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Information submitted by a visitor:
In September 2005, Harper spoke about softwood lumber to the National Caucus of the Conservative Party in Halifax. He said:
"First and foremost, I would seek a clear commitment of the United States to comply with the NAFTA ruling. If the Canada-U.S. trade relationship is to remain a fair, stable, rules-based system, then the United States has a moral obligation to return those duties to Canadian lumber companies.
There can be no question of Canada returning to a conventional bargaining table, as the U.S. Ambassador has suggested.
You don't negotiate after you've won.
The issue is compliance.
And achieving full compliance should be the objective of the Prime Minister."
When Harper got into power, he negotiated an agreement giving 1 billion dollars of the 5 billion dollars NAFTA had already said was illegally collected from the Canadian lumber industry, to the American lumber industry. He also shackled the Canadian lumber industry to a share of the American market not to exceed 34%, and committed that his government would tax any price differential that occured until our lumber industry held no more than 34% of the American Lumber Market.
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