David Emerson

[International Trade, October 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we continue to have discussions on trade issues with Korea and with a number of other countries.

The government recognizes that it has been five years since the Government of Canada entered into a bilateral free trade agreement. It is time we started to get our trade act together, and that is what we are doing.

[Asia-Pacific Gateway, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for all the work she has done on the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative.

The government is committed to a productive, competitive and efficient economy. The gateways and corridors initiative is one part of this program. It is focused. It is efficient. It minimizes bureaucracy. It minimizes decision delay. It accelerates funding of over $300 million with $591 million in total to be spent over the next five or six years.

[Softwood Lumber, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I really do not know what to say about somebody who refuses to admit the truth.

The truth is that we have been winning legal battles. The truth is that those battles can go on for two or three years. The truth is that new cases can be brought. The truth is that member does not care, he is not responsible and he is promoting a deception on the Canadian people and the workers in the softwood lumber industry.

[Softwood Lumber, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is always entertaining for me to listen to the new ways that the member can spew his partisan ideology and venom in the House.

It is about time the hon. member told this House and Canadians what he is really proposing. He is proposing a continuation of lumber trade wars, a continuation of litigation, a continuation of hundreds of millions of dollars into the U.S. treasury and the destruction of the softwood industry in our country.

[Softwood Lumber, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, we do indeed have some excellent ministers in cabinet and I am very proud of them.

If the hon. member wants a support package for the softwood lumber industry, for the forestry industry, he should pass the softwood lumber agreement and get that $5 billion into the hands of the companies so they can build their business.

[Softwood Lumber, October 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member perhaps is trying to suggest that the U.S. housing market has taken a severe downturn because of the softwood lumber agreement, which he knows is patent nonsense.

What he really is saying is he wants to go back to litigation. He wants to go back to spending millions of dollars on lawyers. He wants to go back to higher duties payable to the U.S. treasury. He wants the uncertainty, the job loss and the destruction to companies and communities from continuing the fight on softwood lumber.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raised the surge issue. Members should know that in British Columbia, under the surge provision in the agreement, there is a billion board feet of flexibility in terms of permitted surge before the surge mechanism cuts in. The surge mechanism is at 110% of the base year shipments. The surge mechanism is also not fixed in time. It moves as U.S. consumption moves over time and that will allow the surge to grow as the market grows.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is a lawyer. He understands, or ought to understand, what is going on in softwood lumber and some of the litigation surrounding it. I think the hon. member knows that we are winning most of the cases. We expect we would continue to win most of the cases, but we have to recognize that even with another final win at the court of international trade, it is an appealable case. Right there we are pushing a settlement out another year and half. Then we would have to look at a couple of years to recover the duties. We would not see any money in the pockets of Canadian companies for somewhere between two and four years.

The hon. member also should know that in this case the litigation is not just about countervailing duties and alleged subsidies. There is also an issue of anti-dumping and going into a weak cycle in the lumber market. It is much easier to demonstrate or at least make a plausible case against dumping and we would be in a situation immediately. I can assure the member that the U.S. industry is ready as we speak to launch more cases, both anti-dumping, new injury cases and new countervailing duty cases because the very programs of assistance the hon. member refers to would certainly be countervailed and attacked. There is absolutely no doubt about that. We would not even be finished the old litigation, but would be faced with new litigation and new interim duties. Last time the interim duties started out at 27% and it took us five years to get them down to just over 10%.

The idea that there are both a tax and a quota, there is a choice. Some regions can opt for a tax no greater than 5% and apply a quota. Some regions can opt, as would happen in British Columbia, for only a tax and no quota. Therefore, there is not both the tax and a quota unless a province were to opt for that option.

The hon. member is from B.C., and Premier Campbell of the government of British Columbia is in town. Has the hon. member talked to Premier Campbell and asked him if he felt bullied into this agreement, because Premier Campbell is supporting it, as is the industry in B.C.? The reason they are supporting it is because they put in place some new policy reforms, which this agreement protects. Those policy reforms would be attacked without the agreement.

The very tax that would be place in low markets will get capitalized, as the hon. member knows, in lower stumpage payments in a competitive bidding situation. The idea that it is a new tax is really not right. It is a displacement of stumpage by an export tax.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, first, I do not accept the allegation or the premise that somehow this agreement is not a very good agreement. This is the best softwood lumber agreement that we have seen in Canada in the last three decades.

With respect to administrative charges by Export Development Canada, there are none.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, September 25th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that the allegations of subsidies by Canadian provinces on the softwood lumber have been going on for decades. Those allegations of subsidies stem fundamentally from the fact that Canadian timber is largely harvested off Crown land. They continue to make allegations that the fact it is harvested off Crown land, that the revenues go to government, the government is somehow not taking the full market value of the timber.

Those debates go on and on. We continue to win them, but the dispute never ends and it never will. Under U.S. law, which is what these disputes are adjudicated on when we use a NAFTA framework, they can continue to make allegations, to bring more suits, whether it is an allegation of subsidy. Absolutely for sure, if there were not this agreement and the federal or provincial governments attempted to assist the softwood lumber industry in any way, there would be more countervailing duty cases brought.

A new part of this dispute is the dumping side, which has just come in. The hon. member ought to know that even in Canada, we bring dumping cases. All it requires is that it can be demonstrated there is a loss, that the companies are losing money on shipments into a market. Particularly in bad markets, those cases will be sustained and it will be very damaging for Canada.