Mr. Speaker, thank you for recognizing me. You have a tough job and I know you are very fair in distributing the questions. Now that I do have a chance to speak because I did not get a chance in questions and comments, and I understand your need to spread the questions, I will first make a couple of points about the interesting comments of my colleague from the Alliance Party, the Alliance trade critic.
First, he has offered some interesting points, but one ought to be that he should speak to the leadership of his own party. He certainly offered some criticism of our performance. Maybe I can remind the hon. member that his own party went many weeks this time last year with no trade critic whatsoever. It is incredible but true. The party was going through its own kind of tearing out its hip action with its leadership at that time. It has one now, which is great, and he is working pretty hard. However we have no lessons to learn from the Canadian Alliance or its trade critic on interest and involvement in this file.
Second, the hon. member has pointed out that the Canadian government has not had a position on whether it is for free trade. That is absolutely and completely incorrect. Try as I have repeatedly, I cannot seem to get the hon. critic for the Alliance Party to understand this simple point. When the softwood lumber agreement ran out last March 31, that automatically put us in a position of free trade in softwood lumber with the United States. That automatically became the situation. That is fully and completely what the Canadian government supported with unanimous support from all the provinces of Canada, including B.C., the province that he hails from. It was only when the Americans again took their very unfair and punitive trade actions that we found a divergence from the free trade agreement.
For the member to say that we were not clear in our position or that we were not clear that we were for free trade, is absolutely and completely incorrect. I know him to be an honest person. I can only conclude that he just does not get the fact that was the situation. We tried repeatedly to explain it to him and hence a little frustration that I may be exhibiting on that point.
Now I would like to turn to my remarks as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade. As the minister has said repeatedly, we have reached a critical point in the softwood lumber dispute with the United States. The motion put forward by the member for Vancouver Island North is therefore timely. I congratulate him for it and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
I would indicate, Mr. Speaker, as I should have at the start, that I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Etobicoke North.
As we all know, this issue represents the most intractable trade dispute that Canada has ever had with the United States. For decades it has been driven by old style protectionism, promoted by a U.S. industry that simply does not want to compete with the efficiently produced, high quality Canadian lumber that U.S. consumers demand. Protectionism is a powerful force and unfortunately a firmly entrenched tradition in the U.S. softwood lumber sector.
In dealing with the latest round in the softwood lumber battle, the Government of Canada and its provincial partners have made every possible effort to seek a lasting resolution, including proposing meaningful changes to provincial forestry practices that should lay to rest U.S. complaints once and for all.
I would like to review our strategy to demonstrate that we have not only pursued the right course but that we must now stay that course.
Let me begin by saying that the sustained co-operation and collaboration between the Government of Canada, the provinces and our softwood lumber industry is unprecedented. No minister has had the success of the current trade minister in keeping together a national consensus on this very important file. It is unprecedented. He has put tremendous efforts into it and he is to be congratulated.
Under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade, we have worked together to develop and maintain a unified position that has greatly strengthened our hand.
As in the past, the United States industry has tried to divide Canadian stakeholders. In this it has failed. With this united front, we are deploying our co-ordinated strategy of the two tracks. I want the Alliance critic to listen to this: it is a two track policy. First, we are aggressively defending our rights in the WTO and NAFTA. Second, we have pursued discussions with the United States administration to see whether a durable, policy based solution to the softwood lumber industry can be found. It is not an either/or position, which the Alliance seems to advocate. We will pursue the legal avenues if necessary, where we will win again if we have to, but at the same time we will negotiate and discuss this issue in detail with our trade partner. That is what the provinces are calling for, perhaps most loudly the province of British Columbia, where the Alliance critic hails from.
Before I address these two tracks in more detail I want to emphasize that we have done everything possible to defend Canadian interests in the U.S. countervailing duty and anti-dumping investigations. The final subsidy and dumping determinations by the commerce department are due on March 21, to be followed by the final injury determinations by the international trade commission in mid-May.
In the course of these investigations the Government of Canada has filed over 250,000 pages of evidence refuting the U.S. industry's allegations. We have also helped individual companies prepare 334 applications for exclusions from the countervailing duty investigation. Earlier in that process we were successful in having the Atlantic provinces exempted from that investigation altogether.
Beyond this, we are advancing our dispute settlement cases in the WTO on track one of our strategy. As members are aware we have already won the first of these cases, which we launched in a pre-emptive move even before the United States subsidy investigation was initiated, yet we have an hon. member saying the government has done nothing. We acted in a pre-emptive move. In this case, a WTO panel upheld the Canadian position that our log exports do not constitute a countervailable subsidy. This pulls the rug out from under a key allegation in the U.S. industry's complaint.
We continue to make progress in three other WTO dispute settlement cases related to the softwood lumber dispute. In the first case we are challenging a provision in U.S. law that would prevent the refunding of countervailing and anti-dumping duties in cases where those duties have been successfully overturned in a dispute settlement proceeding.
In the second case we are challenging the methodology used by the department of commerce in arriving at its preliminary determination of subsidy, as well as its critical circumstances finding that allowed the imposition of the interim duty on a retroactive basis and its failure to provide for expedited review as required under the WTO.
Finally, we have joined with other countries to challenge the so-called Byrd amendment which provides for the distribution of countervailing and anti-dumping duties to the industry that filed the initial petitions.
The government is confident that we will prevail in the WTO proceedings. We always have. We challenged the last U.S. subsidy finding under the FTA and won, and we will win again at the WTO. We plan to take further action at the WTO or under NAFTA to challenge any aspects of the final determinations in the subsidy and dumping cases that are inconsistent with the rules. We have already advanced the panel selection process under NAFTA.
Given our ultimate objective of escaping the endless cycle of litigation and securing access to the U.S. market, we have moved along the second track in our strategy. This track of course involves our bilateral discussions aimed at finding a lasting resolution to the softwood lumber dispute. In these discussions the Government of Canada and the provinces have taken a balanced approach. We have responded to stated U.S. concerns, but in a manner that is consistent with Canadian concerns.
I can see that my time is coming to an end and I simply want to say that the government will continue with this two track policy. The government has been engaged with this issue at the highest levels for well over a year. There was no sense of not taking action. It is simply wrong to suggest that. The Prime Minister is today taking the latest opportunity in Washington to raise this issue with President Bush. The minister is involved in daily discussions with industry, with the provinces and with American officials. The government will continue on its two track policy.
If necessary we will win this case again through the legal channels, because what has been clear from day one is that we want free trade in softwood lumber. We want guaranteed access to the U.S. market. Our producers deserve it and we will have it.
