FORT FRANCES—Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Ken Boshcoff abstained from voting on the Conservative party’s controversial softwood lumber deal, which passed its first parliamentary vote on Tuesday.
“I abstained for very particular reasons,” Boshcoff said Tuesday afternoon after the vote.
Earlier this month, Boshcoff had announced he would vote in favour of the deal due to requests from constituents—despite what he saw as several flaws in the agreement and the fact his party was voting against it.
“I condemn the Conservative government for making such a raw deal,” he said in a press release.
“[But] after conferring with our local companies affected by the deal, [I] have decided to support the deal with all its flaws,” he added. “I cannot consciously vote to close further mills and put more of my constituents out of work.”
Boshcoff’s change of heart came about after reading the final wording of the legislation.
“The actual wording came out yesterday [Monday],” he said. “Harper deceived us. This bill is not just about softwood lumber. It’s also a bill to punish Canadian companies that don’t sign on.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in government before,” Boshcoff added. “Because the legislation is so badly flawed, I could not vote in favour of it.”
However, since many of his constituents wanted a resolution to the longstanding softwood dispute with the United States, Boshcoff felt it was best to abstain.
“We all understand that anything that will keep our companies going for a while is good for Northwestern Ontario. Workers in softwood wanted me to support it,” he said.
“However, the person on the street knows what a lousy deal it is, what a sellout, bad deal it is, and didn’t want me to support it,” he added.
The deal passed its first vote by a 172-116 margin, with the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois in favour and the Liberals and NDP against.
Boshcoff noted by the time it was the Liberals’ turn to vote in the House of Commons, the deal already had passed by a safe majority.
The agreement includes a promise from the U.S. to return 80 percent of the duties collected from Canadian lumber companies since 2002. It also replaces U.S. timber duties with a Canadian-collected border tax and quotas.
The Liberals say the deal is designed to punish companies that don’t participate.
“The Harper government has demonstrated that it will punish the companies that have refused to sign on to this agreement,” the party said in a release yesterday.
“This includes the imposition of a 19 percent levy on all refunded duty deposits on the holdout companies.
“The government should immediately cease this harassment and treat these companies with the fairness and respect owed to all companies in this country,” it added.
(Fort Frances Times)
Fort Frances Times
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