Madam Chair, the hon. member is simply wrong in his facts. We were in negotiations with the United States to find a durable long term resolution. A unanimous ruling sought by the United States came down from the extraordinary challenge committee on August 10.
Within a very short period after that ruling came down in Canada's favour, the United States said it was going to ignore the ruling. It was then that I phoned representatives in the U.S. and said that the negotiations were off, that we would not negotiate away the NAFTA and that the NAFTA must be respected. That has been our position from the moment the U.S. ignored that ECC ruling.