Mr. Speaker, at recent standing committee hearings, witnesses condemned the softwood lumber deal as a sellout. Committee members heard how 20% of Canada's sawmills would close, how the deal would impede free trade and that NAFTA, along with our industry's right to control its own practices, would be undermined.
The president of the Ontario Forest Industry Association was quoted as saying, “We expect to suffer—and suffer a lot—under the terms as now written”.
Will the Prime Minister please stand up for Ontario's forest companies and negotiate a commercial agreement and not a complete surrender?