There's not a simple answer, but I can tell you that then minister Pat Bell from British Columbia in about 2011 had sent an email to staff saying there were 22 mills in British Columbia that were operating because of the China market. Whether or not that number is precise, there's no question that at least 10 mills are basically just sending their product to China.
China has served a number of purposes. One, let's be clear, they have taken a lot of low-grade beetle-killed wood out of North America, which otherwise would have depressed prices. That then allowed other parts of Canada to have more access to the United States just because of the volume that had to come off the land. But the Chinese market is changing, and it's not just concrete forming. There are a lot of interesting things happening in China with the focus on green building in particular. The Government of China knows it needs to clean up its cities, and that's an area where wood has an opportunity.
When I was over there with Minister Carr in June, he opened the Sino-Canadian eco-city in Tianjin, which is a new growth area about two hours outside of Beijing where there are a whole lot of townhouses and other buildings being built out of wood. I tweeted a picture of some OSB made in Maniwaki that was in a building there.
There's a lot of opportunity. It's not single-family homes. Let's be clear that really the future in China is the multi-storey and the multiple buildings. We see an enormous opportunity for infill walls being made out of wood, because when you buy a condo in China, you don't buy a finished apartment like you do here. You buy a square cement block, and then you send in the decorators, and you finish it. That's why there's a lot of jackhammering going on after buildings are completed in China. But there's enormous opportunity.