Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations.
I know we all agree on one thing: the forest industry is facing a serious set of challenges right now in many parts of the country, not the least in mine—being from central B.C.—as well as Quebec. I'm sure we're going to find a lot of life support for companies across the country. Even though we have a problem, there are two ways we can look at this. There is, believe it or not, a positive side as we look to the future and the opportunities that await Canadian lumber producers and forest product companies because of the emerging and increasing world demand, as Mr. Lazar pointed out. We did hear from Mr. Roberts, the gentleman from CIBC World Markets, when we had the forestry study in the natural resources committee last year. As time goes on, there will be some huge opportunities.
We all agree on that. Where we don't agree, in some cases, is just how much the government is doing for the forest industry. I'm sure in the economic action plan, otherwise known as our Budget 2009, a significant amount of funding has been put in specifically for the forest industries. I would like to touch on a couple of them. For example, someone talked about money needed for research and development of new products. There was $80 million put into that through FPInnovations and others, and they're very good at what they do. We're going to see new wood products emerging on a continuous basis from them. Another $50 million that someone talked about to increase the marketing of our products abroad was put in over two years to do exactly that, to market our products and to try to get away from having all our eggs in one basket, such as the U.S. market, and try to expand it. We don't want to be caught in the U.S. housing slump again.
Of course, we have the support programs for the forest workers, the extension of the work-share program to 52 weeks even if a company has been on that already and it's gone, as well as the five weeks for the EI program. These are all good things.
Mr. Chevrette, I know you have some questions about the softwood lumber agreement, but I would argue we're in a far better position now with the SLA than if we didn't have it, even though our position isn't very good, considering this downturn in the industry.
I would argue that if we didn't have that SLA we would be hard pressed, given the hard times in the U.S., to ship a single stick of lumber across the border because the southeastern U.S. firms would be arguing they can supply all the wood that's needed right now. If we did, there'd be a far greater penalty. Of all the programs we would like to have, we do have to consider the SLA and recognize...and I'm sure you know the lumber coalition has a battery of lawyers whom I believe are working 24/7 trying to catch us at something. They're trying to find something they can argue, even if it's not real, to try to confound our industry and give them an advantage.
Mr. Chevrette, what I would love to get from you, sir, is a list of all the things you believe the government should and could do specifically for the forest industry that would not violate or spark a complaint by the U.S. lumber coalition. That would be very good.
You don't have to go through all of that today, but I would like to get it. I want to take it to the lawyers that I know, who say we have to be a lot more careful than what has been suggested, who say that these things could trigger.
I'm sorry, that's a long dissertation, but I wanted to get to that question. If you could do that for me, sir, I would certainly appreciate it. I like some of the things you're suggesting; I just don't know whether we can do them.