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Member of Parliament

Randy Hoback

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Prince Albert
  • Saskatchewan
  • Voting Attendance: 60%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $168,935.37

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24
Mr. Randy Hoback (Prince Albert, CPC)
  • Apr/8/24 6:51:03 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I rise today to speak to the softwood lumber dispute between the United States and Canada, and the over $8 billion in tariffs that the Americans have collected from Canadian businesses. As adviser to the leader of the official opposition on Canada-U.S. relations, I wish to give my unique perspective on what I have learned in Washington and on the challenges that the Liberal government has created in reaching a negotiated deal. This situation is one of the Prime Minister's own doing, and it is reflective of his lack of care for the forestry sector as a whole and for the thousands of Canadians who are impacted. There has been $8 billion in tariffs collected as a direct result of the Liberal government's failure to prioritize Canadian workers, indigenous communities and our natural resource sector. It did not need to be like that. There is a desire on both sides of the border to resolve this matter, as Americans and Canadians recognize the importance of the industry. There is no excuse for not reaching a negotiated deal. Over the last 42 years, Canada and the United States have reached agreements on softwood lumber. The most recent agreement, softwood lumber agreement five, was in place from 2006 to 2016. SLA 5 was in place because the former Conservative government understood the importance of the forestry sector to Canada. We understood that the forestry sector was mutually beneficial to both Canada and the United States. When we went to Washington, we made sure that we worked collaboratively with our American partners to reach an agreement. The Liberal government has done the exact opposite. It has completely ignored the situation and has refused to address the dispute at the highest levels of government. When the agreement expired in 2016, the Liberal government should have made it a priority to negotiate a resolution with the Americans, but instead, it delayed and looked the other way. As the years passed, the hon. ministers of international trade blamed the American government, claiming there was no desire to resolve the dispute in Washington. I wish to contest that point. Over the years, American legislators, associations and companies have publicly made it quite clear that they want the softwood lumber dispute resolved, and for good reasons. The United States does not produce enough lumber for its own needs. In a letter dated May 17, 2021, addressed to the United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, over 90 members of both parties in the House of Representatives urged the U.S. federal government to resolve the matter with the Government of Canada, saying, “We now call upon you to represent American interests on this critical issue by pursuing a balanced agreement with Canada. We, as Members of Congress, stand ready to discuss this issue and potential solutions with you.” Additionally, on May 12, 2021, members of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations wrote to the Secretary of Commerce and USTR Tai, saying, “We write to urge you to take action to resolve the longstanding trade dispute between the U.S. and Canada on softwood lumber” and also saying, “These imports are vital to support the ongoing housing boom”. It has not been American denial. It has been the Liberal government's refusal to acknowledge the issue at the highest levels of government and to advocate effectively for a solution to the softwood dispute. Most interestingly is that the Standing Committee on International Trade published a report in November 2023 analyzing the problem and the possible remedies. During those hearings, Government of Canada officials noted that the Minister of International Trade raised the issue of the current dispute directly with President Biden. She raised the issue. According to officials at Global Affairs Canada, the Prime Minister also emphasized the harm of American tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber producers and employees, yet in the report, recommendation 4 states, “achieving an agreement with the United States regarding trade in softwood lumber products ultimately will occur only through direct head-of-government negotiation”, and it also says, “the...softwood lumber dispute should be made a high-level priority in dealings with the U.S.” They had the President of the United States in Ottawa last March, yet again, the Liberal government failed to advocate for Canadian jobs and Canadian interests adequately. This report, the timeline and the situation we currently find ourselves in demonstrate that the Prime Minister has routinely failed to resolve the dispute and has failed to make the interests of Canadian workers a priority when dealing with the United States. The previous Conservative government successfully negotiated a deal, yet the Prime Minister has failed to provide the attention this dispute so desperately requires over the last five years. Why has he continued to fail to negotiate a deal if these Canadian jobs are so important to the Prime Minister? Why does the Liberal Government not give the issue the attention it desperately needs? The softwood lumber dispute will not resolve itself overnight. It requires actual leadership to get it done. We, as Conservatives, know that we can get it done. We also know that the Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.
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