Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Minister, I have followed developments as regards this agreement from the standpoint of Quebec's interests and I see that the various Canadian realities have been taken into account. You also took into account the various court rulings in our favour in recent years, with a view to strengthening the Canadian position as part of interest-based negotiations. And with this agreement, you will also be able to avoid further litigation or, as you say, “Lumber V”. As well, Quebec will be entitled to its fair share of exports.
When you worked with Mr. Peterson, the expectation was that we would recover half of the money paid to the United States, whereas under this agreement, $4.3 billion will be repaid.
The fact is that the agreement has been improved. It includes an accelerated refund mechanism, which makes loan guarantees of little use, cumbersome in fact, since they would force people to go more into debt. Under this agreement, they will be getting back their own money. As a Member of Parliament, I represent a riding where there are a lot of border mills. And you did in fact take into account the historic exemption enjoyed not only by mills in the Maritimes, but our border mills as well.
For all these reasons, Minister, I want to commend you on an excellent job. This is a comprehensive agreement. However, I do have one question with respect to the termination clause. You said yourself that the clause is nothing more than a red herring; that it is a non-issue. And if you had kept the April 28 agreement as is, with no termination clause, under international law, there would have been a unilateral one-year termination clause under the Vienna Convention.
However, at the request of Canadian industry, you made improvements to that 23-month clause and also negotiated a one-year standstill provision. That is unusual and provides extraordinary protection for our Canadian industry. Indeed, the Chief Negotiator for Quebec, Pierre-Marc Johnson, who is an expert on international law, made that very point.
So, I would be interested in hearing your comments with a view to clarifying that point because, unfortunately, we hear far too often that Canada gave in to the U.S., when in actual fact, it made very significant gains.
Thank you.