario.

It is not a good deal. The people on the street are mad, but they are mad at the Conservative government.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious place and I try to remain serious at all times, so I will be careful as to how I answer this question.

We talk about desperation and this was a government that was desperate to get a deal. Many years ago when the free trade agreement was negotiated, we saw a prime minister intervene directly and was not able to get the deal we needed in softwood lumber. Again at this point we see a Conservative Prime Minister that is desperate to have a deal done. He has an agreement and made a deal that is going to hurt us in the future. It is not going to protect our sovereignty or our ability to decide the future of our forests with sustainability in mind.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, part of the challenge in politics is to make sure one does not believe one's own press releases. That is clearly happening on the other side of the House because this deal is not better than what we had before.

We have been successful in winning many times at the tribunals. The courts believed in what we were doing.

I want to explain for a minute that the softwood lumber dispute was not the majority of trade in Canada. The vast majority of trade in Canada is very successful. However, when two good friends and family, like Canada and the United States, have a disagreement they have to go somewhere to get it solved. We had to go to the courts.

We were rapidly nearing the end of the first test case. Once we had a decision on it, on which we had been successful every bit of the way and once we had a decision on that, we were going to fare far better in any future cases. However, when friends cannot get along, we had to get someone to help us and that was the courts.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 26th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue, the softwood lumber agreement, or should I say disagreement.

I had the opportunity to listen to the Minister of International Trade start off the debate in the House yesterday. I heard, as all Canadians did, how the agreement in his opinion would provide for years of stability and again in his opinion we would have eight or nine years of harmony and stability in our industry. To me that is a joke. I do not know if the minister was guessing, praying or just dreaming.

Thankfully, the next speaker was the member for Beauséjour and he put some facts on the table, facts like how the government left over $1 billion of Canadian companies' money in the hands of those who started and perpetuated the lumber trade dispute. What a sellout. Even worse than a sellout, we have to pay for being right. We are financing the very groups that caused all the problems. What a sad day for Canadian companies to have to pay those groups that do not want free trade in the lumber market.

All Canadian companies wanted was fair and open access to the markets of our largest and closest trading partner, our friends in the United States. To be sold out and then threatened by our own government shows just how desperate the government is to ram through this project.

Before I continue, I would like to make it clear that I believe that industry especially in my riding needs some of this money. There are people in my riding who feel we should take this deal. They are scared for their immediate future in an industry that is evermore precarious.

People in Kenora riding also recognize that this is a bad deal. I am voicing their frustration that the government was unable to deliver a better deal for their families. I am against supporting this deal because I have to stand up for the people who have been forced to take it.

Canada has repeatedly won favourable rulings at WTO and NAFTA. We are members of these international trade tribunals to ensure that trading practices are executed in a fair manner. We have a responsibility to accept the decisions that tribunals make, as does any other member, including the United States. By accepting a deal that is contrary to the rulings that have been made, our credibility and standing will be seriously undermined in any future trade disputes.

The forestry industry is the most important industry for the people of Kenora riding. Our communities are dependent upon these jobs. Just as they are dependent, our communities are devastated when the industry is in decline.

The industry has been faced with many obstacles. Very high energy costs, transportation costs because of the huge distances we have to travel, and the lack of ability to invest in research and development are just some of the examples. With those obstacles came job loss. In December last year the Abitibi mill in Kenora was shut down causing a loss of over 450 jobs. Days later, hundreds of jobs were lost in my home community of Dryden. These are jobs lost in a community where there is only one industry. It is totally devastating to the community.

Our way of life is in jeopardy in northern Ontario. We need the federal government to step up and stand up for us, not sell us out at any cost to get a photo op with the American president.

One of the biggest challenges our industry has faced is the softwood lumber dispute. As I have said before in the House, the forestry industry in my part of the world is an integrated industry. Every type of mill, be it a sawmill, pulp and paper mill, or value added, depends on the others for success. When the sawmill operations were forced to pay the illegal tariff, the financial repercussions rippled throughout the industry and throughout the communities.

We have been negotiating this deal for years. In that time the effects of the tariff have devastated every sector of the industry. The money that the industry receives from this deal will only go so far. The federal government must recognize the industry needs more support, more assistance simply than the money that is being returned to them. Many of our mills have not had equipment upgrades in years and they are unable to look beyond the current markets they access for new ones. They have been financially choked to the point where they are desperate. What does our government offer them? A bad deal, “take it or we will impose a 19% export tax and crush the rest of your company”.

We must look beyond the optics of the negotiation of the deal and look at the industry in its entirety. That is what the former Liberal government did. It recognized the softwood lumber dispute was only part of the problem and it set out an aggressive plan to help the industry overcome some of the other obstacles caused directly and indirectly by the dispute.

We must help the industry enhance its competitiveness. Funding research and development initiatives is key. Considering the growing bioeconomy, this is the opportunity for the Canadian industry to be a world leader with support from its federal government.

We must support companies that are willing to expand their operations. The Kenora Forest Products sawmill for example has been working hard to create more jobs in its plant in order to assist the community impacted by other mill closures. The Prendivilles are community leaders and they want to help Kenora. They are ready to accept this so-called deal because it is this or nothing. What kind of choice is that for a government to force on a hard hit community?

We must also support economic diversification projects for communities with a dependence on this industry considering the tough times they are having. The mayor and city councillors in Kenora along with other stakeholders have worked tirelessly to develop an action plan to help Kenora's economy. The city has enormous potential in other economic endeavours but requires the full support of the federal government to achieve its goals.

The industry is already at a disadvantage and now the government will force the deal on Canadian lumber producers that again will see $500 million left in the hands of the American lumber industry; those very people who lobbied and were successful against ours. That is not to mention that if a company decides not to support this deal, it will in fact face a 19% levy on all refunded duty deposits.

Without the return of 100% of money taken by the American government and the commitment by the Conservative government to assist the entire industry long term, more jobs will be lost. This take it or leave it attitude will hurt confidence in the sector. What other industry in Canada has had to put up with the heavy hand of the government that says it is this way or no way? Whose side is the government on, the Canadian industry or the American lumber lobby?

Northern Ontario is a very beautiful, wild and abundant place. We work hard, we play hard, and we want the best for our families, for our communities and for our country. Give us the support and the tools to build our industries. Give us the confidence that our government will defend our rights to manage our forests for our future, not sell us out to lobby groups funded by our own money.

In northern Ontario we want a softwood lumber agreement that protects us, our future and our forests. In this agreement we have nothing, nothing but more problems in the future, less control of our forests and our industry, and clearly a government that will sell us out.

I cannot support this deal knowing that more jobs will be lost. I cannot support this deal knowing that we are selling out to the American lumber lobby. I cannot support this deal knowing that hundreds of millions of dollars will be left in the United States in the very hands of the people who did this to us. I will not support this deal because I need to stand up for the workers in the communities of Kenora riding.

[Canada Transportation Act, September 19th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my question to the member for Welland will be in regard to the history of this bill and its former incarnations.

Although Northern Ontario is very remote and very rural, it suffers many of the issues that he brought up. During my municipal government days we suffered through a lot of these same issues. Citizens need to be listened to.

I think he mentioned in his speech that this bill began in the House in February 2003. I want to know how inclusive the debate was at that time. I would also like to know how inclusive the search was from other communities, both rural and urban all across Canada. Could the member give me a bit of the history on how we developed this position?

[Questions on the Order Paper, September 18th, 2006]

With regard to the gas tax rebates announced in 2005, will the government uphold the commitment to provide rebates to unincorporated areas?

[National Aboriginal Day, June 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, National Aboriginal Day is a day that Canadians celebrate the contributions of first nations, Métis and Inuit Canadians.

Today I would like to recognize the tremendous contributions made by the people of the Kenora riding. I would like to recognize Grand Chief Arnold Gardner for his tireless work on behalf of the Treaty 3 communities. He continues to highlight the obstacles that his people face to achieve equal standing in our community. He is a dedicated and well-respected leader.

I would also like to recognize Grand Chief Stan Beardy, who represents communities within Treaty 9 that have particular challenges with remoteness. He has fought to have their voices heard in Ottawa and he has persevered to achieve the results for his people.

I have been fortunate to have their guidance and, as such, I have gained a greater understanding of what we as a nation must strive for: respect, trust and above all equality.

I represent members of 41 first nations and Métis communities, and I would like to offer my best wishes for their celebrations.