Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the members of the committee and to my colleagues who have joined us today. Thank you for inviting me to appear this morning.
On behalf of our 50 members and the New Brunswick Forest Products Association's board of directors, I welcome the opportunity to present our views on the crisis faced by the manufacturing sector. More specifically, today I'll speak about forestry from the Atlantic Canadian perspective.
The New Brunswick Forest Products Association is a non-profit organization that represents pulp, paper, and solid wood manufacturing companies in the province of New Brunswick.
I would like to take the opportunity to compliment this government committee for reviewing the issue and attempting to understand the impact the current economic downturn is having on the forestry sector and our rural communities that are beholden to forestry.
In the few minutes provided I'll speak of the economic impact. I will briefly outline three significant issues for forestry in New Brunswick, those being access to credit, black liquor energy subsidies to the U.S. pulp and paper mills, and silviculture funding.
l'II also recommend initiatives with which the federal government could help overcome these issues, and I'll conclude with an optimistic outlook for the future of our sector, because I do believe forestry has a bright future in Canada and for our economy.
First let me start with a brief economic snapshot of the downturn and how it's affected our sector.
As you are undoubtedly aware, the forest industry has been undergoing a forced transformation over the past four years. It's been subjected to a perfect storm of events that have challenged what is one of New Brunswick's most important economic engines. Global competitiveness moving in on our traditional trading markets, a downturn in the U.S. housing market, dramatically rising and uncompetitive high energy costs, and at one point even the high value of the Canadian dollar have all contributed to a very difficult business climate for investment, which has ultimately challenged industry's long-term survival.
It's worth noting that while Canadian manufacturing has suffered—