Thank you very much, honourable colleague.
I am really pleased with the exemption for Atlantic Canada. I think it's a very important part of this agreement and it does uphold a traditional exemption for Atlantic Canada.
As far as I am concerned and the government is concerned, the way to deal with the Atlantic Canada exemption is to get on with concluding this agreement. In the event that the agreement is not concluded, we're all going to have to contemplate how to pick up the pieces, and provincial governments and industry are going to have to get together. Certainly the federal government is here. We'll continue to pursue our trade litigation, as we would normally do, as a national government, but it would require some recontemplation that right now is hypothetical, and I'm not prepared to speculate on what we would or would not do in the event that this agreement is not concluded.
You did mention some issues with respect to concerns from B.C. In the last few months, B.C. had indicated several concerns that were vital. When it came right down to what the really critical hill-to-die-on concerns were, the anti-circumvention clause was absolutely their number one issue. There were a few other issues, and we have worked with them to deal with those.
There is another outstanding issue in B.C., and to be candid with you, it's a very controversial one. It's the request that lumber produced from logs from private lands in B.C. be exempt from the agreement. We can talk about that part of it, but it also includes a liberalization of whole log exports.
My honourable colleague on my right will know that liberalizing log exports is a very controversial issue in British Columbia. There has been a very substantial increase, even without liberalization, of raw log exports. It is causing serious concern in coastal communities that see these logs going to the U.S. for processing. So while we have been responsive to the province's wishes on that issue, that is not something we have succeeded in getting into the agreement.
What I think is critically important for B.C. and other provinces is the provision for a binational softwood lumber committee of the parties, of the governments, to look at these issues in a very timely way and see if we can create the basis for more exemptions and the basis for more improvements. So I think this agreement does, in a very constructive way, deal with some of the areas where we would have liked to make more progress but didn't.
With respect to negotiations being over, negotiations are over. Ambassador Wilson has had some discussions with provinces and industry in the last few weeks. The purpose of those discussions was around identifying further administrative issues that were still of concern to governments and industry, but the negotiation is over.