Thanks, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to share time with some of our partners from industry and labour this afternoon. We at FPAC hold each of the individuals and their organizations presenting today in very high regard.
Our team at FPAC is proud to represent the forest products manufacturing industry across its entire value chain, from producers of lumber to panels and engineered wood to pulp and paper and bioenergy. It's an industry that creates nearly $90 billion a year in revenues and represents 11% of Canadian manufacturing. It generates over $37 billion in annual exports, which puts us in the top four of Canada's exporting industries. Most importantly, forestry means jobs right across the country. There are 200,000 full-time jobs supporting families in over 300 communities across Canada. Those jobs support another 200,000 indirect jobs across those same communities.
I want to thank all parties for your support. This has been an incredibly difficult time for our sector. Back on October 22, we were grateful to have representatives from every party at our annual conference, meeting with our executives and frontline workers. We appreciate the support that has been lent.
You know that we are facing serious headwinds given the current trade dispute with the U.S., which has our softwood lumber companies now facing combined duties and section 232 tariffs of over 45% on exports to the U.S., with repercussions already echoing across our value chain and starting to impact operating conditions for our pulp and paper mills and other facilities. Today, the federal and B.C. governments have met to discuss the softwood lumber file. I thought it would be appropriate to share some of the advice we shared with both governments heading into the meeting earlier today.
The first one is of a team Canada approach and prioritizing lumber in negotiations with the U.S. The Prime Minister rightly declared the forest sector a strategic one this summer and responded with a $1.25-billion response package in early August in anticipation of duties going up to 35%. Then they went up to 45% plus.
The response package was an important first step. However, coming out of the Prime Minister's last meeting at the White House some three weeks ago, the readout and public comments from ministers following it stated that steel, aluminum and energy were the sectoral priorities at the negotiating table. This honestly fell incredibly flat for us and put us in a terrible position when called by media to be asked why forestry was no longer being mentioned in the same sentence as steel, aluminum and energy.
We've heard clearly from the government since that forestry remains a priority. We know this is a complex negotiation. We're not unreasonable people in forestry. We don't expect to know everything that's going on at the table, but we do need to know where we stand. It's a case of help us help you, because we need to stand up for our people and our businesses.
On the messaging pivot that happened a couple of weeks ago and lack of clear communication, members need to know we can ill afford to have that happen again. I am hopeful that the task force announced today by both the B.C. and Canadian governments will go some way to rectifying that.
Our industry has never been more united nationally. We continue to work closely with our partners. Unifor will be speaking later today. We have never had more cohesion in a softwood lumber dispute across the country. Unifor and United Steelworkers are our most active partners on the labour side. We would like to see a formal table established to support our sector and our workers to ensure that we can be supportive to the government going forward.
I just want to touch on the funding piece very quickly. The BDC loan guarantee program rolled out this weekend. We appreciate that. We'll watch that closely and share back with government the experiences of our members.
There's the large enterprise tariff loan program, which is the one Algoma Steel tapped into. I think they are the only company to date to do so on the larger company side of things. The Canada Development Investment Corporation is still a bit of a black box to us. We need a bit of help navigating that system, and a request has been put into government to help us do that.
One ask that we also made to government is especially on behalf of our smaller companies, which need a bit of help navigating the system, especially when there are multiple programs in place. A one-window point of access with the Government of Canada would be so helpful, especially to small companies. We've made that request to the PMO and NRCan. It has so far been favourably received.
Employee supports, which will roll out through the provinces from ESDC, need to get to people ASAP. We need to ensure that our contractors are not left behind. Often our forestry contractors, our truckers and our mechanics are among those hit first and hard. They must be protected.
Most importantly, should this dispute drag on, employees and businesses will need expanded supports. We asked the federal government to work with us and our labour partners on creative solutions for the go-forward. Some of that work has started, but we need to move with urgency.
The final piece I'll touch on is really about controlling the controllable. This is the stuff in the regulatory efficiency space.
As an industry, we might not fall into the major project definition per se, but our footprint and economic impact demand a serious relook at how the federal government is duplicating provincial government rules and regulations. There are way too many unforced errors here.
We need to move away from the moments that our foresters, ecologists and chemical engineers are often facing: a provincial government truck at a culvert saying “Approved” and a federal government truck at the same culvert saying “Wait a second”. The province wants water or emissions variables reported one way; the feds want, in some cases, different information or a different reporting format. This stuff stifles investment, confidence and performance. To us, it's no longer acceptable.
Over 90% of our activities in Canada happen on lands under the purview of provincial governments. That work considers whole-of-ecosystem values, indigenous and non-indigenous engagement and feedback, local conditions and other values. After all that work is done, the province approves it. Third party certification and audits follow, often only to be followed by an eleventh-hour intervention by the federal government that upends the process.
In closing, if there is one good thing that comes out of this current trade dispute, beyond our new-found sense of national pride, let it be a commitment to being more serious about streamlining federal-provincial requirements.
I thank you for your time and look forward to your questions.
