Thank you.
Well, I want to address some of the comments made earlier, Mr. Alghabra's comments about government standing up for the forest industry. I know he comes from a forest-dependent community so he understands the industry very well. He's very aware that over the last number of decades the forest industry has had some very, very good times, it's had some mediocre times, and it's had some bad times. Market conditions primarily have been the cause of the rise and fall of the fortunes of the industry. He knows that when market conditions are good, I'm sure because of his experience in the forest industry, that the forest industry in fact has always had a net surplus to Canada in the balance of trade. It's been a very good industry for this country and we've enjoyed some very good times.
The governments, whether they were Liberal or Conservative governments, have enjoyed the revenues from the forest industry. I think, overall, governments past and present have done a good job in recognizing how important this industry is to Canada, particularly to some parts of the country, as it contributes to the local economies as well.
I'm sure my colleagues understand that we have a situation in Canada that has pretty much made us dependent—“dependent” is not a mild word—on the construction market in the U.S. We all know what's happening down there. Construction starts are down tremendously from even normal times, forget the boom times, when we all enjoyed seeing trainloads of lumber going south of the border on an hourly basis, let alone daily basis. Things are different down there now. We're in a market slump.
At the end of the day, when we have to answer the question as to why we have these market problems with our lumber, after all our discussions, I'm sure the two main factors are going to be that the American market is very bad right now, and that of course the dollar plays a big role in that too. When our dollar was at 75¢ or 80¢, that's a pretty nice spread for our Canadian manufacturers. Primarily, those are the two things affecting our forest industry, and that applies, in some respects, to pulp and paper right now, although that's doing not too badly these days.
Some of the solutions, from a market point of view.... Number one will be that we have to diversify our markets, which is a given. Forest companies, certainly in my part of the country, have been working at this for a number of years. So diversification of our markets is probably going to be a response that we'll get from many of the experts who testify before us in this, and we'll deal with the dollar difference as well.
Let's not shortchange the government's record of standing up for the forest industry. I'll be the first to admit that with the exception of a few little bumps along the way, the Canadian government has recognized what a contributor the forest industry has been to Canada. I may get struck dead for saying this, but whether it's been a Liberal government in the past or a Conservative government, for the most part the governments have recognized the forest industry contributions very well and have done the best they could at the time to ensure that this market remain buoyant.
Market factors in America are something that we can't control, so we have to try to mitigate any effect that the American market has on Canada, our industry up here. One thing is to have an agreement with the Americans, like we've had in the past, like we have now. It doesn't do anybody any good to spends hundreds of millions of dollars on lawyers and get them rich and fat arguing while our lumber manufacturers and our forest industry suffer. That's not a solution. We have an agreement. No agreement is perfect. You get the best you can and hope it works. We've seen that in past agreements and we know that to be the case in this one.
I think the question we're going to centre on mostly is, how do we as a government in these times demonstrate to the hardest hit communities that the government can recognize that they're having an economic slowdown and help them? Our government has put forward the proposal for the community development trust. We're convinced this is the answer, because it's not just the forest industry that's suffering, many others are: auto manufacturing and manufacturing in general, the mining industry in some places, local manufacturing in so many different sectors. This development trust, when approved in the budget...and we expect the opposition--the Liberals, the Bloc, and the NDP--will support the budget so this community development trust can become a reality and help the communities in their ridings.
The point was made that only one premier has officially signed on to it. I'm not sure if that's accurate. I know the Premier of B.C., the Premier of Alberta, and other premiers across the country have made favourable comments about the community development trust and are looking forward to it becoming a reality in the next budget. This is going to go a long way in helping the communities in Quebec, Atlantic Canada, B.C., and the territories without violating or being seen to violate the softwood lumber agreement in any way because it does not specifically—