Peter Julian

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has raised many questions. I will start with the last one first.

He is well aware, the New Democratic Party administrations have the best financial fiscal period return record of any party in the country and that comes from the Department of Finance. It is not New Democrats saying that, it is Liberals saying that. They have analyzed from 1981 to 2001 the actual fiscal period returns, not the budget, not the smoke and mirrors. The Liberal administrations had the worst record over that period. Eighty-five per cent of the time they were in deficit. Conservatives were only a bit better. Two-thirds of the time they are in deficit.

Every time the NDP projects a surplus, most of the time we get it right and that is why we are the party of realism. We believe there have to be appropriate financial mechanisms of control and that the money is there to invest. We would never approve $4.6 billion for the corporate sector, which has experienced record profits, when our post-secondary institutions are closed, when our health care system is in crisis, when homelessness has tripled in the greater Vancouver area alone and increased across the country. We have 1.1 million poor kids across the country and we have infrastructure needs that have not been addressed in--

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to respond briefly to a question like that.

Very clearly, the hon. member is referring back to last spring. There were two votes on the budget. The first vote was on $4.6 billion in corporate tax breaks and the Conservative Party chose to maintain the government at that time. We were opposed.

Then, after talking and knocking on doors in my communities of Burnaby and New Westminster, I got very broad feedback that people in my communities wanted Justice Gomery to get to the bottom of the sponsorship scandal. They did not want an election at that time. Very responsibly, in this corner of the House, we moved forward to push this government to, instead of dumping $4.6 billion on the wealthy corporate sector, actually invest in housing, post-secondary education accessibility for people across this country, the environment and foreign aid.

We forced the government to do that and we voted to maintain the government at that time. Ever since then, as the hon. member well knows, there has not been a confidence vote in the House. We are as appalled by this report as any other Canadian is. It is a catalogue of the type of mismanagement and corruption that is not permissible in this country.

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I indeed have the same problem that the hon. member has. I have been looking for some indication of firmness, some action that may have taken place since the Bush administration arbitrarily ripped up the dispute settlement mechanism of NAFTA. I have not seen a single example.

As the hon. member well knows, it took two months for the government to make a phone call. We have seen from the government absolutely no action, even though the NDP's three point plan called for an immediate recall of Parliament which did not happen. We have been calling for an end to the continued negotiations on NAFTA plus.

At the same time, as the dispute settlement mechanism of NAFTA has been ripped up, we are seeing the government sit down and continue to negotiate concessions with the Bush administration. It is unbelievable that at the same time as we are purportedly upset with the Bush administration, we have the government negotiating further concessions in some 300 areas, including vital areas like food safety and air safety.

We called for an end to those concessions, those continued negotiations, and nothing has happened there. The government is continuing every day to negotiate further concessions with the Bush administration.

We called for an export levy on our energy exports because energy has been part and parcel of the negotiations around dispute settlement. In fact, as the member well knows, in the very early days of the free trade agreement and with NAFTA, our objective purportedly was to obtain a dispute settlement mechanism that would be binding and at the same time the American objective was to have privileged proportional access to our energy.

The Bush administration has that. In fact, we supply the American market before we can supply our own. In the event of a national emergency where we reduce supply most of our energy supplies will still go to the United States. Yet, the government has done nothing on that front either. There has been absolutely no action.

What has been disturbing, and I know the hon. member shares my concern, is that there has been very little support for the industries most affected. The only option seems to be litigation which is the second worst thing possible, but at least, given that the industries are getting that support from the government, this would be something that would help support them. However, the government is not allowing the bill to go through to actually provide some support for the litigation for those companies.

The second disturbing development is the open statements in the House that have indicated that it is no longer $5 billion that the government is pushing the Bush administration to repay regarding the punitive levies that we saw through the Byrd amendment, but only $3.5 billion.

Therefore, we are already sending a very clear signal from the government that we are conceding even before there is any negotiation. It is unbelievable that we are reducing already the bar on moneys that clearly, through the binding dispute settlement mechanism of NAFTA, should be coming back to Canada.

I have real concerns about the lack of firmness of the government and its indication of posturing and speechifying rather than dealing with the fundamental issue. If we were to negotiate away the dispute settlement mechanism for the softwood industry, any other sector could be impacted similarly. If we do not stand up, if the government does not stand up for Canadian rights, then we are going to experience similar problems in other sectors.

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on Bill C-68, an act to support the development of Canada's Pacific gateway. I will begin by saying that we in the NDP support the bill in principle, but we have serious concerns about the government's overall approach.

The bill itself is innocuous. It appoints another advisory board. In a moment, I will come back to concerns about the appointment process by the Liberal government. The reality is that the issue of the Pacific gateway is linked much more clearly to broader issues around the infrastructure deficit that we have had over the past two decades under both the Conservatives and the Liberals. Clearly there is a neglect of our infrastructure across the country.

The reality is that the funding, coupled with the advisory committee set up by the bill, is clearly inadequate to meet the needs and objectives of what we in British Columbia have to do to repair the infrastructure after decades of neglect, but also inadequate for us as the province of British Columbia and also as the country of Canada to respond to the need to diversify our trade markets, because very clearly the trade strategy of the current government has been a failure.

With NAFTA, we have seen the dispute settlement mechanism being basically ripped up by the Bush administration. There has been no reply from the government. There has been some posturing and there have been some speeches. The NDP put forth a three point action plan in September and none of those actions put forward in September have been undertaken by the government. It is very clear to me that this shows the Bush administration the government is not serious about defending Canadian interests.

If the trade policy has been a failure, one of the key things we have to do is diversify our markets. In order to do that we have to repair the neglect of our infrastructure over the past two decades and start to respond with broader infrastructure maintenance and broader infrastructure construction.

As for the bill itself, we will be supporting it in principle, but we have five concerns. I will start with the actual administration of the moneys that are attached to this particular bill.

We are talking about $190 million that has actually been allocated, both to infrastructure programs in British Columbia and in connection with transportation in and out of British Columbia. At the same time, about $35 million has been allocated to the advisory committee.

We are talking about $190 million when we know that for infrastructure needs the federal government's share should be at least $2.5 billion. While the government has allocated an additional $400 million for photo ops during the election campaign, this much needed money has not been allocated and very clearly is being kept in reserve so that when an election comes, sooner or later, members of the government can go forth and be present at the funding announcements.

However, $190 million has been allocated when we need $2.5 billion. I will come back to that in a moment. Very clearly, that is short-sightedness on the part of this government.

I will also talk a bit about the overall neglect of infrastructure. That is a key issue that the NDP, in this corner of the House, has been concerned about for some time. There is the issue of the neglect of infrastructure. There is the issue of the inadequacy of the funding that is attached. There is the actual role of the advisory committee, which has no clear governance role, as it basically advises the government and the government makes the decision.

Primarily this is an issue of the overall mismanagement of governmental programs. I will touch on that at the end of my presentation, but I would also like to start by quoting the Gomery report on who is responsible, those major findings by Justice Gomery, because it is important for the record to hear the concerns that have been raised about programs run by the government. We have $190 million that ostensibly has been allocated and $400 million that has not been allocated.

What did Justice Gomery say? What did the commission of inquiry find in terms of Liberal management of programs?

The commission of inquiry found clear evidence of political involvement in the administration of the program, insufficient oversight, and a veil of secrecy surrounding the administration of the program and an absence of transparency in the contracting process. The inquiry also found a reluctance for fear of reprisal by virtually all public servants to go against the will of a manager who is circumventing policies. It found gross overcharging by communications agencies, inflated commission and production costs, and the use of the program for purposes other than those for which it was intended. It found deliberate actions to avoid compliance with federal legislation, including the Canada Elections Act, the Lobbyists Registration Act, the Access to Information Act and the Financial Administration Act, as well as federal contracting policy and the Treasury Board's transfer payments policy. It found a complex web of financial transactions involving kickbacks and illegal contributions to a political party in the context of the program, five agencies that received large contracts, regularly channeling money via legitimate donations or unrecorded cash gifts to political fundraising activities, and certain agencies carrying on their payrolls individuals who were in effect working on Liberal Party matters. It found the existence of a culture of entitlement among political officials involved with the program, and the refusal of ministers, senior officials in the PMO and public servants to acknowledge their responsibility.

The reason I raise this is that we are experiencing the exact same problems now around the issue of the Toronto Port Authority and $35 million that was allocated for a bridge that was never built. It is unbelievable. Some $35 million has disappeared from the federal coffers through the Ministry of Transport, and despite repeated requests under the Access to Information Act, and despite repeated questions, no answers have been forthcoming as to why it would cost $35 million not to build a bridge.

Very clearly what we have here is an ongoing pattern of mismanagement, the veil of secrecy that Justice Gomery referred to so clearly, where moneys that are public funds, paid for by the taxpayers of this nation, go forward and the ministry, in this case the Department of Transport, has sent that money away without any receipts, without any sort of production of documents to ensure that we are getting good use for those moneys.

I raise that because here we have another incident where the federal Liberal government wants to spend $35 million for an advisory committee, but since the practices that Justice Gomery has identified, that are current today and that we have seen not only with the David Dingwall affair but also very clearly with the Toronto Port Authority, have not been cleaned up, how can any of us in this House be fully assured that we are going to get the proper accounting for taxpayers' dollars that is a necessary obligation of the government?

Justice Gomery identified clear issues. The government has not responded to them. Other issues are coming forward, the Toronto Port Authority and other examples of the allocation of funds without the appropriate due diligence, yet the government continues to stonewall legitimate questions that are raised about the allocation of those funds.

That culture of entitlement is the first of the concerns we have about Bill C-68. Clearly if moneys are being allocated and very clearly if we have funds of $400 million that remain unallocated and obviously will not be allocated until a potential election campaign, it is important to raise those legitimate concerns about what is going to happen to that money. The government has not cleaned up its act, so there are legitimate concerns that the opposition, like the NDP, can express about whether or not those funds would be allocated properly.

The second concern is around the issue of the advisory committee itself. The deck presentation around the gateway bill talks about an innovative new governance structure. The innovative new governance structure is an advisory body, and the advisory body has only the mandate to advise governments. The advisory committee itself does not have the power to actually push forward projects. All it can do is advise the government.

One wonders about this, perhaps cynically with an election coming up. The transportation infrastructure in British Columbia has not been dealt with for decades under the Conservative Party or under the Liberal Party. The infrastructure in British Columbia has been completely ignored, but now we see an advisory committee that will be coming forward that has no power to actually implement anything. All it can do is advise the government. One can say that perhaps this will be an advisory committee that is set up primarily for electoral purposes. I hope that is not the case, but it is a legitimate question and we are asking that question.

There is another question that stems from this. Given that the appointment process has not been cleaned up in any way by the government, similar to the financial transactions identified by Justice Gomery, a couple of weeks ago the hon. member for Ottawa Centre presented a clear seven point plan for cleaning up government, cleaning up Parliament, ending the appointments of political cronies that we have consistently seen from the government. There has been no response.

Creating another advisory committee will put us in the same situation. The government seems to be attracted to cronyism. Will the advisory committee actually be composed of legitimate individuals, or will it simply be another place where the Liberal Party appoints its cronies? This is my second legitimate concern.

I have a third concern. It is over the allocation of funding for this particular group of projects. I mentioned earlier that we are talking about $190 million that has been allocated. Some $125 million has actually been allocated to transportation infrastructure, including the Pitt River bridge on Mary Hill in the tri-cities area of British Columbia, the Deltaport road rail grade separations, and North Portal, Saskatchewan which is the same thing, road rail grade separations. Deltaport is allocated $30 million and $3 million goes to North Portal.

These are projects that are important, but it is a drop in the bucket to what the actual infrastructure needs are. The infrastructure needs have been identified at over $5 billion. The federal share of that would be $2.5 billion. Because of the neglect around infrastructure and transportation infrastructure over the last 20 years by the Conservatives and the Liberals these needs must be fulfilled. At the same time, over the last 20 years the population in greater Vancouver has grown by three-quarters of a million. We clearly have a gap between what the needs are and the government stepping forward to actually meet them.

Some $190 million has been allocated, and $125 million has actually been allocated to transportation infrastructure projects, and another $400 million has been kept in reserve, obviously for the next election campaign. The needs are many times what the actual allocation has been. That is the third concern with this bill and the allocation that goes with it.

It is important to mention the overall neglect of the government when it comes to infrastructure generally. Over the past decade we have seen the clear neglect of our infrastructure.

In the 1960s we actually had double the rate of public infrastructure investment to overall tangible capital. It was twice the rate in the 1960s than we are seeing now. That gap has led to the shortfalls that have been identified by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and by the Canadian Urban Transit Association. Very clearly our transportation infrastructure has not kept up with the needs.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has estimated the infrastructure deficit at about $60 billion across the country. Those are funds that Canadians need because of the shortfall between what should have been invested by the government and what actually was invested.That deficit is growing at about $2 billion a year. We have a substantial infrastructure deficit that continues to grow.

We are talking about $60 billion across the country, and the government is putting $190 million toward some transportation infrastructure projects. For the most part that just starts to address the problem. It is so far short of what is needed. There is a clear gap between the rhetoric of the government to want to respond to the urgent needs that are occurring in British Columbia and the reality of actually meeting those needs.

The Canadian Urban Transit Association has talked about a deficit in terms of actual infrastructure funding between 2004 and 2008. We need about $7 billion to maintain our existing urban transit infrastructure and about twice that, $14 billion, to actually expand, which is what we need to do. As I mentioned, in British Columbia there are three-quarters of a million additional people over the last 20 years. We need $7 billion to maintain the infrastructure over that four year period from 2004 to 2008 and we need $14 billion to expand.

Not just my party but a number of parties in this House have raised the issue of the national highway program. We do not have a national highway program in place. Canada is the only country in the G-8 that does not have one. We have seen the deterioration of our highways across the country. It is another example of the infrastructure deficit that exists.

We are seeing a deficit in infrastructure. There are very clear needs that have to be met. The bill, and the relatively small amount of money that goes with it, does not in any way address the infrastructure deficit that has occurred certainly over the past 12 years of the Liberal government but even before that under the Conservative government.

I would also like to mention a number of examples of the mismanagement that we have seen around the overall issue of infrastructure and maintenance in British Columbia and elsewhere. Concerns have been raised about Ridley Island, the sale at the Prince Rupert port facility. A number of companies in the Mining Association of British Columbia have raised concerns that the transport minister should take a second look at a proposal to purchase Ridley Island because they are concerned about the actual sale that is being pushed through by the government.

Concerns have been raised about the Fraser River dredging. The Fraser River Port Authority has not been left with funds to actually do the required dredging in the Fraser River. This is another clear example of a need that is not being met.

In my riding, something that affects the entire greater Vancouver regional district is the Burnaby Lake issue that has come forward. The Burnaby municipal council, on behalf of the GVRD, made an application to the federal government to get funding for the Burnaby Lake revitalization. Mayor Derek Corrigan of Burnaby put together the financing on the municipality side. Harry Bloy, the MLA for Burquitlam, pushed the provincial government to provide provincial government funding for the infrastructure to revitalize Burnaby Lake, an important jewel in our community. We continue to wait for the federal government. We continue to wait.

In fact, the city of Burnaby was told that the infrastructure program did not finance Burnaby Lake renewal, but we know that the same program financed the renewal in Saskatchewan. Very clearly we have an issue around infrastructure. We raised those concerns. We have the provincial government on board. We have the city of Burnaby on board. Both sides who have put that allocation forward are waiting for the federal government to step in and make the commitment.

We have broad concerns with Bill C-68, although we are supporting it in principle. We have concerns over the overall financial mismanagement that we have seen and which was confirmed by Justice Gomery. We have concerns about the actual appointment process of the federal government. Despite the interventions of the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, we have not seen a change to that appointment process. Any time we talk about a new advisory committee, that raises the alarm.

We are concerned about the inadequacy of the funding of $190 million when $2.5 billion is called for. We are concerned about the infrastructure deficit that we have seen over the past 20 years, particularly over the last 12 years. We are also concerned about the mismanagement of current projects that should have been resolved.

With all those caveats, I close my presentation.

[Pacific Gateway Act, November 2nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have two comments and two questions coming out of the member's presentation. The first is on prosperity. He mentioned something about the current government having brought prosperity to Canada.

The member must be aware that the latest Statistics Canada figures show that since 1989, four of the five quintiles, in other words, when we divide the Canadian population into income sectors, the lowest 20%, the second lowest 20%, the middle 20% and then the two upper 20%, have seen a decline in real income.

In other words, the poorest, the lowest income Canadians, have seen their income drop by about 10%. The second quintile and third quintile, the middle class and working class Canadians, have seen their real income, the percentage of family income, drop by an equivalent of three weeks of salary a year.

Even the upper middle class, the second highest quintile, have seen an erosion of market income of a few days of pay a year.

The only group of individuals in Canada that have been prosperous since 1989 are the highest income level of Canadians. They have seen their incomes skyrocket. Corporate CEOs and corporate lawyers are doing very well.

How can the member talk about prosperity when the government has an 80% failure rate since 1989, where 80% of Canadians have seen their real incomes go down, not go up?

My second question is on his very apt observation, that when 86% of our trade is put into one country, we leave ourselves extremely vulnerable. That is has happened. What we have had over the past few years is that concentration of exports, now 86%, to the United States.

As any small business can tell us, when 86% of its trade is done with one client, there is trouble. We have seen in the last two months absolutely no action from the government on softwood lumber, aside from one phone call, but no concrete action and, indeed, various signs that the government is ready to negotiate when we won under the current dispute settlement mechanism.

First, how can he see the country as being prosperous when 80% of our families are seeing lower income?

Second, does he not feel it was a mistake for the government to put all the eggs in one basket and to concentrate our exports, when we should have over the past decade diversified to protect the interests of Canadians?

[Softwood Lumber, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I very much appreciate both questions from my colleague.

First, the question on the negotiations is quite worrisome. In my opinion, the government is preparing to negotiate. It has already moved ahead on this, but has not taken any concrete action. There is cause for concern that the government is trying to negotiate a cut-rate deal because it does not have any other plan of action.

The second question is very important. I began my speech by saying that we support the idea of granting loans to the industry and paying the legal fees because we have no choice. It is because of the government's inaction that we are required to support the industry.

Other action would have been far more effective, which begs the question: why did the government not act in several areas when it was necessary to do so? Unfortunately, that is a question only the Liberal MPs can answer. Why are there crises in education, health and softwood lumber? Why did the government not act quickly enough to resolve these crises? I have no idea; it is a mystery to me.

[Softwood Lumber, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, it is difficult to know where to start with a rant like that, but I will start by saying the reason the NDP is currently leading in the polls in British Columbia is that 80% of British Columbians, as the hon. member knows very well, support the idea of tying an export tax, an export levy on energy to the dispute settlement mechanism that was arbitrarily ripped up by President Bush.

It is very interesting to note that the Conservative Party has come up with nothing, unfortunately, no concrete action. We have been waiting for that. Tonight the leader of the official opposition called for a special envoy to negotiate, after we have won through NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanism. That is very strange and bizarre. I suppose a special envoy is different from whatever the Liberals would send, but it amounts to the same thing.

I actually tried to find proof that the Conservative Party was standing up for Canadian sovereignty and Canadian interests and I did find it. On the website there is a press release “Stand up for Canadian sovereignty”. I was very impressed and read through it. I got to the key point. I was thinking that maybe the Conservatives were standing up against President Bush, but it turned out that they were standing up for Canadian sovereignty against Denmark. Yes, that is what they were doing. They will not stand up against the Bush administration. They proposed no concrete action, but when it comes to Denmark, they are ready to go. It is kind of pathetic.

[Softwood Lumber, October 25th, 2005]

Mr. Chair, what a silly comment from a member who should know better.

We are calling for an export levy on energy exports. Energy has been tied in with dispute settlement since the very beginning of negotiations on NAFTA and the free trade agreement. What we are calling for is that linkage with dispute settlement.

As the member knows, because the papers have been clear on that in the last few days, 80% of Canadians agree with us. Eighty per cent of Canadians believe that because energy supplies and dispute settlement were closely linked from the very beginning of negotiations on the free trade agreement and NAFTA, our government and this Parliament should be standing up for Canadian rights and Canadians jobs and should be looking very closely at that option.

I should mention, while I have a moment, that just because there were references from the trade minister about some of the avenues that they are looking at, such as advocacy and litigation, a negotiation would be the worst possible thing that we could do and litigation would be the second worse. What it does is it puts us right back to where we were before we signed the FTA and NAFTA. We are going to American courts, spending Canadian money for American lawyers, on an American playing field, to have an American decision. Litigation is not an intelligent route to take, but, unfortunately, because of the lack of action by the government, we have no choice but to support the industry in continuing along those lines.

To get back to this point of advocacy, I was part of a softwood delegation that went down to Washington last spring. The NDP was the only party that sent a full delegation. When we got off the plane we were given a t-shirt that was made in Mexico and a Canadian flag pin that was made in the People's Republic of China and we were told to go out and advocate on behalf of Canadian industry. This was a perfect illustration of why the advocacy efforts of the government have not worked. They have not been credible.

[Softwood Lumber, October 25th, 2005]

Madam Chair, to start, I just want to mention that the NDP and the other parties fully support the idea of loan guarantees and assuming the legal fees for companies that are in this situation because of the government's inaction. It is absolutely not their fault and Parliament must definitively support these companies and these communities. It is because of the government's inaction that we have to make such a suggestion.

We are in a situation now where the softwood lumber industry is bleeding $4 million in punitive tariffs every day. We have lost 20,000 jobs in my province of British Columbia. Softwood lumber tops the agenda of concerns of British Columbians because of the tens of thousands of lost jobs in the softwood sector.

We are now talking about accumulated punitive tariffs of $5 billion. It is important to note that due to the Byrd amendment, millions of dollars of that $5 billion have already been paid out to American competitors and it will never return. We do not really know how many millions have been paid out already.

We are talking about an extremely serious situation, which is why it is appalling that we have seen no action in two months. I will give credit where credit is due. There was one phone call in two months.

Let us go back two months to the extraordinary challenge procedure. Article 1904 states that the committee decision shall be binding on the parties. There is no ambiguity and there are no weasel words. It is very clear that the process is binding. When Canada went through three panel decisions and three remand determinations before getting to that point, we are talking about something that was clear.

What is shocking is the fact that since this clear violation of NAFTA and the dispute settlement mechanism, we have seen no action from the government. The dispute settlement mechanism is tied completely to the concessions that the Conservative government made and that the Liberal government maintained on NAFTA in energy.

With the proportionality provisions of NAFTA, in the event of a shortage, a reduction in supply or in the event of a national emergency, we are obliged under NAFTA to ship most of our energy supplies to the United States. Those wonderful negotiators, the Conservatives, consented to those proportionality provisions. They have real backbone when they negotiate agreements. In return, we were supposed to have a dispute settlement mechanism that would be binding.

Two months later, the dispute settlement has been ripped up and the Liberal government is saying, obliquely, that it will go back to negotiating. The Conservative opposition uses the words “special envoy” to negotiate when the agreement has been violated and very clearly the dispute settlement mechanism is null and void. We have not heard one concrete suggestion from either the Liberals or the Conservatives. We have heard a lot of speeches, posturing and spin but while Canadians wait for some action, what they have seen is 20,000 lost jobs and a bleeding of $4 million a day.

What does the NDP call for? We had a three point plan and said that Parliament should be recalled immediately to debate the issue to see what action should be taken. We did not suggest sending a special envoy to go and negotiate after we had won, which is what the Conservatives suggested. We actually said that we should recall Parliament and take concrete action.

We have called as well for the halt of the deep integration of the NAFTA plus negotiations. It is no wonder the Bush administration sees mixed signals coming from the government. We are currently negotiating concessions in about 300 different areas, including food and air safety, and the Liberal government wonders why the Bush administration does not take it seriously. The NAFTA plus negotiations are continuing. NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanism has been ripped up and the government continues to negotiate further concessions to move even further along.

We also called for the government to impose an energy levy. We are bleeding $4 million a day. The dispute settlement has been ripped up. We are continuing to provide extraordinary privileges that no other country on earth provides to a foreign country. Proportional sharing of our energy means we give our energy to the United States first, even in the event of a critical supply shortage and yet there has been no action from the Liberal government at all on the three point plan put forward by the NDP.

I am not just talking about a failure of the government's NAFTA policy. I am talking about a failure of the government's economic policy. Statistics Canada has been very clear on the impact this has had on the Canadian economy over the last 15 years. The way Statistics Canada does that is to basically divide up the population into five quintiles: the lowest income Canadians, working class Canadians, middle class, upper middle class and the wealthiest.

Since the signing of the free trade agreement in 1989, the lowest income group of Canadians has actually seen its real family income drop by nearly 10%. It is unbelievable. What a failed economic policy when the lowest 20% of the population has seen its income fall by 10%. The working class, the second quintile, has lost approximately three weeks of salary a year in real terms over the last 15 years under the failed Conservative and Liberal, let us say, fair economic policy.

The middle class has lost about three weeks a year of salary because of these failed economic policies. Even the upper middle class has lost in its market income about 1%. One might say that is half a week or a week of its salary but that has a real impact when it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

This will come as no surprise to anyone. The wealthiest of Canadians, the top quintile, the corporate lawyers and the CEOs, have seen their real incomes climb by over 12%.

What we are seeing is not only a failure of the dispute settlement mechanism and a failure of our government to deal in any concrete way with the Bush administration ripping up NAFTA's dispute settlement mechanism, but we are also seeing very clearly a failure in economic policy, a failure rate of 80%. Eighty percent of Canadians are having a tougher go of it now than they did 15 years ago. Eighty per cent of families are earning less.

We all know that Canadians are working harder than ever. Overtime has multiplied by a factor of three. Canadians are working longer and longer weeks, longer and longer hours, putting more and more in and getting more part time and temporary jobs which means more insecurity.

Statistics Canada tells us as well that most jobs do not come with pensions anymore and in real terms most Canadians have lost substantively anywhere from half a week, one week, three weeks or more of their salaries. This is a failed policy.

The industry minister said two months ago that the Liberal government would take the Americans into the boards, to use a hockey analogy. Our point is this. The Liberals are not even on the ice. They are hiding in the dressing room. There are concrete actions they should and could be taking and we in this corner of the House, in the New Democratic Party, will continue to push. We will continue to stand up for Canadians. We will stand up for those 80% of Canadians who believe that energy should be on the table now that the dispute settlement has been ripped up. We will be standing up for those 80% of Canadians who have seen their real incomes drop over the last 15 years. We will be standing up for Canadians from coast to coast to coast because we are the only party that is standing up for Canada. We are proud to that and we will continue to do that.

[Softwood Lumber, October 25th, 2005]

Madam Chair, I appreciated the comments by the Leader of the Opposition on the inaction of the Liberal government.

There is absolutely no doubt that we have had two months and the one action that the government undertook was a phone call. It is absolutely unbelievable that it would take two months to make a phone call and no other action has taken place. We have had a lot of rhetoric. We have had speeches at the economic policy meeting in New York. We have had speeches for domestic consumption. We have had absolutely no action.

The Bush administration has, for all intents and purposes, ripped up NAFTA. The dispute settlement mechanism, for all intents and purposes, is dead. We have seen absolutely no action from the government.

The Leader of the Opposition said that it was all about credibility. The Leader of the Opposition has not had any concrete action to suggest to the government either. The NDP came forward with a three point plan and careful specifics, things that would actually have moved this file forward. We have seen nothing from the official opposition, except, I should mention, a comment that if Canadians wanted to have somebody take care of their interests they should phone George Bush and the White House themselves because obviously the Conservative Party is not going to do any better than the Liberal Party.

The Leader of the Opposition has no credibility and his party has not brought forward any concrete suggestions except the special envoy which, as far as anyone who actually understands the file would be concerned, is exactly the same as negotiating. Since we won through the extraordinary panel procedure why would we go back and negotiate? That would be the worst possible thing we could do?

My question is very simple and it is all about credibility. What makes the Leader of the Opposition feel that he has credibility on this file when he has failed Canadians as well?