More than four years ago, the Free Trade Lumber Council had proposed the very same thing to the government of the day. We had proposed that loan guarantees be offered because we believed, in fact, that at some time or other, we would find ourselves in the situation which has now been prevailing for quite a while, whereby financial pressure on companies would be so severe that they would be forced to accept a bad settlement, one that would not be good for either party. This is what is happening now, more or less.
The industry minister in the previous government, Mr. Emerson himself, had implemented and announced, late last November, just before the elections, a program of guaranteed loans that fell far short of the industry's needs. In fact, only $800 million were mentioned at the time, whereas we already had given some $5 billion to the United States. Nonetheless, this was a first step in the right direction. Of course, this program was never implemented, for reasons that you understand, and the current government has not revived this program or any similar program, even though in its election campaign, it had promised something similar.
So, the agreement in principle was negotiated without that element, and now, as you say, we are faced with a fait accompli, even if we do not yet have the final text of the agreement.
Let me follow up on the question put by Mr. LeBlanc. Our best estimates of the time it will take to get back 80 per cent of our money under the terms of this agreement, is between six months to a year. We have no definitive answer at this time.
So, I think that we still need these loan guarantees so that, during this interlude, before we reach a final agreement and even afterwards, before we get our money back, we can prevent companies from going bankrupt. It would be a scandal if companies went bankrupt when the issue has been settled, according to the government.