I have two comments. I wouldn't compare the heavily subsidized—by some $20 billion—Boeing and how it built its strength through military contracts and then transfer that to anything else in the world.... I would contest that Bombardier was subsidized. I don't think that an equity investment in the C Series is a subsidy. It's a billion-dollar.... The Government of Quebec specifically, with lawyers, said, “We're not going to subsidize that and that's why we're going to equity.” They were criticized for doing that by people, but it was an investment at risk and with outside analysis of the worth of that.
The drama, if we can call it that, with the commerce department is that it doesn't take into account basically that.... This is not a neutral court. The commerce department is basically the lobbyist for American business. They make decisions which are, from our point of view, sometimes wrong. I was minister during the first softwood lumber trade dispute—we appointed Pierre Marc at that point as our chief negotiator—and we won in chapter 19. For most of the decisions by Commerce, we win at the end of the day.
This one is by Boeing, and we'll see what the courts will say eventually. They have no planes. The client, Delta, says, “Hey, Boeing is complaining about something it didn't make an offer on, because it has no plane to offer.”
I'm proud of our Prime Minister and the way he reacted in saying that enough is enough, and if we're going to be bullied, we're going to stand up, and we're not going to take it. Our kids shouldn't take it in schoolyards, and we shouldn't take it in trade either.