Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois never said that the softwood lumber agreement was a good deal. In fact, it contains a great many weaknesses. Moreover, when I was the international trade critic, I had written to the Minister of International Trade to suggest that a number of things be corrected.
However, the people in the industry and the Government of Quebec have asked us to support the agreement because they are hamstrung because of the countervailing duties that are currently in American hands. Sure, we can win a decisive victory in a few months, but if our companies are closed and our jobs are gone forever, the victory will be hollow. An agreement can be renegotiated. I worked in organized labour for a long time. Sometimes, you get a collective agreement that you are not very proud of, so you make up for it in the next round of negotiations. That is what we are hoping for in the case of the softwood lumber agreement. What we want is a return to free trade.
I would like to take this opportunity to respond to something the member said. When the federal government provides financial support for the provinces in their jurisdictions, that is the best illustration of fiscal imbalance, in my view. If the federal government has money not only to assume its responsibilities, but also to transfer money to the provinces for their own responsibilities, then the tax room that corresponds to those transfers should be transferred to the provinces. That is what the Bloc Québécois is asking the government to do: restore transfers to the levels they were at before the cuts, then negotiate a way to transfer the tax base so that Quebec has freedom of choice in its jurisdictions. That is what we are suggesting, and that is what we are going to insist on.
We also want the federal government to limit its spending authority and allow provinces that want to opt out of a program to be fully compensated. Unfortunately, we did not find any mention of this with respect to the loans and bursaries program in the report of the Standing Committee on Finance. At least, it is not stated in that way.