Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and to join our colleagues from across the country. My name is Andrew de Vries. I'm the chief executive officer of Canadian Forest Owners. I'm joined by Vincent Miville.
Canadian Forest Owners is a national association representing 480,000 private Canadian forest owners who own 10% of Canada's managed forests but are responsible for 20% of Canada's forestry production. Our members actively manage their forests to produce timber, conserve biodiversity, sequester carbon, mitigate fire risk and support rural economies. These landowners provide an important local source of timber supply to almost every mill in Canada, yet their contributions are more often than not overlooked in policy discussions.