Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I'd like to congratulate all of the deputants. It's not often that we have the full spectrum of stakeholders from the industry. We have private woodlot representatives here. We have representatives of labour. We have those who are involved in innovation and development of a strategic response to what has happened in the industry, in the sector. Last meeting, Mr. Chairman, we had representatives of those that are involved in making suggestions with respect to capital programs and independent business and so on.
I appreciate the analysis that Mr. Rigato has given. I didn't notice anyone nodding this way with respect to his overview. So I take it that his rather clinical analysis is accurate and that we need a very quick stimulant with respect to bridging research and development with the commercialization and the advice that goes out to those who want to invest, those who want to be part of the industry, to make some quick decisions with respect to new markets and new products.
I'm reminded of an analysis that's strong on the analysis but not on the prognosis. Mr. Rigato has referred to the biofibre industry and the questions that have come out, for example, “Yes, in terms of our pulp industry, we are past the point of reinventing that part of it, but there's part of the sector that we can reinvent.”
So this is my question. If we had a national summit, would it be possible to accelerate that strategic plan so that the government could buy in, private capital could buy in, existing woodlot owners could buy in, in terms of the proposals that have been made to change the Income Tax Act, in terms of that full gamut of responses? Then we'd have some sense of destination, as opposed to, “Well, you know, we'll just have to let the mills close. We'll put out more EI and change the EI benefit. We'll just keep hanging on.” Would it be possible for that national strategy, that strategic plan, to come out of that if we had that summit and could it bring all of you together so that you could come back to this committee and say, “There's the blueprint for action”, and everyone would know how to buy in?