Merci, monsieur le président.
Your first question was on the consequences for chapter 19 if the litigation is not pursued. Of course it is a condition of the basic terms that were agreed to on April 27 that on the entry into force this litigation would have to be terminated--all litigation, not only litigation involving governments, but also litigation involving private parties. As you know, there is litigation involving private parties as well.
The consequences are that even after Canada conclusively wins in the courts, for instance, with NAFTA, the WTO, and now with U.S. courts, if we sit down and do a deal that's basically predicated on being guilty of what we proved we were not guilty of, it can only fuel this belief on the part of the U.S., and in some cases on the part of Canadians, as to whether or not we were really not guilty.
Of course this is the case for the U.S. coalition. Some people believe the rules are wrong and the reason we're winning is that the rules are wrong and the rules have to be changed. They've made a great case for this over the years, and as we speak, they're also challenging the constitutionality of chapter 19 itself in the U.S. courts. It's a great consequence. I think that it will not only affect only softwood lumber, but it will affect any future disputes with the U.S. involving subsidy allegations or dumping allegations, which is the object of chapter 19, as you know.
As far as the binding dispute settlement mechanism that is contained in the agreement or that is being developed, it is based on a concept of arbitration by non-North American arbitrators through an organization based in London, the language of which should be English. It's only a detail that I mention in passing, because I found it amusing that the language of the arbitration process was stipulated in the U.S. draft at least. We still have to basically see how this would work, because this is a new proposal.
Would the present deal validate the Byrd Amendment? It does to a point because, as you know, both the industry and the Canadian government won in court on April 7 before the U.S. Court of International Trade a judgment basically saying that no U.S. parties were entitled to any Byrd money; no Byrd money, not only the softwood money but no money from Canadian exporters under the Byrd Amendment, should have been distributed to U.S. parties, essentially because we're protected by NAFTA. There's that judgment.
We also had earlier judgments, of course, by the WTO saying the Byrd Amendment was contrary to U.S. obligations under the WTO. The U.S. Congress has indeed rescinded the legislation, but only as of October 2007. Giving up $1 billion, $500 million of which goes straight to our U.S. competitors, is indeed something that looks like Byrd redux.
What is the value of the no-injury letters? As you know, this was the mechanism that was used under the SLA, the Softwood Lumber Agreement of 1996. It worked fairly well during the agreement. Then right after the agreement ended, the main counsel for the U.S. coalition said that these letters never had any value, in his view. We're now proposing to have the same type of vehicle in this deal to ensure there will be no new investigations.