Mr. Speaker, an election was held about a year ago. A saviour came along and told everyone that he had all the right skills to solve the problem we were facing at the time because of the new, scary U.S. President and that he could get rid of the tariffs. Everyone would see that all the problems would be resolved in a matter of weeks, as if by magic. People wanted to believe in the fairy tale.
Here we are a year later, still in exactly the same place, waiting for the situation to be resolved. Not only has the situation not been resolved, but it is getting worse. While people's concerns about the current situation are entirely understandable, everyone also understands why businesses and workers are growing increasingly impatient and dissatisfied that the situation is not being resolved. To say that these folks are dissatisfied is really an understatement. People are beginning to realize that this government was elected to solve a problem that it is not solving, choosing to focus on all kinds of other things instead.
What is more, the situation is getting even worse. What happened on April 6? The Americans decided to rub salt in the wound. Instead of imposing tariffs of just 50% on the raw material or on the raw material component in the product, and to simplify the calculation, the Americans decided that if the product contained more than 15% steel or aluminum, they would apply a 25% tariff, period.
As everyone can imagine, this is hurting a lot of people. As angry as we may want to be at the United States, we have no control over the United States. We do, however, have control over what we do. Unfortunately, when we elect someone to be in charge, we would expect a response from them. The most frustrating thing is that when our leader, the member for Beloeil—Chambly, asked the Prime Minister the question during question period on a Wednesday, and I should point out that it is rare for the Prime Minister to be there on Wednesdays, the Prime Minister was not even aware of the change in—