Mr. Speaker, this past week in my riding of Timmins—James Bay, it became known that Grant Forest Products, which is one of the largest players in the forest region in the north, is now in a court-ordered bankruptcy protection. It might be taken over by the U.S. multinational Georgia Pacific. We saw how the Conservative government rolled over when Vale walked away with respect to Inco. We know the government will do nothing to protect the resources of a Canadian company.
I would like to question the minister on some of the more far-fetched claims she has made in terms of the government's commitment.
The government's main commitment to dealing with the forestry industry was to sell us out the very first chance it got with the softwood lumber deal, where it gave $1 billion to our competitors, where it crippled our markets, where it threatened that if our companies stood up and continued to defend their interests, they would be penalized.
Now we see the spectacle of the government having to come back, cap in hand, having given up every right that we wanted, every trade negotiation, and we are now being told we are going to have to pay another $60 million to $70 million for the government's complete mishandling of the file.
When the minister comes into the House and asks for this Parliament's support, I would like to ask her two questions: number one, will she apologize to this House for the campaign of misinformation that her government ran in terms of promoting this bogus deal; and, number two, when will she bring this in? I want to be able to stand in this House and say there is no way that on our watch we are going to pay another $70 million so that our competitors can continue to tool and retool and come against our industries.