Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank the members for coming and making these submissions.
I guess we can sit back and be political. As someone at this table said, this is not the time for the forestry industry to be political, and I completely concur.
I think the two suggestions, and it's not the first time we heard them, that came from Mr. Coles and Mr. Rigato are very positive in the evidence that we've heard today. There has to be a summit or round table of the top forestry people in this country to decide how.... As Mayor Peterson stated, the forestry industry is not a sunset industry, but we have to rethink our position and decide how the forestry is going to be a viable industry for Canadians and for Canadian workers in the future.
I think Mr. Coles' suggestion about the summit and what Mr. Rigato told us last week about the biofibre industry is exactly what's going to happen tomorrow in discussion at the natural resources committee, where this motion is going to be put and discussed because of these two gentlemen. The membership of this forestry council will hopefully be struck tomorrow. I think that's a tremendously positive move. It may not be the move that satisfies people politically, but it's a move that will satisfy people who are very concerned with the forestry industry.
Let me answer one more question in order to be entirely clear. I want to talk about the community development trust. This was an announcement by the Prime Minister. It was made in New Brunswick. I think it had its genesis when the Prime Minister travelled through northern Ontario on two different occasions and he looked at what was happening in the forestry industry and in other sections of this country and decided that single-industry towns were of primary importance. We have an argument there, but that's for another issue.
He came up with the idea of the community trust. That was a very broad-stroke program--$1 billion over three years. It may not be enough, but it's a hell of a lot more than what we had before he announced it. At that point in time when I was consulted, I said that now is the time for every member of Parliament to take this community trust and see what the methodology is to access these funds and try to fit the needs of their individual communities and how that fund can be utilized. I have to say this, and I know the mayor isn't listening right now, but I have taken five programs that are presently working their way through the system using the community trust as a financing agent and they're all for northwestern Ontario. There's some role that a member of Parliament has to play when it comes to developing programs for their own particular communities. That's the onus on all of us.
I would like to hear more from Mr. Rigato and Mr. Coles about what their thoughts are. I don't want to get into arguments with people, but if they want some time they could have whatever balance of time I have, Mr. Chairman. I think they're talking a lot of sense.