Thank you for that question.
The problem with the treaty process is that it does not guarantee long-term jobs. The treaty process guarantees the ability of the governments, provincial and federal, to talk to the business world if the land question is settled.
The economic problem in regard to the forests in British Columbia is exactly the same right across Canada. There are problems worldwide with the ability to ship product to different countries. B.C. faces the same problem of shutting down the forest industry, moving and consolidating their mills in southern British Columbia and Washington State.
I am president of our forest company. We no longer have a mill to process our product, so we have to export 90% of the trees. Only 10% of the trees remain in our area, going to three different mills that specialize in one product—red cedar.
The industry has shifted completely, and the mills have shut down. Because of the mills shutting down, in 109 communities in remote areas of British Columbia, 70% to 90% of employment has been lost. There's no economy there at all. Right now, because they're remote, because there are no jobs there, the treaty process won't help.
We need a shift in the economy. Then we could retrain and get new opportunities that would benefit our communities. One small example would be the Canada House in Torino, Italy. That Canada House was visited by 200,000 to 300,000 people. I had the good fortune to visit it. It is built of pine beetle logs. We want to try to get other products, to get the logs before they're completely decayed and unusable. The land we're looking at is absolutely huge—135 million hectares.
Thank you.