Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan to comment on something I find very ironic about this deal, about the timing of this deal and about other actions of the Conservative government.
We know that almost half of the $1 billion that Canada is giving up to the American protectionists as a result of this deal is going directly to the U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports. They are the folks who initiated the campaign against the Canadian softwood lumber industry and who have pursued the attack from the very beginning. We are funding their future activities. We are giving them this money so they can pursue their protectionist ways and other ways down the road.
The irony for me is that at the same time the government is providing this money to the very people who attacked our industry, it cancelled the Canadian court challenges program which allowed minority Canadians to take on the government where questions of Canadian charter rights were involved. Here we have a government that is setting up a court challenges program for American industry while at the same time it is getting rid of a very small but important Canadian program to assist minority Canadians with their charter rights.
I wonder if she could comment on the irony of the juxtaposition of those two items.