Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague has put his finger on the problem. Indeed, and I mentioned this in my speech, the United States sometimes behaves improperly when it comes to international trade, when it finds itself in a position of inferiority or weakness.
On the issue at hand, we cannot even talk about a position of weakness. In the United States, a strong lobby has been active on the softwood lumber issue and the Canadian and Quebec industry will be heavily penalized because of this.
Of course we may argue and discuss at length for hours and for days about ways to compel the Americans to comply with multilateral and bilateral trade rules. We may debate this tirelessly but in the meantime men and women are seriously in danger of losing their jobs. Businesses will face bankruptcy and closing.
What we expect from the government in the short term and even in the medium term, is not for it to discuss and think endlessly about ways to improve its relations with the United States. From a political viewpoint, these relations are excellent. We cannot have better ones. We are even considering putting our defence into its hands. We cannot imagine having better political relations with the United States. It is odd that these excellent political relations are not matched by greater openness on their part, on the economic level.
The government can do as it pleases and ponder the problem as long as it wants to but, we expect that in the short term it will consider the measures that might be taken to prevent workers from finding themselves in a very awkward position and to prevent businesses from having to close their doors. In this regard, the Bloc Quebecois—my colleagues talked about this a lot this morning; in the past, we have talked about this a lot in the media and here in the House—has suggested a number of measures.
The government may have other measures in mind; it could include those suggested by the Bloc Quebecois. But the government must take acation. It cannot hide behind philosophical considerations concerning our trade relations with the United States, our most important trading partner. It must do something for the Canadian and Quebec softwood lumber industry.