Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am Bob Matters. I am chair of the Steelworkers' Wood Council. With me is Joe. Joe is going to go first and I will clean up. First, some people question why steelworkers are concerned about the forest industry. Just as a quick history, IWA-Ca

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Joe. Mr. Chairman, I'm going to keep on track. I have copies for everybody of an article from The Vancouver Sun of two weeks ago about 10,000 forestry jobs gone in the last year alone. Those are in British Columbia, the undisputed logging capital of the world, quite

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. As far as immediate help is concerned, I take a bit of exception to the professor's comment about paying guys while they're laid off not helping. What this government has to do first and foremost is ensure that workers stay in those communities. Concerning the notio

Natural Resources committee  The community fund is a fantastic idea. I appreciate the idea, but I haven't seen a single thing yet. I think it was, frankly, a mistake to simply say we're going to hand over some money with no strings attached, with no real plan, when there should have been the extra work to go

Natural Resources committee  If I can just take one second first, Catherine mentioned log exports. I don't think it gets enough play here, and I've got to tell a two-second story. The largest private landholder on Vancouver Island--and I won't name the company, as they're currently suing me, and I don't wan

Natural Resources committee  To be fair, you're correct, this is the first time I heard about it, so this is just, boom, off the top of my head. Any time we can participate in great results sounds interesting, first and foremost. Secondly, when you think about it, I know what would happen. We'd have collect

Natural Resources committee  The short answer is that in the immediate term we need to have that summit to get all of these ideas together. But in respect to the last question, the summit has to stay focused on jobs in rural communities. What I call the green stuff could be a secondary item, but certainly if

Natural Resources committee  If I did so immediately, it wouldn't be accurate, but I can certainly have something e-mailed here, probably this afternoon.

Natural Resources committee  It's important; I can have it here this afternoon.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for inviting me to make this presentation. I am Bob Matters. I am formerly a forestry worker who lived and raised a family, or more importantly my wife raised our family, in a rural forest-dependent community. The United Steelworkers is the largest private s

Natural Resources committee  I think the supplemental is easy to answer first, and the answer is yes. I spent my career in the forest industry. The forest industry traditionally, because we haven't gotten around to diversifying properly, has been a series of good times and bad times. Through some of the “bad

Natural Resources committee  The timeframe you pose is rather tricky.

Natural Resources committee  No, I'll answer your question. I want to explain my answer. Our industry, particularly in rural areas, whether they be in British Columbia or northern Ontario, has been fighting in that time period with natural resources who've had much deeper pockets to, frankly, bribe and stea

Natural Resources committee  Again, some provinces have different applications with respect to the agreement. That being said, it's somewhat ironic—and I'm not trying to take a shot at my friend Mr. Gorman—that the U.S. would prefer to deal with a trade agreement relaxing barriers and get that out of the way

Natural Resources committee  Good afternoon. I want to begin by thanking the committee for the opportunity to speak to this very important study. I am chair of the United Steelworkers' Wood Council. The council was created as a result of the 2004 merger between the USW and my former union, the Industrial Woo