Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the member's comments about the situation in Quebec. Of course we have very much a mirror image in British Columbia.
I would like him to consider a proposition. I believe that this entire problem with respect to the U.S. getting away with bringing these unfair and uncalled for punitive penalties against the people in our respective constituencies is a direct result of the Liberals just completely ignoring this effort. There was a five year period of time when there was peace as far as this issue was concerned, because we were on a quota system. I contend that within this period of time, and in the last two years in particular, the government had a serious responsibility in regard to the million people in Canada who work in the forest industry, a responsibility to make American users of our excellent products aware of what their companies were attempting to do.
Let me repeat that a million people work in the forest industry. I put a tremendous amount of responsibility at the feet of this government for not doing what it should have been doing prior to the expiry of the softwood lumber agreement. Officials should have been in the United States making Home Depot, all its users and all the contractors aware of this situation so that we would not be faced with this. I wonder if the member agrees with me.