There is the political task force, which is made up of ministers responsible for forestry from all of the provinces, chaired by Canada's Minister of Natural Resources, supported by a committee of deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers who have been working for months, anticipating the countervailing duties that were announced 11 days ago.
We are looking to establish a pan-Canadian response. We all know there are regional differences in the softwood lumber sector across the country, but we also believe there is much in common. We have met face to face as recently as a few weeks ago. We'll meet again face to face within the next number of weeks, now that we have some idea of the quantum of the countervail—but not all, I should remind members. The antidumping duties will not be known to us until June. The final determination of the U.S. Department of Commerce won't be known to us until the end of the year.
Meanwhile, we are working collaboratively, which is a very important thing for us to be able to say at this juncture of the file, with our provincial counterparts, looking at long-term sustainability within the sector. That means market diversification. It means, within the industry itself, taking advantage of, for example, forest waste and converting it into clean fuel. It has to do with looking at tall building construction. I know my colleague cares about that, because I believe the technology was developed in Penticton, his home community. I hope he has a question about that, because I can be proud along with him, for cutting the ribbon on an 18-storey building at the University of British Columbia. This is the future.
Meanwhile, there will be job losses. We know that this is lumber five—and this is lumber five only since 1982. I'm not going to take up your time, but the first major lumber dispute was in 1839 when Maine and New Brunswick had a go at it. They were able to stop short of fisticuffs and they were able to settle it peacefully through negotiation, which I am sure we will be able to do. That is the only way we can, in the long term, come to terms with this repeating irritant that is a result of the United States repeatedly imposing punitive and, we believe, unfair tariffs against the Canadian industry.