Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Emerson, I'd also like to thank you for coming before our committee today. From my role last year as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Trade, I know the complexities and the challenges of trying to reach a long-term agreement that could give our industry some stability.
Now, as mentioned before, rulings have been made and are still being made that the tariffs were illegally collected. In our negotiations a year ago, we were adamant that any final agreement should not have any money going into the hands of the U.S. lumber industry and its lawyers. One of the main reasons is that not only does it belong to our producers, but we've also been falling into that trap of the Byrd Amendment. You're very familiar with the Byrd Amendment. If we allow this money to go into the producers' hands, it legitimizes the Byrd Amendment, which could have far-reaching consequences on future trade disputes with the U.S. over any of our exports.
Another thing is that a year ago we had a bit of a draft agreement with the U.S. In that, all collected tariffs would be coming back to Canada. After we received those tariffs, we were going to then allocate a portion of that, probably similar to the billion dollars. Part of it was going to go to the Katrina disaster; the other part was going to be for promotions of softwood lumber products.
I have two questions. The first one, Mr. Minister, is why are we playing into the hands of that Byrd Amendment and giving the U.S. competition down there ammunition that will come back at us in two years' time, or whenever they come back at us again? That's my first question.
My second question is this. With all those international rulings in our favour, why aren't we now playing our cards a little harder and insisting that we receive the money, and of course allocating it in a way that the U.S. can accept, like helping with the Katrina disaster or promoting softwood lumber products?