John Duncan

[Species at Risk Act, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if I had a single message today I think it would be that all parties in the House would commit fully to protect and preserve Canada's natural environment and our endangered species. That is clear. That is motherhood. However there are obvious differences in the way we would approach the issue.

I was in the House when the member for York North who sits on the environment committee was speaking not too long ago. She talked about the international commitments we must make on endangered species and other environmental issues. While I agree with that statement, it is also very important that Canadians recognize, because the rest of the world certainly recognizes it, that Canada's land stewardship is world class. We have every reason to be very proud of much of what we pursue. I think in particular of our broad landscape activities such as agriculture, ranching, forestry and other industries which obviously have a major influence on our landscapes.

Canada, by virtue of being a vast country with a small population, has become the victim of negative campaigns launched both internationally and domestically by groups that denigrate Canadian practices as a matter of mission for their own self-serving interests.

I certainly agree that Canadians care deeply about the environment. Rural Canadians do not need a lesson from anybody on land stewardship. They have a deep commitment to the environment. I have children as do most of us. I remember reading a book to my children about the city mouse and the country mouse. Country mice certainly do not need lectures from the city mice about land stewardship. It is true the other way around as well.

Half the problem could thus be summarized as one in communication between Canadians, as well as between Canadians and the international audience. Canada has the optics internationally of being a vast wilderness. Somehow that sets a higher standard for Canada than it does for other nations. We have accepted that is the way it is. In accepting that, we have set a different standard for ourselves for a long time which is all very positive.

We can learn things from others. We should learn from what has occurred with endangered species legislation in the United States. The Americans have ended up with a very unhealthy situation in many areas. They have gone to a system based on penalties rather than on incentives. They do not have what we would call land managers so much as they have legal managers. It has created a legal mess. The court has become the arbiter of how land will be managed.

That is very destructive and leads to a lack of creativity and progress. It is so polarized that in the western states for example some fur from an endangered species was planted into the ground to demonstrate that that species must be there and therefore activities on that land could not take place. That issue has become very messy. It was demonstrated eventually that it had been a covert activity to utilize the planted material to try to influence land management behaviour. We do not want to go there.

There have also been major confrontations and demonstrations in the last couple of years because of the draught in the western states which has created a real problem both for the agriculture industry and for what is called the sucker fish which is an endangered species. Thousands of people have lost their livelihood because of legislation that did not seem to recognize common sense behaviour and compromise as being another way to go.

The lessons we need to take from that are very clear. We want land managers who are land stewards. We do not want legal messes and a place where lawyers rather than land managers will thrive.

I spent 20 years as a land manager. I managed tens of thousands of hectares of forest land in British Columbia. That land was predominantly owned by the people of British Columbia. It was crown land. I spent five years at university preparing to do that. I am very proud of the land management activities I carried out. I am proud of the accomplishments. I operated primarily under a system of incentives rather than penalties. I am worried that is going to change.

During that time, prior to running for politics and changing my career, I spent some time in Washington and Oregon on a postgraduate mature student program. It was for a period of 12 weeks over the course of a year. The spotted owl controversy was going on in that part of the world. It was totally polarizing and totally destructive. It led to panic clear cutting of huge swaths of land. It led to tremendous legal actions. There was chaos and destruction in small forestry towns in those states. It was totally unnecessary. A much better resolution could have been derived and it all was lost in the fog because it became a fight among law makers, politicians and lawyers.

In summary, we still have a problem with the legislation. Unless there is mandatory compensation and no criminalization of unintentional behaviour, we will not achieve our goal of effective protection of endangered species.

[Softwood Lumber, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the fact that the U.S. is pursuing an agreement which calls for us to abandon our WTO legal actions demonstrates that the U.S. lumber lobby has not reached its goals.

The U.S. lumber lobby has tried to delay and hamper the Canadian WTO appeal process at every step. Its legal case is weakening and it has responded by opening an attack on the Canadian Wheat Board.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure us he will not put the Americans back in the driver's seat by relinquishing our WTO rights?

[Softwood Lumber, February 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian and U.S. officials are meeting tomorrow to discuss the softwood lumber dispute.

Last week the chair of the U.S. senate finance committee called for a suspension agreement that would require Canada to extinguish its pursuit of legal remedies through the WTO. Meanwhile our trade minister is off selling vodka to the Russians.

Would the Deputy Prime Minister assure Canadians that in the face of American bully tactics Canada will not compromise on our WTO actions?

[Budget Implementation Act, February 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the budget the government presented last December 10 was a great disappointment to many of us. We were expecting the government to do something about the fundamentals. However we saw no provision for scheduled debt reduction, no measures to stimulate the economy, no tax relief and no substantive or significant increases to medicare and the things people in Canada value so much.

The Canadian dollar was at 78 cents U.S. or thereabouts when the government came in. It is now sitting somewhere around 62 cents. People are not calling it a dollar. They are calling it a dollarette. We used to make comparisons on a North American context and compare ourselves in the worst case with the Mexican peso. Now we cannot even do that because Mexico has become a much friendlier place than Canada for investment. The Mexican peso has increased in terms of double digits in relation to the U.S. dollar while we have gone in the other direction. It would be flattering to be able to compare ourselves with the Mexican peso but we cannot make that claim.

The largest symptom of what is going on is that Canadians have chosen not to invest in Canada. The world has become a much more flexible place. Canadians will no longer be held hostage in their own country in terms of how they choose to make investments, and money is very fluid as we all know.

We had a longstanding restraint which was counterproductive. We were only allowed to put 10% of our RSP investment into non-Canadian investments. That has recently been increased although it is still not a free for all. There is still some constraint. However even with the constraint Canadians are choosing more and more to invest outside their country. We are investing more outside our country than inside and there is a reason. The expectation is that the Canadian dollar will continue to do poorly against its international comparison which is primarily the U.S. dollar. Until we turn that around it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.

The only way to turn this around is to change the fundamentals. However the government has chosen not to address the fundamentals in the budget at a time when we need to bolster the credibility of the government in the public eye. We all know that after September 11 a lot of anxiety was directed toward how the government would address a lot of things. Without trade Canada's prosperity is jeopardized. Some 87% of our trade is with our U.S. partner. What we did in the budget to address our security and other concerns had obvious implications for our trade.

I will pose a rhetorical question. What has happened to Canada's pride? Because of the unique circumstances and timing of the budget the government did not address the things on which people were placing the most personal emphasis. We ended up with the Department of National Defence getting an increase to pay for Operation Apollo, our commitment in Afghanistan, and nothing to address the rust out and other major considerations we all know are so necessary to upgrade the armed forces and give our personnel what they deserve.

Last year I went with seven or eight members of parliament to Fort Lewis, Washington to watch Canadian army reserves from British Columbia participate in a training exercise. Since the army base in Chilliwack, B.C. is closed it is a way for them to train cost effectively. It was an eye opener. First, there are more U.S. military personnel stationed at Fort Lewis than there are Canadian personnel in the entire Canadian armed forces.

Second, while we were there we were given presentations on the Canadian Clothe the Soldier Project. I saw state of the art, technically developed and internationally acclaimed clothing, body armour, boots and other instruments that would be the envy of many of our NATO partners and other countries around the world.

It was with great concern that I discovered yes, we had seen all the prototypes and yes, we had spent $300 million on the program, but when it came to deploying our troops we did not have what was required. That was the impression I was left with.

I have made this statement but I will repeat it. The budget did nothing to address the fact that in its early response to September 11 Canada, the major trading partner of the U.S., was displaced as a friend of the United States by the U.K. We have not got that status back because we have not put our money where our mouth is.

We need to do more, spend more and have a firmer policy on border security. We need an immigration and refugee determination process that places Canadian security concerns first. We need to address our lack of military spending. We have been criticized across the board by Lord Robertson of NATO.

The Bush budget of last week added $46 billion to the U.S. military. If we were to do that on an equivalent basis it would be $4.6 billion. It shows how silly our commitment looks. We need an enhanced set of personnel resources on all fronts. This includes our park wardens, customs officers and every other front line service.

[Softwood Lumber, February 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister had a strategy the tactics would work themselves out. The tactics are not even working. He has reversed himself twice in the last two days in terms of whether the talks are on or off. It is all a face saving measure.

The minister talked about the Export Development Corporation's bond program. The program is so poorly designed that EDC admits no forestry company has taken them up. Will the minister redesign the bond program so that companies can qualify to cover--

[Softwood Lumber, February 8th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if 60,000 people out of work is fearmongering I do not know where the minister's head is at. Contrary to the minister's optimism I refer members to the U.S. trade representative's appearance at the senate finance committee two days ago in Washington. If that was free trade talk I do not know what protectionism is either.

Industry in the provinces fear U.S. attempts to divide them against each other. That is the format of the negotiation so far and continuation in that format certainly is not in our best interests. Despite asking the question I have not received an answer. Will the minister guarantee that he will not allow the provinces to--

[Softwood Lumber, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is good at empty ultimatums and empty statements.

The U.S. lumber lobby thrives on one sided negotiations where it takes and we give. It wants offers from Canada until it gets exactly what it wants. These are not negotiations. They are one sided demands.

Will the Prime Minister assure us that he will not allow another round where the provinces are pitted against one another?

[Softwood Lumber, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Canada has tens of thousands of forest workers in dire straits. Forest companies are hurting.

There is a federal bonding program run by Export Development Canada that has been so poorly contrived that not a single Canadian forest company has been able to use it.

The government has made no attempts at dialogue or any movement of assistance for laid off workers who are exhausting their medical, dental and EI benefits.

Why is this government ignoring rural Canadians, rural Canada and our most important export earning industry?

[Softwood Lumber, February 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the cost of the softwood dispute for Canadian producers now stands at $700 million. Meanwhile the department of trade shrinks from aggressively supporting a NAFTA challenge launched by a Canadian lumber producer.

Our trade minister is suggesting that Canada's loyalty to fighting terrorism should help in trade disputes with the U.S. on softwood and other issues. The reality is that Canada was displaced at the front line by the U.K. and its unequivocal support after September 11 while this government sat on its hands until the Canadian Alliance and Canadians at large moved it from its inertia. During this important time of coalition building Indonesia had tariffs removed from plywood exports to the U.S. while our softwood situation worsened.

Empty statements from the minister and soft Liberal government policies on security, trade and defence are continuing to damage our prosperity.

[Softwood Lumber, January 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as a result of the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S., thousands of forest workers face expiry of their medical, dental and EI coverage and some companies are in trouble.

The minister was asked weeks ago to initiate a cost analysis so that the Canadian response to next week's U.S. counter proposal could be shown to be clearly in our interests.

Has this cost analysis been initiated and how soon can we expect it?