Brian Masse

[Automobile Industry, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, free trade with South Korea just cannot be on Korea's terms and the minister has already indicated how desperate he is. The minister claimed, “My reputation will live or die on it”. I am predicting an early demise of the minister's ego.

The minister has not consulted auto makers, has not consulted auto workers, and has not brought substantial changes to make sure non-tariff barriers are eliminated. That is the real problem.

I am glad to know that the minister understands his personal reputation is on the line, but what is he going to do to get it off life support now?

[Automobile Industry, April 24th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, poor trade policies by the Liberals and now the Conservatives have put the auto industry in reverse.

The minister knows that a few years ago Canada was the fourth largest automaker in the world. Now we have dropped to 10th. The minister also knows that Canada has a $3 billion trade deficit with South Korea. The minister also knows that right now Toyota has surpassed General Motors in auto production and Canada has become a net importer of cars.

Despite all that, the minister has yet to table an auto plan in this House. How can that be? Why is the minister willing to sell us out with a deal with South Korea costing us Canadian jobs without examining the situation?

[April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that government officials would actually prepare something. The question I asked was specifically on fee bates. I would be happy to spend the time that I have right now to talk about the South Korea deal as well.

The South Korea deal, quite frankly, is very alarming. The United States is going through vetting process. Its members will vote on the issue. There is growing opposition to this deal, be it from John Edwards, be it from the automakers on both the American side and the Canadian side. We are not going to have that same right in Canada.

The government has shut down studies. We have had to drag the studies out of it. They are half-measured, half-concocted, not sufficient, old and outdated studies. The government will not give us the chance to have a vote in this chamber about the way things are going.

I ask the member who is from Oshawa, is it his personal opinion that we should have a vote in this place on the Korea trade deal?

[April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to raise a subsequent question in the House of Commons with regard to the government's fee bate policy introduced into the budget program.

I appreciate that the parliamentary secretary has shown up again to at least debate this issue. We see a big problem ahead with regard to the government's actual procurement plan. Frankly, it is puzzling how it was introduced. It was done without consultation and appropriate discussion, to the degree that it has caused a significant market shift and an intervention that has cost Canadians jobs.

The end result, and make no mistake about this, is that we will actually witness Canadian money going to international cities that are building vehicles to compete against Canadian auto workers, and that is unacceptable. I do not think Canadians who are listening tonight want to see their money going to Seoul, Beijing and to other places. What they want to see is their hard-earned tax dollars going into producing the types of conditions that win jobs for themselves.

The fee bate policy is so messed up that even domestic auto producers will examine disabling safety equipment to be eligible for this fee bate system. In my previous debate tonight I thought it was a different company, Volvo, but I retract that. It is actually Honda that has gone public and said that it will examine disabling safety equipment in order to be eligible for this fee bate system.

How have we come to the point where Honda will actually put a proposition in front of its engineers and its CEO and say that it will sacrifice Canadian safety to be eligible for the Conservative's $1,000 rebate policy? That is how attractive it is for Honda, while at the same time it is disturbing for Canadians.

Let us look at the impact and the money that will go to the companies in fee bates for this type of method. Toyota alone will get $47 million. Yaris will get $34 million and it does not produce one vehicle in Canada. How about Ford? It is estimated that Ford will lose $26 million, General Motors will lose $18 million and DaimlerChrysler will lose $10 million.

How is it that the government has concocted a policy on fee bates that will not even put the proper vehicles on the road?

I grant the government that it is early, it is only the first month, but sales of luxury SUVs are up over 15%. It will not get the type of result that we want which is to lower greenhouse gas emissions. There is other Canadian technology in there that we could actually have some investments and some solutions. It could be cylinder deactivation. For those who are not aware, that is when the engine reduces its capacity at different times which produces less greenhouse gas emissions. It can be just as efficient and effective in many other models. In fact, if it is in the high class vehicles that we have. In terms of weight, it is very effective.

I would say that the government has to put forth a full auto policy. It has the flip-flopping, floor-crossing minister, who was a Liberal and is now a Conservative, who promised an auto policy many times in this chamber and yet did not deliver. The Conservatives could stand up and walk down to him and ask him what happened to the auto policy. Maybe this it. Is this the actual Liberal plan? I do not know.

All I do know is that this is putting a damper on economic development. Specifically, General Motors has now put on hold its plant decisions in Canada. That is unacceptable. Canadians deserve better.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we have to simply understand that this nation is more about taking our natural resources and handing them over to somebody else to get the value added jobs.

Whether it be softwood, oil, manufacturing through auto, aerospace and textile, there is something more in Canada than just shipping out our stuff for somebody else to do something with it. We can do it here. We have the people, the skills, the technology and the will. That is where the real jobs are. The prosperity gap will diminish if we have value added jobs.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I would differ with my colleague on the industry committee. If we look at the recommendations and compare them to the budget, we would find rhetoric around some of those issues, and there is no doubt about that.

Implementing some of those measures did not happen. I did not see anything about the South Korea trade deal. I did not see a whole series of things for which we advocated. The most obvious one is the capital cost reduction allowance. Why would the Conservatives move that from a five year recommendation to a two year recommendation? I do not understand that.

I do not understand how the oil and gas industry continues to get the best all the time, not just once, twice or three times, but all the time, while in manufacturing we are hemorrhaging job losses right now. We are not telling manufacturers that they can come forward with a plan for two, three, four, five years, protect the workers, protect the sector, protect the jobs now and we will be there with them.

It is more than just automotive. Tool and die, for example, is another group that requires some type of support system now because of unfair trade practices. The government did not touch that.

The most important thing we have to get our heads around is that we can do things in our country if we want to, but most important, we have to stop undermining ourselves by subscribing to international obligations which hurt our workers directly. The first thing we have to do is protect ourselves from injurious trade deals that have cost us so much already.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing about the ethanol pursuit is there are only two stations where we can get E-85 to actually put into vehicles. It is amazing that we do not have the infrastructure to provide the facilities to get cleaner fuel.

Interestingly enough, the government has also let the oil and gas sector off the hook on standards. Canada does not have any standards. There are standards in the United States. On top of that, the U.S. is investing in the infrastructure, the fuelling stations, to get the cleaner technology and fuels. That is being done through a series of incentives. The U.S. is also making the oil and gas industry come to the table.

When we did our manufacturing study it was interesting. Canada's oil and gas sector in terms of its profits puts back less than 1% into research and development. That is less than 1% for research and development from our most profitable industry. It is unacceptable. Canadians deserve better than that.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 23rd, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the budget. It is very important for Canadians to look at the budget in a holistic sense. At the same time, with only 10 minutes, I will focus my comments around manufacturing and, in particular, the auto industry.

It is important for me to acknowledge that not everything is bad in the budget, but there are so many problems with it that it is not worthy of support and it is not what Canadians expected. We did not expect to see a government so quickly adopt its predecessor's tactics of withdrawing from any type of vision of what Canada can be and where we will go in the next century.

It is important to note on the manufacturing side that plenty of warning signs have been out there. Since November 2002, approximately 250,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in Canada. This is billions of dollars of annual tax revenue, not only from the companies, but also the workers. When workers lose their job in the manufacturing sector, the Canadian Labour Congress, was apt to point this out, they usually lose about 25% of their income when they try to find another job.

I know the government members have been attempting to concoct a type of strategy around the environment, one that placates some people and one that they feel they can sell to Canadians, but it is not working. The most recent was the Minister of the Environment who put out a doomsday scenario that manufacturing would lose. At the same time he has been a wilful part of the government not addressing the manufacturing sector.

It is important that I not only criticize, but that I offer solutions as well. That is what happened with the industry, science and technology committee. Committee members took a full year to study the issues under manufacturing. We understood that the industry was hemorrhaging losses, that workers were feeling more discontent with their future. They felt there was an opportunity that would be lost, and we witnessed job after job loss.

We expected the budget to reflect some of the recommendations that we unanimously supported. That meant we all had to compromise. It takes a lot of will, a lot of effort, but it shows the gravity of the seriousness in the manufacturing sector when all political parties, despite their ideologies, their backgrounds and their political manoeuvring, decide to come together and bring forward a unanimous report with over 22 recommendations.

Those recommendations were put forth to the government to act upon and not a one of them was recommended, not one, despite the unanimous support of the committee that tabled the document in a minority Parliament. What type of totalitarian government do we have that will not even listen to the democratic will of members of Parliament as opposed to lobbyists?

It is unfortunate. There was one half measure and it was a capital cost reduction allowance. It is a very good thing and it needs to be done, but it is for two years. I put in a specific amendment for five years, which would be reviewed for a potential further five years. What did the Conservatives do? They did not act on it. I do not understand that we have all the evidence in front of us and they only provided it for two years.

In particular, the auto industry is suffering quite significantly right now. In Windsor, Ontario my constituents go home every single night with a more uncertain future. DaimlerChrysler is looking to spin off the Chrysler division. Ford is not making renewed investment when the timetable shows that it should. General Motors, because of the budget and because of the government's decision to continue to pursue a deal with South Korea that will put the auto industry on the auction block, has put its investments on hold.

That is what has happened. It is unfortunate because good things are happening in our plants. Good workers are in those plants. Value added jobs are in our plants. Conservatives have ignored that. They have gone with the ideological point that it will give general corporate tax reductions, but that is not what is necessary.

We have seen incentives to some of these plants to try to keep them here, but ironically sometimes those incentives result in less jobs because there is no strategy. The most recent, the most egregious one was the fee bates that were introduced in the budget.

I will go through 10 reasons why these fee bates are very curious and problematic. We all want a greener community. We all want a greener economy. We have been pushing for a green auto strategy for years now, one done with the CAW and other vested partner groups, including the automotive manufacturers. They have looked at our information. These issues are very important.

These are the fee bate policy flaws.

The first is it damages domestic automakers. There would be $67 million of levies on domestic vehicles, which is 80% of all levies collected, and it would transfer $47 million in benefits to Toyota, with 75% of the rebates to Toyota, almost half of all the fee bates go to the Yaris.

Almost all the fee bates we have right now will go to one particular model of a car made overseas. I do not know why any Canadian sitting at the dinner table right now wants to see their taxpaying money going to Seoul, Beijing and Korea. I do not know anybody who wants that, but that is what will happen. The Yaris, in particular, will really benefit. Happy to be Toyota, too bad to be anybody else.

The second is it damages the Canadian subcompact market. A thousand dollars per Yaris makes up almost half of all rebates. It undermines the ability of other dealers and manufacturers to sell equally beneficial subcompacts competitively.

What that means is, with a low-end vehicle like the Yaris and other subcompacts, there is little or less margin for profit, so the $1,000 is a bigger economic incentive than if the vehicle is a higher price. We are actually putting some of our Canadian vehicles in a wider gap of problems to compete with that vehicle because it has the $1,000 rebate. It is significant. They cannot make it up. In fact, I think Volvo is looking at disabling some of its safety equipment so it can get a little more fuel efficiency and qualify for the fee bate. That is not right. That is done without public policy. Why are we forcing people to choose between safety and fuel efficiency? Why not have a public policy that does both?

The third is it is a disincentive to Canadian green technology. The policy levies a $1,000 to $2,000 tax on Canadian made advanced technology engines, cylinder deactivation, yet it offers a $1,000 rebate for an imported conventional gasoline Yaris vehicle without any significant advanced technology.

That is important because cylinder deactivation, which is a Canadian innovation, is something that reduces more greenhouse gas emissions because it gets to some of the higher polluter vehicles. Therefore, we are getting to the lower end hanging fruit, which we can get right away, and punishing Canadian technology. I do not understand that.

The fourth is it hurts suburban families. Levies of up to $4,000 per vehicle are passed on to suburban/rural families purchasing these larger vehicles, which offer needed utility. We know there is a disincentive, for example, for those families that require those larger vehicles for their personal and other businesses as opposed to moving for a greener technology that would fix this.

The fifth is it will not impact segment choices. In terms of the market, the fee bates will not shift the actual public policy to producing and purchasing smaller vehicles.

The March report for vehicle production, manufacturing and selling is out today. Interestingly enough, after the introduction of the fee bate program, luxury SUVs are up 15.1% and large SUVs are up 8.6%. We have a policy that has not even moved in the direction it is supposed to move. There are all kinds of issues. I know the list has been interesting in terms of monitoring. Cars go up on the list on the website then they go off. It is unacceptable.

The New Democrats, and it is important that I conclude with a couple of points about this, have been asking for a green auto strategy, one that looks at procuring the jobs in our own communities. Investment is important and it can be value added. This is why we supported the capital cost reduction allowance for machinery and equipment for five years instead of the two years. Right now those companies have pretty well decided upon the two year window.

The fact is the oil and gas sector gets 100% for another eight years. Manufacturing, which is being obliterated by a high dollar and bad trade policies that the government is pursuing, only gets 50% for two years. The oil and gas sector is booming. Then the other manufacturing sectors, aerospace, textiles, get 100%. We are asking for good sound public policy, public policy that looks at trade issues, manufacturing issues and ensures that if we give incentives, they get to the workers' floor so our workers can compete fairly. They are only asking for that.

[Railway continuation Act, 2007, April 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, simply, Canada has abrogated its responsibility to create the proper conditions to win. We have allowed the United States to do that. We have allowed China and Southeast Asia to do that. We have allowed other countries to do intervention, to foster, whether it be through infrastructure, whether it be through a national strategy. We have given all that up. That is what has been wrong in the past 10 years.

I learned as a city councillor that if we had to deal with the railway company, there was the federal government, there was God, and then there was the railway company, in that order. It seems that order has not changed.

To conclude, it is amazing that we are giving up an opportunity here to address the problem of a system of arbitration that was based on 1940s baseball rules. I would say that having reading one, two and three, it is three strikes for this nation because 1940s baseball rules to decide a railway system that the workers, their families and our citizens and their future will be tied to is perplexing at least and dangerously troubling at most.

[Railway continuation Act, 2007, April 17th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's intervention.

Absolutely, I have considered them. I actually met with farmers in my area in Essex County just this past week. They were saying that the Conservatives misled them in the last budget and what they had promised in the election. That is what they told me. The CAIS program and a whole series of other promises went out the window. They said that was unacceptable. That is something they expected from the Liberals but they did not expect it to be delivered so quickly by the Conservatives. That is what they told me.

As far as Saskatchewan is concerned, absolutely we are really concerned about that. There is no doubt about that.

A short term solution for a wage dispute is not what is at stake. The long term viability of our rail network is, as is the safety of the residents in the communities and also the future investments of farmers. Their actual farming operations and long term investment have to be addressed through proper rail infrastructure investments and continuity.

The farmers are desperate right now because of the government's policies and laissez faire hands off attitude. If other governments subsidize farming industries, “So sorry, so sad, you are on your own, good luck”. We have done that for 10 to 20 years which has resulted in desperation. That does not change the public policy issue that we actually have to deal with.

Maybe we should support those farmers. If that is a legitimate case, why does the government not live up to the programs it promised to ensure they would have vibrant farms? The government could do that. There could be both if the government chose to do so. It is not one or the other. This pick and choose approach that is being false fronted right now is unacceptable because it is not responsible.

Let us look at other trade agreements. There is a constituent in my riding who has lost his business because of the softwood lumber deal. Even in Windsor West we had post end production, and it is gone because of that deal.

Short term deals are no longer acceptable. It is pick or choose winners or losers. That is not the Canada I grew up in. It was about working to get a better solution at the end of the day.

That is why the NDP amendments are a better solution. We get to the issue. The issue is rail safety and sustainability. That affects all of us.