Good afternoon, everybody.
I want to welcome members of the committee back after a constituency workweek. I hope you had a good time meeting with constituents and everything that goes along with that week.
We're here today to continue our study on the renewal of Canada's forest industry. This study follows a study that I tabled in the House in June 2008 on the forest industry. It was done hand in hand with members of the forest industry. I thought it was a very productive study, released jointly by this committee and FPAC in an announcement. I think that was a very productive way to follow that.
This is a follow-up meeting to see what's actually changed in the industry and where the industry is now compared with where it was back then and what we see into the future. It's a very interesting study indeed that the committee has taken on.
We continue today with three groups of witnesses. First, from the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, we have Aran O'Carroll, executive director, secretariat, and Mark Hubert. Welcome, gentlemen.
From FPAC, the Forest Products Association of Canada, we have David Lindsay, president and chief executive officer, and Catherine Cobden, executive vice-president. Welcome to both of you.
By video conference from Vancouver, British Columbia, from FPInnovations, we have Pierre Lapointe, president and CEO, and Jean-Pierre Martel, vice-president, strategic partnerships. Welcome, gentlemen.
I want to start by thanking you all very much for coming today. We're looking forward to your presentations. When we're finished the presentations, we'll go to questions and comments from members in the usual order.
Members, we'll leave about five minutes at the end of the meeting to review the budget of this committee for this study and hopefully to pass the budget for this study. I don't imagine that it will take longer than that. We'll leave that until the end.
We'll go ahead with the presentations in the order in which they're listed on the agenda today, starting with the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.
Aran O'Carroll, executive director, secretariat, please go ahead with your presentation, sir.