International Trade committee  And to punctuate that, there's already a significant legal cost. Your leader in British Columbia remarked the other day that she didn't want to be paying lawyers on softwood lumber. Well, the country has been paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money. They represent the provincial governments and the federal government in this arbitration.

International Trade committee  I'd be delighted to respond, although it's a very big menu you gave me. But I thank you for the question. I don't think Canada has a longer-standing better friend in the United States than I have been for the last 35 years, but I'm also very critical. One of the things I'm critical about is the difficulty Canadians have, in my view, of understanding the United States in a visceral way.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question, because I did want to remark on the irony of the demise of Pearsonian multilateralism, that a theme emerging in the discussion about NAFTA is the failure of a multilateral agreement and the preference for a bilateral arrangement. I have been asked this question a number of times.

International Trade committee  That's the real issue. The superficial issue is that a couple built a wall three feet into the boundary vista, which was defined by the treaties and by agreement between Canada and the United States in 1908 that it should be kept clear of all obstruction 10 feet to either side of the border.

International Trade committee  I see a legitimate challenge, but not a lawful one.

International Trade committee  That distinction is made because the trade remedy law is not designed for this purpose. You can use your countervailing duty laws—which are all organically derived from the WTO—but they have to be in reference to imports from the United States of subsidized product. You don't have enough of that to be worried about.

International Trade committee  Nor do I favour the abandonment of NAFTA. I'm simply saying that if you keep looking for solutions in NAFTA, you're not going to find them. I'm saying that you need to be looking at something with more imagination and doing something new. Your industry is hurting not just because you can't penetrate the U.S. market or because of the limitations that have been imposed by the softwood lumber agreement, but also because of this excuse that anything you might do to help your industry violates the softwood lumber agreement.

International Trade committee  Thank you for those questions. I was not saying too much about the softwood lumber agreement today, but I was pleased that Monsieur Caron did. The agreement was rushed into force on October 12 because both governments anticipated a decision coming from the Court of International Trade.

International Trade committee  May I interpret your question as going back to Mr. Brison's, whether one should be going about these things in a different way in Washington? And I think the answer is yes. But it's not automatically.... Also, what I interpreted Mr. Brison perhaps to mean is this. Your solution is not in lobbying in the conventional way in Washington; it's not throwing your money away on former ambassadors.

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question. My proposal is to initiate, with some imagination, negotiations on a different agenda and to set NAFTA aside. What NAFTA is, it is. Much of what's at the heart of NAFTA can't be fixed. Chapter 19 could have been fixed years ago, and we developed a full analysis of that.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question. It's a complicated and multi-layered question. If I can unpack it a little bit--

International Trade committee  Let me try to unpack it a little bit. I was present when Secretary Napolitano delivered the speech to which I think you're referring. There is a danger for Canada. The remarks I've made about the International Boundary Commission, I think, go to the heart of that problem. Canada has an opportunity to protect a separate treaty, a distinct treaty, with respect to its border with the United States, and it's not doing so.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm again honoured to appear before this committee, and I thank you for the invitation. I have provided the clerk with a more complete text, and in the interest of the very short time permitted me, I'm going to be very summary in my spoken remarks. I do need, perhaps, to identify myself a little more.

International Trade committee  First, I'm not aware that many counsel have read this bill. Companies like Canfor, especially upon signature in September, and probably earlier upon initialling in July, pretty much retired their counsel from looking at any of these procedures and have trusted the government to get it right.

International Trade committee  In terms of revoking the orders, yes.