Mr. Speaker, the first thing I would say to the hon. member is that one of the difficulties with trade law is another country can subsidize all it wants and can still complain about goods that are coming into its country.
However, I would certainly be challenging what the Americans are doing at the WTO. I would be taking every step that we could to do that. Then I would be saying to our American friends that for every subsidy they place on us we will have to do the same. We have no choice and no option but to provide a similar benefit to the companies that are having to do business with them, and to work hard to see that in taking those steps we would arrive at a negotiated result that would not put the industry at such a disadvantage.
I say to my colleague, knowing that he followed the softwood lumber debates very closely, I think the difference that existed between those who were opposed to the agreement and those who were in favour of it is that those who were opposed to the agreement were prepared to continue the fight. However we also understood that to get into that fight even further would have required further government investment and government expenditure.
I do not think we can shy away from that, because unless we are prepared to put that forward, we are not going to arrive at a healthy conclusion.