Mr. Speaker, the member posed a number of questions but I will address the one that referred to the member for Peace River stating that we did not desire an agreement in softwood lumber.
Our position has always been that there should be free trade in softwood lumber. That is where we stand. There has been a 30 year history of problems with these negotiated deals. Everyone and the government knew about these problems. We warned the government that this agreement was coming to an end, that something needed to be done, however it was allowed to collapse.
The government kept indicating that when it was over we were supposed to revert to free trade. That is fine, but where were the contingency plans? Where were the studies that were done to indicate the problems that would exist if indeed something like this would happen? That was certainly one of the options the government should have looked at as one of the outcomes when the agreement came to an end.
There is one thing that we keep going back to. I do not understand how the parliamentary secretary and the minister keep getting away with saying how much effort, time and resources they have thrown at the softwood lumber issue and that they are doing their jobs. The Prime Minister has talked directly to the president. All of these things are going on and absolutely nothing has happened.
We have a huge tariff against our industry. We have tens of thousands of softwood lumber workers out of work. We have no indication there will be an end to this. In my mind the full efforts of the government have utterly failed the industry and continue to do so.