Natural Resources committee  Those are great questions. There are no level playing fields in the global marketplace. I wish I could say the free market involves fair play, but there aren't any level playing fields. Certainly our competitors offer their forest industries much greater percentage investment in

Natural Resources committee  Those are great questions. Let's start with the dollar. Did we lose opportunities when the dollar was low? The answer is yes, we definitely lost opportunities, but I want to be very clear that the body that was hiding behind the low dollar was government. We didn't become the wo

Natural Resources committee  The export of logs is a very small percentage of what happens in Canada, and it's tied up with the rules of the softwood agreement, so it's pretty hard to deal with in itself. The bottom line comes out pretty simply: we need a better business climate so that people will want to

Natural Resources committee  Unfortunately, when governments try to direct investment, even when it is very well-meaning and very well thought out, it very rarely works. So we would prefer, and this is a unanimous view from our membership, that no subsidies, no direct grants be given to any companies or to

Natural Resources committee  The transfer to the provinces is not in any way a direct support to the forest industry. It is a transfer to the provinces. I asked a colleague from the Ontario government whether he knew what the terms and conditions were; he said “No; we're getting it in general revenue”, so th

Natural Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the committee for focusing on the forest industry. We certainly need your support, your help, and your concentration. We have many economists as witnesses today, but I thought before we go to economics, given that it's St. Valentine's D

Natural Resources committee  It's definitely a value-added product, but the value is being added to Canadian wheat. I think the sugar comes from Manitoba sugar beets. I'd say that there is more fibre in our economics than there is in our cookies.

Natural Resources committee  No, it's definitely not made out of pulp. But the butter, of course, comes from Canadian dairy herds. So if it doesn't make you healthy, it should make you patriotic. Ladies and gentlemen, there are many things that most people already know about the forest industry. Most people

Industry committee  I'll just start, a little less technically.

Industry committee  The tax credit is for investment in research. It's done because we all think it's a public good to have companies that research their ways to being more profitable. It keeps jobs and wealth in Canada. That's why there's a government policy saying, if you do it, we'll give you a t

Industry committee  I just wanted to add that rural British Columbia will be hit very hard as well, because they're highly dependent on the forest industry. So it's going to be the manufacturing heartland of Canada, but it's also going to be those rural towns that are dependent on their forestry i

Industry committee  I like the questions left around the table.

Industry committee  What I suggested was to immediately set up a task force on the future of the industry, but we have provided recommendations on market penetration, improvements in infrastructure, removal of barriers to industry rationalization, smart regulations, and elimination of overlap and du

Industry committee  The competitiveness of labour costs is a big piece of keeping jobs in Canada. We've done an analysis of labour costs in Canada relative to our productivity. Our labour costs in the forest industry are the highest in the world. Our labour productivity is middle of the road. We've

Industry committee  Thank you for both questions. Our industry adds value to almost everything we ship. We don't ship...raw logs is a tiny exception. What we ship is pulp and paper. The reason there are 825,000 jobs is that we've been adding value. As soon as you go up the value chain to furniture