What happened was when Structurlam took the leap and decided to build a manufacturing plant that was going to produce this new product called CLTs or cross-laminated timber panels, there was no market. We were very fortunate in a couple of ways.
First of all, the federal government, NRCan at the time, had funded a demonstration project. There were actually three buildings we got to supply with the first panels we made. That was very helpful and it gave everybody a reference site where they could go to see this new technology and this new building system.
Another thing that happened was that in British Columbia they had just introduced—we're talking around 2010 here—a Wood First Act, which said that if there was provincial money in a building, then wood had to be considered. It didn't have to be wood; it just had to be considered. That was a wake-up call to the architects, the engineers, the designers, and even the general contractors in B.C. that they'd better take a look at this stuff.
I think it would be very helpful if that was happening outside of British Columbia, if it was happening more as a federal initiative, as I mentioned. That would be very good.
After that we have to help educational institutions to train their engineers in how to build in wood. We need to have courses for those because everything now, a prefabricated structure, is all done on CAD. It's a three-dimensional model. We build the building virtually and then we build it out of wood. Those operators that can handle and do those CAD drawings are few and far between, so Structurlam ends up having to bring them from Europe. I would love to hire Canadians instead of Europeans. I don't speak very good German or Swiss, so it would be a very nice thing to see that kind of training happening.
In general, there's just the support of the wood industry as a viable alternative. As I mentioned in my report here, we have to help this baby along because the steel and concrete industries are extremely effective lobbyists. Don't forget that they have the systems in place so they have driven the cost out of those buildings so much. We are just getting going. We're just starting to bring those costs down with the development of new systems, and we're also getting the industry to recognize the fact that if the building goes up much quicker, they are going to win on the schedule side.
Those are a couple of ideas anyway. I could continue.