We're an exporting industry and we're competing against Brazil, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, and parts of China. If we can't beat them, there isn't enough money in the federal treasury to save our bacon. You simply cannot support us if we can't be competitive. You can help us get competitive, but even there your role is relatively minor.
It used to be the case in B.C.; it's much less now. But in Quebec and Ontario one of the reasons we have many unproductive and non-competitive mills has been provincial policy. In the past the provinces have insisted, because they own the trees and allocate cutting rights, that the mills not consolidate. If you had three mills, each of which were not globally competitive...the companies were willing to invest in one globally competitive mill, but the provinces—to be fair to them, they were looking at communities—said they wouldn't let the wood supply be taken from those three towns and put in one town with one big mill.
This worked really well when the dollar was low and we could get away with that. But the dollar went up, prices went down, and competition went up. All three mills are not competitive now. It's partly due to different owners, but one of the side effects of state ownership of the forests is that the provinces are reluctant to allow the necessary consolidation—for virtuous, righteous reasons. They don't want to be the ones to say, “These two towns have to close.” But in the end all three mills shut down.
We've seen such devastation over the last little while, not just because markets are bad, competition is hard, and the dollar is high. We also have excess, inefficient capacity throughout the country, but mostly in Ontario and Quebec. B.C. shifted and went through it four years ago. That inefficient capacity couldn't make it through the hard times. If we had gone through a normal process of restructuring over the last 10 years instead of having that inhibited by the provinces, it would not have been as devastating.