Harper Announces Softwood Lumber Deal

This afternoon in Parliament, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that a deal has been reached with the US over the long-standing dispute over softwood lumber. "No duties. No tariffs", Harper declared. Shortly before the announcement, BC Premier Gordon Campbell held a press conference in which he stated that BC was in favour of the deal. The federal opposition parties reacted swiftly and furiously.

One of the most contentious portions of the agreement is the return by the US government of only $4 billion of the $5 billion in duties that it has collected and that the opposition parties believe it owes our country. $1 billion is a huge amount of money and that will not be overlooked by many Canadians as we are left to wonder why the US was rewarded for its continual contraventions of NAFTA and WTO decisions in this matter.

Speaking on behalf of the Liberal opposition, Bill Graham chastised the NDP - predicting that their leader will now stand up and applaud this deal while they had joined with the Conservatives to bring down the Liberal government last year which had been working on this issue for years. Graham is also very skeptical of the details of the actual agreement since the Conservative government has not yet released it. He also spoke firmly about the fact that the US was allowed to keep the extra $1 billion in a giveaway to the US lumber industry. He stated that this agreement was reached to put an end to an "embarassing" issue for the Conservative government in its new, cozy relationship with Bushco.

NDP leader Jack Layton, in a press scrum outside of the house, actually called the deal a "sell-out" and harshly criticized the loss of the $1 billion, equating it with giving money back to a "thief" who had stolen it from you in the first place. "NAFTA is now a complete shell because the dispute mechanism said you weren't allowed to do this kind of thing", Layton said. In French, Layton said the agreement was "absolutely unacceptable".

Because Layton was speaking at the same time that Bloc Quebecois leader, Gilles Duceppe, rose to address the issue in the house, I missed the beginning of his response. Duceppe said, "The businesses have to be compensated for the loss of that $1 billion". Duceppe predicted job losses in many related industries and called for a look into the dispute resolution mechanisms in NAFTA. "The very purpose of NAFTA is being undermined by the US", he continued. In the end, Duceppe said, "We need to take our time to read this agreement. I have my doubts about it".

Layton then stood in the house to give the members his party's official rection. "It is an insult to those workers and [their family members who lost their jobs] that those issues were not adressed in this agreement". Layton berated Harper for treating this as a "celebration". He warned that this opened the door to concessions in disputes with other major US industries. "What a joke!", he declared, in referring to this agreement to allow $1 billion to remain in the hands of the US lumber industry. Layton reminded Harper that he and his party had brought forth "every kind of moral outrage" when they were in the opposition and the Liberals had gone down the same bargaining track that this deal has now concluded with. He also adressed the issue of changing market conditions in response to Harper's "no duties, no tariffs" claim. "We reject it", Layton concluded.

Welcome to the Conservative government's $1 billion boondoggle.

UPDATE: In defending the $1 billion giveaway to the US lumber industry, International Trade Minister, David Emerson, had the audacity to say that he believes some of the money will go towards "charitable works" by those US lumber companies - such as rebuilding in the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. One reporter rightly asked Emerson what say Canadians had in this plan by US companies to spend our money on rebuilding those areas. Emerson did not directly respond to the question.