Mr. Speaker, it is troubling and worrisome that we have done such a terrible job of representing Canadian interests in the process of these negotiations.
I come from a trade union background. I have negotiated a lot of collective agreements. One thing I can tell members without any hesitation is that we are not going to get much of a package if we announce ahead of time that we give up.
That is virtually what our Minister of Industry did. Before the negotiations were even over, he announced that this was the best deal we were going to get. The Conservatives' bargaining strategy was to be on their knees, which is not a bargaining strategy at all. It is not coming from a position of strength; it is coming from a position of weakness.
I do not know who we sent down there to bargain on our behalf. I think the people who negotiated the free trade agreement should be dragged into the streets and shot, frankly, and as for the people who negotiated this agreement, it borders on economic treason to sell the economic interests of Canada down the river for God knows what other secondary objective they may be trying to achieve.
What I can tell members is that the one thing has been ignored in all this hype about how thankful we should be that the Conservatives get along so well with the Americans is this reality: Canada tossed away a significant victory that was won not just before the North American Free Trade Agreement panels but before the U.S. Court of International Trade. On April 7, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the duties on softwood lumber were illegal. Within days of that very time, we were rolling over and accepting a deal that left $1.3 billion on the table.
My colleague from Trinity—Spadina was itemizing what that $1 billion we left behind could buy in terms of other necessary social spending. At a period of time when the Conservative government was nickel-and-diming all these important programs across the country, it was cavalierly leaving $1 billion on the bargaining table in the United States. It does boggle the mind as to how they can be so cavalier and frivolous with massive amounts of money and so miserly, to the point of almost being cruel, with $100,000 here and there that would keep an important program going in one of our communities.