Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of experience with private woodlots in our region in northeastern Ontario. Private lands are being cut right down to the water and being shipped over to the mills in Quebec. We would never see a reciprocal agreement with our Quebec neighbours because they would not allow that to happen. Therefore, I certainly have concerns.
However, I want to comment about the decision by our colleagues in the Bloc not to work with us on a motion about the black liquor subsidy, which would help industry. Their position on the softwood issue is they will get more money and some loan guarantees. There is not an industry that the Bloc knows of in Quebec that should not be given money. For example, look at the rotting old Quebec asbestos mines. Those guys will ship this poison around the world and insist that people subsidize it.
What we need are markets and access to them.
When the Bloc Québécois voted to crush our access to the U.S. market, the members voted knowing that part of the agreement was we would not be able to give loan guarantees. Nor would we be able to retool our industry. Every time we would do that, the U.S. competitors would go against us, which is what they have done.
Now we are paying $70 million in fines thanks to the myopic vision of the members of the Bloc Québécois, who could have stood and said that opposed to Canada having a say in their domestic forestry planning, they were giving it over to the U.S. Therefore, Quebec's forestry planning now gets to be vetted by the U.S., just like Ontario's, just like B.C.'s, and we pay through the nose any time we attempt to help.
On an issue like the black liquor subsidy, why are our forestry workers once again being sold down the river and being sold a misplaced bill of goods from the Bloc, which has sold us out on the softwood lumber issue?