International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting me to appear again before this committee. Although I represent a number of Canadian industry interests in the softwood lumber dispute, I'm not presenting any specific views of my clients. After reviewing the testimony you heard o

International Trade committee  I have just two paragraphs. I understood I had seven minutes, and I think I'm in that vicinity.

International Trade committee  Thank you. The lone abhorrent and still controversial exception has been money donated in the immediate aftermath of the emergency created by Hurricane Katrina, and the sums involved were very small. So here we have the Government of Canada requiring that Canadian private par

International Trade committee  Excuse me. --with the United States.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Boshcoff. Let me take your questions in the reverse order to which you asked them. You asked if this is the end of NAFTA. The alternative dispute system proposed in the agreement is a complete abandonment of chapter 19, so it declares that chapter 19 is irrelevant

International Trade committee  Thank you. That's correct, it is by convention. This is a government-to-government agreement, but it's been frequently invoked that the United States government would therefore undertake, in effect, not to terminate early. But it was admitted during the negotiations that the Uni

International Trade committee  On your second question, the agreement sets out now the terms of U.S. law. It says that once there's a notice for the liquidation of the entries, within six months Customs needs to repay the money. That liquidation notice is to follow within 10 days of a final court decision sayi

International Trade committee  If there's no agreement, I think you'll have to complete the period of appeal under the Court of Appeal, so I think you're 12 months away—

International Trade committee  —but at 12 months away you'll get two years' of the money and all of the interest immediately, and then you'll see the rest of it come in, and it'll be 100%, accumulating interest until the date it's returned. Under the terms of the agreement, interest stops on the effective da

International Trade committee  You lose a lot more than $1 billion.

International Trade committee  My sense, as I tried to indicate earlier, is that we've created an incentive package for the coalition to file another petition. The terms of the agreement are a straitjacket for Canadian industry. If it works as the coalition would like it to work, there's no reason to bring ano

International Trade committee  Thank you for that question, because it gives me an opportunity to conclude the remarks I didn't quite get to finish earlier. This is in my view an historic, unprecedented, astounding intrusion into American politics. We've researched all the way back to the revolution and foun

International Trade committee  The provision in article 13(A)(2) of the agreement, which lists the meritorious initiatives, contains language that could describe only a slush fund for the President.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm appearing on behalf of the Free Trade Lumber Council. I'm pleased to appear before the committee as it deliberates over the implementation of the softwood lumber agreement. I want to express my personal gratitude for the scheduling adjustment that

International Trade committee  Three minutes, roughly.