Madam Chair, not only have I been around here a long time, I have been around forest policy long enough to remember back to 1982 and shakes and shingles, which sound like something really bad we could get if we did not have a vaccine.
We have been perennially dealing with what really boils down to U.S. protectionism, and the U.S. lumber industry has a lot of political clout. However, we have made changes. I mean, we used to be held up on the stumpage issue, and it was not wrong that there was an element of subsidy there, but that has changed dramatically. B.C., Quebec and the Maritimes have changed the stumpage policies to eliminate that notion of subsidy, but the U.S. is still able to play this game, even though it needs our lumber too.
A long-term vision is based on fair rules to protect a good bilateral trading regime that helps both countries. We should be able to get to that. So much of it is U.S. politics. Looking at what is happening right now, we hear commentators say that it is likely not to get sorted out until maybe 2023 because of the U.S. mid-terms.
That has nothing to do with our forest policy, and we cannot really blame the current administration as much as one likes to blame it for things. This is perennial, and it has bedevilled Conservative and Liberal governments, and provincial NDP governments, for decades. Finding a solution would be wonderful, but I think we need to open it up at a really high level to get action.