Mr. Speaker, like my friend from northern British Columbia, I share the benefits and value of a vibrant and long-standing forestry industry, but there has been a steady and aggressive decline in both the number of mills and the number of people working in those mills. Just within British Columbia alone, never mind across Canada, tens of thousands of families can no longer rely on the forestry sector.
Various factors have come into play in that regard, whether it is more machines out in the bush, less people having to work, or the trade disputes with the U.S. Every time one of these disputes happens, we lose mills. They concentrate further in the United States as the barriers go up. Let us be clear: these disputes are a tactic. The softwood lumber disputes are a tactic by the U.S. lumber industry to attack Canadian producers trying to enter the U.S. market, sometimes using Canadian money to do it.
Since the last time we went through this Groundhog Day of American protectionism, many of the major Canadian producers have made significant investments south of the border. The greatest free trading nation in the world seems to like its protectionist attitude, at least the present administration does, but I am not seeing or feeling the same urgent push by Canadian producers as the last time there was a dispute.
My concern is that the way the industry works has changed significantly. Is that one of the factors that is causing the government not to feel an urgent need to reach a deal that the member says the workers in my region want, which is just fair and free access to the. U.S. market?