Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The House leader of the NDP has been acting as a champion of decorum in the House. I hope he's watching his TV monitor today. Maybe someday he'll drop in and see how some of his members display their decorum in the committees.
Mr. Minister, I promise you that I'll be respectful in my questions, as we all should.
I want to thank you for coming to what is widely known as the forest capital of the world, Prince George, in the interior of B.C. I know that when you were there, you talked to the best of the best of lumber sawmill operators, and you got a pretty darned good idea that we put to use leading-edge technology for processing our wood fibre in central B.C. That's because of the government's support of technology in forest products, in expanding the use of wood fibre and in providing the funding for the research and the innovation required to get that technology to market.
Speaking of markets, I do know that you're aware of the dramatic increase we've made in our offshore shipments to markets other than the continental U.S., in an attempt to make sure we don't get all our eggs in one basket ever again. You've seen the increases in China and the potential in India and other countries that will be big consumers of our wood.
Mr. Minister, the budget committed $92 million over two years to support this forest technology and innovation and also market development. I wonder if you could just give us a little indication of your understanding of the importance of these two crucial components to the health and expansion of the forest industry, and the economic benefits to it and ultimately to jobs and the economy of Canada.