Relationships between Canada's softwood lumber industry and the United States need to improve since it's affecting some of our rural lumber producers. Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa MP Robert Sopuck explains how it could impact our area if things don't change.

"Right now Canada has some 400,000 jobs in the lumber industry. Manitoba is not a major player in the lumber industry in Canada, but we have a number of lumber producers in the southeast corner and in my own constituency, and even at The Pas. The fall-out from the softwood lumber dispute could be 10,000 to 15,000 jobs across the country."

He says U.S. lumber producers successfully were involved in seeing laws passed that hurt Canadian producers.

"What happened was the U.S. lumber producers have been bringing very unfair trade actions against us, convincing some of the lawmakers in the U.S. to slap punitive tariffs on our softwood lumber. This has been going on for ten years. And just last week the temporary agreement expired. So, what we are doing is urging the Liberal government in strongest possible terms to get cracking and negotiate with the Americans to fix this."

Sopuck says everyone needs to send word to the Prime Minister to save a potential 15,000 high paying rural jobs including some in our region. He says it's a government issue and the trade minister's working hard on this file, but our gov't negotiates the truce, so to speak.

"And they knew for a year that at this point and last period it would expire. So, what were they doing?"

He adds the Liberal government should have assigned someone on the second day they were in power to resolve the issue. Sopuck says it's only asking the U.S. government to be fair about everything. He explains they're known to throw their weight around, and it will hurt rural communities. Sopuck notes Canada's the most trade-dependent country on earth, and trade rules are critical for us.

"We're just asking the U.S. to play by the rules."

Sopuck says it's in the States' best interest to resolve this, anyway.

"American housing costs will significantly go up because Canadian lumber is vital to their industry. And if nothing's done, they will be held hostage to the U.S. lumber companies."