David Emerson has rejected a report that he blocked a deal on the softwood lumber crisis until after the election campaign.

A report in Thursday's Toronto Star claimed Emerson, the former Liberal industry minister, had a template for a solution with the U.S. on the conflict, but put it on hold until after the election.

The Toronto Star report said Emerson, who is now under fire for defecting to the Conservatives to take the international trade portfolio, led the call to delay the deal.

Reached by telephone Wednesday night, Emerson told the Star that he did raise concerns about the proposal, but rejected suggestions his resistance was politically motivated. He said the deal just wasn't good enough.

Since then, Emerson has kept a low profile on the softwood issue, avoiding the media and at the last minute canceling out of a scheduled phone conference with reporters Thursday afternoon.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was also conspicuously silent on the issue Thursday, as were other high level Tories, leaving backbench MPs to defend Emerson from Liberal attacks.

"In my riding, I've got a lot of forestry jobs at stake, and I'm going to be a pragmatist about this," said MP Brian Fitzpatrick.

But others had trouble coming to the unequivocal defence of their new colleague.

"Anyone who crosses the floor ultimately should go back to the people for ratification and I stick by it and hopefully in this case that will happen," said Garth Turner, an Ontario Conservative MP.

Carl Grenier of the Quebec-based Free Trade Lumber Council downplayed the Toronto Star report.

He confirmed softwood lumber negotiations were underway with the U.S. before the campaign, but said the proposal was far from a done deal.

They were very early discussions, he said, calling the plan "only a proposal." He said elements of the proposal were drawn from a previous draft rejected by the forestry industry in December 2003.

Grenier's colleague David Gray, co-chair of the council, dismissed the idea that Emerson blocked an agreement for his own purposes.

The Toronto Star report cited colleagues and officials privy to the softwood talks as saying Emerson was worried a pre-election announcement would damage Liberal prospects in key British Columbia ridings.

Liberals and non-partisan sources say the B.C. government and its powerful forestry industry lost interest with the deal after meetings with Emerson.

The Star reported that the deal called for Washington to reimburse about 75 per cent of the disputed tariffs imposed on Canadian lumber. And British Columbia would have implemented higher stumpage fees to prevent mills in its interior from flooding the U.S. market with cheap wood harvested from areas hit by the mountain pine beetle infestations.

Liberals are furious that a deal they developed may now fall into the Conservative's lap.

While they can accept that the Tories will claim a softwood victory they are angry that Emerson will take credit for an agreement Liberals say he blocked.

Meanwhile, Emerson continues to battle criticism from angry constituents and partisan Liberals alike in his Vancouver-Kingsway riding.

Emerson, who won re-election as a Liberal on Jan. 23, shocked everyone Monday morning by showing up at the cabinet swearing-in ceremony for the Conservative cabinet.

He was named minister of international trade, minister for the Pacific Gateway and minister responsible for the Vancouver-Whistler 2010 Winter Olympics.

His riding's Liberal association has now asked him to repay $97,000 in donations to his campaign, and to resign and run for election as a Conservative in a byelection.

Emerson has rejected both demands.

Emerson has no regrets

Speaking on CTV's Canada AM Thursday, Emerson said that despite all the criticism, he has no regrets about agreeing to serve in  Harper's cabinet.

"I think it's a good sign for Canada that he's willing to pull in someone like me, with a Liberal background, albeit a very short-term Liberal background," Conservative cabinet minister Emerson told AM.

However, Emerson said politics is a tough life, and he will have to grow a very thick skin.

"I have to tell you, why other people would do what I've done -- I don't know," he says.

He suggests that if anyone is going to get into politics, that they either do it early on in life, and then go on with another career, or do it later in life "after you've got sufficient scar tissue to put up with some of the attacks."

Last fall, former NDP MP Ed Broadbent released an ethics package that would have required floor-crossing MPs to resign and then try to regain their seat in a byelection.

While the Conservative Party heavily pushed the theme of improving government accountability, there's nothing in their platform about regulating floor-crossing MPs.

Harper also appointed Michael Fortier, a Montreal-based Conservative official, to the Senate and then the cabinet on Monday, even though the party has a policy of electing senators.

The Conservatives failed to elect a single MP in the cities of Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver.