The principle point you're raising is, why were there no further negotiations after April 27?
There were further negotiations. We negotiated the British Columbia market price system. We negotiated changes to the termination agreements; on the evening of July 1, we changed the termination clause from three months to twelve months. So there were negotiations following April 27.
The minister did say, and was very clear on this on a number of occasions—and the Prime Minister as well—that as of July 1, negotiations were concluded. We had initialled an agreement and there had been full discussion and dialogue between the government and industry and the provinces during that period from April 27 to July 1. But at some stage, negotiations do have to stop. We had a period of May and June—two full months in there—for lots of discussion.
You made a comment that the government would not help. Well, without a lot of pressure from the industry, the government did provide substantial help in the financing arrangements, so that rather than asking industry to wait for a period of what could be over two years, the government is financing the vast bulk of that. So industry will get the money in their banks in a period of four to eight weeks. That's a significant financial improvement for the industry. Again, that came after April 27.
You also made some reference as to why we were so closed. I would say to you that one of the reasons we took as long as we did from April 27 to July 1 was the significant amount of dialogue between the industry and the negotiating team; we wanted to understand precisely what the issues were on both sides. In some cases we were able to make adjustments to the text that had been concluded on April 27.
I'm not quite sure whether I got this final point, but let me say it the way I thought I heard it. You made some critical comment that we had to drop litigation. Well, effectively, this negotiation is an out-of-court settlement. In other words, the parties to the agreement and the affected parties of the agreement agree to certain things that are set out in the agreement—some substantial benefits to both industries, and for that they both agreed to drop the litigation. You can't have an out-of-court settlement and a continuation of litigation; it just doesn't work. So that is the basis on which both sides agreed that litigation had to be dropped.