John Duncan

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have had two speakers now from the government side. They have managed to avoid the main substance of our motion which deals with the lack of support for laid off workers and for the agriculture and softwood industries. I am most amazed.

I would like to pose a question to the member for Etobicoke North on the softwood lumber issue. He dragged up some history from 1986. Let us talk about 1996. In 1996 the government insisted it had done a cost benefit analysis before it signed that agreement. The member for Okanagan—Shuswap determined through over a million pages of documentation from access to information that the government never ever did a cost benefit analysis before it signed that agreement.

An additional hypocrisy or misleading of the public was dealing with the pulp mill subsidy in Quebec. Against the advice of the government's now minister of revenue and the fact that it would go against the WTO, the government proceeded to do it for electoral purposes.

Is the member for Etobicoke North proud to revise history and drag our leader into 1986 history because he is not proud of his government's 1996 history?

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I throw that into the category of petty politics. There has been nobody who has been more proactive on the softwood issue than the Canadian Alliance. We led announcements by the government from either his minister or the Minister of Natural Resources time after time. This is somewhat of an embarrassment to the government and that is why it is playing petty politics.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is abundantly clear that we have a special relationship with the United States. First, it is our NAFTA trading partner. There are only three nations in NAFTA. Second, 85% of our exports go to the United States.

The parliamentary secretary must remember that it was his own minister who made the comment that the Prime Minister's effectiveness in dealing with the Bush administration was tainted and not worthwhile because of the track record of antagonism between the Prime Minister and the Bush administration. I do not know that a comparison of non-NAFTA nations is useful.

The parliamentary secretary has brought up many times the question of a vacancy in the trade portfolio. It is a bogus point. The parliamentary secretary knows that the softwood file was my file when I was in the natural resources portfolio long before I was named trade critic. There has not been a beat missed. This is simply throwing a red herring into the fray.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

moved:

That this House has lost confidence in the government for its failure to persuade the US government to end protectionist policies that are damaging Canada's agriculture and lumber industries and for failing to implement offsetting trade injury measures for the agriculture and lumber sectors.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise before the House today to present this supply day motion for the official opposition. As the international trade critic for the official opposition and speaking first, I will focus my comments on the softwood lumber side of the motion and will split my time with my colleague, the member for Selkirk--Interlake, who is our senior agriculture critic and will focus on the agriculture industry side of the motion.

The importance of the motion should not be underestimated. First, there are Canadians sitting at home not working because of belligerent comments about Presidents Bush, senior and junior, by the Prime Minister and his nephew. Canadians are very aware that the Canadian government essentially has no influence on the Bush administration and its increasingly protectionist policies.

Just last week, from May 16 to 20, the Canada-U.S. Interparliamentary Group met with senators and congressmen in the U.S., and the kinds of problems we have became very clear. For example, we had the Minister of Natural Resources make a $75 million announcement on some programs for the forest sector that have direct implications for the softwood lumber dispute. Despite the fact that Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade had full knowledge of our visit, despite the fact it knew softwood was on the agenda, there was no follow-up to ensure that the government members in the meeting were aware of what had been announced.

Fortunately, or maybe from the government's perspective unfortunately, I was the only one who could really respond to questions put forward by a U.S. senator and a U.S. congressman about whether or not the program was a subsidy. I had been made aware through my office that this announcement had been made and I had already put out a somewhat critical press release.

My point is that the government is not results oriented. It only knows how to throw money around. When it comes to following through and working in the trenches, it is simply not there.

There is a host of examples of areas in which the government has gone out of its way to alienate our major trading partner. Our motion asks the government to re-evaluate its basic approach to Canada-U.S. relations.

In addition, the official opposition has been trying to engage the government for months on the extension of EI benefits to accommodate forest workers laid off as a consequence of the softwood lumber dispute and on designing a softwood tariff trade injury program that would prevent the closing of significant parts of the softwood industry in the face of the punishing 27% tariffs. Not only does the minister of trade not want to talk about these trade issues despite extensive questioning, but he also sent a strong signal to the minister of human resources by stating that no softwood lumber jobs have been lost due to the softwood lumber dispute. This statement is factually wrong. Is it any wonder that the minister for HRDC has been impossible to move on the plight of unemployed forest workers when her responsible cabinet colleague makes statements denying that a very real problem exists?

We have asked the minister of trade to apologize for his comments, and despite letters from industry and workers, the minister has neither apologized nor retracted his statement.

One of the employers wrote a letter on May 6. He said:

I am very disturbed that you do not feel our forest employees are negatively impacted by the softwood lumber dispute. I have on many occasions, advised you of the layoffs our employees have faced due to the unresolved softwood lumber dispute. You have indicated that the forest industry is going through a restructuring process. May I remind you that all industries go through a restructuring process when demand is low, as higher cost operations are shutdown or curtailed. I have informed you in the past that U.S. lumber consumption is very strong, however a 27.22% duty cannot be absorbed by our customers and we will continue to lose market share. This is not due to a restructuring process, this is due to the unresolved softwood dispute.

The employer went on to complain:

One year later there is still no plan B and yet you have told us since last year, that the Government of Canada will assist companies when we fight these unwarranted duties.

I am advising you today, that our Company will once again take significant downtime as a direct result of the softwood lumber issue at many of our operations causing job loss and further loss of market share unless a non-subsidized program is put in place promptly for forest companies.

That in a nutshell summarizes much of our concern.

The Minister of Natural Resources, when the minister of trade did not have the opportunity to be in the House, was questioned on these comments and he suggested they were taken out of context. He denied that forest workers were out of work because of the dispute. However we all saw the television scrum. We all know the government is into damage control regarding scandals, cronyism and corruption.

In the last week the Minister of Natural Resources and the minister of trade have announced $95 million worth of spending in the forest sector. These public relations damage control announcements will do nothing to address the real issues which are unemployment and mill closings. What the government is announcing is long term spending and it is deeming this to be for innovation, diversification, research and development and forest industry advocacy.

We should take a moment to analyze what the announcements mean in substance. The advocacy should have been started years ago. The all party natural resources committee which I sat on in June 2000 suggested exactly that. The leader of the official opposition and I called for this advocacy last August.

Our government talks tough domestically and then treads lightly with our U.S. trading partner. I will summarize my comments as they relate to the $75 million announcement on May 16 by the natural resources minister. This funding is an attempt to obscure the fact that the government is avoiding the real issue of tariffs and that this will affect our competitiveness in the U.S. marketplace.

Diversification and innovation are areas in which the government has had a poor track record in picking and choosing winners and losers. Any development of markets is long overdue but will hardly address the current issue in a timely way.

Six weeks ago this same minister echoed my call for a tariff management scheme through Export Development Canada or some other vehicle while Canada continued its challenge of the U.S. tariffs at the World Trade Organization and before NAFTA. He has been distancing himself from those comments ever since.

I put the Minister of Natural Resources on notice at the premiers' summit on softwood lumber in Vancouver on April 29 that we had not forgotten his support on March 29. We will continue to call him to account for those statements which he has refused to support ever since.

The $20 million announcement from the international trade minister yesterday is months overdue. It does nothing to address the real issue of forced worker layoffs and mill closings. The announcement is simply public relations and damage control.

This announcement is not new money. The minister is reannouncing a $17 million program planned prior to September 11 that was shelved. The minister's announcement of $3 million in additional resources for our trade consulates to deal with U.S. trade issues is long overdue. These announcements continue to do nothing to address the substantial measures needed to assist laid off forest workers and to deal with the tariff burden that is threatening large sectors of the Canadian forest industry.

We will continue to press the minister on these issues and that is what today's debate is all about.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to speak to Bill C-56, an act respecting assisted human reproduction.

This is an important piece of legislation that would leave a legacy for a long time to come. What we do with it is important because we are in a sense entering into a legal vacuum. Bill C-56 would set the tone and put things in motion that would have important consequences down the road.

It is not only important that the legislation is well thought out. It is important that it is created in a way that allows it to move with the times and with people's growing sensitivity to the subject matter as public knowledge in the area grows in leaps and bounds.

One of the difficulties at the moment is that newspapers and all forms of electronic media are naturally attracted to embryonic research developments and not so attracted to adult stem cell developments. This is because we all think of adult stem cell research as traditional science. Traditional science tends to get relegated to the back burner while things like cloning are considered newsworthy and popular. However that will change because the science will have many practical implications and applications.

People have made reference to the fact that there have been recent developments. It is true that a lot more scientists are working on adult stem cells than on embryos, so the amount of effort going in is reflected in the results coming out. However it is also true that most of the positive results and developments have been through adult stem cells rather than embryonic research.

Assisted human reproduction is not something a lot of people have had to think about in a personal context. However it has touched my family in a significant way. It is an interesting juxtaposition. My younger brother is not only a leading edge geneticist at Washington University in the U.S. He and his wife are the proud parents of four beaming children who are all the products of assisted human reproduction. He is combining a lot of things. We are cognizant of all the scientific developments as a consequence of how they have affected our greater family.

My brother has pointed out some important cautions the House needs to seriously think about. First, as people who have had embryos in motion he and his wife are extremely relieved they have no embryos still in the system. There is an interesting dimension to all this. There is a never-ending argument about when life begins. For my scientist brother, a father, life begins at first cell division. He is probably one of the few people in the world who have seen their offspring at first cell division. It brings the whole question into intimate contact. The thought that there might be mothers' embryos out there for scientists to be experiment with is of huge concern to my brother and his wife. It is important that we recognize parental ownership of the materials.

We must get the legislation as right as we can. It touches on matters of life and death and on parents seeking to conceive children and build families. At the same time we must continue to promote the quest for scientific advancements to cure diseases or repair accident damages.

One interesting development shows how quickly the field is changing. My brother's family is quite young, but early on as a geneticist he recognized the value of adult stem cells which come from the umbilical cord. The cells must be taken at birth. There was a politically correct movement to denigrate people who took the cells to store and freeze for the future benefit of their children, the very children from whose umbilical cords the cells were taken. My brother saw through all that and made such arrangements for his own children. It is no longer politically correct to say it is a bad thing. Scientists have discovered it is a good thing that can guarantee medical opportunities for the children.

This reinforces my point that it is important to engage the public to stay in tune with public attitudes and ethics. That is why all the provisions in Bill C-56 that would set up the agency are weak and need to be changed. The agency needs to be arm's length from the minister and report to parliament. It needs a lot of other changes that have been recommended by the official opposition.

[Points of Order, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, during question period I asked a question with respect to the World Trade Organization.

It has come to my attention that a fraud has been perpetrated upon the House. The World Trade Organization website was broken into and inaccurate material was placed on its website. I relied on that information when I asked my question.

As soon as I found that out I wanted to clarify to the House that there was no substance to the suggestion that the WTO was being reconstituted, re-organized and so on. Therefore there was no substance to my final question in the House during question period today.

[Canada-U.S. Relations, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there is a big difference between a respectful distance and a stick in the eye.

After a protracted and detailed review of current trade policy, the World Trade Organization has decided to effect a cessation of all operations to be accomplished over the next four months, culminating by the end of September. The World Trade Organization will reintegrate as a new trade body the trade regulation organization.

Will the government inform Canadians what impact this will have on our appeals on lumber, agriculture and other ongoing trade disputes?

[Canada-U.S. Relations, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, there are Canadians sitting at home not working because of belligerent comments about Presidents Bush, senior and junior, by the Prime Minister and his nephew. Canadians are very aware that the government has no influence on the Bush administration and its increasingly protectionist policies.

When will the government get out of its recliner chair and get to work on improving relations with the Bush administration?

[Softwood Lumber, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, every time I ask a question about the softwood dispute I get the same answer from the minister, “we have been working very, very hard on this file”, but nothing ever happens. Nothing.

A proposal for Export Development Canada to insure softwood tariffs so that companies will have a smaller cash requirement has been stonewalled by government indifference and inaction.

When will the minister actually do something?

[Softwood Lumber, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of trade insults forest workers by saying that they are not victims of a trade dispute. The government has offered only useless platitudes to assist laid off forest workers.

Compare this callousness to yesterday's announcement by the HRDC minister to take action within hours of an emergency resulting from a fire at Notre-Dame-du-Lac.

Why does the government continue to ignore the lumber emergency?