Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for his question. The parliamentary secretary indicated that in the riding of Mégantic—L'Érable several sawmills are excluded from the agreement because they buy their wood in Maine. The member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques and the member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup have similar experiences. They have an objective reason for supporting the agreement since most of the sawmills are excluded from the tax penalties. In this regard, these ridings are not representative of Quebec and Canada as a whole.
The Prime Minister himself said that the agreement was supported by 90% of the industry. I believe him. However, the bar had been set at 95%. That means they were not even able to reach the objective that they themselves had set for support of the agreement. They must have been disappointed, but they carried on. There was a great deal of flexibility in this case. It could be 90% rather than 95%.
As I was saying, once again almost all sectors in Quebec—and elsewhere— expect the Conservative government to follow up. I have read statements from the communities, the FTQ and the CSN. After breathing a little life into the industry, we expect this Conservative government to propose, in the short term, a true recovery plan that will restructure the softwood lumber industry to ensure its viability. It must also explain, in the long term, how softwood lumber will be covered once again by the free trade agreement.
This does not seem to have been an overriding concern for the Conservatives, who are usually diehard proponents of free trade. In this matter, they should perhaps be a little more supportive of free trade than they are at the moment.