Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has brought up some very interesting words. Let me work a bit with the hon. member's words, if I may. The hon. member refers to the industry being bullied. I would prefer to refer to this government as bullish. We are bullish on softwood. We think it has a future. We know that it now has a future. Yes, this government is bullish. It is bullish on the Canadian economy and the softwood lumber industry is a fundamental piece of our economy.
The member talked about abandonment. That is what we heard from the industry in committee appearances. Businesses in the industry told the committee that the previous Liberal government had abandoned them. The Liberals allowed them to have to take this dispute to court. The former Liberal government was never there to provide the leadership to bring a settlement to this industry, so the industry had to litigate. One of the first things this new Conservative government did, even though we had not been in power very long, was to bring an end to this longstanding dispute that frankly was going nowhere under Liberal leadership.