Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for the invitation and to your committee members as well. I really appreciate the opportunity.
As mentioned, my name is Jason Krips. I'm the president and CEO of the Alberta Forest Products Association.
I'd first like to begin by acknowledging that I'm coming to you from Edmonton, which is situated on the traditional territory of the people of Treaty 6 as well as the ancestral land of the Métis. In addition to this, our industry operates on the traditional territories of the people of Treaties 7 and 8. It's important that we acknowledge the deep and rich partnership we have with indigenous, first nations and Métis communities in our forestry sector.
With respect to softwood lumber, in Alberta one thing we've seen in our industry is that it contributes to the resiliency of our communities. The Alberta forest products industry is in over 70 Alberta communities. We have an economy in place that booms and busts—this is well known in Canada with the energy prices—but communities that also have forestry are markedly different. They have the extra layer of insulation of well-paying jobs that are stable. In fact, our industry contributes over 40,000 jobs to the Alberta economy, with many of those in rural Alberta, with an $8-billion economic impact to the province of Alberta.
The challenge with trade actions taken by the United States government is that they undermine this economic stability. They create uncertainty and they suck money out of our communities.
It's not just Alberta or Canada that is suffering from the ramifications of these actions. It's communities in the United States as well. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs are dependent on transporting, selling and building with our products. Millions of Americans need housing prices to be affordable in order to afford shelter.
The irony of the actions taken by U.S. Commerce is that it's their own citizens who bear the brunt of this impact. We're living right now in a time of absolutely serious inflation—inflation we haven't seen in decades. Costs both for industry and for our households are growing at an unsustainable rate.
The softwood lumber dispute is exacerbating this phenomenon by stifling competition, interfering with supply chains and contributing to massive spikes in the price of lumber.
For our members, tariffs add a significant set of costs that get passed on to the consumers when the markets are strong. When the market weakens, they contribute to things like mill curtailments and job losses.
I've outlined the problem and now we want to turn to see what some of the solutions are. As Mark mentioned, unfortunately there are no silver bullets and no argument that we can make to United States Commerce and U.S. industry that will cause them to lay down their arms in this dispute.
To that end, we continue to see value in Canada using the legal challenges like the WTO and CUSMA appeals processes, which Mark had mentioned, to fight for our rights.
We also see value in working to educate American consumers about what this dispute is costing them.
Finally, we see value in continuing to tell the story about Canada's forests. Our unique legacy of public lands in much of the country means that our very high forest management standards are consistent. Our industry is able to harvest in a way that causes zero deforestation because harvesting on public lands comes with the obligation to regenerate through activities like replanting. In fact, in 2021, Alberta's forest industry planted over 100 million trees. That's three trees for every one harvested in 2021, which we take a lot of pride in.
Telling our story will help to promote access to markets around the world and give consumers here at home reassurance that the product they are buying is produced in accordance with world-leading standards.
As Mark mentioned previously, there aren't any huge silver bullets. We need to continue to work with both the legal challenges as well as the political challenges. At the end of the day, unless and until we have a willing dance partner in U.S. coalitions to come to the table, I think we're in this fight for a while.
Madam Chair, thank you very much for your time.