Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's comments, but in Medicine Had we do not have a tremendous amount of lumber. In fact it is hard to find a tree.
My first point is while we understand the need for rules based trade and the need for dispute settlement mechanisms, the best solution is not to get to that point in the first place.
We have had five years since the SLA was put in place. It became obvious fairly early on that it was not working in the interests of Canadian producers. Over the last five years we should have arrived at the point with the Americans where we could have gone into the end of this agreement with an agreement that we would pursue free trade.
Ultimately we will go into it now and probably get a ruling in our favour, but it will cost the industry billions and billions of dollars. That is regrettable. We are at that point now. Yes, we have to use the mechanisms that are there. Rules based trade is the key.
My friend's point about the economy turning down or the lumber industry being a cyclical industry is correct. If we are heading for a recession it will raise tensions on both sides and make the situation more difficult down the road. That makes my point that we should have had an agreement earlier than today.