Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand today in the House to discuss the second report of the Standing Committee on International Trade and the related recommendations.
To begin with, I must say that the NDP has always favoured appropriate international trade. We have always found this extremely important. The NDP has played a key role in international trade by analyzing all the trade agreements we sign and by making sure that they serve the interests of Canadians. Unfortunately, if we look for example at the softwood lumber agreement signed by the Harper administration, we see that it was devastating for the softwood lumber industry in Canada. We lost 100,000 jobs.
We cannot rely on the Conservatives. They have a truly disastrous record in this area. They made bad deals, agreements that were not thought through and that undermine Canadian sovereignty. We will not take any lessons from the Conservatives. Even if they started the debate, they spent only minutes on it. The Conservatives did not have enough content to make a 10-minute speech on international trade.
When we talk about electric vehicles and green energy on the one hand, and when we see how poorly international trade is managed on the other hand, we see how badly the Conservatives botched the job when they were in power.
The Liberals are a bit better, but not much. A little later on I am going to address their ignorance in terms of where we should invest. For example, we lost almost 1,200 of the border officers charged with protecting our borders. The Liberals just replaced a little more than a third of all the jobs lost under Stephen Harper. In nine years, the government replaced one-third of what we needed. This shows a lack of will to make all the necessary investments in international trade.
Also, we see how much green energy advanced under the Biden administration. U.S. cities and states are demanding clean energy only. Unfortunately, the Harper regime's record was disastrous, and the current government has not invested in recovering the losses we sustained after 10 years under Harper. Today we are in a situation where we are not creating as many jobs as we should with clean energy and with everything that needs to be done.
Although I cannot mention whether he is in the House or not, my colleague from Timmins—James Bay played a key role in finally getting a bill passed that advocated for clean energy, green energy and good union jobs. I know how difficult it was. The Conservatives blocked it at every turn in order to prevent us from having good, green, unionized jobs. I just want to acknowledge the important work done by my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. The entire NDP caucus supported him during the months that the Conservatives blocked everything to prevent this bill from being passed. Now it has passed. Unfortunately, the Liberals are not making the investments so we can start seeing these good jobs. That is a huge problem with this government.
We saw the chaos yesterday, and it continues today.
We saw the chaos yesterday, and it continues today. The government does not seem to understand the importance of implementing strategies and making investments to create jobs.
I mentioned my colleague from Timmins—James Bay because of the terrific work he did on that bill, but I want to underscore that the NDP's approach is quite different from that of the other parties. The Liberals have been lax, we have to say, in terms of border security and investments in international trade. We got the bill through that allows for clean energy investments and good unionized jobs, and the Liberals have done virtually nothing to make the investments in that bill, which was put in place under the leadership of my colleague from Timmins—James Bay with the collaboration of the labour movement. The work was done, and the Liberals have, again, dropped the ball on this. This is one of the reasons Canada is not creating the jobs that it could create by making those meaningful investments.
I will come back to the CBSA cuts because that is another example of how short-sighted both the Conservative government and the Liberal government have been over the last 20 years. Under the Conservatives, we saw massive cuts to CBSA frontline agents along the border, who protect the longest undefended border in the world. It is a border that needs to be protected, and we need to make those investments. The Conservatives, under Stephen Harper, while cutting, slicing and dicing pensions, health care and services for people, and while destroying veterans services in the most egregious and profoundly disrespectful way possible, were also cutting border protection agents. CBSA agents protect us and our border, ensuring that the border is not porous and that there is a strategy for security in place. The Harper Conservatives killed nearly 1,200 frontline jobs. It is unbelievable that they would do that.
In that same way, they slashed veterans services and forced seniors to work years along. It was the most mean-spirited and corrupt government in Canadian history. Conservatives have never apologized for their years in power when they did all of those destructive things. A Conservative MP has never apologized to border officers across the country for axing 1,200 jobs. Not a single Conservative MP has apologized to veterans for axing veterans services in the most cruel way, denying tens of thousands of Canadian veterans even a proper burial. It is unbelievable how mean-spirited the Conservatives were. They have never apologized for axing health care or for forcing seniors to work two years longer.
We would think that, in this debate, since they provoked it, they would take the opportunity to at least apologize for gutting our border security. Issues are coming up around the Trump tariffs. This is real and will have a dramatic impact. It could threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs. Conservatives have never apologized for, or admitted to, creating the problem when they slashed those jobs so long ago, and they were wrong to do that. The Liberals have never apologized for not fully restoring the jobs that were cut. Liberals will say that they went a third of the way, but that is not enough. An NDP government would restore those positions and would make sure that we would have adequate border security in place across the country.
The second report from the Standing Committee on International Trade also deals with softwood lumber. I want to come back to the softwood lumber issue because it is very relevant in this day and age. It is coming back. We have legitimate concerns about what is going to happen to the softwood lumber sector. We know that the Conservatives have the worst record in history, in Canada, in terms of softwood lumber. I was a new member of Parliament when Stephen Harper took control and the Harper regime was put in place. Canada had actually won in every trade trade tribunal, at every single level, and had just one final hurdle, one final trade tribunal decision that would have given Canada a complete victory.
This is known to people from across the country, people in softwood communities across the country, including in my province of British Columbia. A number of my family members have worked in the softwood industry. We know softwood. Yet despite the fact that we were so close to the finish line, winning that final victory that would have allowed unimpeded trade across the United States, the Harper regime snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Instead of going to that final decision, which would have been the ultimate victory for softwood lumber, there was the Harper government's ineptitude and inability even to understand basic governing functions. Conservatives tend to be extremely superficial when they are in government. I will come back to that in a moment. In this case, it was just complete ineptitude that led to the softwood lumber sellout. Rather than finalizing that final trade tribunal judgment, which would have given Canada complete and total victory, that decision, that ineptitude, that inability to even understand the industry, led to the giving up of a billion dollars of money from the softwood industry. It led to the loss of 100,000 jobs.
I fought in the House, along with my colleagues, against the softwood lumber sellout. Tragically, Liberals allied themselves with Conservatives for reasons that they have never explained. The loss of jobs was catastrophic, with mills closing across British Columbia and across Canada. The major industry players started investing in the United States because they did not trust the Harper regime to actually put in place any sort of protections for the Canadian industry. As a result of that, we bled a 100,000 jobs. There were 100,000 families that lost their breadwinners. It was devastating to communities right across the country as the mills shut down. It was not that Canada had any reason to concede to the United States, but that the Harper regime, in its incredible ineptitude, being mean-spirited and incompetent in the worst possible combination, just decided that it would do a press conference and concede everything. It gave up a billion dollars, 100,000 jobs and over 200 mills across the country.
Not a single Conservative MP has ever apologized for that devastation in the industry. Not a single Conservative MP has ever stood in the House and said that they were sorry to the hundred thousand families that lost their breadwinners, that they were sorry to the 200 communities that lost mills, that they were sorry for the billion dollars that they gave away because they were so inept and incompetent that they did not understand they were so close to that final trade tribunal victory.
This is why Canadians can never trust Conservatives. It is not only the mean-spiritedness of Conservatives and the Conservative philosophy, but also the sheer incompetence of Conservatives when they are governing. I mentioned earlier how Conservatives govern. We have seen in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario how they govern health care systems.
The worst health care outcomes in the country are in Conservative provinces. They have the worst waiting lists and the longest lineups in emergency wards. After a bicycle accident a few weeks ago, I had to go to Ottawa's Civic hospital and had a 14-hour wait in the emergency ward, with many of the people in pain and suffering. The Conservatives in power in Ontario do not seem to care about that.
Conservatives in Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta do not care about the fact that they have profoundly worse health outcomes than, for example, in British Columbia and in Manitoba, which are NDP provinces, where there have been investments made in the health care sector. As a result of that, we see much better health outcomes.
When Conservatives govern, whether we are talking about international trade or any other issue, they make a mess of things. They are not good at managing programs. They are not good at managing public health care. They are not good at managing education. They are not good at making the kinds of investments that make a difference. The real kicker here is that they are terrible at managing money. This is the thing that strikes so many Canadians across the country when we look at Conservative governments.
The fiscal period returns actually show how both provincial governments and federal governments manage Canada's money. New Democrats have not yet formed a federal government, but we have formed provincial governments. The fiscal period returns compiled by the federal Ministry of Finance over the last 40 years, which is not a hotbed of New Democrats so it is quite obvious this is impartial and non-partisan, have revealed that NDP governments are best at managing money. The worst at managing money are Conservatives. Why is that?
We can just look at the Harper regime. The billion dollars it gave away on the softwood lumber sellout is just one example. The Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed something else in 2019, which is that the series of overseas tax havens, the notorious, infamous tax haven treaties signed by Harper, now bleed out of this country each and every year more than $30 billion.
The corporations are very profitable ones, with very wealthy individuals who can take their money out, which is tax money. It is money that belongs to all of us and that could be providing better pensions for seniors and better health care. It could be ensuring that we are investing in jobs and could provide benefits for people with disabilities. It could ensure all those things.
Under Harper, there were sellout infamous tax treaties with notorious overseas tax havens. People can even look them up; it is not like this is something hidden. The entities are often on blacklists in terms of laundering money and being tax havens, and yet Harper and the Harper regime repeatedly signed agreements with them. The net result is over $30 billion each and every year.
When we look at the billion dollars Conservatives gave away on softwood lumber and at the $30 billion they gave away each and every year of their being in power, we see the incredible ineptitude of Conservatives when they actually try to manage money. They also provided remarkable support for Canada's big banks to beef up profits and dividends: $116 billion in liquidity support. Not a single Conservative MP has ever apologized for that. Where did they take the money from? They took it from CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and made sure the banks received the money, instead of it going to people who actually wanted to access affordable housing.
The history of Conservatives in power is that they are incompetent when it comes to managing the nation's money. They will give massive amounts to overseas tax havens, to the banks and to oil and gas CEOs, tens of billions of dollars. If we look at the cumulative amount, it is hundreds of billions of dollars that they will give away, but they will not fund health care, pensions and veterans services, and they will not fund having border officers across the country to actually make sure our country is kept safe. They certainly will not fund things like a final trade tribunal decision that actually means that Canada wins and that our softwood lumber industry can maintain the 100,000 jobs Conservatives cost us.
There are Conservatives, who have a terrible record. There are Liberals, who have been very nonplussed in their governing; they have not done nearly as much as they should have. Then there is an NDP caucus that is ready, under the leadership of the MP for Burnaby South, to actually make this country work effectively, to make sure the investments are made, to close all the tax loopholes so big corporations and the wealthiest among us actually pay their fair share of taxes, and to invest in things like international trade and jobs, ensuring clean energy, prosperity and unionized jobs across the country.
That is the difference and is eventually what Canadians will choose. We know the election is next year, and we will be fighting hard so they choose an NDP government.
