Industry committee  With the understanding of this committee that something else in Canada will shut down...because we make SC papers in Canada, and we do not have enough orders to run every mill in Canada.

Industry committee  They don't believe that there are not enough orders?

Industry committee  On the first question, yes, I would say that you could find fault with the management team that went in and addressed our fixed costs, as represented by SG&A;, faster, but certainly the dilemma we faced got us really focused on that. I will say that we did address it when at the time of the merger it was even higher, but after the filing we just had to take very dramatic steps to reduce our costs for running the company from an administrative point of view.

Industry committee  Right. Well, it is a huge challenge. The best thing for us is to be successful and profitable. As for the communities, we still operate. We're paying taxes. We're buying services. We buy over $1.7 billion of materials and services in Canada. We pay almost $600 million in payroll.

Industry committee  Sure. I am probably going to stay a little more general than you might like, because part of this is not public. Part of it is competitive. We don't really want our competitors to know what we're going to do. There are elements or components of the pulp and paper industry that are growing and have fundamentally better supply/demand metrics than our major segments.

Industry committee  Specifically in Canada, we have a unionized environment. We have two primary unions, and their representatives will comment to the committee today. We had extensive discussions with those unions and their leadership, at both the local and national levels, and we were able to reach a new agreement, which as I mentioned earlier is contingent on certain things being done primarily around the pension matters.

Industry committee  If we execute the plan and we don't experience another market meltdown like in 2009—I'll put those two caveats in there—we should be less news, more green-energy-driven, through investment. In eastern Canada, we would be primarily export-oriented on our assets that are in close proximity to the St.

Industry committee  Well, the question is whether our pricing and demand assumptions are correct in our business model. Those are in the plan. Again, we do not assume that newsprint demand recovers. We'd assume a continued decline in newsprint consumption going forward and that we will make investments both in the U.S. and Canada that lower our costs but also move us away from newsprint as our main product over that five-year plan.

Industry committee  I think there are several points you made there, so let me try to touch on them. First, the NAFTA claim really didn't have anything to do with the filing. It had to do with the actions of a province of Canada related to a mill closure. Time-wise, we did that before we filed. So it was before we filed for creditor protection, and it was related to the destruction of market demand and the cost position of that asset.

Industry committee  As you have rightfully pointed out, we continue to invest in Gatineau. I feel we tried extremely hard to make Gatineau successful for all the reasons you pointed out. We have huge historical investment there. It is a good site as far as its geography and location go. It has some very good equipment, and it has some excellent employees.

Industry committee  That's a very accurate description, yes.

Industry committee  Specifically with the newsprint, in North America our main competitor is White Birch, which is also in the CCAA process in Canada. On a global basis, our leading competitor is Norske Skog, in Norway. It's a Norwegian company, which is rumoured to be very close to filing for court protection in Europe.

Industry committee  As a company in the newsprint sector, on a productivity per man-hour or unit of investment basis, Canada is very comparable. It's a very flat curve, in that sense.

Industry committee  In all our businesses, all our facilities, there's always a drive to increase efficiency across the board. I think it may help in the context to say what are our biggest cost inputs to operating a paper mill. Number one is always fibre, either recycled or virgin fibre. Then you have energy, the labour--the cost of the people--and then you have the logistics, the cost of transporting product, because we sell our product on a delivered cost basis.

Industry committee  Sure, I'll talk in broad strokes. We go to the usual markets. We'll in effect be doing a road show and selling the story of the new AbitibiBowater to funds and investment managers, in the U.S. and Canada primarily, who are looking for higher-return investments. We will be what's called a high-yield investment.