Natural Resources committee  I will talk more to bread and butter issues than innovation-related issues. The infrastructure deficits are massive. In the period from 2007 to 2010 the rail line to Meadow Lake was ripped out, which seems unbelievable when you think of the need to move product to market. There's no rail line any more, so now we invest tens of millions of dollars a year to pave highways to move product to market.

Natural Resources committee  I can add a little different flavour. I'm an engineer and I love technology. We do have tons of interesting innovation in Canada, but probably the one thing I'd say that no one else has said is that we're close to the U.S. market. The biggest consumer market in the world is right next door—a six-hour drive.

Natural Resources committee  There is a way to do it.

Natural Resources committee  The softwood lumber agreement, which is managed by the department of international trade, has an organization that negotiates with the U.S. on the terms of the agreement, and Canada is divided into many different regions. Saskatchewan is part of the eastern Canadian region; Alberta, and B.C. are another region.

Natural Resources committee  Well, that's the trick. There are different views. Our view would be that they could do it quite easily and it wouldn't jeopardize the negotiations because there wouldn't be an overall change in the quota across the country, but the negotiators are very sensitive about the possibility that any change at all, even subtle changes, might result in the U.S. side—

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  As I mentioned earlier—at least in Saskatchewan, and we do see it across the country—you typically saw a really big company owning the forest industry. Weyerhaeuser was the dominant investor in Saskatchewan and they owned the sawmills and the pulp mill. It was this idea that they both had to work together.

Natural Resources committee  We work with a wide range of federal and provincial programs, but mostly federal ones. FPInnovations is a huge partner and a recipient of a lot of federal funding. The aboriginal forestry initiative has been an ongoing partner in many ways. For example, when we need to apply a brand new technology in the harvesting of timber, we need to train those individuals on how that technology works—it's pretty high-tech these days, not chainsaws and skidders as it used to be—so we benefit directly that way.

Natural Resources committee  IFIT has been mentioned, and that would be a great one. We've been interested in applying for that particularly related to our bioenergy initiatives because they are somewhat cutting edge, and when you can't attract funding, you're typically always defaulting to lower technology solutions that are more comfortable for banks.

Natural Resources committee  There are two views on this one. If you make any minor changes at all, then the U.S. is going to jump all over it and want to open the whole thing up for massive renegotiation. So our Canadian negotiators are always hesitant to try to change anything and hope that the status quo just gets renewed.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Maybe I'll work backwards in terms of the employment connection.

Natural Resources committee  We have gone through a bit of an occurrence that's common in Saskatchewan now where there is a labour shortage. We have a lot of skilled trades shortages, and there is also this extremely high unemployment rate with aboriginal people, which we're also familiar with. The Meadow Lake region has an abundance of aboriginal people, young people in particular, so the average age among the population is 17.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, it's a Saskatchewan-specific program. I know that other provinces have looked at it. It's been very successful. There are some models in Alberta and B.C. that we're looking at as well that are specific to forestry, but we really like Northern Career quest. It's great.

Natural Resources committee  Well, we have lots of under-25-year-olds. They have specific desires in life in terms of what they look for, so we've been pretty good at trying to help them and support them. We have a unionized environment as well so it's working with the union on top of that to adapt some new thinking.

Natural Resources committee  If you compare us to other forest companies in Saskatchewan, we have by far the highest aboriginal employment. The normal would be perhaps 5% or 10% whereas we're at 75%. We're owned by first nations so there is going to be some strong policy around making sure we put emphasis on promoting job creation among our membership.