Thank you, Mr. Julian.
It is obvious that the fact that the government did not accept what they had proposed themselves - the loan guarantees we have been asking for four years - makes the alternative almost impossible. In many cases, people are, financially speaking, at the end of the tether. If they don't have some financial support which would enable them to get across the river, they are obviously going to be forced to accept the deal.
The suspension of the NAFTA Extraordinary Challenge Committee is, in my view, an accident. According to me, the U.S. government pulled a trick to the Canadian government in this matter, since in all the other cases, nothing has been suspended. Everything rolls as foreseen since it is the cautious way to go. There is no way to know whether the agreement will be approved or not in the end.
I think that this particular case is absolutely deplorable. It is linked to the original complaint of the United States, which claimed that we were subsidizing our industry, which is not the case, as recognized by NAFTA authorities.
On the cost of litigation, I testified here some time ago, along with some of my colleagues from the industry associations, about that. It's hard to pin down, but it was estimated that it was easily in the order of $100 million. Of course it's been some time since then.
The cost of going on for another year or so would obviously be quite small compared to that. The cost of doing it over again under the conditions of the deal would be greater because indeed some of the mechanisms that we have now solidified through these victories would simply be gone. So it would be more expensive the next time. This is another reason why it's such a tragedy under this deal to let all these results go.