Randy Hoback

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I do have a good memory, and I have to acknowledge that they have not. In fact, in the committee this summer, we tried to do an emergency meeting on softwood lumber. Do you know what was said? The member from Quebec said that it was a waste of time and money. How shameful. Now they tell us they are taking it seriously? I am sorry we interrupted her summer holidays to talk about this issue, but this is not a waste of time and money. This should have been talked about and dealt with a long time ago, and they have failed.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I laugh at the member's assumptions. He said that they have only been in power for a year. We did it in the first three months, and then we renegotiated in 2012. It was in fact with the same president who sits there today, who supposedly they have this great bromance with. They should cash it in and get results for Canadian jobs. That is all we are asking.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the process is not simple. Governing is not a simple thing. I believe they are having meetings, but are they listening? Are they actually consulting or just talking? That is the concern I have. Are they actually informing their partners on the proposals they are putting forward in Washington D.C.? They are not, because they do not know or understand what the government is proposing. It is being done in secret. It is done quietly behind closed doors. The big four know, but no one else does.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lac-Saint-Jean.

It is disturbing that we are at this point today where some 400,000 jobs are in jeopardy across Canada going forward this winter, not 200,000 jobs that the minister claimed were at stake. That is approximately 650 communities that do not have a certain future because the Liberal government decided not to think seriously about having an agreement on softwood lumber in place.

If we look at the minister's priorities and the mandate letter she was given when she took on the role, softwood lumber was nowhere to be mentioned. When we talked about softwood lumber at committee and said that we needed to have an emergency meeting to talk about it to see where things were at, the committee member from Quebec called it a waste of time and money. That shows the attitude of the Liberal government toward the forestry sector and all resource jobs in total. Its disdain for that sector is obvious. The fact that it did not make it a priority is very disappointing.

The Prime Minister talks about his special relationship with President Obama. That special relationship got him a dinner at the White House and a whole pile of photo ops with the President. It brought the president here, where they embraced the “bromance” right in the area of the Chair in June. However, if that relationship is so special, we would think he would have been able to say, “You know what? I need this deal done, Mr. President.” He could have done this in June. Then we would have no insecurity in this sector going into the winter season. However, he chose not to. I think he took his time and decided to have a photo op instead of sitting down and talking seriously about getting this done, noting how important it was to Canadians.

I want to remind the House that the previous government not only got the negotiations done within the first three months of taking office in 2006, but also renegotiated the agreement in 2012, both with two different presidents. The Liberals talk about how the previous government has such a bad relationship with the U.S. when in fact it was able to use that relationship and get things done for Canadian workers. Now we have this supposed bromance, which is nothing that can be cashed in on.

I know the Liberals like to deal with their friends. That is quite obvious from the history of the Liberal Party if we go back to the Gomery report, and the like. However, they do not realize that dealing internationally is done in a business-to-business format and that we have to take these things seriously, that when we sit down at the table the friendship ends when the negotiations start, as my colleague said in a press conference today. However, they do not seem to get that. The do not understand what is at stake and what is important.

There are some other things that the previous government managed to get done: the beyond-the-border action plan of 2011 to expedite legitimate trade and travel across the border, which is something that needs more co-operation on to keep moving forward; the Canada-United States energy dialogue in 2009 to strengthen the bilateral co-operation and development of clean energy technology; the expansion of the Nexus program to make it easier for pre-approved individuals to cross the border; and the Gordie Howe bridge. There are many examples of the previous government's success in dealing with Washington, both with Democrats and Republicans, yet this bromance produces nothing but photo ops.

If I go back to the riding and talk about jobs—because this does impact my riding substantially—I look at the mill at Carrot River, for example. This mill was expanded. Millions of dollars was spent in redoing the line. It was putting some stability back into a small town where forestry is very important. I now have to go back to those workers and tell them that the Liberals did not try to negotiate a deal until the last minute and that I cannot promise them any type of bankability as they move forward. Therefore, I have to go to the guy who owns 10 trucks and probably has millions of dollars tied up in equipment and tell him I do not know what the future holds. I have to go to the employees of that sawmill and tell them that the Liberals have not done it and that I do not know what the future holds for them. These are families. These are people who will be going into Christmas unsure of what they can or cannot spend on gifts for their kids. These are people who invest in things like tree cutters, parts, and service across the community as a whole. They do not know what they can or cannot do now because there is no stability in the market.

I was in Prince Albert when the mill shut down. That was back at the time of the old trade dispute in 2004 and 2005, when the pulp mill and the sawmill were shut down. The impact on the community was devastating. If it were not for Fort McMurray and the growth in that sector, it would have been even more devastating and taken the feet right out of the city of Prince Albert. It would not be the city it is today.

We can look at the resource sector and see how important it is to our economy. To see the disdain that the Liberals show towards it and their inability to get results, whether in a softwood lumber agreement or a pipeline to port, shows they do not understand the importance of this sector.

The Liberals used the election and the protectionist climate as an excuse. The Conservatives negotiated the last extension agreement in 2012 during a presidential election. Protectionist measures are nothing new in dealing with the United States. We must deal with them as they come up. We can remember dealing with buy American in the House, and how we had to deal with those issues as they came up. The Conservatives dealt with them.

Country of origin labelling is another example. We were able to resolve those issues while we were in government. It took a lot of hard work and consensus building with our American partners, but we did the hard work and we did it together.

If we look at country of origin labelling and what was involved in getting that result the way we needed it, it was not just litigation. It was actually a matter of working with like-minded professionals, industries, and people who understood the importance of having Canadian beef come across the border, the importance of consumers, and the importance of building alliances down in the U.S. with those types of groups to put political pressure on Congress to say this needed to change. We got it done.

One other concern I have about the government is the secrecy of negotiations. When I go to industries or the provinces and ask what is in the negotiations, what is being proposed, what is being offered, they do not know and cannot tell me because the government will not tell them. I say they could sign a confidentiality agreement, and then at least they would know what is involved in the negotiations. It is not even being offered.

The minister is basically doing these negotiations in secret, in private, with only four major players who have an interest on both sides of the border sitting at her side. How can that be fair to the small players in the sector, the small forestry companies in Canada? How can that be fair to the provincial ministers, who do not know? Why do we have to go to the U.S. to find out bits and pieces of what is in the agreement? That is so disappointing.

How does Parliament function without knowing what is in the agreement? Again, I encourage the minister to come to Parliament and tell us what the government is proposing, what is being put on the table, what the numbers are, if she is using a quota system in the proposal or a tax exemption or taxing system such as tax pricing? What is it?

Those are things the committee could have worked on this summer. Those are the things we could have assisted the government in moving our sector forward and seeing this agreement happen. However, it thought it was a waste of time and money.

Forgive me when I do not take the government seriously when it says it takes this seriously. Forgive me when I look across the aisle and see that the priorities of the Prime Minister lie somewhere else, and not on dealing with this issue, because I do not believe him, and Canadian forestry workers definitely do not believe him.

Let us look at the jobs at stake. I go back to Carrot River, Big River, Meadow Lake, and look at the sector as a whole. It is a very tight-knit sector. When one piece of it fails, it has domino effects on other areas. For example, with the closure of the pulp mill at The Pas, all of sudden Carrot River did not have a source for its chips to go to in The Pas. What would they do with their chips? They had to go to Hudson Bay or somewhere else.

If the saw mill is taken out of Carrot River, then how does Hudson Bay, which shares a forestry management agreement with the company out of Carrot River on hardwood, get their hardwood? When hardwood is cut, the softwood is cut at the same time. It is a coordinated effort, so it is harvested properly.

As we can see, when one of these things fails, the domino effect goes into the sector, and not just into the softwood sector but also the hardwood sector, into particleboard, into pulp and paper. Whole sectors start to fail. The cluster becomes no longer viable.

I will not go into the carbon tax. I will not even talk about what that would do to the sector. Again, let us talk about 11 cents a litre or 45 cents a litre and what that does to the price of diesel. All of this forestry product moves out of the bush by truck. It has to compete with people around the world, including our American competitors and other markets. They do not have a carbon tax. They are not going to have a carbon tax. Yet we are expected to pay for that.

In fact, when we look at the forestry sector, what is so ironic is that these trees sequester so much carbon. It is amazing. It is about one tonne per metre, I understand. If we look at a per acre basis, we can see the amount of carbon that our forestry sector sequesters. When that tree is cut and another tree is planted, again, more carbon is sequestered.

In closing, this is something that the government needed to take seriously. It did not. The result is that we do not have an agreement in place. If the Liberals could do one thing right now, it would be to get a stay of litigation. They could say that while they are negotiating, no illegal activity should be going on in the background, so that there are no duties coming into play at this point in time.

These are some of the things they could do at this point to bring some stability to the market, for this year at least. The best thing they could do is get a good agreement. However, in order to get an agreement, they have to be at the table and have to understand the impacts of their decisions. I do not think they are at the table seriously, and I do not think they seriously understand the impacts.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge my colleague's hard work on committee. This summer, we actually tried to call an emergency committee meeting on softwood lumber. During that meeting, one of the Liberal members from Quebec called the meeting a waste of time and money. I wonder if my colleague could comment on that member's comment, and on what she thinks the committee could have done this summer that would have maybe brought some focus onto this topic.

[Softwood Lumber, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, forestry workers and their families across Canada are worried about their futures. This is because the Liberals have failed to secure a new softwood lumber agreement with the United States.

Almost 400,000 men and women are at risk of losing their jobs come October. All the Minister of International Trade has offered so far are poor excuses and a lack of action.

After a year of inaction by the Minister of International Trade, will the Prime Minister finally take action, call President Obama, and get a deal to protect Canadian jobs?

[David Alexander William Cook, September 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, this past week we lost a great Canadian, and I lost a great friend and adviser, David Alexander William Cook. I have great memories of my visits with Dave. I remember going into his dealership, Farm World, and sitting down with Dave and his sister Marge to discuss farm machinery, trade, grain prices, the situation in Ukraine, and other issues. We always had great discussions, and he would present his ideas with great passion and tenacity.

He was a truly gifted salesman, and he could sell and convince like no one else. His dealership was known for flying out parts to customers, and he sold huge volumes of New Holland combines and tractors across the Prairies. Every farmer across the Prairies knew of Farm World and Dave Cook. He was a big man who had a big heart, who loved his family, his employees and customers, and the Lord. We will miss Dave. I will miss Dave.

To his wife Donna, his five children, and his 16 grandchildren, please accept our condolences, but also take comfort in knowing that Dave is in a better place and remembering all the great things Dave did. He was truly an exceptional man and an exceptional Canadian.

[Public Safety, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, this surprise tax on drywall into western Canada is a real issue for Canadian businesses. We have been hearing from western Canadian contractors, drywallers, and other small construction businesses that this tax will affect their bottom line and lead to job losses.

With no jobs to spare in western Canada right now, what will the Liberals do to ensure that more jobs are not lost as a result of the decision to tax U.S. drywall?

[Food and Drugs Act, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his hard work and his great questions.

Saskatchewan is a trading province. It has over a million people who grow a lot of grain and a lot of beef. We have resources like potash and uranium.

We have a trade deal now with Korea. We can actually go into that market with confidence knowing that the premier has an agreement in place that he can use for backup in case of any disputes. He also has preferential treatment going to that market, depending on whatever goods he is choosing to promote and sell.

Saskatchewan Trade and Export Partnership has been around for many years, and that is what they are very good at. When they see a market opening up, they are very good at taking Canada's small and medium-sized enterprises, introducing them to those markets, and helping them go through the process of selling goods in those markets. I think GMAP has also done a great job in identifying and helping SMEs look for those markets.

When we look at this, it is so good for our western economy, so good for the Canadian economy. We see this being promoted by all the premiers and leaders. They are asking for this deal to be done too, so I would encourage the government to just get on with it and get it ratified.

[Food and Drugs Act, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I know the Lethbridge area very well and I thank the member for her question. She does a great job and we are proud to have her here.

I was lucky enough to travel in that region for a company called Flexi-Coil back in my other life, in earlier days, and it is a very astonishing area. Its ability with irrigation, ability with the feed sector, the cattle sector is just phenomenal.

Let us look at the cattle sector, for example. Let us look at stability in the market in Japan so that we have access to that market and a stable process. Let us look at the fact that if there was a dispute, we would have a mechanism that we could go to settle those disputes. Those are things that are necessary in order to maintain a steady trade balance or trade into Japan. We do okay in canola and other crops, but when there is a dispute it is hard to resolve that dispute because we do not have a panel to help resolve it.

When we have TPP in place, we will have bankable access into that market. We can develop those market chains. We take big feedlots that are located south of Lethbridge, in Picture Butte and up to Nanton, Claresholm, and that country. They can look at it and say they have the opportunity to maybe add a few more thousand head to their feedlots in that part, which means more barley sales, which means more green sales. Again, the economic activity just flourishes from that point.

Then when we throw that economic activity into Lethbridge, it goes throughout the rest of Alberta and Saskatchewan, because they buy a lot of goods from other provinces and other areas. They buy a new truck, a new tractor, and a new combine, and we see that economic activity all generated because they had the ability to sell beef to Japan. That is what trade can do.