Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to enter the debate at this late stage in the day. I compliment the House and all the parties in it who granted unanimous consent to the motion proposed by the official opposition. It is wonderful.
I have a particularly pleasant feeling about the whole thing. I am convinced the Prime Minister when he went to see the president of the United States today wondered exactly how much support he had in Canada for the position that had to be advanced here.
Lo and behold, before the end of the day the House agreed unanimously to give the Prime Minister all the ammunition he needed to give to the president of the United States. He could stand there with all great authority and say he had the full support of the House of Commons. He could not have said that before. It is good to feel the official opposition has finally shown the Government of Canada where it ought to go and the position it ought to take. It is great.
I will say this for the benefit of everyone listening at the end of the day to find out exactly what the president will hear from the Prime Minister of Canada. He will hear that the principles and provisions of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and North American Free Trade Agreement, including the dispute resolution mechanism, should be fully applied to trade in softwood lumber and that our government will be urged not to accept any negotiated settlement.
I hope the Prime Minister will not accept any negotiated settlement of the current softwood lumber dispute outside the NAFTA and FTA unless it guarantees free and unfettered access to the U.S. market and includes dispute resolution mechanisms capable of overriding domestic trade measures to resolve future disputes. That is a strong negotiating position. It has the support of the industry and all parties in the House. That is its strength.
Why are we so concerned about the issue? It represents $16 billion worth of business for British Columbia alone. Thousands of people have been thrown out of work because the government five years ago refused to deal with the issues at hand. It knew this would happen. It knew the softwood lumber agreement which was outside NAFTA would come to an end. It knew something had to be done.
What did the government do? It did nothing. Silence in the House is what was done. In the meantime a minimum of 18,000 people were thrown out of work in British Columbia alone. The industry was hurt in Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Nova Scotia and in every other province across this country of ours.