Madam Speaker, I acknowledge the member's persistence in calling for wide consultation. He made that point repeatedly in the House and the minister certainly agreed with him. As he has noted, those consultations took place from coast to coast to coast with industry and all provinces.
My colleague from Cumberland--Colchester speaks about a long term solution that is wanted both in Canada and the United States. That is certainly the case in the House and in our country, as he well knows.
The long term solution is free trade on softwood lumber. That is what both the United States and Canada purport their goals to be in trade. We are simply calling for the same kind of free trade in softwood lumber that we have in many other commodities.
My colleague asked a question about certain statements of the premier of British Columbia. I guess time will tell and we will see what the premier does, but it is of interest to this government what the practices are in the various lumber producing provinces, B.C. being one of the most important of those.
We will have to watch and see what is done, but I want to emphasize very carefully that we feel that once again Canada's case can be proven and will be proven at the WTO. We do not subsidize unfairly in softwood lumber. That case has been tested before several times. We have always won the case and we will win it again this time. I think my colleague has raised some important issues that certainly bear scrutiny.