Pat O'Brien

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Nonsense.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's comments. I am happy that she is happy that the House is supporting the motion. She seems to see it as some sort of historic event or extremely important decision today. If I can help her with that, quite frankly it was an easy decision for the government to support a motion coming from the official opposition which reiterates and supports the policy that the government has been following for two years.

Does the member not understand how easy it was for us to support a motion from the critic of the Alliance that reiterated the exact policy that we have been following?

The member said that her constituents were real Canadians and that she supported them. My constituents are certainly real Canadians, as are yours, Madam Speaker, as are all Canadians real Canadians. I would like to emphasize that.

She mentioned that her constituents wanted to know what they could do to get the government to understand. Would she explain to her constituents and to the House today why, a year ago when this file was breaking at the very critical time, her party went many weeks with no trade critic? Her constituents should know that her party was so engaged in its internal divisions at the time that the former leader, who again seeks to be the leader of her party, did not appoint a trade critic. Incredibly, the official opposition of Canada had no critic to develop this file at one of the most important times in the history of this country. That is a provable fact.

I asked the former leader earlier today to address that but he ducked it. Would the hon. member like to explain why her party showed such a lack of preparedness by having no trade critic? I think her constituents need to know the answer as much as the other members of the House. I am anxious to hear her answer.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague's comments. He was as eloquent as always but I am afraid he seeks to claim a little more credit than is due his party. The government supports this motion for one very simple reason. All parties in the House support the motion. It simply reiterates what has been the longstanding policy of the government.

My colleague says that it has forced us to state our position on free trade. The position of the Government of Canada has been for several years that we need free trade in softwood lumber. We have been working toward that very clearly. We would have it right now and this debate would not be necessary except for the punitive trade actions unfairly taken by the United States to which the hon. member referred at the end of his remarks. I agree with him on that. If that punitive trade action had not been taken on the free trade that was in existence for a short few days until they did intervene, we would have free trade.

My colleague chastises the Minister for International Trade and the Prime Minister for doing their jobs and for going to Mexico and Germany on trade promotion. It is hardly an exotic sojourn in the month of February. During that trip the deputy minister was in Ottawa quarterbacking the negotiations with his counterpart at the very same level in the United States.

I would ask my colleague to be a little more reasonable. The Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade were simply off doing their jobs. While they were doing their jobs they were in daily communication with industry and provincial leaders.

I understand we have different points of view to make from both sides of the House but I know the hon. member as a highly intelligent person. Surely he knows the government has been on record long before this motion as supporting free trade in softwood lumber. I almost got sick of hearing myself say it day after day in the House of Commons as a parliamentary secretary.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of sadness to the member's comments. Frankly, I do not know how my colleague, the hon. Minister for International Trade, was able to restrain himself so well in the face of code words, of the pettiest kind of politics of division, playing region against region.

It has been insinuated repeatedly in the House by the member that if only we had a Minister for International Trade and a Prime Minister who were not francophones from Quebec, that then they would care and act on behalf of the west.

It is the most petty, divisive, destructive, and regional kind of politics that we can see in the House. We saw it earlier from his former leader and frankly, I hope he is back as leader because with those kinds of attitudes he will never win government in this country. We certainly hope not and would not imagine that he could win government with those kinds of petty comments and they have all been backed up by this member. It is just terrible that in the House we have to be subjected to that kind of nonsense.

Can the hon. member not rise above that kind of petty nonsense and realize that one can be a proud francophone minister and Prime Minister and still stand up as both men do for this country from coast to coast to coast? Can he not rise above it and realize that?

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not one that is given to frivolous niceties but I already made this point earlier with my hon. colleague. I guess it is a slip. He has been in the House as long as I have, I think, but he consistently does not speak through you, Mr. Speaker. He consistently refers to other members as “you”.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, we have just seen clearly why the hon. member cannot get the support of his own caucus for his leadership run. He practices the worst politics of division and regionalism. Does he not understand that jobs are at stake in northern Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, Quebec and the Prime Minister's riding? His vision is limited to a few people in western Canada.

I will ask the member a specific question. When he was leader of his party, and quite frankly I hope with his performance today he will be back, why did he go weeks without appointing a trade critic on the file? That is the truth. We demand an answer.

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from Lethbridge and I support some of the comments he made but I want to raise some questions about others.

May I remind my colleague and all Canadians that, yes, we are in a very protracted and unfair dispute on softwood lumber caused by the United States, but 46% of our national wealth of our GDP is based on exports, the vast majority of that going to the United States, and the vast majority of that trade with the United States is virtually problem-free.

We have disputes from time to time. This unfortunately has been one that, as Yogi Berra said, is déjà vu all over again. We have fought this a number of times and if necessary we will win this again at the WTO.

Does the member not recognize that it is incorrect to say that the softwood lumber deal was just allowed to run out and nothing was done, that the government somehow was not prepared? That simply is incorrect.

There were extensive consultations before the softwood lumber agreement ran out. My colleague, the Minister for International Trade, was meeting with the provinces and warning them about the potential problems we would face before the agreement ran out. The hon. minister was cobbling together the best national consensus we have ever had in this country. Some members of the opposition parties have acknowledged it today. He cobbled that consensus together and he started before the agreement ran out.

We were not naive. We knew the Americans likely would be petty and punitive once again on this issue and unfortunately they were.

Could the hon. member not acknowledge, because I know him to be a person who is pretty objective and fair in the House, that it is wrong to say that the government took no actions before the agreement ran out?

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, when the hon. member's party shows it can manage its own caucus it will perhaps be in a position to offer advice about important national issues of the day including softwood lumber. However Alliance members are a long way from demonstrating they can manage their own party.

The hon. member says the government did nothing. He asks why the Prime Minister was not involved until recently. The Prime Minister of Canada has raised the issue repeatedly over the past year with President Bush at almost every opportunity.

The Minister for International Trade has been the leader in the file. He has built the strongest national consensus on how to proceed on the softwood lumber file that Canada has ever had. This was acknowledged by someone who knows far more about softwood lumber than the member who just spoke: the hon. member for Fraser Valley, his former colleague, who moved to another part of the House for reasons most Canadians know.

The member tried to portray the government as having done nothing. The reality is that there was consensus a year ago between the provinces and the federal government that the softwood lumber agreement should be allowed to run out. We did not do nothing. We were arguing for free trade which would now be in place if the United States had not taken unfair and punitive trade action. We were not naive. We knew the Americans would probably take trade action. To build a national consensus the government led by the Minister for International Trade therefore held extensive consultations with all the provinces including British Columbia.

It has been a deliberate and co-ordinated strategy. However the Alliance Party does not want to accept it because it serves their purpose to play petty partisan politics. It has gotten them nowhere in the House of Commons. It has not advanced their position politically and it does not help the important softwood lumber dispute.

Is the hon. member not at all aware that there was a co-ordinated and deliberate strategy led by the Minister for International Trade? Does he not understand that all provincial trade ministers and the industry have been extensively consulted on the issue and are in full agreement? Does he not understand that we must proceed on the two track policy of the government? Does he even understand the two track policy?

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member could not be further from the truth when he said that the government was asleep at the switch.

The hon. member does not want to listen to me and I understand that given the comments that he just made. He should be embarrassed. However, I will answer them whether he likes it or not.

The member should recognize that there was a consensus among the 10 provinces and the federal government, a deliberate strategy, to let the softwood lumber agreement run out a year ago. No one was asleep at the switch. At that time we then had free trade in softwood lumber as per the free trade agreement with the United States. If that had just continued, we would not be having this debate today.

What happened was the unfair punitive trade action by the United States, which we anticipated. There was no one asleep at the switch. There had been extensive consultations with the provinces. The member comes from Atlantic Canada. The government has taken very strenuous efforts to ensure that Atlantic Canada has been excluded every chance possible.

There has been a very deliberate strategy with wide consultations by the Minister for International Trade and the Prime Minister of Canada with the provinces and industry, the best consultations and the widest consensus ever reached on this ongoing file.

Why can the member not be a little more accurate in his comments?

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the NDP member that we could have a little better decorum from the member she referred to, but I had trouble keeping a straight face when she said that if one cannot say anything good one should not say anything at all. I would encourage her to follow her own advice. Her track record is not that strong.

I want to ask her specifically, is she is aware of the efforts of the Canadian government through our embassy in Washington, through this government directly, through repeated delegations from the House of Commons and through a number of delegations from the Canada-U.S. parliamentary group that we have here on the Hill? Is she aware of these repeated efforts over the past two years to educate the American public about the unfair costs they pay for softwood lumber for protectionism in the United States? Is she aware of our efforts to educate American congressmen and senators? There has been a concerted, determined and pretty successful effort carried out by the government.

Given her earlier comments, I did not think that she was aware of this and I would like her to comment.