Mr. Speaker, I will be brief so that other questions can be asked of the parliamentary secretary. He made so many difficult comments to try to comprehend, I am sure there are a lot of questions as to what he was really trying to say.
I have two questions. First, it is that member and the government who were totally opposed to any type of a free trade agreement. Now all of a sudden the NAFTA agreement is the end all and be all to the government in attempting to solve trade disputes within the United States.
The fact is that we and the government knew, because of the softwood lumber and agriculture issues that were before us, that these issues would be very difficult to deal with. Eighteen months to two years ago the minister for trade knew about a softwood lumber issue. We have been telling these people about the U.S. farm bill for months and months but there was no action at all from the government.
The member is now saying that since other countries could not solve the problem why would we expect his government to.
Is the member simply going to throw up his hands and let agriculture go by the way of the dodo bird without having any kind of opportunity to find a positive solution to this particular impasse with the American government?
By the way, simply going to the WTO will take years. The fact of the matter is that will be too much time for our producers in western Canada. What are the other solutions that this member has with respect to the trade issue?