To my knowledge, even though one might consider the Americans' actions to be almost an abuse of process, they have never sought a remedy outside the existing framework of the WTO and NAFTA. They have used every single mechanism available to the fullest—some would say, ad nauseam—and it's not over yet. It could go even further in the case of at least two actions, not to mention those under way domestically.
American society is a society that thrives on litigation. It's a society where people try to use the courts to resolve a lot of issues. In Quebec and Canada, we tend to be more consensual; we try to find accommodations. American society prefers to see the matter settled and relies on the law and the legal profession to do that. That's why there are so many lawyers there. For example, Japan has a population of 100 million but only a few hundred lawyers, whereas the United States has tens of thousands of them in every State. They are very different societies, with a different approach to problem-solving.
I tend to want to focus on empirical evidence in that regard. I look at what happened after we reached other agreements on softwood lumber with the Americans; they always abided by the terms of those agreements. The U.S. government will commit to that. It's going to do so in a letter, according to what Mr. Emerson told us last week, and it intends to implement the agreement for seven to nine years. We can therefore assume that it has no intention of terminating it. Why would it? I wondered why it was focussing so much on this. The other agreements did not include a termination clause, meaning that it could have terminated the agreement at any time with one year's notice, whereas now, it can only terminate it after 18 months. It will also have to give six months' notice. So this is a 24 month agreement, with one year of free trade, or standstill, which means three years for our companies, in actual practice. So, either the agreement is in force or there is free trade, in the worst case scenario.
And how would that worst case scenario come about? Well, in my opinion, the only thing that could prompt the Americans to terminate the agreement would be if British Columbia decides to sell its timber in such a way as to considerably disrupt the market. They would surely be of the opinion, were that to occur, that B.C. companies were in the process of taking back a huge share of the U.S. market, given that the Government of British Columbia would have to get rid of the pine beetle-infested lumber. That timber is available at very low prices, which means that companies could, theoretically, sell it at a very low price. Sometimes I tell friends in Quebec that their next cottage will be built with pine beetle wood from British Columbia, because it will be much cheaper. British Columbia wanted to defend its pricing system, but what was it offering in exchange? The Canadian government probably had to agree to allow the U.S. to terminate the agreement if it considered certain practices to constitute an abuse.