Mr. Speaker, many ridings across the country have experienced economic impacts from the softwood lumber dispute, but the changes in my riding have been particularly acute.
New Westminster, Coquitlam and Port Moody were once part of the engine of the forest industry in British Columbia, with many mills and ports collecting the harvests of B.C. and sending products out through the Fraser River and on to the Pacific. The quay in New Westminster used to bustle with lumber traffic, but no longer.
Several large lumber mills have closed over the past decade, such as the Fraser Mills plant of International Forest Products Limited, formerly owned by Fletcher Challenge, and the plywood plant at Fraser Mills, which was closed in November 1990. The Flavelle Cedar Division of Weldwood of Canada Ltd. in Port Moody also closed, and Interfor closed its remaining manufacturing facility at Fraser Mills in September 2005. The only lumber mill still running is the smaller Flavelle mill in Port Moody.
I was in the House of Commons when the last Conservative government signed the free trade agreement. It is clear that the Canadian people were sold a bill of goods about the benefits of that agreement.
Mechanisms were supposed to be in place that would stop punitive trade actions of the past. Dispute resolutions and harmonization of trade, we were told, would be the result.
However, this softwood sellout lays bare the results of the FTA and NAFTA. It seems the Americans never intended to play by the rules. Once the going got tough, the Bush administration has found a willing partner in the Conservative government for the sellout of our softwood lumber industry.
This deal is based on a falsehood that Canadian softwood lumber industries are subsidized. This falsehood was exposed and rejected in each and every NAFTA and U.S. commercial court ruling. Each and every ruling has sided with the Canadian industry. Despite unequivocal dispute settlement decisions and trade court rulings, the U.S. will not play by the rules, and the Conservative government has capitulated.
The Conservative government is allowing the U.S. to abandon the rules when it does not like the results. Canada won major legal battles under the North American Free Trade Agreement and U.S. commercial courts, and Canada was just a few months away from winning the final two legal cases which would have voided the dispute and refunded every cent of the $5.3 billion in illegal levies.
Incredibly, now, we are leaving a billion dollars on the table. The deal gives $500 million in funds, owed to the Canadian softwood industry, to the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, which will no doubt continue to hammer away at our industry.
The sellout sets a bad precedent not only for softwood lumber but for other industrial sectors in Canada. This deal opens the door to U.S. attacks on every Canadian industry the U.S. now wants to target. The remaining industries in British Columbia may now come under further attack because of this unravelling of NAFTA.
The softwood lumber agreement will further downsize the Canadian softwood industry and there will be huge impacts on softwood communities in British Columbia and on workers throughout British Columbia and Canada.
Mill & Timber Products Ltd., which now owns the Flavelle cedar sawmill in Port Moody, is opposed to this deal. It has a long history in our community, but has suffered because of the aggressive and illegal actions of the U.S. softwood lobby.
It seems the only companies that are in favour of this softwood sellout are the ones that are headquartered in the U.S. We know this deal is bad for smaller and older companies, but it is supported by the multinationals. We know that thousands of jobs have been lost in smaller communities throughout British Columbia and other parts of Canada.
What does this deal say about the direction in which our country is going?
Many Canadians have said to me that they feel our country slipping through their fingers. Whether it is on foreign policy, which is quickly becoming a branch plant of the White House, or weakening sovereignty at our borders and our coastlines, Canadians know the government is moving us in the wrong direction.
It is entirely possible, once the money is given to the Americans, that they will decide to unilaterally suspend the deal and we will be back again at square one. Communities and industries will have gone through a huge struggle, and for what? The stability that our industry needs will only come when the court victories we have won are enforced and the Americans begin to play by the rules to which they agreed. We are certainly not going to achieve that result by wimping out and backing down.
We know this deal is wrong because it sells out our industry. We know its wrong because it sells out our communities. It sells out thousands of working families in British Columbia and Canada. We know its wrong because it sets a precedent that allows our largest trading partner to ignore trade agreements and all agreements it has signed with us.
The government will now have to stop any pretense that we have a free trade agreement with the U.S. It is just not there. It is a very sad day for Canada. It is a sad day for our working families, which rely on the lumber industry to feed their families. It is a very sad day for those small communities in British Columbia and across Canada that will feel the very negative impact that the government has achieved by selling out Canadian interest in the softwood deal.
