Natural Resources committee  Thanks to all of you for inviting us. I know that after a long hard session, and with Christmas being, what, 20 to 30 minutes away...? Holding an extra special meeting at the end of the day is an act of generosity on your part, so we really appreciate it. Canada's forest indust

Finance committee  Let's talk about the jobs in this industry. The only way we can create and keep jobs, and avoid losing jobs, is to be more competitive than the Americans, the Europeans, and the Brazilians. That's the only way. We sell almost everything we make to global markets, so we have to be

Finance committee  It's Tembec.

Finance committee  We are strong supporters of an enhanced first nations building program. It is something we think would benefit both the first nations communities and of course the rural communities that are producing the lumber. The greening of Canada's homes obviously would be of great advant

Finance committee  That's a good question. Basically just about all of our competitors' governments are doing more than the government is doing here. While what our government has done has been hugely useful and well targeted, it's been much less ambitious than in the States, Europe, South America,

Finance committee  The green transformation fund is about three-quarters spent right now--

Finance committee  That fund in the past has been used to finance our incursions into China. Of course, China is very nation-to-nation centred. Having government help with that has resulted in a huge increase in our exports to China. I haven't got the last number, but at last count there were 11 to

Finance committee  We used to just produce lumber, pulp, and paper. That's making stuff, believe me. It's been enough to employ 600,000 Canadians. We're now also making bioenergy, the equivalent to three nuclear reactors. With biochemicals, bioethanol, biodiesel, we are extracting from every single

Finance committee  Yes, of course, it's an investment. It's an investment in the country's economy and in future employment. The reason why we're experimenting with the idea of an accelerator fund is that if all these moneys were repayable, it would avoid the sort of traditional problems we've ha

Finance committee  Our experience is that the competition is not global; it's international. It's between nations. The U.S., Europe, Brazil, all those nations are investing heavily in the transformation of their industries. If we go ahead on the presumption that it's just between companies, we're s

Finance committee  We're hugely supportive of any possible government initiative to encourage people to go into skilled trades. We've had experiences where we got grants for exciting things, but we couldn't find welders to build the equipment. There is a huge shortage of skilled trades. Training th

Finance committee  This is two-dimensional pulp turned into a piece of paper. Very strong in two dimensions. Obviously, it tears. The third dimension doesn't work. One of my companies that went nearly bankrupt has the global patents for three-dimensional pulp. It's as light as paper and as strong

Finance committee  Thank you. Allow me to start by congratulating Nobina on her panel's excellent report. The forest industry is very supportive of its work. The Canadian forest industry continues to employ 600,000 people, and we are the major support for 200 communities across this country, commu

Finance committee  I want to be very clear that if you're sitting in the kitchen of an average Canadian family, their worry is not about the deficit and it's not about the stimulus but about whether we can compete. Government will not allow us to compete. It's going to be business investment. If w

Finance committee  It is understandable that a boss whose plant is about to go under would want to call the government for help in order to save the company. I do respect that, but we have to ask ourselves what justified and really practical role the government can play in the future. If we save al