Mr. Chair, the major problem is the laissez-faire attitude that the government has had on this issue for over 20 years. The federal government has never had a strong, clear desire to support the forestry industry, even though it claims that the forestry industry is one of the most promising industries in the fight against climate change.
When we harvest a tree in the forest, we have just sequestered and captured carbon. The more we build from wood, the more carbon we sequester and capture and the better our record on greenhouse gas emissions becomes. However, there has never been a Conservative or Liberal government that has been willing to include the use of wood in its tendering in a binding way.
An NDP member introduced a bill to that effect, but it is not binding, so what does it really accomplish in the end? It is little more than a petition or wishful thinking. We need to use lumber more, but we are not giving ourselves the tools to do so. We are not giving ourselves the tools to help the forestry industry with measures that are actually very simple. We are doing even less when it comes to helping the forestry industry with economic levers. Those do not exist in Canada. The only explanation I can think of is that perhaps it is because Quebec is the biggest player in the forestry industry and because no one has enough power in their party to exert the influence necessary to change things.
The solution is fairly simple. We need to become independent. If we were a country, we could do it ourselves.