Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague mentioned my name a few minutes ago and I would like his response to the following comment.
I was the trade critic for my party from 1993 until 1998. At the time there were a number of disputes that had been ongoing in the softwood lumber industry. In fact, as my colleague stated, there have been 30 years of disputes between Canada and the United States and there have been a number of trade actions.
We were facing that potential back in 1995-96. The government of the day chose to enter into a softwood lumber agreement with the United States that would restrict the amount of product we would sell into the United States to 14.8 million board feet a year. Anything above that was penalized heavily. Everyone knew that was not the solution that needed to be adopted. The World Trade Organization had been established and that was the opportunity to take this case to the WTO to put the process in gear that would ultimately have resolved it.
Would that not have been the opportune time to resolve this case rather than wait for the softwood lumber agreement with the United States to expire, one that probably should not have been in place in the first place, and face the mess we are in now some six to seven years later?