Thank you, Mr. Benyagoub.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Greetings, as well, to the other participants.
Our first recommendation is to introduce tax incentives, such as special tax credits, for the commercialization of bioproducts to make this commercialization much more competitive.
In 2010, several U.S. companies had already approached elected officials in the U.S. House of Representatives to call for the introduction of a tax credit for the production of bioproducts. Following this initial request, Iowa introduced a tax credit of 5¢ per pound in 2016 for products with a minimum of 50% bio-based material content. More recently, Maine, Nebraska and Minnesota have adopted similar tax schemes, introducing a credit ranging from 3¢ to 8¢ per pound for certain products still derived from biomass, with other states, such as Illinois and Kentucky, in the process of adopting similar legislation.
Our second recommendation aims to strengthen consumer confidence in a label attesting to the renewable nature of bioproducts, following the example of the U.S. BioPreferred program, which I had the opportunity to contribute to by labelling certain biosourced molecules produced in Canada.
This program, which is managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, was designed to increase the purchase and use of bioproducts. Since its inception, the program has contributed approximately $393 billion and more than 4.2 million direct and indirect jobs to the U.S. economy.
In Canada, it would be appropriate to put in place a similar program for forest biomass products made. It would be managed by Natural Resources Canada. In our opinion, the two main components of such a Canadian program could be, first, mandatory purchasing requirements for federal agencies and their contractors, and second, a voluntary labelling initiative for bioproducts.
Finally, still in the area of bioproducts, our third and final recommendation comes from the observation that, unlike other industrial sectors such as agriculture, aeronautics or electronics, Canada has a less developed chemical industry. A national program should be put in place to facilitate the recruitment, in our university research centres or in government laboratories, of scientific researchers from large private chemical or biotechnology companies that specialize in the industrial conversion of bioresources into high value-added products.
This would have a ripple effect on the participation of large companies in projects here in Canada and would develop or strengthen our research and development infrastructure.
This concludes my remarks. Thank you for your attention.