Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by saying that I represent a riding whose economy is very dependent on the forest industry. My riding covers more than half of Vancouver Island and a very large piece of the central coast of British Columbia. There are many small towns in the riding that are solely dependent on the forest industry. They are struggling and have been for a number of years.
I have been speaking about what is going on in those communities and advocating for them since before I was elected to this position. Therefore, it is with a lot of emotion that I stand here today to speak about what is happening in our communities.
I grew up in a logging family. My father and grandfather were loggers and both of my brothers work in the logging industry. We grew up in small logging communities and I am very well aware of the cycles in the forest industry, but what we are seeing today is not part of that cycle, the ups and downs of the industry. It is a growing crisis across this country.
We see it in coastal British Columbia and in the interior with what is happening with the pine beetle encroaching on the boreal forest and the destruction it is causing. We see it in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes where mills are closing. People are starting to wake up and realize this is a growing crisis and is not something that happened by accident. It is partly because of the policies that governments have put in place that have encouraged some of the practices going on today.
I want to thank the Bloc for bringing forward this motion which speaks to some of those things but would also like to add a few others.
Like I said, my riding is dependent on the forest industry. I have had the opportunity to travel around the riding and this summer I took an airplane trip up the coast to one of the very remote communities. On the way, we were flying very low over some of the logged areas and there was a lot of activity going on. There were trees being cut, put into the water and floated down to Campbell River or Vancouver, which is not in the riding. From there, they get loaded on barges and shipped out of the country.
I have always said that the irony is not lost on the people of the north island when they see their logs being shipped out of the country to get processed. We then have to buy the lumber back. There are mills closing and people are out of work in the milling industry. It is all part of what has happened with the softwood lumber sellout.
The parliamentary secretary who spoke before me mentioned that, as a result of the softwood lumber agreement which the Conservatives are very proud of, we are not able to pass a motion like this because it would been seen as a subsidy to the forest industry.
One can only wonder why the government would agree to something that would allow the U.S. lumber lobbyists to dictate our very own forest policy and what we can do in our country. It is shameful the government would agree to something like that. I am very proud that the NDP caucus did not support that softwood lumber sellout and will be continuing to fight for our forest communities for years to come.
There are a number of things in this bill, like the economic diversification program, aimed specifically at communities that depend on the forest industry. In my riding, there are towns like Port McNeill, Port Alice and Port Hardy. Port Alice has a fibre mill that went down a couple of years ago. It had to get help from the provincial government to reopen and now it is only at half capacity. Again, because of the softwood lumber sellout, all the logs that are cut down and shipped out do not go to that mill for the fibre.
This mill makes a very high quality fibre that is recognized around the world and yet it cannot obtain the logs needed. It has to go to Alaska to get the logs. Alaska is not part of Canada, and it is bizarre that we are surrounded by trees and cannot get them.
It is asking for help to diversify its small community with a dock. It does not need much money, maybe $500,000 to get going, and it would increase the opportunities for tourism and other things in the community, but we are having a hard time getting any money out of the government for that community.
Any kind of program that would help these single industry towns, which are dependent on the forest industry, to diversify is a good thing. It will keep people in the community. It will keep jobs there and it will actually help grow those communities and give them a better economic base.
Another issue is the tax measure that encourages the development of processing activities in the region. The government's ideology is that if we give general corporate tax cuts, it will help the trickle down effect, however it has never helped any sector create jobs.
Take the auto industry for instance. My colleagues from Windsor West and Windsor—Tecumseh know full well that we could create cleaner, greener jobs where we have lost our standing compared to other countries. We have dropped from fourth to tenth in assembly production in the automotive industry and yet today the government will not support the Ford Essex engine opportunity in Windsor. My colleagues have been pushing for that and general tax cuts do nothing to increase industry. All they do is give the corporations big tax breaks.
We need to see investment in people and in communities to help increase our greener types of industries. Some of those in the forest industry would be like a little company in our community called Woodland Flooring. It makes flooring out of the wood that is left in the forest by the big logging companies. It is difficult for it to get that wood. It does it but it needs help. It is always a tough fight for small industry.
Other things like using wood waste for fuel for bio-energy is something we have been looking at in our committees when we are talking about biofuels and wood waste. Instead of just burning the slash in the bush and having it smoke, we could use that wood that would be waste anyway and create energy out of it because we know that is what we need to do. It is also better for the environment.
There are so many things I could say regarding this bill which would help communities in my area. The Comox Valley, Courtenay and Cumberland areas are communities where we used to have mills and they have closed. In Campbell River the Catalyst pulp mill and the Elk Falls Lumber Mill are going through downturns every few months and they are closing production for a few weeks. It is really hard on the workers in those communities.
The mills on Vancouver Island are asking the municipalities for tax breaks because they are struggling to stay open, so they are looking for anything. But unfortunately for the municipalities, they cannot afford to give tax breaks because the government needs to make sure it is supporting communities.
We are not seeing that through infrastructure investments in our communities. Small towns need to have the mills' tax base to maintain their infrastructure, so it is a double whammy for them.
Other little towns like Sayward, where we used to have a huge logging industry, is now almost a ghost town and it is looking for other ways to diversify. It is hard for it because it does not have the means. It does not have the capacity to build alternative industries. So, that is why we need to have the supports for the diversity.
I want to thank the Bloc for this motion. Hopefully--