Mr. Speaker, the hon. member should know that the allegations of subsidies by Canadian provinces on the softwood lumber have been going on for decades. Those allegations of subsidies stem fundamentally from the fact that Canadian timber is largely harvested off Crown land. They continue to make allegations that the fact it is harvested off Crown land, that the revenues go to government, the government is somehow not taking the full market value of the timber.
Those debates go on and on. We continue to win them, but the dispute never ends and it never will. Under U.S. law, which is what these disputes are adjudicated on when we use a NAFTA framework, they can continue to make allegations, to bring more suits, whether it is an allegation of subsidy. Absolutely for sure, if there were not this agreement and the federal or provincial governments attempted to assist the softwood lumber industry in any way, there would be more countervailing duty cases brought.
A new part of this dispute is the dumping side, which has just come in. The hon. member ought to know that even in Canada, we bring dumping cases. All it requires is that it can be demonstrated there is a loss, that the companies are losing money on shipments into a market. Particularly in bad markets, those cases will be sustained and it will be very damaging for Canada.