Mr. Chair, in the response that the member just provided, he said that the columnist for the National Post talked about the Prime Minister speaking with conviction. I would like to know which conviction because yesterday there were four different Canadian Press Wire stories in the national general news: The Prime Minister suggests he is open to negotiations on some elements of the softwood dispute. The Prime Minister has indicated he is open to negotiations over the softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. The Prime Minister says he will not negotiate the dispute resolution panel decisions under the NAFTA. The Prime Minister told an Ottawa news conference that he might negotiate other aspects of the softwood dispute.
There are four different statements saying four different things. Talk about mixed messages. If this is speaking with one voice, I do not know how many tongues it is in. How is this conducive to resolving the softwood dispute when on October 24 we heard “open to negotiations”, “will not negotiate”, “might negotiate” and then today in question period he went from there to “will not negotiate”? This is all most puzzling to people who watch this closely. The only people who are showing any degree of being impressed with the performance are those who are only paying attention a quarter of the time so they only hear one story.