Thank you for that question, Mr. Chair.
Obviously this is of particular interest to me, not just as the Minister of Natural Resources but as a member from one of the larger ridings in Canada and across northwestern Ontario, I would submit, with a calibre of timber that can compete with the best around the world.
In the wake of the last recession, in which the forest sector was the first in, and frankly, one of the last out, it's certainly showing signals—“strong” may too strong a word for it—and signs of life. There are parts of it that are doing better than others. If that's the case—and I believe it is—it's because of investments, the acceleration of commercialization, and highly innovative first-in-kind technologies in Canadian forestry industry facilities.
There are two important objectives in IFIT. In terms of technological innovation, there has been a focus on supporting the industry and specific mills in improving and increasing the efficiency of their production and of course the diversification of their product offering. I can say that in northwestern Ontario, particularly in the great Kenora riding, we are seeing one new mill open, two reopened ones, one set to reopen, and one at or near full capacity. In at least a third of these cases, they are coming back with value-added products. The support they're looking for—for example, from FedNor or Industry Canada—is focused on how to produce products more efficiently and with technologies that enable them to do so more effectively.
Current spending by proponents and contributions from other sources indicate that for every dollar the federal government invests from the program, another $2.60 is leveraged from other sources. We think that's good. We'd like to see it improve. The program has successfully funded more than 14 projects involving nine world-first technologies, with 75% of the projects creating new products or diversifying recipients' product offerings.
I'm a big fan of the success that this program has had. It's a credit to my officials for its implementation, and obviously, based on what I have just said, we have every confidence that it was a smart reinvestment moving forward.