Mr. Guay, I had the pleasure of welcoming you to our Chibougamau facility, and I invite all members of the committee to visit us at their convenience. It would be my great pleasure to welcome them.
These investments have been made over a period of some 30 years, but I will narrow down the story. Export barriers already existed in the 1990s. As our mill was the northernmost in Quebec’s entire forestry industry, we noticed that our wood was smaller and had esthetic defects. That’s when we started joining wood. One thing led to another, and we began manufacturing floor joists. Today, we produce 90 million linear feet of floor joists. I would like to point out to the members of the committee that 90 million feet of joists could cover Canada five times over from coast to coast. That is a lot of floor joists.
In Chibougamau, we also have the largest solid wood plant for the production of beams, glued laminated timber columns and cross-laminated timber panels. We talk a lot about solid wood as a tool for diversification and decarbonization in construction. In fact, this adventure began more than 20 years ago. One project at a time, we cut our teeth and developed our craft. At the time, only solid wood buildings with four storeys were authorized, but today, in Canada, it is possible to build up to 18 storeys in solid wood. In the space of twenty years, the initially very restrictive context has completely expanded.
When it comes to investments, there is one thing I want to emphasize. I am referring to FPInnovations, a private research centre whose activities cover all of Canada and which has played a key role in developing this basket of products, technical know-how and regulatory expertise for all practices related to wood construction safety.
We humbly note that our Nordic Structures products are well known and have a global reach. That said, if we are now producing cross-laminated timber and it is generating strong interest across the country and around the world, it is because of another perfect storm in 2009, which combined a global economic crisis with a forestry crisis. At the time, FPInnovations was monitoring technological developments and told us to go on a mission to Austria and Germany. So, more than 15 years ago, we went on that mission and, when we returned, we invested in this program.
It is extremely important to note that companies like ours are under pressure today. Most of our products are under intense market pressure, and maintaining our corporate contributions to FPInnovations’ funding requires a tremendous effort on our part. I sincerely believe that maintaining or even increasing the Government of Canada’s support for FPInnovations would have a nationwide impact. This is an extremely critical issue in terms of the development of these products.
Ultimately, we have made private investments ranging from $200 million to $300 million over the past 20 years to develop this industrial structure. Of course, it all sounds great today, but there have been many mistakes and trials, and perseverance and stubbornness. In the end, that is what led us to this basket of products.