Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My thanks also go to the members and the parliamentary secretary for their invitation to appear before the committee. Today, we open the dialogue to fuel your work and your thoughts. I especially look forward to hearing your questions about our activities. I hope my comments will inspire your own work.
Chantiers Chibougamau is a family business that began operations in 1961 in Chibougamau, in northern Quebec. Chibougamau is approximately 700 kilometres north of Montreal, Quebec. Right now, our company operates two main plants, one in Landrienne, near Amos in Abitibi, and the other in Chibougamau, in northern Quebec. In total, Chantiers Chibougamau processes about 8% of Quebec's public forests. We have a major engineering wood production complex that French Professor Pascal Triboulot describes as the world's largest glulam production complex. He has visited almost all existing complexes, and he thinks ours is the one with the largest installed capacity.
In total, almost 900 people work in the company, with about 800 in all the forestry and plant processing operations, and more than 50 in technical development, the development of construction projects, and administration.
We are here to talk about wood processing, wood construction, and the impact on jobs and climate change. In that sense, there are a few things that motivate us on a daily basis.
Here is the first one. Today, beyond the beneficial effect of diversifying our business, softwood continues to form a major part of our revenue—we are still active in the traditional softwood markets. The fact is that diversification allows us to grow. The family business's sales exceed $250 million, which is largely due to the wide range of wood construction products we have developed.
When it comes to strictly solid wood used in the construction of non-residential buildings, such as institutional, commercial or multi-unit buildings using wood, about 150 jobs in our company depend on those activities, which started 15 years ago.
So it is all about energy and environmental performance. A number of key aspects related to those wood construction products must be considered in order to be recognized for their proper value. Of course, our products use a renewable resource. From the outset, this gives us a guarantee of indisputable sustainability and differentiation.
In addition, manufacturing our products requires very little energy. Throughout the assembly process, we consume significantly less energy than we produce for equivalent products and even for equivalent products elsewhere in the world.
Let me give you a concrete example of the importance of wood in buildings, in France or in Europe, for example. In light of the life-cycle analysis of our products from more than seven years ago now, we were surprised to see that our products had a carbon balance that was twice as satisfactory as the equivalent solid wood products and glulam products manufactured in Europe. This is a result of our processing procedures being integrated from the forest to the plant. It is also a result of the use of hydroelectricity and, of course, of very energy-efficient processes to assemble columns that will be a substitute for equivalent columns made out of other materials, such as steel and concrete.
From the forest to the delivery on site, the process uses an incomparable amount of energy. Of course, all of this means significant benefits that contribute to environmentally-friendly buildings. It is also important to point out the intrinsic properties of the materials, such as heat conduction in the energy performance of the buildings. We rarely hear that wood conducts 350 times less energy than steel. Wood conducts 30 times less energy than concrete. As a result, in summer, outdoor heat will be conducted inside the building 350 times less than it is with steel and 30 times less than with concrete, which is a major performance for the energy consumption, but also for the operating costs of the building.
In addition, still on the environmental front, in solid wood constructions, the structure will often remain exposed. Clearly, an exposed structure means savings in finishing materials. Again, we can recognize wood solutions at their proper value for their economic performance, but also for their environmental performance, because the intrinsic reduction in the consumption of materials has a direct impact.
In terms of the market, I talked about jobs. Frankly, the market is stagnant in Canada. We have seen projects emerge one at a time over the past 15 years. We have reached a certain plateau with a certain volume. The volume is there; we have inspiring examples.
For example, in our case alone, we have completed more than 2,000 solid wood construction projects to date, mainly in Quebec and Canada, but also in the United States. We are therefore far from being the exception, the oddity or the extraordinary, and this is what our industry wants to achieve. We want it to become normal for the country to build with wood.
In addition, we have built 125 bridges out of wood, bridges with long spans over forest or public roads.
Some of these solutions allow structures to be delivered before the deadline and under budget. We had that experience during a project with the Stornoway mine in northern Quebec. We delivered the 17 wooden bridge structures several weeks before the deadline and the costs were 10% under budget. Those were the most competitive solutions.
I would now like to talk about government construction.
Once again, I candidly and respectfully submit that government clients for projects are quite rare, both in Quebec, in our province, and across Canada. Still, there are some extremely interesting sources of inspiration.
For example, we at Chantiers Chibougamau provided the structure for the new U.S. defence buildings in Alabama. No one there was at all keen on supporting the Canadian forestry industry; they simply wanted to have the best possible construction that meets the highest current standards and the most ambitious environmental footprint standards. Naturally, all that pointed to our solid wood products made in Chibougamau. So the potential is there.
This year, in the cross-laminated timber construction sector, our company's sales in the U.S. market will be higher than those in the Canadian market. The good news is that it's very good news for Canada's trade balance and for Canada's exports. The other good news, which is actually a challenge, is that we can do much better here in Canada. The use of wood should not be approached as help for the forestry industry; it does not help us. It does not help us at all when we say we want to build with wood to help the forestry industry. The use of wood can be a natural choice, an ambitious choice, a competent choice, a choice made simply with a view to better building.
To that end, let us be inspired by our German friends, who promote wood construction. In Germany, they use 30 times more wood than we do here in Canada in non-residential construction. It is all driven by the ambition to achieve energy efficiency and environmental performance.
We therefore have a multitude of extremely inspiring and compelling examples of what should drive us.
I was talking about energy efficiency. Our product is carbon negative and allows us to deliver carbon-neutral buildings. We have built a few. Developers make that business decision, as with the Arbora project in Montreal: 450 wood condominium units in Griffintown. It is the largest multi-residential solid wood project in the world, and it is done in Montreal. It is a business decision made by developers. They did not want to help the forestry industry in Quebec and Canada; they made a business decision that results in such a conclusive result.
To sum up, we want the product to be considered for its benefits, its performance, its competitiveness and its profitability. Let's make sure that using solid wood for modern construction is not something extraordinary or special, but something normal in this country.
Thank you.