Good afternoon.
I am going to give you a brief description of our industry. In Quebec, it has annual turnover of $13 billion, and involves 200,000 direct or indirect jobs, 360 factories and 250 municipalities, about 150 of which depend solely on forestry. This gives you an idea of the importance of the forestry industry in Quebec.
The crisis has resulted in our losing 20,000 jobs to date. In terms of capitalization, companies have lost $7.5 billion since the crisis started. You need only look at the stock exchange figures every morning to see what share values are. You will realize that $7 billion is not an exaggeration.
Certainly there are structural problems that the federal government can't do anything about. That is the responsibility of the government of Quebec. However, the federal government can certainly help to deal with the cyclical crisis. I would like to point out that the plan for $1 billion, spread out over three years, for all manufacturing and forestry industries, is obviously inadequate. This is simply not meaningful assistance. Even the allocation of funds seems to us to be incorrect. It fails to take into account particular industries in particular provinces. It is based on population size, and so some populations may benefit proportionately more from these funds than others, and that is not fair. This is the case for Quebec's forestry industry, for example; it is receiving only a trifling amount when compared which what it might actually have been given.
As well, it would be wise to make the objectives of the program known. It is very nebulous. The objective we have heard about to date can be more or less summarized as helping communities. We have absolutely nothing against that idea, and I want to reassure the Mayor who is sitting beside me, but we believe that in order to stabilize the industry, to be prepared to start back up when the American crisis has been resolved, we are really going to have to have some help.
What are we proposing be done? First, neither our union colleagues nor you will be surprised to hear that we are not insisting that measures be taken that would jeopardize the softwood lumber agreement. In Quebec, we have taken a position on that subject: we want the softwood lumber agreement to be able to last for seven years rather than three years or five years, if necessary. We hope that it will be kept in place, for one very understandable reason: stability. We have cooperated with the government, and I think it will back us up on that. Quebec voted in favour of the agreement and is hoping that it will last as long as possible.
That being said, obviously there are measures that do not jeopardize the agreement. We want to talk a bit, and tell you, for example, that POWA, the Program for Older Worker Adjustment, is important to us. We are well aware that collective agreements, and we don't disagree with this, result in layoffs on a seniority-based system. In regions referred to as remote from the major centres, we are risking losing young skilled workers. We sincerely believe that POWA should very definitely be implemented.
As well, you could offer assistance to industry associations. It costs so many cents per cubic metre. For example, our little Quebec council paid the Canadian Wood Council $800,000 this year to monitor building codes and changes to building codes. That responsibility could also be national, since it is the national economy that then depends on it. That would not be contrary to the softwood lumber agreement.
I would like to talk to you very quickly about two or three other measures, but because I am being told that the time available to me has run out, I will rely on the committee members' goodwill and hope they ask me what the other five measures in my brief are.