The problem that I see is that we have to decide how to approach the United States generally with these sorts of trade disputes. From what I can see, this government has taken the approach of being very conflict-oriented from the start on everything. We elevate and escalate really quickly.
As I said, I don't think there is a litigation solution. I'm not even sure that most of these victories that we talk about in softwood lumber are ever really such complete victories as the way they're presented when you're in Canada. They're really narrow legalistic victories, and that's why they don't stick and that's why they're hard to enforce.
From my vantage point, I think if we had a more coherent approach to trade negotiation overall with the United States then we'd be in a better position to negotiate something like softwood lumber, but if you are going down to the United States to lobby against the signature initiative of an American president and then you expect that same American president to tell his secretary of commerce to cut us some slack on softwood lumber, I think it's just not going to happen.
Somewhere along the way, we have to decide whether we want to go this litigation route, whether we want to go escalating everything to Defcon 1 or we want to find a way to sit down and figure out whether there are some “grand bargains” that will go beyond this industry into others that will allow us.... I think Susan talked about how this might have helped in some previous settlements.
I think that's what is missing here. I don't think Americans are all that interested in whether Canadian politicians think that their middle class is being hurt, to be very honest with you. We could go and lobby that. You're right—it will be expensive because that's a tough sell. There probably is an argument for sitting around a table and figuring out a way to settle it, but it can't be if you're going to take a very elbows-up approach, in my view.