Guy André

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has just made comments about the reasons why we supported this agreement. However, I would like him to remember the needs of the Quebec industry, the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation regarding softwood lumber when he was in government.

We asked questions of the Liberals in the House. We asked them on many occasions—pressed them hard on this issue—to provide loan guarantees to these companies so that they could weather the dispute with the Americans as it went before the courts, NAFTA tribunals and all other avenues, and they did nothing. Today, he is asking why we are supporting the softwood lumber agreement. The industry was on its knees, was losing money and human and financial resources. It was no longer able to ride out the never-ending storm. The Liberals did absolutely nothing in this regard.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in this House, we have to repeat ourselves endlessly in order for some politicians to understand the reasons why we support or oppose certain measures.

As we mentioned, we asked for a loan guarantee program to support the forestry industry while the trade dispute with the United States was ongoing. The Liberals were ineffective and did nothing. When the Conservatives campaigned in the last election, they said they would support the industries with loan guarantees. When the Conservatives were elected, they forgot about it. They forgot all about it just like they forgot to support the industry. They signed an agreement on July 1 which, unfortunately, meant major losses for the Quebec industry.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 29th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak again about Bill C-24, this time as part of the review of the second group of amendments proposed following the clause-by-clause study of the bill in committee.

I would like to begin by commenting on what was said by my colleague, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster, whom I have the great pleasure to work with on the Standing Committee on International Trade and whose competence I value.

Sometimes, we have similar opinions. At other times, we disagree, on issues such as the recognition of Quebec as a nation or how attentive the Bloc Québécois is to the needs of our industries and unions.

Since the debates began in this House, the member for Burnaby—New Westminster has said several times that he and his party have consulted representatives of the industry and forestry workers on numerous occasions to hear their objections to Bill C-24.

However, we in the Bloc Québécois have also consulted industry representatives and workers in Quebec. They have asked us to support this agreement, because the industry has been brought to its knees by the constraints that have been imposed on it for so many years. That is why we support this agreement.

We must not forget that from the very beginning of this long and difficult conflict four years ago, despite the Bloc Québécois' many questions and its pressure on them, both the Conservative and Liberal governments refused to take action in this House to ensure better financial health for our forest industry and stable jobs for thousands of workers.

The Liberal and Conservative governments forgot—or probably chose to forget—one major thing: the importance of preparing a plan to support the forest industry and forestry sector workers by, for example, establishing a loan guarantees program to help some of them avoid bankruptcy. But despite multi-billion dollar surpluses, neither government did or is doing anything to support our industries.

Unfortunately, for more than 40 months, the Liberals stubbornly refused to provide any kind of assistance program and the Conservatives, who probably wanted to prove that they could be just as obstinate as the Liberals, decided to take the same approach.

Sometimes, when we put forward proposals to help our Quebec industries, we hear them laughing. The Liberals were stubborn. However, the Conservatives' refusal is not surprising. We know that in terms of economics, they prefer a laissez-faire ideology. They are not aware that their vision is doing a lot of damage to our forest industry.

During the last election campaign, the Conservative leader stated several times that he would help the forest industry by providing loan guarantees. The Conservatives made a commitment. They promised to support the industry with loan guarantees. After the election, they did not keep their promises about an independent employment insurance fund, the fiscal imbalance, or an assistance program for older workers, to name just a few.

Subsequently, the Prime Minister signed an agreement with his new friend, President Bush—an agreement that gave away $1 billion in duties illegally collected by our neighbours to the south. He gave President Bush a $1 billion gift. Of that $1 billion, $500 million will go to the American companies that started the conflict in the first place.

It is possible that this money will be used to modernize their companies and even used by these same industries to start a new legal war against the Quebec and Canadian forest industry.

This is an agreement and a bill that we support, but unenthusiastically.

During this entire dispute, it seemed obvious to me that the United States won with their strategy of dragging out litigation as long as possible.

Short on financial resources and abandoned by the Liberals and now the Conservatives, the forest industry was on its last legs and could no longer continue to fight in the courts, even though it won the many cases that were heard.

The industry, without support, asked the Bloc Québécois to recover some of this money that the U.S. government withheld illegally. Yes, illegally, since Washington was never able to show in any court that its companies were adversely affected, or that its claims, that Canadian wood was subsidized, were founded.

Where are we now? Government representatives are saying that the Quebec and Canadian industry is getting its money back, as though this were an unexpected gift to the industry. This money is not a subsidy. This is industry money, only part of which is being recovered. But politics being what it is sometimes, the Conservatives seem to be claiming that they are subsidizing the forest industry with their own money.

A number of times we heard the Minister of Industry and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Trade, with whom I enjoy working, tell us that the return of these duties represents a new cash injection, which will be very beneficial to the softwood lumber industry. There is no cash injection and no program of action to support the industry. It is false to say that this is a gift or a new cash injection since the industry paid this money in countervailing duties. Our industry is only recovering some of the money illegally withheld by Washington.

It is in this context that the industry and representatives of Quebec's forestry workers are reluctantly asking us to support the agreement, that the Bloc Québécois, as the party accountable to these industries, these unions and these constituents, has decided to take this direction.

However, since the beginning of the dispute, it is obvious that we would have preferred the government to support the industry in order to help its workers get through this very difficult period.

With the government's support, this industry could have developed and become more competitive, which would have minimized job losses. But, no, this federal government—whether Conservative or Liberal—chose to do nothing. It apparently did not have the money. It has a surplus of $13 billion, $14 billion or $15 billion, yet it cannot support industries. It says it does not have the means. This has led us to where we are today.

As we have stated repeatedly in recent months, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill because the forest industry and the representatives of workers in Quebec have asked us to support the agreement. The NDP is still questioning us about this, namely, why we support this agreement. We constantly repeat: because we are close to the people who work in our industries and close to our unions. That is why we support this agreement.

However, since the very beginning of the dispute, we have maintained that the government must intervene. We cannot pretend, as the Conservative government maintains, that this agreement will solve all the forest industry's problems.

We know that it will solve very few of them.

As I mentioned, the forest industry has become vulnerable because of the lengthy softwood lumber dispute and it now faces an unprecedented structural crisis.

Clearly, the forest industry has been unable to overcome the tremendous difficulty it has been facing in recent years because of the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

According to the Quebec Forest Industry Council, more than 7,000 jobs have been permanently or temporarily lost in Quebec since spring 2005. By refusing to act, the Conservatives—like the Liberals—have demonstrated blatant irresponsibility in this file. They must now assume their responsibilities.

If the government is still not convinced that an assistance program is necessary, it need only look at the number of jobs lost. The industry needs a support program, older workers need a support program, and the employment insurance program must be improved. We are waiting for this government to act.

[Business of Supply, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the comments made by my hon. colleague, whom I know very well and with whom I worked recently in committee. I do not necessarily share his point of view on the question of health care and I must ask myself some important questions.

He gave a brief overview of the development of heath care in Canada in recent years. However, he overlooked one thing, which is that the Liberals slashed health transfers to Quebec and the provinces in 1994-95.

The health care sector is under enormous pressure. Why are there waiting lists? We have an aging population, which means more surgery, more care, more cancer. Cancer is one of the most serious diseases of the century, along with cardiovascular disease. These diseases require surgery and, unfortunately, there are waiting lists.

The health care system in Quebec is comprehensive. Our public health agency has research programs for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all sorts of health problems. The health and social services department manages regional agencies, CLSCs, hospitals, and CHSLDs. This is where health care is provided.

The Liberal government denied that there was a fiscal imbalance for several years. Basically, what Quebec needs to ensure health care is money, a work force, resources and doctors. Quebec would then be in a position to provide proper health care to Quebeckers. However, the Liberal government denied the existence of a fiscal imbalance.

Is there any other way, apart from a federal transfer to Quebec, to give more resources to a comprehensive health care system? What other way is there? There is no other way, and the Liberal government chose to do nothing for years.

I would like to hear what my hon. colleague has to say on this matter, which is of great concern to me.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as I have already said, some of the countervailing duties, the money paid by our softwood lumber companies, will come back and will help the forest industry to breathe. But the industry is not yet out of the woods. We know that some companies have closed their doors in Quebec, and this has caused major job losses. Other action programs have to be put in place to support this industry in difficulty. This is why we hope that the government will set up an action plan to support the softwood lumber sector.

I also talked about monthly quotas, which are another problem. These quotas will have to be spread over a minimum of two or three months so as to respect our industries’ capacity to export to the U.S. If a quota is for one month, an export quota that sets the delivery time for linear board, for example, and we cannot deliver what we are entitled to deliver, we will still have major difficulties. As far as regulations are concerned, adjustments and policies that are more advantageous to companies will be required.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is close to the Quebec industry and the unions.

When we consulted the key players in the forest industry, the softwood lumber industry in Quebec, they asked us to support this agreement, but to make certain amendments to it, which we did. The unions also asked us to do so.

That is why we are going ahead. Despite everything, I would like to tell our colleague that this agreement is the work of the parties in power—Conservative and Liberal—who turned a deaf ear for many years and refused to listen to an industry in difficulty that needed support.

The government turned a deaf ear and eventually reached the point of no return. The government said it wanted to go ahead and recover a portion of the countervailing duties that had been paid, but only a portion. Only some of the money will be recovered. We will try to move forward and support our industries for a few years with this agreement and other programs. We hope that the government will put in place an action plan to support this industry, which still has many needs.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am naturally very pleased to speak here today at the report stage of Bill C-24, the Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006.

I would like to begin my speech by making a few comments on the motions we are studying today. There are a number of them. Many of the motions were moved by the NDP—a party that is not comfortable with this agreement—some by the government, the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois.

We examined these motions and we conducted a clause by clause study of this bill. We would have preferred the bill to be amended to give a little more flexibility to the definition of “independent manufacturer” so as to allow more processed wood products to possibly be excluded from the agreement and therefore cross the border without restrictions.

We believe that the wording of this bill is too restrictive and prevents processed products from freely entering the United States. Had there been greater flexibility, the two signatory countries could have enforced the agreement with fewer restrictions and therefore could have increased the trade in secondary and tertiary processing products.

We feel that the future of our industry is especially dependent on its ability to develop new products and process them here. There will unfortunately be job losses if the forest industry continues exporting wooden planks that are eventually processed abroad.

In view of the act’s vagueness in this regard, we believe that this addition could have improved the way in which the bill before us today works—a bill, I remind the House, whose purpose is to implement the softwood lumber agreement reached last July 1 that laid out in particular the procedures for returning the countervailing and anti-dumping duties to the companies and established rules for the return of the billion dollars to Washington.

This legislation determines the barriers that will regulate the softwood lumber trade between Canada and the United States and establishes procedures for the federal government to return the export duties to Quebec and the Canadian provinces.

This bill does not specify how export quotas will be allotted. That will be done by regulation. The Quebec industry is concerned, and rightly so, that the agreement provides for these quotas to be allotted on a monthly basis. In the past, they were allotted quarterly. It would help our industry survive if the regulations could be more flexible.

It is important to remember that the construction industry is cyclical and lumber deliveries tend therefore to vary substantially from one month to another. Unfortunately, this issue still has not been resolved in the bill and the government has not made any specific promises. That is a cause for concern.

At best, the binational council responsible for overseeing the agreement will deal with this problem. We hope that the government will try through this binational council to make the monthly export ceilings more flexible.

It was on April 27, 2006 that the Government of Canada and the Bush administration announced the conclusion of a framework agreement settling the softwood lumber dispute. The agreement reached by the two countries on July 1, 2006 and finally signed last September 12 has led to Bill C-24, which is before us today.

We have said on many occasions over the last few months that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-24, but not very enthusiastically. We have consulted industry representatives and representatives of forest sector workers on this. The unions also asked us to support the agreement.

My colleagues in the NDP say they do not understand the position of the Bloc Québécois because it supports this agreement. We have spoken with experts, with those who are affected in Quebec, because we are ready to defend our industry and we are close to our unions, as the NDP should be in other provinces. Those people told us that it was time to get out; that they could not carry on any longer, they were bleeding to death. They needed an agreement; they needed to get back the countervailing duties as quickly as possible to try to get out of this crisis. Of course, this agreement does not put an end to the crisis, but we believe that, at this time, it is the best thing to do.

They said that, while the agreement was not satisfactory, they preferred to accept it rather than to continue to fight in the courts. There was no progress; there were negotiations, then no negotiations. The industry and the representatives of workers in Quebec asked us to support this agreement and that is what we are doing. To act otherwise would have been irresponsible.

It must be clearly understood that the Quebec and Canadian softwood lumber industry is in a very difficult situation. We know; we are all well aware that the forest industry was weakened by the softwood lumber dispute, and that it is now facing a structural crisis without precedent. The government must not think that by signing this agreement it has found a solution to the softwood lumber crisis.

Since April 2005, 8,700 jobs have been lost in the forest industry in Quebec. Of those 8,700 jobs, 2,850 are lost forever. The importance of a support program for older workers to make up for those lost jobs is becoming greater every day.

The companies that have survived are in serious financial difficulty. Equipment is not being replaced, investments are not being made and the competitive ability of these companies has been seriously affected. We must not forget that this situation also affects pulp and paper companies—of which there are many in the Trois-Rivières region—who are the owners of the sawmills that produce almost 80% of softwood lumber in Quebec.

In short, the forest industry, which is widespread in the Mauricie region and elsewhere in Quebec, no longer had the resources to continue to fight. The representatives of this sector told us that and they asked us to support this agreement.

There is reason to wonder whether the forest industry would have accepted this agreement if it had been in a stronger position. However, since the beginning of the dispute in May 2002, both the Liberal and Conservative governments refused to take action to ensure that the industry was in better financial health.

The Liberal and Conservative governments must assume their responsibilities and explain the very difficult situation in which our forest industry currently finds itself.

We hope that this agreement, which is very unsatisfactory for our industry—even though the industry and our unions in Quebec are asking us to support it because they have been bled white and cannot carry on because of a lack of support—will be a good lesson for the House because the Bloc Québécois has made many requests since I was elected in June 2004.

What did the Bloc Québécois ask of the Liberals over all those years? It asked for loan guarantees to support the companies and help them avoid bankruptcy; it asked for employment insurance to be relaxed and made more accessible; and it asked for an income support program for older workers. It asked for support for processing activities to provide new markets for Quebec’s lumber, and it asked Ottawa to assume the onerous legal fees incurred by the companies that fell victim to legal harassment by the United States. Instead of that, under this agreement we are paying the fees incurred by the Americans.

The industry has structural problems and this softwood lumber agreement does not help to solve them. The president of the FTQ stated that along with this agreement, the Conservatives now have a duty to take concrete action to help the industry survive the major crisis it has been enduring for years now.

I will conclude by emphasizing that the Bloc Québécois would have preferred a return to free trade in all forest products as a way of settling the softwood lumber dispute, which continued for more than four years.

Unfortunately, though, that is not what this agreement provides for.

[National Defence, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the pollution caused by National Defence is not limited to Lac Saint-Pierre. It extends to all the military bases as well. This situation has gone on long enough.

Will the government admit that it is time it shouldered its responsibilities, and will it announce that it is beginning studies and freeing up the necessary funds and that it plans to go to work right away to decontaminate what it has polluted?

[National Defence, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there has long been criticism of the shelling in Lac Saint-Pierre, and the government has finally promised to remove the shells, but the people living along the lakeshore are now faced with contamination that threatens the water table.

Will the government conduct further studies to identify the extent of the damage it caused by using Lac Saint-Pierre as a firing range?

[Criminal Code, November 9th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was answering a question from a Conservative member that, in fact, did not pertain to the bill.

As I said in my speech, Quebec has the fewest major crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. We have rehabilitation measures and community support measures. Here, we also have a justice system, a Criminal Code, that we can use to punish people. What does this bill add, then? We feel that it adds nothing other than the idea that after three strikes, you're out. A person might be convicted and sent to jail for life after his first dangerous offence. It is up to the judiciary to decide. A bill like this is not going to improve public safety.

I would also like to point out that we are not opposed to prison terms for people who commit serious crimes. Of course we are not opposed to that. But we also know that there need to be rehabilitation mechanisms and inmate services. I am not sure that when someone who spent 20 years in prison and received no rehabilitation services leaves prison—