Mr. Speaker, things cannot get much worse. Up to 30,000 workers in B.C. alone will be forced into unemployment, devastating small communities and local businesses. This is the real and terrible impact on Canada's $10 billion softwood lumber industry, 60% of it in B.C., as a result of the new U.S. duties that are blasting our economy.
It is outrageous that the U.S. government will not play by its own rules and ignores that Canada has won three rulings from international tribunals which agree that Canada is not dumping into U.S. markets.
We call again for the federal government to negotiate fair and unrestricted access for softwood lumber entering the U.S. We urge the government again to commit to an income support program for workers hit by this crisis. We need a national solution, not one that allows individual cave-ins by B.C. or any other province.
The NDP urges the government in every possible way to make resolution of this crisis an immediate priority. People's livelihoods depend on it.