Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague would comment on the issue of raw log exports. I know this is a big deal in his part of the world.
I had the great pleasure to do some work up in Stewart, British Columbia on the issue of raw log exports. It is an important and sensitive issue. Why should we be exporting raw logs when we can process them here in Canada where there are very strict rules about how that operates?
It was in the third countervailing duty battle that the U.S. imputed a figure of something like 6.8% or 6.9% of a total countervailing duty claim of around 15%. The U.S. argued that restricting the export of raw logs was an effective subsidy because it had an effect on domestic log prices and deflated them, et cetera. If that were adopted, we could not really set our own forest policy in Canada and say that we want more value added In Canada.
More recently, a Chapter 11 lawsuit has been filed by a big U.S. company that has some private land in British Columbia. It wants to export its raw logs into its sawmills in the United States. That has been denied so it is suing under Chapter 11.
Could the member comment on raw log exports in the context of this deal, particularly the anti-circumvention clause that might allow the Americans to say that we now need to export raw logs to the U.S., raw logs in British Columbia that are feeding U.S. sawmills in Washington state and Oregon state? I am not talking about a few logs. I am talking about maybe enough logs to feed three or four sawmills in Washington state and in Oregon.
What does the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley feel about this deal in that particular context?