Thank you, Mr. Lautermilch.
Most of my comments are in contrast to Minister Lautermilch's, but the proposed softwood lumber agreement will result in severe hardships for Saskatchewan. We've had the biggest swing in the percentage of the market share, as Mr. Lautermilch presented.
The other unique position we have in Saskatchewan is that we're not a lot of multinationals; we are a single sawmill facility. We have two commodities: one is selling lumber and one is selling chips. Basically, in 2000--I'll use some different numbers--Saskatchewan exported 450 million board feet. In the five years following, we averaged about 275 million board feet, and that's what the quota will reflect going forward.
Given that number, I don't think the sawmill industry in Saskatchewan is survivable, especially since the backbone of the sawmill industry in Saskatchewan is dealing with a pulp mill that is shut down at this time. Our second commodity is selling chips to that pulp mill. With the low quota we're looking at for the province of Saskatchewan, in dealing with the sawmills it's very hard to attract a buyer to continue to run that pulp mill with the uncertainty of the fibre going to that mill from the conifer chips coming from the sawmills.
That's all I have right now.