Charlie Penson

[The Economy, March 15th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the government calls that success I would hate to see its failures.

On Wednesday the Deputy Prime Minister claimed that Canadian industry was at fault for Canada's 30 year decline in productivity, but here are the facts. Under the government's watch, we have seen decades of growth in program spending financed by increased taxes and deficits. We have seen decades of decline in foreign investment in Canada, decades of growth in federal government debt and corresponding decades of decline of the Canadian dollar.

How is it that the Liberal government cannot see that its failed policies of high taxation and high government debt are the main reason for the dollar's decline?

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if that deserves a comment or not. I will let Hansard show what I said in the House and what the parliamentary secretary said and Canadians will be the judge.

Softwood lumber is an issue that affects all of Canada. My understanding is that Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and even northern Saskatchewan, B.C. and Alberta are part of the softwood lumber agreement that failed and now are subject to either free trade in lumber or more harassment from the United States. The maritimes have a different situation. Part of it has to do with their private woodlots there.

Perhaps Canada has to make some change in its forest management system. Provincial governments are probably prepared to do that.

Forest companies have tremendous investments in their forest management agreements. They have investments in roads. That does not happen in the United States. Under the system in the United States companies have private wood and then the government pays for the infrastructure, so they have a different system than we do. Nonetheless on balance it is about the same.

If we were to change our forest management system to a private system under bid or auction every few years those companies that make investments in Canada would be lost under any new agreement. Canfor is a good example of that in my riding. It makes huge investments in roads and electrical services in the forest area.

I am not sure where the parliamentary secretary is coming from but it sounds like a very defensive sort of mood that he is in. I maintain that there are forests in Quebec, Ontario and all across the country. Those same people are concerned that the government may cave in to the U.S. again. It has done it many times before.

One thing has changed since we were successful in winning disputes under the NAFTA panel. A few years ago the United States changed its domestic legislation. It would be difficult for Canada to win a case under NAFTA. That is not to say that something new cannot be arranged, and that is what we are all hoping for.

I am suggesting that forward thinking people should move beyond the current NAFTA and think about negotiating new terms. Conditions have changed. Maybe the things Canada was protecting in the past do not need to be protected any more. Maybe the United States can find that its domestic trade law does not serve it as well as it thinks and that the new arrangements at the World Trade Organization would be better.

I am suggesting that terms are probably there for an advancement of the free trade agreement and progressive thinking governments should be thinking along those lines instead of going into the defensive shell that seems to be the case today.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I hope Hansard caught the comment from the minister. It was not very respectful I would say.

I hope that this issue can come to an appropriate resolution in negotiations, but I am not convinced it will happen. It would have helped quite a bit if the Prime Minister and our ambassador at the time who happened to be the Prime Minister's nephew had shown better judgment during the U.S. elections when they suggested they supported Al Gore and wanted him to be president of the United States. I suspect they burned some bridges in terms of goodwill and that has not helped the matter any.

There are some opportunities. We may even want to go to an expanded free trade agreement with the United States. The government had the opportunity for a five year review of NAFTA. The government did not choose to expand NAFTA. We have the opportunity to tell the United States that we need a third round of negotiations and expand this further with more integration and perhaps it could give up on trade law which is hurting our industry so much.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Please, Mr. Speaker, would you ask the minister to show some respect.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect I have hit a nerve over there.

There seems to be a lot more attention paid to the aerospace industry and Bombardier than there is to the softwood lumber file. Perhaps we can come to an agreement in Washington.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I hear the minister talking. Maybe he would show some respect because I did not do it when he was talking.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to take part in the debate today. This is far from a new issue in the House of Commons or in the U.S. congress for that matter. The problem with free trade in lumber between Canada and the United States goes back some 25 years.

I thank my colleague from Vancouver Island North for raising this important issue for debate in the House. It is very timely because the Prime Minister is in Washington and the deadline of March 21 for the final determination on duties is looming.

Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the member for Surrey Central.

There is a 25 year history to this issue and most of it has not been very good from Canada's point of view. Although we have won all the disputes in the past, we are continually being harassed by the United States on this issue and we do not have free trade in lumber. There have been many attempts to put Canada on the defensive. Canada's softwood lumber industry is far more competitive than that in the United States. It is simply a matter of protectionism by the U.S. congress, the U.S. department of commerce and the U.S. softwood lumber industry which is not as competitive as our Canadian industry and therefore tries to protect its interests.

It goes against the whole spirit of the free trade agreement between Canada and the United States which was negotiated in 1987-88. The trade law has put us in this position, the discussions which took place in 1988 in the softwood lumber and the free trade negotiations. There was an attempt at that time to do away with trade law, countervail and anti-dumping. The United States and Canada put many things on the table. Eventually we came to an agreement on the free trade agreement but there were a number of areas that both sides wanted to protect.

The U.S. did not want to give up its trade law. In fact the U.S. kept it. One of the reasons was that Canada was also trying to defend certain areas that it did not want to give up, such as the cultural industries, for example the magazine industry, and the textile industry. Canada did not want to give up the ability to subsidize other areas such as supply management in agriculture. There was some resistance on both sides to complete the whole process of free trade.

We have not had free trade. In fact, we have many integrated industries which have become more integrated with the United States some 15 years after the free trade agreement. There is not as much need or will in the United States to protect its trade law.

A panel was struck at that time to study whether there was a need in many areas for trade law between Canada and the United States. Unfortunately, the federal government dropped the ball. Those negotiations broke down in 1994 and never were completed as was intended. Had they been completed perhaps we would not be in the situation we are in today of having to defend an industry that we believe is right and is not being subsidized by the Canadian government. Because the Liberals did not continue to do their homework, that whole area of countervail and anti-dumping was dropped in 1994.

This is a huge problem in my riding in northern Alberta. A lot of very efficient mills are producing softwood lumber and exporting it to the United States. If we had a true free trade agreement, if we had the access we think we should have, there would not be a problem because lumber is manufactured cheaper in Canada and we are very competitive. Because we still have these barriers to trade, it is hurting people in my riding to a great extent. Their jobs are based on the softwood lumber industry and they manufacture and produce a huge amount of it. There will be future layoffs.

The minister says that we have to be all loving in here today and there is an all party agreement. I appreciate that but I have to point out nonetheless that the Liberal government dropped the ball. It let the working group between Canada and the United States on trade law drop.

I was there. I was the trade critic for our party for five years, from 1993-99. It was a different minister at the time, but I was there when the government signed the softwood lumber agreement with the United States. Many of us, including myself, said it was a huge mistake.

We are getting something less than we are entitled to under the free trade agreement. Why would we cave in and accept limitations on the amount of product we are putting into the United States? Others have pointed out that it probably cost our Canadian industry between $6 billion and $8 billion a year in lost opportunities.

Some claims were made by industry officials especially from some of the big corporations from British Columbia. They said they could not use the World Trade Organization because it would be a five year process and no one would know what would happen afterward.

The minister of the day did not challenge those claims. He did not say that the World Trade Organization was different from the original GATT. He did not say that improvements had been made. From the time this thing started until it concluded was probably more like two years. We know there are some problems with that agreement as well. Ultimately that is where the dispute has to end up. There has to be a clear decision. The issue has to be taken out of the hands of the two combatants, Canada and the United States.

Some 150 member countries signed on at the World Trade Organization, including Canada and the United States. I would welcome a panel at the World Trade Organization to hear this issue.

Canada is right. We have a different system than that in the United States, but that does not mean it is wrong and it does not mean we are subsidizing our industry. If the panel found that we were subsidizing our industry and agreed with the United States, we would have to change our domestic policy. This has happened in many other areas. I would submit that the United States is finding that it is actually winning more cases at the World Trade Organization and that this vehicle is not as suspect as it used to be.

There are still some problems. We do not know what will happen with the duties being charged to our industry in the interim, which may be up to two years. I submit that might be a better route to go than a poor agreement that we may be forced to sign in a negotiated sense.

I continually hold out the hope that things are going to improve and that the United States will come to its senses. I guess I am from Missouri. I want to see it happen. Although the minister has said that there is a good chance of a negotiated settlement, I am concerned it will not be a good settlement for Canada.

The Government of Canada should put the same kind of will and resources into protecting the softwood lumber industry as it does for the aerospace industry and as it does for Bombardier when it takes EDC's guarantees and helps it. The aerospace industry gets a lot of attention, but when it comes to supporting the softwood lumber industry, the government should put more resources into helping it get a final determination.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2001, March 11th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the Secretary of State for International Financial Institutions seems to suggest there is a such a hurry that we can go down the wrong road if need be to apply security fees.

Security in Canada should not be based on a user fee process. We do not charge user fees at our ports where there are security issues with the containers coming in. We do not charge user fees in our cities where there are problems with bikers who pose a security risk. It is a general concept that security in Canada is paid for by all taxpayers. The concept should be recognized in the case of airport security as well.

The system the government is proposing would cause companies like WestJet to withdraw from my hometown of Grande Prairie, Alberta on flights to Calgary and Edmonton because they would be competing against people who drive. The added cost of an airport security fee would be a big expense to WestJet. It would cause the loss of a carrier.

There is a need for more security at airports. That was evident after September 11. I agree with the secretary of state. However let us not get it wrong. Let us get the process right. The fee should come out of the general revenue. The government must recognize this. It is a concept we use all the time. If there are a lot of speeders on a highway who pose a security risk the RCMP does not tax the people along the highway. It comes out of the general revenue.

We must think in terms of a broader approach. I ask the secretary of state to reconsider the whole concept.

[Lumber Industry, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind the Prime Minister that he was preoccupied with this problem in November when he said that the problem would be fixed by Christmas. Now he is saying that he is hopeful a solution can be found.

I want to remind the House that in British Columbia alone 40% of its provincial GDP comes from forest industry exports. Tens of thousands of jobs are at stake. Nationally, this is a $10 billion export business and it faces devastation as of March 21 if something is not done.

Will the Prime Minister make a personal trip to Washington to intervene and make the case for this very important Canadian industry?

[Lumber Industry, February 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister said that the U.S. president was looking into the problem of the softwood lumber dispute. However the clock is ticking and on March 21 the U.S. department of commerce will be issuing a decision on what duties the Canadian lumber industry may have to pay.

What assurances did the Prime Minister receive that real progress is being made to work out an acceptable solution prior to the March 21 deadline?