Two for one. From the beginning, members of the Progressive Conservative Party have pressed the government to do what we did when we were in power. We got the industry together and met with them regularly. I know because I was there. We met with the industry regularly. We succeeded in coming up with a strategy. We negotiated with the Americans and we came up with a settlement. We have encouraged the Liberals to follow our lead and do that again. Would they do it? No, they would not.
Now we find ourselves in a situation where we have a 27.2% duty on all softwood lumber going to the U.S. We have asked the government to fight back, not to just knuckle under and do what the U.S. says. We have asked it to argue from a position of strength, not from a position of weakness. We have asked it to stand up to the Americans like we did when we resolved this issue the last time.
The Progressive Conservative Party also has urged the government to deal with the victims of this. It is the government's fault and there are victims because of it. It should establish a cabinet committee at the very least to focus on this and not leave it up to one minister who passes it off to another minister who passes it off to another minister. There should be a committee responsible for dealing with this, with the negotiations and with the results of the failure.
The government should co-ordinate assistance and come up with programs to help the people in the industries and in the communities who are suffering so much from its failure.
We will be supporting this motion today, but it is really unfortunate that the motion is even here.