Natural Resources committee  I don't have the detailed numbers at my fingertips. We had a whole report done with the Conference Board on the current makeup and future projections. Let me go back to the aboriginal numbers, if I could, which are the numbers I find most intriguing. Let's take the example of M

Natural Resources committee  The forest products industry has a great dependence on our transportation system in Canada. As you can just imagine most of the mills are located in northern and remote communities. Most of those communities only have one way in and one way out. Our product is a heavy, large, bul

Natural Resources committee  The challenge with skilled workers in the forest sector is similar to other sectors, whether it's construction or mining or others. There is great competition for skilled workers. While our friends in the oil patch might be going through some difficult challenges right now, we an

Natural Resources committee  Yes, we do export raw logs. I don't know if I have those numbers with me. As a percentage of our total exports, it's a very small percentage. The Forest Products Association would obviously prefer to get the maximum value from every tree we harvest. That's our going-in principl

Natural Resources committee  I'm not sure exactly what they're doing with each individual log, but I know there's a lot of cardboard that also goes back to China, which is also being used. The Chinese have much cheaper labour and cheaper input costs. We're in a competitive world. We need to find ways to make

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Rafferty, that's an excellent question. As the economists would say, holding all other things equal, we can do anything. The problem is that all other things are not being held equal. The Russian ruble has dropped significantly more than the Canadian dollar has. The Brazilia

Natural Resources committee  We've had a number of challenges in the forest products industry in the last decade. U.S. housing starts went down significantly, from a high of about $2.4 million or $2.5 million down to about $600,000. There was an incredible drop in demand from the United States. Recognizing t

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for the question. As I mentioned in my opening comments, we're quite proud of the success we've had in opening up the Chinese market, for example. The partnership between the Province of British Columbia, the federal government, and the industry worked aggres

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members of the committee, good afternoon. Catherine will correct me after I'm finished.

Natural Resources committee  It's a privilege to appear before you this afternoon, particularly with my colleagues from the CBFA, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, and my colleagues at FPInnovations. As “innovation” is in their name, I think it's only appropriate that they are with us virtually. We work very

International Trade committee  We have a good mix of products that we sell now so we want to augment all of those. Each company in Canada has a different specialty and different types of materials it sells. It's a function of individual companies deciding where they want to spend their time and effort, but if

International Trade committee  The Korean free trade agreement is important to us specifically because of the Korea market—I can give you some numbers on that—but also because the Trans-Pacific Partnership and continuing to expand trade opportunities is something that our members are supportive of. We have a g

International Trade committee  There are a number of initiatives this month. The British Columbia government and the Quebec and Ontario governments all have trade missions going across the Pacific. They're not going to Korea, but they're going to Japan and China. The British Columbia government, with the suppo

International Trade committee  We're excited. Thank you.

International Trade committee  Yes, it's a global marketplace. We're all in competition. Brazil is growing as a competitor.