Mr. Speaker, it is both a pleasure and a distress to enter into this debate. Talking of rhetoric, we take no lectures or lessons from other sectors of the industry. British Columbia has a proud forestry tradition. My particular riding takes no lessons or lectures from anyone in the House when it comes to the pain and suffering that has gone on in the forestry sector over the last number of years.
We have watched families in distress. We watched the previous government not show up to the table with the loan guarantees. I know it is difficult for members to listen and to actually participate in the debate but they need to understand that when a government starts to spin on the dance of rhetoric and starts to talk about how other parties are playing politics all of a sudden, it is a good indication that the facts no longer support its cause.
The response about the exemption to Atlantic Canada, that the intention was there but that the language was not, is absolutely dumbfounding to me and to many Canadians, both in Atlantic Canada and across the country. How could such an important concept as the exemption that was parroted and chirped across the country for Atlantic Canada not make it into the bill and have to be pointed out by other members in the House as opposed to the drafters of the bill, the government itself?
Skeena—Bulkley Valley, in the northwest corner of British Columbia, which is 300,000 square kilometres and is the absolute heart and soul of the softwood industry in the country, understands the deal well. Just recently I was on a tour throughout the western part of my riding, some 900 kilometres on the road. We held open houses and discussions and allowed people to come in and comment. There was no bias on my part. We just simply sat and listened to what people in our communities had to say about the deal.
From across the political spectrum in my region, people who vote all different ways came with absolute disappointment and dismay at the inherent basic flaws communicated in this so-called agreement which, more and more, is a sellout. I wonder if the government has any excuses or reasons for the 3,000 people who just lost their jobs in Quebec and Ontario and the families that they support.
The government just seemed so desperate in its need for victory. However, in April , on the very day the Prime Minister so proudly announced the deal, the Americans were filing more lawsuits against us. The government needed a victory so badly that it left $500 million in the hands of the American coalition, which has been hurting our communities for so long, to continue to fight us. Somehow the government has twisted itself into believing that it is a good idea, that it is a good idea to get smashed over the head year in and year out.
At the very end, last Friday the Court of International Trade found again for Canada, which is the final place for this decision to go, and Canadians need to know that. There is nowhere else to go for the coalition. However, the government has taken that victory away, has handed the Americans half a million bucks to beat us up some more later and has signed a deal that offers no certainty whatsoever.
I know members from the Conservative benches care for their communities, especially those members who have softwood industries in their ridings. I call upon them to stand in their place today and defend the principles of the bill because they need to be accountable. We have heard so much talk about accountability from the Conservative benches but when we come to a deal like this politics trumps common sense. Why would we leave a half a billion dollars behind for an industry that is dedicated to fighting against any notion of free trade?
The climate for investment in Canada has been destroyed by this deal. Why would an operator who operates on both sides of our borders have any notion of putting money into a mill in Canada when all they need to do is take their money back, place it into a U.S. mill and avoid a self-imposed tariff altogether? I have yet to hear an answer from the government.
I have spoken to the mill managers and the people on the line and they do not get it. They do not understand why the provincial government in Victoria, British Columbia is so keen on raising the export of raw logs thereby raising the export of British Columbian jobs to other places. When I am in my riding I see the trucks drive right past the mills that have shut down and dump the logs in the water, boom them up and send them south.
For heaven's sake, this so-called deal says to a producer, says to a manufacturer, “Do not invest in Canada. It is much smarter to invest in the United States or just about anywhere else, because if you invest in Canada and you value add to any of the wood that Canadians produce, you will be hit with a tariff of up to 24% on your cost of production”.
I wish there were someone in the government who could simply answer that basic sense of economic disequilibrium that has been created by the government's one action, the tendency, the nature and the drive for industry to no longer invest in our country at a time when we have lost over 10,000 jobs in this sector. It is not as if we have any more blood to give. We have already given at work and at home. There is no space left in the industry other than its complete collapse.
The true and deep concern I have in this debate is that for the government to secure some sort of improved relations with our American neighbours, which we all want to see, for that so-called victory it has signed a deal that allows Washington to interfere with provincial regulations on how we cut our own wood. This House of Commons does not have that right constitutionally but somehow we have just cut a deal that allows Washington to comment on our own forestry practices at the provincial level.
Many communities have been through so much, with thousands of jobs lost. I would invite members in this place to take a tour through my community and visit those places that have in excess of 90% unemployment. I wonder if anyone in this place can conceive of that in their hometowns, to go back home next week and find 80%, 85%, 90% of the people willing to work in their communities gone, simply unable to work. Imagine the social devastation, never mind the economics, we know that: schools closing down and hospitals no longer able to operate at a time when industries needed the support.
The Conservatives were with us for a moment when we pleaded for loan guarantees for the industry but the previous government was unable to deliver. The Court of International Trade, the last place for the scoundrels who perpetuated this fraud upon Canadians and Canadian communities were heard, the court sided with Canada. Canada has sent our lawyers down to plead on behalf of the American cause. We are asking the court not to settle this case, to not award the entire $5.4 billion to Canada because we have this incredible deal that gives us foreign change, and which, by the way, perpetuates trade wars into the future.
It is not only remarkable that $500 million will end up in the coffers of the U.S. coalition's war chest to fight again, but it sends a disturbing signal to other industries that try to compete with Canada. What we are saying is that the Americans were right. They must have been right because why else would we leave money behind? We must subsidize our industry.
Conservative members have stood in this place and made the argument that no, there is no softwood subsidy and we are not operating a subsidized system. However, by capitulating to them we are saying that they are right. If the Americans were able to end up with this much of the Canadian industries' money, we must be subsidizing. This opens up the floodgates to other industries that cannot compete.
I only wish we could have some form of free trade. The lie has finally been put to that concept of free trade in this country. We only need to look at the way the Americans have handled themselves and the way that Canada has now decided to place itself in such an incredible position as to harm Canadian industry and communities by simply admitting, through this deal, that we must have a subsidized industry, and by putting in jeopardy all the other industries in Canada that now must try to compete with the Americans who we know are protectionists. We have seen it. The Conservatives just said so, and it is true. They will subsidize and they will protect. They will try to offer unfair competition to our industries, particularly in an industry like softwood where we know the Americans cannot compete.
Canadian mills are the most efficient in the world. I have those mills in my riding. I have visited those mills and we have talked to the foremen and the people running the shop. They know that they are running the best. All they want is a fair playing field and an opportunity to compete but instead they will be hit with a 24% duty on their wood. We are going to self-impose a duty when we have said that we are not subsidizing and that we are operating a fair game.
The problems with this deal go on and on. A lot of Conservative members would like to ignore the fact that there is an actual cap on the amount of wood that can be produced. However, it is not done by company but by region. We have also assisted some of the larger companies that have the capacity to invest more money against some of the smaller ones because as soon as the cap is reached it hits everybody in that region. It does not hit the individual company that may have flooded a market. It hits everybody. Suddenly the cap goes up. The tipping point on this, the point where the tariffs start to be imposed, the price of a board foot of lumber has been below the trigger point for months.
This is an opportunity for the government to finally stand up and admit some of the absolute flaws in this agreement. We each need to stand up and represent our communities, which is what we were sent here to do. We were sent here to represent the people who work every day or who are trying to get back to work. We need to get the job done and get a better deal because this deal sells our communities and our future down the river.
