Mr. Speaker, the Canadian lumber industry has been given a window of opportunity to take action against a 29% countervail duty and anti-dumping charges by the United States on Canadian softwood lumber exports.
For many months we have called on the Minister for International Trade to establish a national bargaining position but he has resisted this strategy from the very beginning. Now that Canada has been given this window of opportunity it is amazing that it is not the Canadian government but the British Columbia government that is calling for a national strategy meeting on softwood lumber stakeholders.
It is time the Canadian government showed leadership. It is time for the minister to bring the stakeholders together, listen to them and finally develop and follow a national strategy on softwood lumber.