Thank you for giving me an opportunity to do that. I believe this agreement does secure real gains.
The first one is that it will no longer be necessary to pay 10 per cent at the border.
The second gain is the possibility of working in a predictable environment, in principle, over a period of seven to nine years. Just as an aside, I would say that I don't believe the Quebec industry has to worry about the U.S. terminating this agreement before it expires on its own, seven or nine years from now.
The third gain is unlimited access to the U.S. market when prices are high. It should be noted, however, that there is a limit to what Quebec can export because, for environmental reasons, access to the resource is now much more restricted, which is not the case in British Columbia. So, this is a very significant gain. Ontario and Quebec will receive different treatment from British Columbia. The reason for that is that in British Columbia, a wall of wood is going to start to come down because of the mountain pine beetle. Over the next ten years, almost 70 per cent of the forests in Alberta and British Columbia will be threatened. They will try to take that wood out as quickly as possible. And other than putting it aside for the next 100 years to make violins, I imagine they're going to try to sell it. And by trying to sell it, they will clearly have a significant impact on the market.
In Quebec and Ontario, the situation is quite different. Our wood is not of the same quality. It is smaller in size and, as a result, poses less of a threat to the U.S. market. It is very hard to work with because it is smaller. It's also much harder and more complicated for companies to increase their productivity. The agreement makes a clear distinction between the situation in the East as opposed to the West, which is extremely important. The agreement provides for the fact that Eastern Canada will in any case limit its exports because access to the resource is restricted for reasons related to the environment, survival of the forest, and maintaining its capacity at appropriate levels. This is a solution tailor-made for Eastern Canada.
The amount of lumber that can be exported to the U.S. will be between 3.5 and 3.9 billion linear feet yearly, which is more than we ever hoped to get in these negotiations.
In conclusion, the agreement isn't perfect, obviously. As regards the running rules, it is our hope that the Canada-U.S. committee set up to discuss certain issues will come up with solutions. There is no doubt that administering this on a monthly basis will not be easy, but nor will it be impossible. Our industries, which have seen others like this, will want to cooperate, in our opinion.