Peter Julian

[Softwood Lumber, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in yet another reaction to the softwood lumber sellout, Western Forest Products, which employed nearly 300 people, is closing its Queensborough mill in New Westminster, B.C. The closing of the mill, which has been in operation since 1914, deals a devastating blow to another softwood community.

With the help of the Liberal Party, the government and its intellectually malnourished Minister of International Trade are ramming down the throats of Canadians a badly negotiated, poorly drafted and punitive softwood agreement. The sellout promotes raw log exports to the U.S. rather than jobs in Canada.

We saw 2,500 jobs lost in just one week after the accord was signed and there have been 4,000 in the last month. As a result of the softwood sellout, we have seen jobs lost across British Columbia, in Alberta, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and in northern Ontario and Quebec.

Not one Conservative has spoken out against this. Only one political party is fighting this sellout and the giveaway of Canadian jobs and over $1 billion. Only the NDP is standing up for Canada and Canadian softwood jobs.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's efforts to vainly defend the indefensible, which is this badly botched deal and this badly flawed bill.

What is interesting, in the exchange with the Liberal member opposite, is that it is quite clear that there was even more botching in the process of drafting the amendments that were supposed to fix the first draft of botches that came in Bill C-24.

The parliamentary secretary said that Canadians needed to think about what life was like before the softwood sellout. The answer to that is very simple: the 4,000 people who had jobs then do not have them now after the signing of the agreement. In the last four weeks, 4,000 jobs have evaporated into thin air. Canadians who think about what life was like before the softwood sellout can think of the thousands of people who are no longer working and the thousands of families that have lost their breadwinner because of the appalling incompetence of the government.

The parliamentary secretary referred to some repairs that were made to this badly flawed bill, Bill C-24. We only heard two witnesses at the standing committee. A number of errors were identified. Why were other clauses, like clause 6, clause 25 and clause 18, not repaired?

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member for Gatineau's speech, but I do not understand. I do not understand the Bloc Québécois' position at all.

Since the provisional implementation of this agreement, 2,000 jobs have been lost in Quebec. Jobs have been lost in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, plants have been shut down in Abitibi, and jobs have been lost in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean and on the North Shore. In short, more jobs have been lost in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. Yet the Bloc still says it will support the agreement. It will support the bill even though we all know it is a bad deal and not at all in the best interest of Quebeckers.

We also know that this agreement has an anti-circumvention clause, which also appears in the bill, that directly affects Quebec's power to act. This clause forces the Government of Quebec to go to Washington if it wants to change its forest policy. The province has to get approval from the Bush administration for any changes even though forest policy falls exclusively under provincial jurisdiction. Even though it is within the purview of the Government of Quebec, we have just ceded the Government of Quebec's sovereignty.

The Bloc's policies in this House are inconsistent. The Bloc is not defending the Government of Quebec's right to make changes to its forest policy, nor is it fighting for all of the jobs that were lost because of this bad deal.

Why?

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how to take the intervention of the member for Sydney—Victoria.

The Liberal members on the committee rammed through Bill C-24 and refused debate on most of the bill. Aside from the section on the maritime lumber exemption, which we in the NDP supported, the Liberals rammed through every section. Now the member for Sydney—Victoria stands in the House and says that the Liberal Party is opposed to Bill C-24.

The reason Bill C-24 is in the House today is because of the Liberal Party. The Liberals were the instigators. They were the ones who pushed this bill along. It would still be in committee and we would still be looking at changing some of the most egregious errors that were made had it not been for Liberal members ramming it through.

I do not know how to take the member's intervention. Is it possible that he has finally realized that the Liberals made an egregious error and they are apologizing to Canadians from coast to coast to coast for having rammed through Bill C-24 and having done the Conservatives' dirty work? I hope that is the case but I think it is another example of Liberal double-talk. The reality is that the bill is in the House today because of Liberal support.

We know the bill is bad for Canadians but it is the Liberals who forced it through. The bill is here in the House now, after being rammed through at record speed, because of Liberal Party support.

The NDP has been the only party actively standing up and saying that with the thousands of lost jobs that have resulted since the bill was rammed through provisionally a month ago, with the billion dollars that we are giving away, despite a court decision that says we do not need to give away a single penny, with the export tax that is leading to job losses and shutting down value added production in this country and the fact that this deal stimulates raw log exports, we must ask why the Liberal Party forced this bill through.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I was amused to see the member for Sydney—Victoria speak in opposition to the agreement when the Liberals in committee tried to ram the thing through. They did the Conservatives' dirty work for them. I like him personally, but I think it is audacious, even for a Liberal, to stand in the House now that the television cameras are back on and say that the Liberals are opposed again. It is in the House now because of the Liberal Party and Canadians will not forget that we are debating this bill in the House because of the Liberal Party.

I would like to go back to my colleague from the Conservative Party who said some things that were absolutely shameless. He knows that on October 13 the Court of International Trade ruled in our favour. This has been the line from the beginning. The Conservatives said it would be endless litigation. The Prime Minister said it would take seven years of litigation.

The member knows that following that decision customs and border protection has already started paying 100% of the dollars out to the companies that did not sign on to this badly botched deal. He also knows that most companies have not done the legal work for the Export Development Corporation because they know full well this is a badly botched deal and that they should not be involved in it. He knows all those facts.

However, the question that I have to ask is--

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. In fact, it is the case and, even worse in Bill C-24, what we are adopting and what the Liberals and Conservatives are trying to foist on the House, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, is a bill that provides American definitions of virtually everything, including definitions of tenure and of related and unrelated people. All of those issues now go to the American coalition and it now has in place definitions that the Americans will be able to use against us.

Even better, thanks to the Conservatives' generosity and with the support of the Liberals, they now have half a billion dollars--

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay is absolutely right. He has been one of the most vocal people in standing up for northern Ontario. He has been a champion of northern Ontario, as has the member for Sault Ste. Marie. We have two members in the House who have been standing up for northern Ontario jobs.

The reality, as the member for Timmins—James Bay has just pointed out, is that we are hemorrhaging jobs in northern Ontario because of this badly botched softwood sellout. We are hemorrhaging, with closures and layoffs right across northwestern Ontario. We saw it in Thunder Bay, but we are seeing it right across northern Ontario.

The Liberals, who have been saying that somehow they are opposed to this, have been working with the Conservatives and pushing this along. I do not know how a single Liberal member from northern Ontario can stand up and say that the Liberals have been fighting the good fight after what happened at the Standing Committee on International Trade, when the Liberals did the Conservatives' dirty work to push this bill through.

The reality is that we are in the House now debating Bill C-24 in its badly botched form because of the Liberal Party, because of those Liberal members. They are the ones who pushed this through. They are the ones who said no, they did not care about softwood, that was just for the TV cameras. Now we are in the situation where we have a badly flawed bill that does not even do what the Conservatives said it was going to do because they screwed up the definitions and badly botched the drafting. Now we have a situation where northern Ontario is going to pay the price for having Liberals who are refusing to stand up for that region.

Not only are we seeing this in northern Ontario, but we are seeing it right across the country. We are seeing lost jobs everywhere, from B.C. right through to northern Quebec, and those lost jobs are a direct result of this badly botched softwood sellout.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

As my colleague from Winnipeg Centre has just pointed out, the more we learn about this deal, the more we realize this House is failing in its responsibility to softwood communities across the country. It is failing utterly and completely.

There are double taxation provisions and no provision to allow those companies to go back and push for the kind of justice they should be seeing. Clause 39 has to be deleted.

We are looking through these various motions, Mr. Speaker, that you have regrouped, I would say somewhat hastily. I would disagree with the provisions that you put forward.

The other aspect we touch on in Motions Nos. 83 and 84 is the fact that we have a deal that was put into place, badly botched from the beginning, that forced companies to pay a double tax at the border. When this was hastily and shoddily thrown together on October 11, the illegal American tariffs were still in place. It went from a 10.8% tariff to an additional 15% tariff that companies had to pay. They have to pay this and the government has no idea for how long. There were no witnesses allowed, but when we questioned officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, they had no idea when the illegal American tariffs had been taken off. We stepped forward and asked very clearly, why would we put into place provisions of this agreement when illegal American tariffs were still in place? Why would we pay 15% on top of 10.8%? We have said in these motions very clearly that the putting into effect of this agreement has to be November 1.

There was absolute chaos at the border. We have seen absolute chaos in the months since this was provisionally put into effect. There are 4,000 lost jobs, nearly 300 in my community. There will be other members of the New Democratic Party, the only party that is standing up for Canadians on this issue, who will be stepping forward and talking about job losses in their communities as well. There has been utter chaos at the border and companies are paying a double tax. They are paying the 10.8% and an additional 15% on top of that. We have said that the date has to be November 1.

For goodness' sake, 4,000 jobs have been lost because of the incompetence of the federal government, because of its complete lack of understanding of softwood in British Columbia and in other parts of western Canada. Those jobs have been lost. The government, even if it insists on ramming through this deal with the support of the Liberals, has to stand up and realize it made an egregious error. It screwed up. It implemented the deal hastily. To save face for our intellectually malnourished Minister of International Trade we had to rush this job. Because we rushed this job, the government screwed up and companies have had to pay twice.

It makes sense that we make adjustments to the bill, a bill with which we disagree profoundly, but we are trying to save the government from itself, so that the provisions of the deal take effect November 1. There need to be provisions for the companies where double taxation took place at the border, where companies paid the Americans these forced export taxes of an additional 15%.

Bill C-24 is horrible for the softwood companies and the 4,000 families whose breadwinners have lost their jobs. They can attest to that already with four weeks of absolute collapse of the softwood sector because of the incompetence of the government. If the government is absolutely set on ramming this bill through with the support of the Liberals, at least the government should make some provisions for the disastrous situation it has set up.

Disaster is not too strong a word when we are talking about 4,000 lost jobs. We are talking about raw log exports being stimulated now because, as we were told this summer when we saw the softwood agreement coming, this is a recipe for raw logs from Canada creating American jobs. Setting up the 15% export tax, self-imposed, when we won in the Court of International Trade on October 13 is absolutely absurd.

Now we have a bill that is even worse than the sellout, a bill on which the homework was not done, the due diligence was not done. The Standing Committee on International Trade completely failed Canadians. The ministry completely failed Canadians. The minister who has failed his constituents has now broadened his reach. He has betrayed everybody.

We have a situation where the implementation of the softwood agreement is being imposed at the same time as the illegal American tariffs are still being imposed. It is absolutely senseless and absurd.

In this corner of the House there is one political party that Canadians know will stand up for them and will stand up for softwood communities. My colleague from Timmins—James Bay and I went to Thunder Bay. We talked to softwood workers there. They told us how badly they feel about this. They have seen mill closures in northwestern Ontario.

I was in northern Manitoba a week and a half ago where there have been layoffs and shutdowns because of this badly botched softwood sellout. In northern Saskatchewan, in Alberta, in British Columbia there will be public meetings coming up and we will be going into Conservative ridings. This has been a badly botched deal. It is a badly flawed bill. The government and members in all four corners of the House have to make some adjustments to it so that the most egregious impacts are not continued to be felt across the country.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, November 21st, 2006]

moved:

Motion No. 4

— That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 8.

Motion No. 25

— That Bill C-24 be amended by deleting Clause 39.

Motion No. 77

— That Bill C-24, in Clause 100, be amended by replacing line 3 on page 87 with the following:

(a) specifying any requirements or conditions that, in the opinion of the Government of Canada, should be met in order for a person to be certified as an independent remanufacturer;”

Motion No. 83

— That Bill C-24, in Clause 107, be amended by replacing lines 37 and 38 on page 89 with the following:

“which it is made but no earlier than November 1, 2006.”

Motion No. 84

— That Bill C-24, in Clause 108, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 90 with the following:

“earlier than November 1, 2006.”

Motion No. 94

— That Bill C-24, in Clause 126, be amended by replacing line 4 on page 100 with the following:

“have come into force on November 1, 2006.”

He said: Mr. Speaker, I stand to address this first group of motions to amend this badly botched Bill C-24. It is important to give some initial information to the public at large who are watching us today just how badly this bill has been treated. It was badly botched from the start. The negotiations were badly botched. As one person in the softwood industry notably said, Canada capitulated on everything. Subsequent to that there were further capitulations over the course of the summer. Now we have Bill C-24.

As the New Democratic Party members have been paying the most attention to this bill, we can say that the bill itself is badly flawed, badly botched. However, unbelievably the majority of the Standing Committee on International Trade, the Bloc, Conservative and Liberal members, refused to hear from witnesses across the country from coast to coast to coast who wanted to testify on this badly botched bill.

Unbelievably we heard from only two witnesses and they raised the issue about the poor drafting of the bill and some of the perverse impacts of this horrible legislation. Yet the committee just ramrodded through this legislation. In fact, half of the bill was not even considered in committee. There was no debate whatsoever on amendments. In fact, many of the amendments that were rejected were not even considered by the committee because the committee did not want to do its due diligence on the bill. We are now at report stage and amendments are being brought forward. What do these amendments do?

In the first group of amendments we are endeavouring to repair the incredible botch job that was done by the government on Bill C-24. One of the two witnesses who were allowed to testify before the Conservatives and Liberals shut down any testimony testified to the fact that there is this perverse double taxation in the bill itself. Because the government was not able to do its homework properly, we end up taxing twice any company that actually goes through the EDC formula. Unbelievably, that means that the companies that go through the Export Development Corporation are the ones in a sad, sad position with their cashflow and they actually do not get back 80¢ on the dollar. They get back 67¢ because the government in botching the drafting of this bill has taxed them twice. It is unbelievable.

Now that the government with the support of its Liberal allies has botched the bill, we are endeavouring to give an opportunity to those companies to go back to the minister and get refunds on the money that they should not have paid in the first place. That is why I moved Motion No. 25. We are essentially saying that since the bill does not allow those companies to come back except under the very strict provisions of the Financial Administration Act, those companies should have the opportunity to get back the money they should not have paid in the first place.

The reason most companies have rejected the government's plan, the reason that less than 50% of companies signed on to this strange, bizarre Export Development Corporation punitive tax, double taxation as we know, is no secret. The reason is the ruling on October 13 where the Court of International Trade in the United States said that Canada is entitled to get back every single penny. We do not have to go through this sellout. We do not have to go through the lost jobs, 4,000 to date since this badly botched deal was put in place provisionally, 4,000 jobs including many in my community.

We have a badly botched sellout. We have a badly botched deal. We have a committee that was out of control refusing to do its due diligence on the actual provisions of the bill. Far be it from the NDP to have to approve the bill because we disagree with the sellout in principle, but the committee did not do its due diligence. It is completely irresponsible. That means to softwood communities across the country we are now dealing with a deeply flawed bill.

There were virtually no witnesses, no due diligence and now double taxation. As usual, the NDP is having to be the effective opposition. We are saying to wait, that this bill is even bad from a Conservative point of view. Is there not one Conservative willing to stand and say, “I am sorry, we screwed up. We are going to try to correct the most egregious errors in this deal”? No.

Let us look at another element that we are trying to adjust. A committee that is out of control has adopted definitions for tenure that the United States pushed and on which the Conservative government just capitulated. They directly affect the B.C. timber sales program. It is unbelievable. Now tenure is defined the way the United States defines tenure. It means that the timber sales program which is designed with a sealed bid process is now defined as having tenure, which means the United States under anti-circumvention can raise the B.C. timber sales program that was directly put in place to try to get around those punitive illegal measures of the United States. It is unbelievable.

[Aeronautics Act, November 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. It was very important. It is a question of transparency. The Conservative government promised to be more transparent, and to increase the ability to see what is going on in government, but we see in Bill C-6 that consumers, the people who travel on airlines, do not necessarily know whether or not an airline company has safety problems or deficiencies in its maintenance plans, for example

Could the member comment on this point?