Industry committee  Thanks for the question. Let me talk about just how we work. Our work is based on local community input and is science-based. We are over 90% on public lands under the purview of provincial governments. When I talk about environmental groups or activists, I'm very careful because I think we should all be activists—

Industry committee  —in all aspects of our lives. We don't always agree with groups like WWF Canada, the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada, but we work with them. The difference between those groups and NRDC is that those groups invest in Canada. They have Canadian offices. They're doing work on the ground in wetlands and grasslands and in the boreal.

Industry committee  I might just quickly say that the two bills, in Albany, New York, and in Sacramento, are almost identical. In our conversations with the Democratic legislators who sponsored them, they needed to bring NRDC in to brief us on what the bills were about.

Industry committee  Thanks, Madam Chair. I am Derek Nighbor with the Forest Products Association of Canada in west Ottawa, on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. Thanks for the opportunity to be here today. I want to start by saying that in large part because of the hard work of our over 200,000 forestry workers across the country, our supply chain partners, our industry's deep commitment to health and safety and swift federal and provincial government actions during this pandemic, our sector has been one of the bright lights in the current economy.

Natural Resources committee  That's a good question, and given where we're at with global protectionism, I never rest easy about how trade is going anywhere. There is always going to be risk there. As that middle class and that rural part of China continue to grow, we do see opportunity for more value-added products.

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Zimmer, with your permission, can I just add to that quickly?

Natural Resources committee  As the government embarks on its conservation agenda—and conservation is very important—we often find ourselves in the middle of a debate. Active forest management, sustainable forest management in Canada, is about conservation. About half of our managed forest is under some kind of a conservation measure.

Natural Resources committee  You go ahead, Stéphane.

Natural Resources committee  I'll go back to my comment about provincial and federal policy and regulatory coherence here. In the development of the clean fuel standard—and as I said, it's still under development and debate and discussion—when we saw this land use biodiversity requirement come out, the B.C. government, which has a very ambitious bioeconomy agenda, was among the first to stand up and say: “Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Natural Resources committee  Actually, with your and the chair's permission, I'd like Kate, who is our in-house carbon forestry expert, to get that.

Natural Resources committee  No. I'm not sure if I made the mistake or if it came back from Ms. Harder, but it's 500 million to 600 million. It's closer to 600 million annually. It's been as low as a little over 500 million annually.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, that's at our 500,000 to 600,000 number. It comes out to about 1,000 per minute if you run the calculation.

Natural Resources committee  That's right. It would vary from province to province.

Natural Resources committee  I can think of the Harmac mill on the west coast, which is making pulp for medical gowns. I think the biggest thing is that we're exporting a lot of uniquely Canadian premium reinforced pulp that's going out of the country and coming back in as PPE. I think there's an opportunity to do more on the value-add side, leveraging our natural resources here at home.

Natural Resources committee  It's significant, and we do have a lot in common with our friends in agriculture. One of the big differences is the significant public land base upon which we are operating, which means different regulatory frameworks and whatnot, but when you think about where we are operating and the kind of stewardship work we're doing and how important that is to families and rural communities, we're in lockstep.