I think I'll go with you, Mr. Lindsay, because I come from Prince Albert and the forestry sector is huge in Prince Albert. It's going to be huge again.
In 2005 we had an NDP government and we had a pulp mill shutdown. Because of the pulp mill shutdown, the sawmill in Big River shut down and the mill in Carrot River shut down.
You can look at Saskatchewan—it'd be a really interesting case study that I'm sure some economists will do—and at what happens when you have bad policy and then you put a government in place that brings in good policy. You can see what happens. In 2005 we were looking for jobs. We're lucky Brian's area in Fort McMurray was hiring people, because the guys who worked in the mill went to Fort McMurray. They stayed in Prince Albert and worked back and forth.
As we now go forward into 2012, it's a really interesting scenario: we have the mill reopening. In fact, it has already started up and they're running it as cogeneration. They're producing green power, which is something we all like to hear, but we have a huge problem. The huge problem now is that I need 300 workers to run the plant and I need 400 construction workers to get it back going. I have an investor who has money, who wants to do it, and who has bought it. It's Prince Albert Pulp and Paper Excellence, and they've worked with the first nations to start getting the people out in the field to cut the trees and do all that work.
The labour shortage is a huge issue in Saskatchewan. Of course, it shows what can happen when you have good policies such as you have with the Saskatchewan Party and a good, strong federal government, and also what can happen when you have the bad policies that we had with the previous NDP government in 2005. The impact it has had on their regions has been phenomenal. In fact, the Carrot River mill is starting up. It looks like the Big River mill will be starting up pretty quickly. We've seen reinvestment in the forestry sector.
Mr. Lindsay, you really touched a nerve when you talked about the exciting new products you're making with forestry fibre. Maybe I'll just ask you about the severity of the skilled labour shortage and how it's affecting your sector.