John Rafferty

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for the government side and say whether they are ashamed of the bill. I suspect they probably are.

However, just as the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has said, there are some things in EFTA that are worthwhile, and we do not have any objections to that. What we are asking is that shipbuilding be excluded from the bill before it goes forward. It just a simple request. It has nothing to do with many of the other trade parts of the agreement.

I have seen the devastation in Thunder Bay over the years as shipbuilding has declined. As I said, it is very difficult to understand why, when we have a shipbuilding capacity in a city like Thunder Bay that has been hard hit in other areas, such as forestry, because of ill-advised agreements and a lack of caring by various levels of government. It is difficult for me to stay clear eyed as I speak when I know about families that have been devastated and people who have lost their jobs and probably some peripheral things, such as the loss of skilled labour. When that kind of thing happens, skilled labour leaves the area, the region and the province. We cannot afford to have any more out-migrations.

I hope the government will have a look at this, consider the shipbuilding element of this and decide that what we have talked about today is the right way to go.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I apologize to the House. Hon. members might want to ask a couple of questions on that.

Even those in the business community who have a vested interest in supporting the acceleration of EFTA, such as the Canadian Shipowners Association, justify their support on the basis that Canada has forever lost its ability to build ships, but we do not share that pessimism. With proper and intelligent support from the federal government, Canada's domestic shipbuilding industry could be rapidly up and running. All that is missing is the political will of the federal government.

The U.S. has always refused to repeal the Jones act and it has been mentioned a couple of times today. I would like to remind the House of what that act says. The legislation has been in place since 1920 and protects the U.S. capacity to produce commercial ships. The Jones act requires that commerce between U.S. ports on the inland and intercoastal waterways be reserved for vessels that are U.S. built, U.S. owned, registered under U.S. law and U.S. manned. The U.S. has also refused to include shipbuilding under NAFTA and has implemented in recent years a heavily subsidized naval reconstruction program.

Therefore, the shipbuilding sector must be excluded from this agreement and the federal government should immediately help put together a structured financing facility, SFF, an accelerated capital cost allowance for the industry, and an effective buy Canada policy for all government procurement.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I am not talking about protectionism. I am talking about fair play and I am talking about looking out for the future of our children, our families, and our capacity to produce goods which are needed in Canada and around the world. We have that capacity.

In closing, I would like to invite some questions from the government side and the opposition. I know there are probably a couple.

[Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, February 2nd, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to give a preamble. My comments about the bill are not about protectionism. My comments about the bill are about the future of our children and our jobs in this country. I cannot hope to reach the eloquent level of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore but I will certainly try.

The House might be wondering why someone from northern Ontario is standing up to talk about the shipbuilding component of the bill. Aside from being a forestry centre for Canada, Thunder Bay is also one of the shipbuilding and ship repairing centres in Canada.

Members in the House may not know that but I would just like to point that out because we are a shipbuilding city. We have skilled workers, we have a seagoing harbour, and we have high tech companies, like Pascal Engineering, that build and repair ships.

Unfortunately, when it comes to shipbuilding in this country as we have seen over the years, awarding contracts for shipbuilding is not done on any logical basis. It is really done on a political basis. What I am hoping is, when I finish speaking today, that someone from the government side will stand up and tell me that shipbuilding centres in Canada like Thunder Bay will not be forgotten if any money every does come forward to build ships. They can build them small, they can build them large and we would certainly like to be part of that. I would like someone on the government side to get up and assure the people in Thunder Bay and northwestern Ontario that this is going to happen.

The people in Thunder Bay in the shipbuilding sector do not believe that shipbuilding is a sunset industry. The government and indeed the Government of Ontario say that they believe that shipbuilding just like forestry is a sunset industry.

My major concern with the bill are the provisions regarding shipbuilding. The bill reduces tariffs on ships from 25% to 0% over a period of 10 to 15 years depending on the type of products. Nothing happens in the first three years. One category of ships goes right down to zero and these are the very large ships, the very kinds of ships that can be built in Thunder Bay.

The government has dropped the ball on other trade agreements. I do not want to go into great detail about that, but what we are talking about is a situation that is very real with real jobs disappearing.

We understand the ideology of the government on free trade agreements. An economist 15 or 20 years ago in the United States wrote a book and said that they are good things. Unfortunately, the way they have been arranged is that they are mostly selling out.

In support of my argument I would like to give the House a couple of quotes. The first one is from George MacPherson who is the president of the Shipyard General Workers' Federation of British Columbia. He said:

The Canadian shipbuilding industry is already operating at about 1/3 of its capacity. Canadian demand for ships over the next 15 years is estimated to be worth $9 billion in Canadian jobs. Under the FTAs with Norway, Iceland, and now planned with Korea, and then Japan, these Canadian shipbuilding jobs are in serious jeopardy. In these terms this government plan is shear folly, and an outrage.

As well, Les Hollaway, who is the Atlantic Canada Director of CAW, stated, “Your committee should not recommend this free trade agreement without first recommending that the federal government first address the issues facing the shipbuilding industry that would allow the industry to compete in a fair and equitable manner with our trading partners”.

What is the shipbuilding issue? During the last 20 years Norway, Canada's EFTA main competitor in this sector, built a strong shipbuilding industry by initially protecting its market and by heavily subsidizing production. Now, Norway is able to compete in the zero tariff environment. During all that time Canada had kept the 25% tariff on ship imports without a shipbuilding policy of any kind and no money to support the industry. The so-called generous 10 to 15 year phase-out terms simply mean a stay of execution for Canada's shipbuilding industry.

Andrew McArthur from the Shipbuilding Association of Canada made a compelling case on behalf of Canadian shipbuilders to have that industry explicitly excluded from the Canada-EFTA agreement, as it is from NAFTA. He noted that Norway's world class shipbuilding industry is not subsidized today, but it owes its present competitiveness to the serious government support it received in the past years. Andrew McArthur said:

So our position from day one has been that shipbuilding should be carved out from the trade agreement. We butted our heads against a brick wall for quite a number of years on that and we were told there is no carve-out. If the Americans, under the Jones Act, can carve out shipbuilding from NAFTA and other free trade agreements, as I believe the Americans are doing today with Korea, or have done, why can Canada not do the same?

It is precisely this type of policy that has allowed Norway to become a world class player that it is today and this is precisely what the federal government failed to do by completely gutting Canada's shipbuilding industry.

Canada has the largest coastline in the world. It has no strategy for its shipbuilding industry. This situation is absolutely unacceptable. When the tariffs come down in 15 years Canada's industry will be unable to cope with Norwegian competition. The current state of Canada's shipbuilding industry is directly related to the absence of a vigorous industrial development policy by successive federal and Conservative governments. Canada's shipyard industry is only a shadow of its former self, roughly one-third to one-quarter of where it was 10 or 15 years ago.

Recently, the Harper government and the B.C. Campbell government again refused to stand up for our shipbuilding industry. I do not want to go into too much detail, but we all know the story of the B.C. Ferries. The first ship arrived last December. The Harper government has refused to commit to put toward--

[The Budget, January 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have a pointed question for the member and I am asking him for his help. I want to preface my remarks by saying that the government believes that northern Ontario begins at about Highway 7 or at the very farthest perhaps Barrie. When the government talks about money for the Trans-Canada Highway I just wonder where it is going to be.

Let me say that I am very glad to hear that a very dangerous stretch of Highway 17 is being fixed. It is a horrible piece of highway and it is a wonderful thing that it is being twinned.

I would like to ask the member if he will insist with his caucus and with the ministers that an even more dangerous stretch of highway in northern Ontario be twinned. I am talking about a stretch of about 100 kilometres between Nipigon and Thunder Bay. Will he work with me to make sure that happens?

[The Budget, January 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the member raised that point. The $170 million allotted to forestry in the budget is mostly money for research and marketing. That is certainly welcome, but far more of a concern is the plight of our forestry families in our single industry towns that have been decimated by five and more years of recession in this sector. More than 38,000 good paying jobs have been lost in forestry during this period and tens of thousands more jobs are likely to be lost in the coming year and we hear of new losses almost daily. It was announced today that a forestry company in Thunder Bay will go into receivership tomorrow. AbitibiBowater, one of the largest, is now being faced with what we hope is not a permanent shutdown. It is a situation that is continuing to steamroll. Many of those workers have spent their entire lives working for one employer and now find themselves out of work for the first time.

Therefore, when I speak about the failure of the budget to help the forestry sector, I mean that the budget does nothing to help our forestry families and communities. There is no direct assistance for laid off forestry workers. Where there is some assistance, such as the community adjustment fund, our forestry communities must get in line with mining, agriculture, fishing and manufacturing dependent communities. It is simply not enough.

[The Budget, January 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, when we look at a budget carefully we sometimes see things in the back hidden away. For example, there are $72 million less for public health in this budget than there were before. I would ask everyone to have a very careful look.

In terms of employment insurance, when employment insurance runs out for the people of Ontario and they have no other option, they apply for Ontario Works which is the direct responsibility, at least until 2018 or two or three Ontario governments from now, of the municipalities. That means that municipalities will be harder and harder hit as more and more people run out of employment insurance benefits.

We were asking for up to two years of employment insurance benefits to ensure there would be less pressure on families and on the municipalities. The ball keeps on rolling and trickling down. Municipalities have less money, so if they need to match money for infrastructure projects, they will have less money over the next couple of years. It is a situation for which the budget does not prepare my province.

[The Budget, January 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this budget is a missed opportunity to help our economy recover and help Canadian families make ends meet during this increasingly deep and painful recession. As such, I will be opposing this fiscally and socially irresponsible budget.

The Conservative-Liberal budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year pushes ahead with a treasury-draining $60 billion in corporate tax cuts that can only go into the well-lined pockets of shareholders of the most profitable Canadian companies. While shovelling money into pockets of the wealthiest companies and shareholders, this Conservative-Liberal budget also ensures that ordinary Canadians will continue to suffer throughout this long and painful crisis. The appalling $84 billion deficit will ensure that the children of ordinary Canadians also suffer unjustly.

The government continues to sit and collect interest on the $54 billion surplus in the employment insurance fund and offers no help to the 73% of workers who pay into this fund but are unable to draw from it once they lose their jobs. Even more appalling is that making employment insurance more accessible to those neglected 73% of Canadians and their families would not have added even a single dollar to the massive deficit in this budget. It would have come from the $54 billion stand-alone fund that sits untouched.

To those Canadians who need access to employment insurance funds but are denied, I say that Canada's New Democrats are here, standing with you in spirit in this House, to oppose this budget and the social injustice that it perpetuates and in many cases intensifies.

On the issue of forestry, this government has the nerve and arrogance to table a budget that contains $60 billion for permanent corporate tax cuts and just $170 million for the struggling forestry sector that provides employment to nearly one million Canadians and which has been in its own recession for more than five years.

Thought of another way, this Conservative-Liberal budget provides just $170 million to help struggling forestry families get through this crisis while handing out $60 billion to the well off shareholders of Canada's most profitable corporations. It is as if the Minister of Finance thinks the people of our northern communities and forestry towns simply do not exist. We do exist and we are proud to stand here today in opposition to this budget.

Contrary to what this Conservative-Liberal government thinks, and indeed contrary to what the Premier of Ontario thinks, forestry is not a sunset industry. New Democrats have come to expect the sort of cold-hearted and irresponsible policy that is contained in this budget from the current government. After all, it is the one who destroyed the fiscal capacity of the Government of Ontario before moving on like locusts to destroy the once robust fields of our federal treasury.

The government can do so in this budget only if it is enabled by the official opposition. Sadly, it would appear that this will be the case and I dare say the federal treasury will never be the same. Each and every member of the official opposition that stands in support of this budget should hang their heads in shame for the fact that they have turned their backs on the most vulnerable Canadians they said they would protect just 72 short hours ago. I will leave it to them to explain to their constituents why they think the current government is better suited to deal with this crisis than they.

The people of Thunder Bay—Rainy River told me what our riding needed from this budget and I am sad to see that our needs are not being met by the contents of this document. There is no extension of VIA rail service to Thunder Bay and rural communities, just more trains between Canada's two largest urban municipalities. There is no mention of shipbuilding at our facilities in Thunder Bay.

The money in the budget for first nations infrastructure and health is welcome but it is not adequate. There is next to nothing in this budget that will improve rural access to family doctors, physiotherapists and mental health and emergency care facilities.

There is a significant amount of money allotted for the upgrading of border facilities in British Columbia and southern and eastern Ontario but apparently no money for upgrading the Rainy River, Fort Frances and Pigeon River crossings, the three international border crossings that are in my riding.

There is some new money for infrastructure but no mention of support for small projects like the Royal Canadian Legion in Kakabeka Falls. Municipalities in my riding cannot afford matching funds for the infrastructure projects they need. Non-profit organizations cannot afford large loans to improve their infrastructure and operations so they can continue to provide services to seniors, children and families in rural communities like Rainy River, Upsala and Atikokan. Because these and other local concerns are not adequately addressed in this budget, I will vote against the passage of this budget.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to thank the liberal, green and progressive-minded constituents in my riding who voiced their support for our attempt to form a Liberal-New Democrat coalition government. I and the entire New Democrat caucus entered into that endeavour for the right reasons: to provide a stable, progressive and cooperative government that reflected the values of 62% of Canadian voters. Because of the shortsighted and ill-advised capitulation of the official opposition to the government on this budget, our progressive endeavour did not succeed.

I want to thank those in my riding, particularly progressive Liberals, who reached out and extended a hand in partnership and trust. Their support and efforts in this common cause were greatly appreciated and will not be forgotten. My door remains open today and tomorrow.

It is in the spirit of social justice, fiscal responsibility and progressive values that I will be casting my vote in opposition to this budget.

[The Budget, January 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I ask this question of the minister in my capacity as the NDP critic for forestry. Two years ago, $200 million was promised by the government to fight the pine beetle. To this date the money has not materialized. Now in the budget there is no mention at all of dedicated spending to deal with the pine beetle problem. This is just one example of critical spending that is not in the budget. I would like to ask the minister when this promised money will be released?

[The Economy, December 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, while automotive plants are shutting down in southern Ontario, mills and processing plants are closing in northern Ontario.

Day after day, more layoffs and bankruptcies are announced, but the current government does not understand the needs of northern Ontario or the real economy.

Why is it that instead of protecting jobs, pensions and savings, all the current government could come up with was partisan games, the removal of labour rights and, shamefully, the denial of the needs of working families?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 27th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the hon. member for his re-election again to the House.

He talked about a number of things. He mentioned infrastructure a couple of times. Surely he knows, as I know and everyone in the House knows, there is no new money for infrastructure with $7.3 billion in tax cuts. He talked about the debt that this country is about to start accruing. Cancelling those tax cuts would be a big help in going in that direction. Tax cuts, by the way, that are for the most profitable companies in Canada, not struggling companies and not small businesses.

The hon. member clearly thinks that his party would do a much better job in government. Therefore, I would like to ask the member a very simple question. Why is he supporting the Speech from the Throne?