Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for his questions and comments However, I do not agree with him when he says that at this time we do not have a choice and we must support this bill. In my opinion, it is wrong to think that way. As for our Liberal government, our support for the forestry industry is long-standing.
We supported the industry through every countervailing duty action, which took a tremendous amount of work by our embassy in Washington and the department and through consultations with the industries. We had worked up a package that would support the industry with respect to loan guarantees and with respect to other initiatives, such as the need for the industry to convert their energy sources and use their biomass to develop electricity, because one of the big problems with the forest industry today is its high cost of energy.
We also put a number of initiatives in our package to help the forest industry to diversify their markets because markets are developing quite aggressively in China and India. While they have different cultures and different building codes and standards, we can make progress in selling our forest products into those markets and relieve some of the reliance on the U.S. softwood lumber market.
My colleague from the Bloc is mistaken when he says that the Liberal government did not support the forest industry. The Conservative government certainly has not. It told the industry that it had to either sign and support the softwood lumber deal or the government would cut off all support. The government put a gun to the head of the forest industry in Canada, which is why some of the companies are now saying that they do not have much choice because they cannot carry on without the support of the federal government. It was the Conservative government, not the Liberal government, that let the industry down.