Mr. Speaker, certainly, with NAFTA, the American and Canadian economies are perhaps not integrated, but facilitated. We also have to recognize that, at least in Quebec, a high percentage of companies export goods and services to the United States. In that sense, trade between Canada and the United States is highly developed.
Since we are talking about softwood lumber, it also would have been nice if there had not been all those constraints and taxes. Unfortunately, this dispute led to a misunderstanding by the Americans and an unacceptable situation for us, in that our companies and the softwood lumber industry were subjected to American anti-dumping taxes.
That is why we went to court, where we won on several occasions. Later, an agreement was reached. We feel that it is not the best possible agreement, as it involves compromises. It could be called a sellout agreement. But because of the situation of the softwood lumber industry in Quebec, we had to support the agreement, because the industry was at the end of its rope. The agreement was a way of giving the industry back most of the money it was owed.