Mr. Speaker, this is a negotiated settlement. This is what we ultimately will have to do, or would have had to do, to resolve the softwood lumber dispute. The dispute will never be resolved through litigation. Litigation will always be based on U.S. law, there will always be new cases brought, and U.S. law can be changed if the U.S. feels we are winning and does not want us to win. So let us be clear: we must have a negotiated solution in softwood lumber. We hope for a day when that will not be the case. I believe this agreement gets us there.
The agreement clearly calls for basically $1 billion to stay in the U.S. and the rest to come back to Canada, which is about 81% of all the duties. There is $5.4 billion in total deposits, with $4.4 billion dollars U.S. or over $5 billion Canadian that comes back to Canadian companies and Canadian communities and will be put to work right here in Canada.
Of the $1 billion that stays in the U.S., as the hon. member said, half of that, or $450 million, will go to meritorious initiatives. We have been working with the United States and it was envisaged that if there were to be any kind of political involvement it would be bipartisan and it would be done through a charitable organization. I am informed that the latest thinking is that this charitable organization would have nothing whatever to do with politics in the United States.