Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Okanagan--Shuswap. My riding contains the most vibrant and active softwood lumber area in the province of B.C. Prince George is right in the central part of British Columbia.
Our mills are the finest in the world as far as technology goes. These mills can produce softwood lumber in such an efficient manner that we can put a 60 foot tree through the system and come up with a handful of waste. That is how efficient it is.
That is not so in the U.S. The big softwood lumber manufacturers have the company owned forests. The mill owners are the principals behind the lobby group. They call themselves the coalition for fair lumber imports. They have been successful in getting the ear of the senators and the United States government. They have claimed time after time that Canada is being unfair to them because they say we subsidize our softwood lumber industry.
We do not subsidize our softwood lumber industry. We use a system that ensures there is a price paid for the harvest to the government. The other costs are all relative to what the costs are in the industry for labour, technology and taxation. As a matter of fact we can argue that we pay too much to harvest and produce our softwood lumber.
We have been to the WTO three times to fight the cases that their coalition has brought against our country. We have been successful every time. No evidence exists to date that was sustainable in the WTO courts. There was no subsidy, no dumping and no evidence of injury to the U.S. market.
The decision of the U.S. government to proceed with yet another countervail anti-dumping imposition of a duty only confirms the protectionist attitude of the American government. The prior administration to this one did the same.
The fact that there has been no evidence of subsidization and dumping only confirms that this is all about the big southeastern American firms wanting to make more money and wanting to secure a greater share of the market because they could not produce softwood lumber like we could.
They are so inefficient that they are trying to offset their inefficiency with the imposition of a countervail tariff and by saying that we subsidize softwood lumber production in Canada. It is just a veil to help with their bottom line.
We had WTO disputes and we won them every time. Someone came up with the idea that we should develop a five year program to put an end to all the countervail threats. We came up with the softwood lumber agreement in 1996. It was to be the end to all these types of threats from the U.S.
When the Liberal government was in power in 1996 and this was coming into force we in the Reform Party, now the Alliance, questioned the government about its foresight and suggested that the deal was wrought with peril.
I remember the Minister for International Trade and the Minister of Industry saying to us that they did not know why we were blaming them as it was the industry that put it together. They were partially right because the large firms in the softwood lumber industry were involved in putting the package together.
We went down that road and when we were about halfway through the SLA some flaws started to show up, particularly with the quota system. As it turns out the large manufacturers did just fine as far as the quota but the small and medium producers were having trouble. They employ Canadians who also have to feed their families.
We brought these concerns to the Liberal government and we were ignored. We told the government time after time that everything we hoped for was not so good any more and that some of the flaws in the SLA were starting to show up. We did not get any attention from the government.
We told the government halfway through that this SLA would expire in May. We had already determined that it was wrought with peril. We had to do something so that when we got to May 2001 we would not be caught wondering what to do and then again be at the mercy of the American coalition for fair lumber imports.
That was exactly what happened. The government did not get involved in the issue until about November 2000. That was much to our dismay because we had been talking to it about this since the beginning when all the flaws started to show.
The Minister for International Trade became involved. Suddenly he was gung-ho and making a lot of pronouncements with six months left in the SLA. Where was the government three years ago when we told it things were going bad? Suddenly it was in panic mode because the SLA was running out.
The Americans were rattling their sabres and we ended up in the situation we are in. We had the countervail tariff put on, the anti-dumping tariff put on, and now we have to go through the WTO again. This is all because the government refused to get involved until about six months before the SLA was to expire in May.
It is because of the government's lateness that we are in the crisis we are in. The Americans are saying Canada is subsidizing lumber and dumping it. Therefore they will charge us extra fees and we will fight it out in court. In the meanwhile we must pay them.
Our producers are having trouble with their money. What does it take? It takes a bureaucrat doing some negotiation. It takes the Minister for International Trade getting involved, but most of all it takes the Prime Minister of Canada, the top politician in Canada, to recognize just how important the softwood lumber industry is to the country.
First, the Prime Minister must recognize that. Second, he could consult with his experts who would confirm the impact on the economy. Third, he could phone the president of the United States on an ongoing basis.
If the Prime Minister realizes how important the softwood lumber industry is, he would be on the phone every week telling the president that this can be fixed. If our bureaucrats and junior ministers cannot do it, they as the top guys would fix it. That is what he should be doing. I hope the message is taken to him and he reacts to it.
