Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Emerson, in your opening statements you talked about the risk of Lumber V. You said you thought the American industry would launch other actions against the Canadian industry, which is exactly the point, and why so many in the industry oppose this proposed agreement: essentially, it gives $500 million to the coalition to launch further actions against the Canadian industry, and it starts us back from square one, because it erases four years of legal victories.
We have heard from the industry in the past that 20% of Canadian mills might close as a result of this agreement. What we have is a very badly flawed agreement and botched negotiations. As one industry representative told me, Canada has capitulated on everything. Essentially, over the course of negotiations from April 27 to July 1, we saw continued concessions to the United States. It's no surprise that the industry feels betrayed. Earlier that week, prior to July 1, the industry was very clear that they saw this as fundamentally flawed. They raised very serious objections, and yet on July 1 you initialled the agreement just the same.
I have three questions.
The first is, why did you initial an agreement when you knew the vast majority of the industry was opposed?
Secondly, the Conservative Party in opposition, when you were with the Liberal Party, supported loan guarantees to the industry. Why is the government not moving to provide loan guarantees to the industry, and why the strong-arm tactics trying to force the industry to accept an agreement that is unacceptable?
Thirdly, you raised these issues around litigation and about there being potentially two or three years before funds come back. The Prime Minister spoke, I thought, very irresponsibly. He talked about seven years of litigation. We know that currently—on July 21, with the Tembec case—we won and won quite easily, and that the industry is now looking into providing remedies to the court. The court will address the issue of remedies. They will most assuredly be applying for a preliminary injunction, which would mean the tariffs would be taken off in that case. That case and the ECC judgment on subsidy, which Canada has suspended, are the two cases that are in their last throes.
My question is very simple. We're hearing seven years and three years. We know the Tembec case can only be appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and that the ECC judgment is non-appealable. So very specifically, how do you come up with these figures—three years or, in the Prime Minister's case, seven years of litigation—when we know they're not the case?