Mr. Speaker, in the absence of my hon. colleague, the Minister of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec), allow me to answer a question raised by the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer, who was wondering what the government was doing for the forestry industry. The unveiling of our most recent action plan speaks volumes.
The forestry issue is one of the problems addressed in our plan. It is not an isolated problem; it is part of a broader, global problem. Forestry workers in Canada and Quebec are being affected by a combination of factors that have hit their industry hard, the main one being the lack of potential buyers. Over the past few years, softwood lumber and structural panel exports have fallen in terms both of volume and value because of a decline in housing starts in the United States. The fact is that, year in, year out, there used to be 2 million housing starts in the United States, but these are now down to 700,000.
The high-risk mortgage lending crisis and reduced demand for newsprint made things even worse. It might not be coincidental that several American dailies have declared bankruptcy. Add to that the rising value of the Canadian dollar and fierce competition from international producers, and you have the makings of a crisis.
We have acted quickly to limit the repercussions of the crisis on the forestry industry and its workers through our economic action plan. Our plan supports the development of new products and processes to help the industry benefit from international market opportunities. The government will provide $170 million over two years to secure a more sustainable and competitive forest sector. We have decided to extend, over the next two years, work-sharing agreements by 14 weeks, to a maximum of 52 weeks, to help businesses recover from the global economic downturn.
I want the member to know that we are not the only ones taking action on the forestry file. Issues related to the forestry industry fall mostly under provincial jurisdiction. That is why federal-provincial collaboration is critical for the forestry industry to get the support it needs. Together with the Government of Quebec, our government recently announced the creation of a Canada-Quebec forestry task team.
The Canada-Quebec forestry task team will focus its efforts on the following six areas and report back on the situation by May 15: forest management and silviculture, supporting forest workers and communities, access to credit, technology and innovation, value-added manufacturing and market development for wood products.
In our economic action plan, our government has also established a $1 billion adjustment fund for communities affected by the economic crisis. Our government will expedite the allocation of $211 million from this fund to Quebec. Priority is being given to the forestry sector for this financial assistance.
The Canadian forestry sector is obviously undergoing a large number of changes and restructuring because of the difficulties it is facing. Representatives of this industry are very clear in this regard. They are asking the government to work with them in order to overcome these difficulties and enable the forestry industry to lay out a path for the future. Such is the expectation of people in the sector and that is what we are working on together with the provincial governments.
As we have already said, our government is very aware of everything that is happening to forestry workers across Canada. We are monitoring the situation very closely—