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Dec/1/21 8:14:03 p.m.
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Order. The hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.

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Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

Dec/1/21 8:14:12 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to congratulate the member for his speech. When the Liberal government was elected in 2015, there were a lot of problems with the mandate letters that the government released. In fact, I remember asking the government to prioritize softwood lumber in the mandate letters in 2015. It was the first thing I said when this chamber came back after the election. Would the member agree that the government needs to prioritize this issue at a much higher level so his workers know their government is actively working on this? As I said earlier, the government only talks about softwood lumber when we talk about it in an emergency.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:15:22 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, we are hearing a lot of empty words like “priority” and “vigour” while workers and industries are struggling. We have had enough of these empty words. They are like buzzwords. They need to be tweaked to say that it is important to the rest of us. Enough buzzwords. People are waiting. This should indeed be a key priority. However, I am curious, and I have to wonder. President Biden holds the first three amigos summit in several years, bringing together the three North American heads of state, and a week later, new tariffs are announced. If that is not a diplomatic triumph, I do not know what is. I hope my colleagues caught my sarcasm.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.)

Dec/1/21 8:16:10 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I am interested in my colleague's thoughts on expanding export markets beyond the United States. We can talk about the diversification of the industry into secondary markets such as furniture or whatever else might be a wood product, but one of the biggest things the government can do is look at ways in which industry can increase the number of markets for the products we have, whether it is in Quebec, B.C. or my home province of Manitoba. Could the member provide his thoughts on whether there are countries the Bloc believes we should be pursuing to expand those markets? I would like to hear what he has to say on that issue.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:17:00 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, first I would like to know what to think. I have not heard any intentions. What I mean is that I have heard the intention, but I have not seen anything of substance. I would really like to be the first to say that I have seen the proposed policy and that it makes sense, or that this or that element should be improved. However, right now, there is nothing. There is absolutely nothing, just wind. Once again, there are just empty words. My colleague asked me if I support processing and market diversification. I have spoken about that. Now, when are they going to put their money where their mouth is? We are not in government. It is up to the Liberals to answer that question.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Dec/1/21 8:17:48 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the softwood lumber dispute is having huge repercussions for forest communities in northern Ontario. However, it has also led to the transformation of the industry, especially in terms of efficiency and the use of natural resources in the north. My question is as follows. Where is the federal government's plan to work with the forestry industry and the northern regions? How does it plan on developing new markets to harness the transformation of the industry and create new opportunities for it in Canada?

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:18:23 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his question, but I have no answer for him. My colleague asked where the plan is. Had I seen it, I could have definitely answered him. Unfortunately, I am very saddened to come to the conclusion that it does not exist.

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Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ)

Dec/1/21 8:19:09 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, first I would like to congratulate my brilliant colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot on his speech. The forestry industry is a major player in our region. It accounts for nearly 20% of the Lower St. Lawrence economy and nearly 40% of the region’s manufacturing jobs. History tends to repeat itself. My colleague put it very well. We have already seen this bad movie before. In 2006, the industries had to leave on the table nearly $1 billion of the $5 billion that was imposed as countervailing tariffs. I would ask my colleague what is the solution that will prevent Quebec from suffering the repercussions of the tariffs being imposed on softwood lumber by the Americans.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:19:44 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, my heart goes out to the workers in my colleague’s region who have been affected by these various shocks and who may still be affected in 2022, if this continues. My colleague mentioned the 2006 agreement. When it expired in 2015, there was some lofty rhetoric, but there was no new agreement afterwards. Nothing concrete was announced. To answer his question about how to prevent this from happening, I would say that Ottawa needs to acknowledge that Quebec has a genuine system. The real solution is obviously for Quebec to negotiate its own agreements directly as a free and independent republic.

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Mrs. Tracy Gray (Kelowna—Lake Country, CPC)

Dec/1/21 8:20:37 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the hon. member and I sat on the trade committee earlier this year. The minister attended a committee meeting back in June, and we were asking questions on the notification of the duties that were coming. What were the member's thoughts on that meeting and was the minister reassuring in her comments?

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:21:07 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I commend my colleague and former peer from the Standing Committee on International Trade. We had a lot of fun working together. We had a very good rapport. Usually a visit from the Minister of Trade is spent with her eating up the time for questions. When we ask a solid question that calls for a short and solid answer, we get a response that begins with a long preamble involving thank yous, kowtowing and that sort of thing just to eat up time. Then we are told that they are working hard for Canadians, that this is a priority, that they are working vigorously on this and so on, yet we never get an answer from the minister. In fact, we have never gotten one from most of the ministers in this government. I do not feel reassured. Even if I did, I would be wrong to feel that way. It would be naive of me. We got the answer a week ago.

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Mr. Eric Melillo (Kenora, CPC)

Dec/1/21 8:22:24 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I appreciate that the member mentioned the environmental benefits of forestry, especially Canadian forestry. We have one of the greenest, most environmentally friendly industry in the world. I wonder if he would comment further on the benefit of supporting Canadian forestry from the perspective of fighting climate change.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

Dec/1/21 8:22:49 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his question and the opportunity to provide some details. With respect to the benefits of forestry, we have seen some extremely innovative businesses. They are developing derivatives, wood-based bioproducts, rather than relying on yesterday's energy sources. I think that is one way forward along with other energy sources of the future. We are a nationalist party. We are not against economic nationalism. There are issues we have to deal with on a continental and global basis, and the environment is one of them. It took centuries for trees to develop. It is almost miraculous. All kinds of studies on trees show that their benefits are legion, ranging from oxygen to well-being. Some studies show that they improve well-being and create cool islands. Trees are all pro, no con. They supply us with extremely high-quality wood. There is no doubt that the forestry industry has not always been up to snuff. I recall a film that made an impression in Quebec. It was called Forest Alert and was produced by Richard Desjardins, a great Quebec artist who is popular with all my Bloc Québécois colleagues. Fortunately, things have changed, and this is a sign that social movements must continue to mobilize. Today, we have a great industry. We have a great sector that can always do better, of course, as long as it has the support of the public and a strategy, and political priorities are put in place.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

Dec/1/21 8:24:29 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment. I have heard great things about your wisdom, and I look forward to working with you. I will be sharing my time with the member for Windsor West. This is my first speech since being re-elected, and I want to thank the people of Timmins—James Bay. It is very moving to me that, in the first speech I give, I am speaking about an issue that is impacting our communities. I am thinking of the incredible community of Elk Lake and the mill workers there. The EACOM mill in Timmins has been taken over by Interfor. They are people with an open-door policy and they welcome me to the mill. I have visited with the workers and seen the production lines. One of the things we learned from the long crisis with softwood lumber is that we lost so many mills in the north, along with the collapse of the paper industry: the loss of Smooth Rock Falls, the loss in Kirkland Lake and the huge loss of the Abitibi mill. However, the mills that survived became very efficient. Just this spring I was talking to representatives from EACOM, who said they were finally having a good year. They were finally starting to reinvest, and then they got hit with this. This is an issue that we have to address. I am not going to attack my good friends over on the Conservative side, but their sense of history is, I find, a little strange. Yes, Stephen Harper signed a softwood lumber agreement, but he came in and threw out every WTO win that we had. We had won at the WTO time and time again, but then the agreement was that we would take a billion dollars' worth of subsidies that our industry had to pay, which should have come back to us, and give $500 million to competitive mills in the United States. Do members not think those mills thought that was a great idea, and that as soon as the softwood lumber agreement ended, they thought they would hit up Canadian companies for more money? The fact that our industries had to subsidize American competition shows how wrong this is. That is the history of this. In six years, the current government has not negotiated the softwood agreement, and it has an effect. It has been a ticking time bomb. When the Biden administration came in, we knew it was going to take a hard line on job protection, and I do not hold that against it. I do not hold it against Joe Biden that he is standing up and saying he is going to fight for good union jobs. I have never heard the Prime Minister say that. I wish he would. What worries me about the Prime Minister is that he is like the last of the Davos free traders. He believes that he and the Deputy Prime Minister can go to Davos and talk about this great international order where all the trading partners make agreements, but that is not what is happening. Around the world, countries are defending their own financial interests, and we have been left out in the cold. We saw it with the inability of our country to make PPE when we were hit with the pandemic, and our inability to make sure our people were safe with no investments in vaccines. Well, Brian Mulroney sold off our vaccine capacity, but the Prime Minister was going to trust in the international market. The Americans were investing in massive amounts of medical research during the pandemic so they would never be in that situation again. We were hoping for the best, and that is what we have been hoping for with softwood. We are hoping for the best, that everything will work out. The Prime Minister and the Minister of International Trade went to Washington on November 17. This was going to be the big hug. The Prime Minister was going to do the schmooze charm. Seven days later, the Americans hammered us. What did the Prime Minister say that pissed them off so badly that within seven days, they doubled the tariffs on us? I am not sure the trade minister even mentioned softwood. We never heard any talk about it, but within seven days of their being there, we got hammered. We know how the Americans are going to operate. We know where they stand, and we know how they will bend to their lobbyists and their vested interests in Washington. That is not news to us. The question is what we are going to do to stand up for our industry, our workers, the union jobs we need to defend in forestry and the auto sector, and the massive transformation we need to make in the energy markets. We have not heard that from the Prime Minister. Now the Liberals are telling us it is complex. “Trust us. Trust us,” they say. The workers in Elk Lake, the workers in Timmins, the workers in Cochrane and the workers in Kapuskasing, in my region, are not going to trust. They want to see action.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Dec/1/21 8:30:05 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, it is a real pleasure to stand this evening and talk about timber, to talk about softwood lumber and the impact it is having across rural Canada. I appreciate the member for Timmins—James Bay raising the plight of workers. In my riding, workers have lost their jobs. They have lost their livelihoods and the ability to provide for their families because of government policy and government inaction in not reaching a softwood lumber agreement. Could the member explain what benefits we could see from the forestry industry if the government actually took it seriously and followed through on its commitment in 2016, when it said it had almost reached a deal. Close to six years later we are still waiting for that to come to fruition.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Dec/1/21 8:30:43 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, we have to stand up and not be afraid to say that our industry, which took it on the chin year after year after year, is extremely efficient. Our workers do the best job possible and American consumers look for Canadian wood products because they know they are top-notch products, yet with all that on our side, we cannot get down to Washington and make that case. There is something wrong there. The impact is in our communities. People who go to work and feed their families by the work of their hands, whether they are in the mines, in forestry or in agriculture, need to know that their lives matter here, where the lobbyists and the insiders and the rich folk hang out. Their voices are rarely heard in the House, and we have to be their voice. It is a shame on us that we would allow these jobs to disappear because we do not have a Prime Minister who will stand up for the working class in this country. We have to do better and we have to fight for these jobs, and that will mean trade retaliation. It has to happen. We have to say there's a line in the sand and we will fight.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

Dec/1/21 8:32:00 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his speech. We will be working together on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. He ended his speech by asking what we were going to do for workers in the industry. I would like to tell him that what we can do has a lot to do with secondary and tertiary processing. Unfortunately, industry stakeholders are telling us that the federal government does not have a meaningful program to develop this value chain. I would like to offer my colleague a potential solution. Would he agree that there is no meaningful program because the federal government decided to put all of its eggs in the oil basket? We are now saddled with a massive deficit, and it is time to invest in more worthwhile energy resources or environmental sectors, such as the forestry industry.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Dec/1/21 8:32:59 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleague to participate at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. It is a significant opportunity to implement practical alternatives so that the government can give the natural resources sector the development help it needs and so that we can develop Canada's regional economy. There is a lot of potential in the forestry industry, and this potential has evolved thanks to the efficiency of the industry and the vision of workers across the country. The Government of Canada must implement an investment plan to help this economy develop.

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Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Dec/1/21 8:34:05 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I appreciate my colleague's speech and I quickly want to give a shout-out to the hard-working men and women of the steelworkers union in my riding, who work very hard in the mills in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford to provide for their families. In British Columbia we are developing designs for a lot of mass timber structures, which of course have a much lower carbon footprint than buildings made out of steel and cement. I am wondering if my colleague could talk about these emerging technologies and how we do need to stand up for Canadian workers but also to make a concerted push to U.S. industries, because of course they are going to suffer from the tariffs on these. The U.S. homebuilders are the ones who are going to suffer, but there are some amazing technologies coming and we really need to see the Canadian government stand up for that abroad.

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Dec/1/21 8:35:01 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, we have to be looking at all our sectors at the federal level in terms of the climate crisis and the climate change opportunity. Certainly, the issues of cement are huge. With the ability to use forest products to transform and lower carbon impacts, Canada can be a leader, but we cannot be a leader if we do not have a government that is willing to come to the table. Industry is talking about it; workers are talking about it and people have a vision. What we do not have is a government that is willing to stand up and work with us to make these transformations that will save the planet.

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