Nathan Cullen

[Aboriginal Affairs, December 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, today I am honoured to welcome a number of chiefs from my riding to Ottawa for the special assembly of chiefs.

The first nations of my region have a long and proud tradition and culture that goes back thousands of years. Yet far too many of them suffer under third world conditions that we would not accept in any other region of our country.

The violence that inevitably accompanies these conditions is faced by the aboriginal women who live along Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. This highway has become known as the highway of tears. Since 1974, there have been at least nine and potentially as many as thirty-five women who have disappeared or been killed along the highway. An overwhelming number of these women were aboriginal.

Any tragedy of this kind has a huge impact on families and communities, but this wound has been made worse by officials who seem to give these disappearances less attention than they merit. What effort was made was too little too late.

We all must work together to finally solve the conditions that are leading to such tragedies--

[Canada's Clean Air Act, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the luxury of time is one thing that we simply do not have anymore after so many years of failed plans, misspent money, and pollution continuing to rise year after year. The competitiveness of the Canadian economy was also suffering as a result because energy was not being used in the most efficient means, certainly not in respect to our competitors. Lo and behold, even the United States under George Bush was able to make more reductions when it came to greenhouse gas emissions than Canada was able to make as an actual signatory to Kyoto.

One might despair looking at the Bloc and the Liberal Party that presented very little in the way of moving this logjam forward. One might despair as upward of 80% of the funding for what few programs were running under the previous regime were cut by the Conservative government. Canadians could be forgiven for thinking that all was lost for this particular Parliament. We moved to find the space within the debate that allowed the most progressive ideas to come forward.

Right now major environmental groups operating in all of the provinces are coming forward with their best ideas. They have come to an agreement on what types of principles need to be imbedded in this bill to change its bad structure, the structure of delay, and the structure of allowing cabinet to continue to delay decisions that Canadians are waiting for.

These groups are willing to work with the opposition parties and parliamentarians to make something happen. They are willing to work with us to make what seemed impossible only a few short weeks ago possible. The Canadian government will finally have to act with leadership and responsibility. It will finally have to make the tough decisions. It will finally have to make the decisions that were lauded and claimed by previous regimes but never came to fruition.

As the Environment Commissioner said, the government was often gone before the confetti hit the ground. That is one of her more memorable quotes, but there were many talking about the $6 billion announced but only $1.3 billion actually spent, talking about programs with no monitoring, no efficacy, and no ability to look at whether money was going in the right place or not.

We have stepped into that void, that vacuum, and created something positive. It will now be possible, if the other parties are willing to put partisan interests aside, to make something finally happen for all Canadians and our climate.

[Canada's Clean Air Act, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, right at the very end of that wandering question was the point that I remember the new leader of the Liberal Party making when he was standing in front of the environment committee. It was the very same claim that my hon. colleague just made, which is that since the economy improved of course our emissions had to go up. They said that was the reason for them going up, not the fact that $6 billion was announced and only $1 billion was spent.

This fundamental belief is the belief that party finally has to change: that the economy increasing somehow means that pollution must increase as well. Canadians know better. They realize that there are opportunities to grow our economy and actually reduce our pollution. That type of ideology has to fundamentally change. If it does not, we are all in deep trouble.

[Canada's Clean Air Act, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in this debate as we move this bill forward. It is a bill that is deeply flawed and has been discredited across the environmental sector and in other parts of our communities, because as members in the House join the daily gathering of question period, it speaks to the partisan nature that for far too long has overridden all good and sensible conduct when it comes to our environment.

As Canadians tune in to watch what has become the daily spectacle of question period and the partisan approach that seems necessary to attract attention to any given issue of the day, they despair. They despair because partisan politics have overridden the commonsensical approach, particularly to things like climate change.

There is a necessity to look at the context and the history of what has happened in the debate and in the actions of the Canadian government over the last 15 to 20 years as this issue has grown in importance and context throughout the world. As country after country has taken on this issue with seriousness and determination, why has Canada continued to fall further and further to the back of the field?

We saw a number of plans under the previous regimes. The Liberals came up with the so-called action plan 2000 that was anything but action. There was a climate change plan for Canada in 2002 that was nothing of the sort, with no plan and still no action. Finally, in 2005 there was project green, which the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development herself said was not enough to get us there.

On this issue, I believe that Canadians have been out in front of the politicians consistently, year in and year out, demanding more from us, demanding a sense of leadership rather than partisan debate and the small inaccurate steps taken by regime after regime, previously by the Liberals and now by the Conservatives, when it comes to what is now being represented as the most pressing issue, certainly environmentally, and perhaps it is the most pressing issue of all.

When the NDP and the other opposition parties first looked at the bill the Conservatives proposed, they found it wanting. It lacks principles and is thus impossible to support in principle. For those who are watching and just coming to this debate, I will note that when a bill gets passed through this House on second reading, it means that the House has agreed to the bill in its principles, in its very nature, and then wishes to tweak and alter some of those parts of the bill which can be altered.

However, the process that we New Democrats proposed and which the other parties agreed to was, without any such agreement, to take this bill and to have the opportunity to change its very DNA, to change the very structure of what is being proposed for Canada's environment and Canada's economy.

As has been said, Kyoto is more an economic pact than an environmental one. It asks the world to consider and bring about changes to the way we earn money, to the way we drive our economies, particularly when it comes to the energy sector, and to look at new ways that are necessary for the very survival of our planet, for continuing a prosperous planet and, in this country, a prosperous national economy.

Canadians have been demanding and expecting leadership on this issue, but in budget after budget and government after government they have seen otherwise. They have seen short term, nearsighted thinking. It is time that Canadians got what they truly deserve, which is leadership when it comes to the environment and leadership when it comes to restructuring our economy and our energy sectors to a place where we can all be proud.

Recently I was at the Nairobi summit, the United Nations meeting on climate change. Canada consistently won the fossil award, the award given to the country doing the least to promote global efforts on climate change. We won more fossil awards than all the other countries put together.

We were consistent in one thing: holding back the talks and holding back progress across our planet. China, India, Australia, France and Britain were all coming forward with solid and credible plans and there we were, the Canadians, once proud of our environmental record, with our delegates scurrying around the halls in Nairobi in shame because we could not bring forward a viable plan. What was suggested in the so-called clean air act was not enough. It was a delayed plan. It was long term. It left too much power in the hands of a few politicians rather than in the will of this Parliament.

One of the many suggestions that New Democrats brought forward was to return the power to the people who are actually elected to represent the will and the intentions of Canadians, because we know that this will and those intentions are to do something serious about climate change, change that we are experiencing already.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, essentially the auditor, is meant to look over Canada's plans and actions for a whole series of environmental initiatives. She looked at what the previous Liberal regime had proposed. Six billion dollars had been announced for this. The important word in this sentence is “announced”, because a little over $1 billion of that $6 billion in the announcement was actually spent and much of that not very effectively at all.

It is important to note that the commissioner is a non-partisan functionary of this Parliament who reports to us. She said of the Liberal record since 1997 that the government:

--does not yet have an effective government-wide system to track expenditures, performance, and results on its climate change programs. As a result, the government does not have the necessary tools for effective management....

At its base, if we do not have the capacity to track, to monitor, to understand what is effective and what is not, how can we possibly make the proposed changes that we claim or hope to make? It simply cannot be done if we do not have the ability to monitor, to track, or to understand what is being done. The elected officials in this place, elected from across the country, do not have the ability to properly or accurately understand the situation until the dust has settled and the confetti has dropped out of the sky.

We know for a fact that the actual numbers that matter most on this issue are in regard to the increase in greenhouse gases in our environment. They went up by 27%, but we know that the goal, the stated claim and the signature that we put down on the Kyoto protocol indicated that Canada had the intention of dropping emissions by 6%. Lo and behold, as the numbers have come in and as the tests prove, we failed as Canadians when the Liberal government, year in and year out, failed to deliver. We needed more and Canadians demanded more. They expected leadership. They want leadership.

Let us look at what is proposed in the Conservative bill. The Conservatives propose a number of measures that have some potential, but they are all delayed measures. They are all put off, and without the ability of parliamentarians, the people elected from all corners of the country, to affect what is happening. Instead, it is left to orders in cabinet, intentions and notices of intent that do not bring the required seriousness to this issue. That seriousness means that this place must be able to mandate, regulate and hit the targets that Canadians expect us and need us to hit.

My friend from the Western Arctic and I, from northwestern British Columbia, with British Columbians across the entire province, are seeing the effects of climate change now. Canada's forestry council has directly cited climate change as one of the leading factors in the pine beetle infestation that has absolutely devastated our forests and has now hopped over the Rockies and is headed into the boreal, into Alberta, and across to Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

For those who are watching and for those members of Parliament who have not yet seen what devastation truly looks like, let me say to them to hold on, because that pine beetle can absolutely punish the forest and the economies that depend upon those forests. Direct action is needed.

The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development implored the government to take serious action on the environment. She said that “it must take immediate and long-lasting action on many fronts”.

She said “immediate”, but lo and behold, when the bill came out, all action was delayed. The action is delayed until 2015, 2025 and even 2050 for heaven's sake. That is not action. That is just an excuse for delay. The Conservative government is essentially asking Canadians to trust its ethics on the environment and unfortunately that did not pass the smell test.

What we need to do is remove the partisan nature of this debate. We need to finally step beyond that into a place where the issue of the environment, the issue of fighting global climate change, can occupy a place in the Canadian debate that goes beyond partisanship and allows members of Parliament to bring forward their best ideas.

By accepting this bill prior to second reading, by accepting it with the option of changing its fundamentals, of making it stronger, of bringing in the best ideas from across the economy and from across the country, we have allowed an opportunity to exist in this place, an opportunity that previously did not exist. I am proud of our actions. I am determined, as are my colleagues, and colleagues in the other caucuses as well, to make the most effective bill--

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I think we have an open invitation to have a debate. The member's office was notified about a potential debate. Since he has now said he is open and amenable to it, will he commit right now in the House of Commons to engage in that debate in his own community prior to the House rising for the Christmas break?

It would be very good for him to suggest a couple of dates, but at the very least to commit that he will appear in public to debate the merits of this bill. Certainly the New Democrats would welcome the opportunity. He could immediately remove the delusion that the $1.4 billion left on the table by the Conservative government has anything to do with our opposition to this bad deal.

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the yeoman's work he has done on this file, pressing against all odds. There were motions and courses taken, which have not been taken before in parliamentary history, in an effort to shut down his voice in committee and to remove his ability to be an effective opposition member. It is quite remarkable. It brings to mind the ancient expression “methinks he doth protest too much”. We have watched the government pull out every stop to end talks on this issue.

Usually when people associate themselves with the term “deal”, there is something positive that happens. There is a good trade of terms. When we look at this deal, particularly from the perspective of hard-working softwood communities that rely on value added, they must wonder who is standing up for them in this place. They must wonder if they had the misfortune of voting for a Liberal, a Bloc or a Conservative member. They must wonder where their members on this issue. They must wonder if their MPs are defending their right to have a trade relationship, with the United States in this case, that is fair and equitable so they have the ability and a due right under a so-called free trade agreement to trade freely with our competitors.

Could the member comment as to the processes and the designs used, particularly by the Liberals and the Conservatives in conjunction, to circumvent and shut down the debate? Would the member speak about preventing the democratic right of a member of Parliament to speak to issues and speak to amendments?

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, here is an incredible scenario before us. When the NAFTA was being negotiated and when the FTA in particular was being negotiated, the Americans very much wanted access to our energy. They very much wanted energy to be placed within the FTA and then eventually into the NAFTA.

Canada resisted and for good measure. Under the principles of the agreement, once the pipeline is opened up to a certain level, under no circumstances, even our own national interests, can we ever lower that amount of energy going forward. More than 50% is now leaving the oil sands in Alberta to the American markets. It is heading toward 60% almost.

What we did in trading away that energy profile and trading away that access is we said, “Give us this dispute resolution panel”. We realized and recognized there was at least some sense of sensibility within the trade negotiators at the time that there was an unbalanced relationship in power. The Americans knew that we depended so much on their market for our goods. Our negotiators realized in some small moment of brilliance that we needed to rebalance the power between the trade partners and establish this panel. This panel was meant to settle the disputes when one was overpowering the other, as is the case with the softwood lumber tariffs.

Lo and behold, the panel under this deal is absolutely null and void. There is no sense in even establishing it or having it any more because we have caved. We have said that even when the panel sided for Canada and even when the Court of International Trade sided with Canada, we are willing to take defeat. We are willing to accept less than what the dispute panel and all the other courts have decided in our favour.

Canada is not even accepting silver. It is not even getting on the podium. When we had the gold in our hand and the victory was ours and every dollar was meant to be returned, Canada said, “We would rather not have that. We would rather have something else”.

We thereby set a precedent that other industries within the United States who seek protectionist measures will follow and we have said as much because the practice has been borne out. If Canada is pushed hard enough, long enough, and far enough, it will cave. What we will do is offer up our future. What we will do is offer up communities that do not politically matter at this particular time.

It is a shame to be calling this negotiation a fair trade or free trade or anything. This has to be the greatest misnomer in economic trade history. It has allowed some pretence to Canadians to feel as though we actually have access to the U.S. market. Only 50% of our products actually fall under NAFTA. The rest fall under favoured nation status.

The illusion is perpetrated by the elites in this country, by Bay Street and others, that somehow this deal is a panacea. They say that it is a wonderful thing for Canada and that it also protects our access to the U.S. markets. This is even when we have completely lost, we have chosen the path of defeat, and we have chosen to not listen to the court hearings and to the decisions that have been passed down by U.S. and international courts alike.

Canada's willingness and determination to actually establish fair and free trade with our partners to the south, who we rely on and who we need for our future economic prosperity, will allow something else to take place. This will allow some absolute miscreation. This devilish deal perpetrates a complete apprehension of the idea of fair and free access to the U.S. market.

It is a shame and a travesty. I truly worry for the communities that I represent and for their ability to have any sense of representation from the government because it is gone under this deal.

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, while it is a pleasure to join in this debate, it is a sincere displeasure to have to again rail against a government's misguided, arbitrary and bullheaded position on the softwood lumber file.

For many years the region and communities that I represent have sought certainty, resolution, and some level of justice when dealing with the unfair illegal tariffs that our American neighbours were slapping on our value added products. For years communities sought some sort of support. The businesses and industries sought some measure of effort and strength from the federal government to say to them that they matter, that the communities in our country that produce the wood products that are used throughout our country and around our world matter enough for the government to fight.

Lo and behold, there was an election last winter and a government came forward with a new mandate. Unfortunately, it used the same minister that was bungling the file before and it produced a deal that was flawed completely. It is so flawed in fact that mill managers in my communities, people who are deeply invested in this industry, who have their own personal money invested as mill owners are turning to me and scratching their heads, and wondering for what possible purpose the federal Government of Canada sold them down the river.

They asked me whether there was some kind of horse trade that went on between Ottawa and Washington to arrive at such a deeply flawed deal. Challenge after challenge and finally we arrived at the international court in the United States, the last place of refuge for the scoundrels in the United States who were perpetrating this trade fraud upon Canada. When we arrived at a decision that was favourable and every single dollar collected illegally from Canada was to be returned to Canada, Canada caved, completely rolled over, and asked the Americans to beat us again.

This time it was wood. The next time it might be cattle, fruit or some sort of product that will affect another part of this country. I can only wonder what will happen to those members in this place who represent communities that are trying to survive and trying to make it in the international competitive market. When their time comes calling, the Americans will go after their products when a very narrow interest and lobby group, and a few members of congress will get together and decide to target the next product out of Canada because they had so much success and fun going after softwood. They were able to beat us so soundly that even though we won in the courts, we were willing to throw the whole deal away at the last minute for some narrow interest, some narrow political victory that the government of the day was seeking.

The government came into office and said it was going to strike new relations with the United States. I almost wish back for the bad relations because if the new relations produce deals that hurt the communities that I represent like this one does, I worry for the future.

I will speak specifically of those communities because a lot of members listening to this debate and citizens watching it on television have a hard time contextualizing this. Who are we talking about? What kind of communities are we talking about? We are talking about Prince Rupert, Terrace, Skidegate, Queen Charlotte Islands, and communities right across our country. These communities have, in their very DNA, the hewing of wood and hauling of water. These are communities that were formed on the principle that they can make an honest buck, that people can go out into the woods, knock down trees, mill them, and send them to a market that will be appreciative and pay an honest dollar for them. These are communities right across my region.

My region is over 300,000 square kilometres, the most beautiful area in the most beautiful country in the world. In these communities we rely on our ability to use the natural resources we are endowed with and sell them on fair terms to the marketplace. Under the NAFTA, something we negotiated our energy away in order to have, we were meant to have the ability to go and freely, and fairly, trade with our partners to the south.

Lo and behold, when the deal did not work for some in the United States, they threw up tariffs and our government somehow caved. It caved to the point where we self-imposed a tariff that we know was illegal. We will impose a tariff on our own products that we know is wrong and impact the communities that have added value to this wood, and have struggled over the years to maintain those jobs.

Through ups and downs, thick and thin, they have been able to keep those jobs going, paying into the coffers that pay the salaries of members in this place, that pay for the functioning of the government, and pay for the health care services and education that we all rely on.

When those people needed the government to stand up for them, it could not be found. It was so busy running around K Street in Washington hoping to make nice with the Bush government. It did not for a moment stop to think about the economic future of the communities that I and other members in this place represent, and for the economic future of our country.

It is in the DNA of the people who I represent and we must consider the forests, the trees and the endowment with which we are privileged to be blessed. The first nations communities, for millennia, have relied upon these resources to sustain our communities. When the white settlers first showed up, it was one of the first things we did. We opened up these small lumber mills and soon the industries grew in sophistication and size, but were always based upon our ability to access a market.

These are hard-working people. They are honest people. They get up every day, go to work and bring their lunch pails. I was curious in my first term here in this place to find out how much in fact we contributed to the federal coffers, how much in fact we contributed just in economic terms to the health and well-being of this nation.

I asked the Library of Parliament researchers to do a little study for me. It turned out to be a long study, three months. I have boxes piled high in my office. I asked them to calculate, estimate as best they could, how much money was sent out of my region, out of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, into the federal coffers and then how much was returned in payments and services from the federal government.

After three months of study the researchers came back to me and said the very best guess they could make over the last 10 years was that there has been a 10 to 1 ratio every single year. For every $10 our community sent out, $1 came back in services. One would think we would be complaining about it, but these are honest hard-working Canadians who do not even mind a little bit. That is fair. We have the privilege of living in one of the greatest countries in the world and one of the best regions in which to live. That is well and good.

However, here we are working hard contributing $10 for every $1 that comes back. Money was sent from the good people of Skeena—Bulkley Valley to help pay for the negotiators, help pay for the lawyers, and the members of Parliament and cabinet minister who sit in the government to go out and fight on our behalf. What did they come back with? A complete and total failure.

They came back with the idea that we are going to leave $1 billion on the table, half of which is going to get used by the very lobbyists who launched this case in the first place to fight against us again another day. There was over $450 million left for that sole purpose, and another $500 million in change left over for Mr. Bush to fight another election.

The economic base of my communities are absolutely ensconced in this sector. The forestry sector provides over $120 million as an easy estimate annually to our region. The government response to the shutting down of mills, to the loss of jobs, and to the exodus of our young people across my region has been what? It has been to freeze the funds of Western Economic Diversification, to not allow any of that funding to go out that allows the communities to actually diversify their economies, to not in fact deliver on any of the pine beetle money because we have also had this near perfect storm created, an absolutely devastating infestation which according to the Forestry Council of Canada has been caused by global warming which the government refuses to address.

We have had a provincial government hell bent on providing as much raw log exports as is humanely possible and then ramping it up every year beyond that thereby eliminating any real incentive to add value to the wood products that we have in our communities. Add this to a promise made by the government to deliver more than $400 million in economic development money to compensate for what has happened with the pine beetle, which has not shown up, but in fact has been reduced by $12 million for some absolutely ludicrous reason.

The perfect storm has been created for my communities, a storm in which it is absolutely of no value or purpose for anyone to enter into our communities, to bring the investment dollars, and to create those industries, small, medium and large to add value to the wood products with which we are endowed.

I worry deeply for my communities and I worry deeply for the future that it holds. When I speak to high schools and colleges and I look upon the young people and talk about what their future means in our region, there is not a lot of hope.

I stood in front of a class in Hazelton, B.C., which has lost all three of its mills. I asked for a show of hands among the hundred students as to how many were planning to stay, live and work in the community of Hazelton. A single hand went up amongst the 100 students. The government response to this growing tragedy in my region has been silence and a sellout deal. It must be rejected.

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was very intrigued by the comments of my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Island North. Similar to my riding, the ability to attract investment, create an entrepreneurial spirit and add value to wood products is a struggle each and every day. She talked about examples of value added companies, the manufacturers that were able to get on their feet and put people to work.

Could she comment on what kind of message is being sent to small and medium size businesses that are struggling to make a go of it in rural parts of British Columbia and elsewhere in the country? What signal is sent by the government, without even allowing the possibility of hearings or any testimony to come from those communities and businesses, when it passes such fundamentally atrocious legislation as this one?

[SOFTWOOD LUMBER PRODUCTS EXPORT CHARGE ACT, 2006, November 22nd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the member for Winnipeg Centre can draw some sort of connection or parallel, as he was doing in his speech, between Canada's new position on the Wheat Board and its dovetailing with what the Americans are hoping to achieve across all our economic sectors.

Is there some sort of game afoot, does he suspect, between Ottawa and Washington right now to break down the very tools and mechanisms that Canadians have relied upon for our own economic success?