Good afternoon, everyone. We're here today to continue our study regarding the renewal of Canada's forest industry.
This study came about as a follow-up for a report this committee did in conjunction with the forest products industry back in 2008. It's meant to see if some of the recommendations from that report have been implemented, to see how the forest industry is doing today, and to see what we expect the forest industry to be doing over the next short period of time.
We have a group of witnesses here today. Actually, this meeting has been divided into two parts. The first part is from 3:30 to 5:00 and we have four witnesses for that part. Then we have a separate section of this meeting—we can suspend the meeting—to hear a witness who will be appearing separately. The reason was that we couldn't deal with language issues, so we are dealing with that by having a separate meeting. That's the way we will proceed. There will be five witnesses today in total.
Today, we have with us from the Canadian Wood Council, Michael Giroux, president. From the United Steelworkers, we have Bob Matters, chair, Steelworkers' Wood Council.
By video conference from Vancouver, British Columbia, we have two witnesses. From the Canada Wood Group, we have Rick Jeffery, president and CEO, and from the Council of Forest Industries, we have James Gorman, president and CEO.
Welcome to all.
We appreciate your taking the time to make presentations. We're looking forward to your presentations. We'll then open it up to questions and comments, as we always do.
We'll have the witnesses make their presentations in the order listed on the agenda, starting with the Canadian Wood Council.
Go ahead, Mr. Giroux, with your presentation.