Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this afternoon. Diana has made our case for the Maritime Lumber Bureau, and I'm here with her in support, as a maritime lumber producer and someone who's been involved in this case for the last 25 years.
We've been investigated historically with no finding of allocation of subsidy. Also, we've had the U.S. government use us as a benchmark for subsidy allocation over the last number of years, and nothing's been found. We have repeatedly, for the last 25 years, spent millions of dollars on defending ourselves, repeatedly.
In this recent episode here, these last four years, as Diana has pointed out, it has cost the Atlantic Canadian industry some $90 million, probably $100 million by the time the bills are all added up, for losses from currency, from legal bills, from dollars left behind as our share of the anti-dumping penalty.
We want to be very clear on this. Diana has done a great job explaining the case, putting our position forward, but we'd urge you all, as elected officials representing this nation, to get this deal done. It will not happen unless the political leadership that got us to the July 1 deal perseveres and makes it happen. We can't emphasize that enough. We don't think that continued negotiation, protracted discussions by any group, will result in any further improvement.
There are a great number of things we don't like about the agreement. As Diana says, we've been sideswiped and our industry has been harmed by this action, but we're willing to leave that as it is as long as we can move forward with confidence. The cancellation clause is of concern to us because we've seen it cancelled in the past, throwing us into turmoil in a part of Canada that has no position to be in turmoil because we're not part of the fight. But we're Canadians and we're here to support getting the deal done, and done quickly.
Thank you very much.