Mr. Speaker, I do acknowledge that. I was with the minister in Washington and I met privately with the chairman of the industry, trade and commerce committee and a number of U.S. officials.
The point I am making is that this has only happened within the last four to six weeks, after the Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade went to the United States to present their case, when they have had five years to do so. They should have informed the industry in the United States that we do not subsidize our lumber and that we are competitive. The United States wants free trade and it is advocating for free trade. We should be telling the Americans that if they want free trade they should honour previous rulings. We want to and should provide co-operation in other sectors but we should tell them that we will take them to the wall if they start imposing $1 billion to $2 billion in duties against the Canadian softwood lumber industry of which 45% is from my home province of British Columbia. This would cripple the economies of the many one industry towns. That is just not acceptable.
The parliamentary secretary was absolutely right when he said that the Prime Minister raised this issue with the president and that the international trade minister has been in Washington. However it has only been in the last four to six weeks that we have seen any activity at all. We have had five years of stability with the softwood lumber agreement. During that time we could have been raising this issue because of its importance.
We all want to see free trade. We will work with the government and do everything in our power to ensure that we have free trade. We will use all the powers within our means to go after the United States administration if it brings in a countervail duty or an anti-dumping case. The Americans must respect the decisions of the world court.
We will work with the government but the government needs to provide stronger leadership. What we have seen with the Brazilian beef and P.E.I. potatoes has given us cause for concern. The government did not provided the leadership that was required on those files.