Natural Resources committee  Maybe I can speak for sawmills. In our sawmill division, we operate sawmills, but we also have two value-added facilities. When we compare wages, they're very similar. Most of our plants are unionized. Wages for a labourer, an operator, or a loader operator are basically the same

Natural Resources committee  In forestry we're looking at, for example—we've been very active here—the foreign recruitment side. We've been working with different provincial and international organizations to see how we can recruit skilled operators to work in our forest operations in our woodlands division.

Natural Resources committee  I think the biggest threat to our industry today, other than the SLA, is the spruce budworm. When you look at the volume of the acreage destroyed in the province of Quebec, it's unreal. We're looking at it very seriously for New Brunswick. We've been proactive, spraying in certai

Natural Resources committee  The private sector has been involved with both the federal and provincial governments. I know there was a petition circulated a few weeks ago to ask the federal government to participate more actively in the initiative. We haven't heard back yet, but that's very important to us.

Natural Resources committee  At the present time, we're not producing any cross-laminated timber as part of the J.D. Irving operations. We see that as a way to increase Canadian lumber consumption and be less dependent on the U.S. market in the long term. We are studying different technologies to manufacture

Natural Resources committee  Yes, there are a few producers. I think one well-known producer is Nordic in northern Quebec. They have been producing laminated beams. I don't think they have been producing cross-laminated timber, but it's a similar product. That's probably the largest producer of that type of

Natural Resources committee  In terms of growth outside of the United States, because we're operating in eastern Canada, we're limited on where we can go. When we look at B.C. and Alberta, we've seen a lot of growth in the China and Japan market over the last five years. We've explored that market. We look a

Natural Resources committee  I do, yes. I believe it has started. There are already examples in different areas, especially more on the west coast. If you go to Oregon or Washington state, you'll see some examples similar to what I've shown here for Vancouver. I think that's a trend that will increase over t

Natural Resources committee  That's a question that is being asked more and more by our customers. We have a long-term partnership with Home Depot USA. We've been sharing our sustainability report with them every year. They like to see that information, because they like to be a partner with companies that a

Natural Resources committee  In terms of business opportunities to grow the forest products sector, the first one we'd like to present here today is the cross-laminated timber product, which was developed mainly in Europe over the last 15 years. For those who may not be familiar with that product, you can se

Natural Resources committee  Quickly, I'll turn to the last two opportunities we see here. One is the growth in the wood pellets market. The demand for industrial and residential wood pellets has been growing 2% to 5% a year for the last five years. We see that as an opportunity. Also using more automation i

Natural Resources committee  Thank you. My name is Jerome Pelletier. I'm vice-president of the sawmills division with J.D. Irving, Limited. With me today is Mark Mosher, who is the vice-president of our pulp and paper division. We have a presentation today. We'd like to cover three main items. We'd like t