Madam Speaker, I am here to talk about the question I asked the Minister of International Trade with regard to the softwood dispute.
When I was scheduled to speak tonight on the adjournment proceedings in relation to my question about Canada-U.S. relations and the concern I had about our $3 billion in softwood cash deposits being at risk because of the government's behaviour and the posture of the trade minister, I had no idea I was agreeing to schedule this the day before the visit by the U.S. President. That makes it slightly more foretelling.
At the time I asked the question, the minister's posture was basically that there was a window of opportunity to negotiate between November 3 and December 15, after the U.S. election and prior to the end of the year. I have been involved in the softwood file longer than any minister on the government side and longer than most. I could not find anybody who could figure out why the minister was coming up with the idea that there was this window of opportunity to negotiate. As a matter of fact, it sounded like a dumb idea.
We all know that after every election in the U.S., there is a change of administration, whether the president changes or not. That is exactly what has happened. We now have a President in his second term. The secretary of the department of commerce will change. The secretary of trade will change. This is not a very good window of opportunity for us because everything is in flux. Indeed, things really will not settle down until next year.
The gist of my question really dealt with why the minister was making these kinds of statements, when the real question was when would he get all the stakeholders together on the Canadian side and come up with a consensus position because he had not done so. Besides all that, the government has bungled Canada-U.S. relations. Let us get our act together. Rather than put our cash deposits at risk, which are now over $3 billion, let us get our act together and call a stakeholders meeting.
I understand that there finally was a stakeholders meeting just last week. We have a major concern now with the rising Canadian dollar against U.S. currency. Many in the industry now will be looking at very bad results in the first quarter of next year. I want to know where the government is headed with this whole file.