Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to our witnesses.
It's an interesting discussion here this morning—quite enlightening. I don't know where to start.
I think I'll start with black liquor. We on the government side and the industry side and most Canadians believe that it's an unfair subsidy. We just returned from three days in Washington with the entire committee. We spoke to probably most of the congressmen we could approach who were on the ways and means committee, both Republicans and Democrats. None of them, not even the newly elected members, was thinking that the black liquor subsidy would continue. I think the main reason for that is that they simply see it as beyond bad policy, but also detrimental to the entire intent of their biofuels bill and good environmental policy. It's terrible environmental policy.
But it leads to a greater issue. The Americans can be difficult trading partners—we're all aware of that—but the greater issue is how, in that type of legislation, those loopholes are found to begin with, and how we have to deal with them. That, I think, is what Mr. Feldman has been talking about.
I'd like from Mr. Caron a statement or a comment on the Canadian industry, because black liquor will be finished, I certainly believe, by December 31. I realize that Canadian industry is under pressure now, but a number of the comments we've been getting from the Canadian industry are that if they see the tariff gone as of December 31, 2009, then we're back on a level playing field. We don't have much time to put anything in place to counter it or do anything about it, so I think we have to live with it for the next nine months or eight months.