Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As we move very rapidly through very important legislation, I think Canadians expect better of us.
We're on clause 17.1, Mr. Chair. This addresses the issue of consultation. We know that the softwood sellout that was imposed was not reached with any consultation with either industry or the provinces.
The provinces have been bought off, as it were, by the fact that the tariffs we're imposing on our own lumber companies go back to the provinces, so some provinces have decided that they will support the agreement on that basis. They get money out of it, so that's perhaps understandable.
The industry was very clear from the very beginning that what needed to happen was that there needed to be ongoing consultation with the industry. The industry voted right across the country in opposition to this.
In Quebec, for example, the outcome of the only vote that was held was 35 to 12 against the Agreement. The Quebec industry said that it was against the Agreement. Following that, in July, the government said that we had no choice: the only option was to accept the Agreement, however imperfect or flawed it may be. And here we have a Bill that is giving carte blanche, a blank cheque to the Minister of International Trade. He can do whatever he likes. There are no checks and balances that would force the Minister to consult with people. If we rely on the Agreement and the legislation, as currently drafted, we can assume that the Minister will be making all the decisions on his own. But there should be an obligation to consult the Government of Quebec, and those of the other provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, to avoid a recurrence of what happened with the remanufacturers. The fact is that people in British Columbia have now been pushed out, as a result of the decisions made by this Committee. That could have been avoided, had there been consultations with the Government of British Columbia, for example, and the governments of the territories. My amendment to subclause 17(1) would provide for consultations with the provinces and the territories.