Natural Resources committee  Thank you for that question, and it's a very good question. In fact, just the other day I was listening to one of my scientists talking about this, Eric Allen from Victoria. He's a world-leading expert, and I think he chairs the international committee. As you can imagine, ther

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely, and we also work closely with the Americans, and increasingly with the Mexicans, in terms of thinking about a kind of fortress America. If you take Seattle and you take Vancouver, for example, the Asian gypsy moth is a nasty little bug that wants to come from Asia. If

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely.

Natural Resources committee  The eastern part of Canada is facing a number of challenges. One is that it takes a long time to grow a tree. In Chibougamau, it could take 150 to 200 years. You're faced with a different production challenge in terms of what you can get out of the trees, and it takes a lot longe

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chairman, I thought the report referred in the Finnish context to the idea of clusters as opposed to biofuel, but I would be happy to get back to the committee on that.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for that question. The boreal forest is very important to Canada. Canada has 223 million hectares of boreal forest, which is about 24%, as you said, of the world's boreal forests. It makes up a very large percentage of our forest. As a result of that, a majority, proba

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for that question. It is an interesting term, and as somebody coming new to the forest sector, I had to ask the same question. Black liquor is a residue produced by the kraft pulping process. There's a chemical kraft pulping process that creates the pulp, and there's

Natural Resources committee  If we were to speak about new products, NRCan invests between $20 million and $25 million a year in FPInnovations, which is our primary investment. It's our biggest single investment in new product development. I would argue that as a sector we're putting an awful lot into new pr

Natural Resources committee  For wood, if I could just give a bit of a toot for the PPGT, pulp and paper green transformation, program—

Natural Resources committee  The result of the PPGTP investments is that there is enough renewable electricity created to continuously power 140,000 homes and produce enough thermal energy to heat 135,000 homes. In terms of wood, our investment in FPInnovations is producing a range of world firsts. Also, o

Natural Resources committee  You said new products.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, that's a fairly broad question. How much time do I have?

Natural Resources committee  What did government do that worked and what did industry do that worked? The first thing industry did that worked was it shut mills. It closed mills, laid people off, and it retrenched. That was painful, but it had to be done in the face of collapsing markets. The forest compan

Natural Resources committee  Yes, there's the creation of FPInnovations and the decision to create the pulp and paper green transformation program, which for a billion dollars put every penny into Canadian mills. Each of those Canadian mills that got money came out of that program stronger, more capable, and

Natural Resources committee  To my knowledge, all forestry responsibility has been devolved. We have not retained anything. I'll have another look to see if we've missed some dots, but the key issue is industrial forestry, right? We have a good relationship with the folks up there in Yukon and the Northwes