Natural Resources committee  Those are excellent questions. I must point out that it is not just a matter of balancing intelligence and money. It is also necessary to avoid a deepening of the deficit. Where is that bliss point between investment, deficit control, and strategic...?

Natural Resources committee  Our answer is that there are two parts to the current government programming. There is A base, which is old programming, and B base, which is new transformative stuff. If the government has to cut, we're saying look at the legacy programming. But the new programming, which is the

Natural Resources committee  That's projects ready to go.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. That could be refurnished. I'm not saying $2.5 billion, but it could certainly be $300 million or $400 million. It would be used in a way that transforms the industry—for R and D, in the labs, the forest products innovation institute. Again, the funding has been extended,

Natural Resources committee  Yes, and I'll go one step further. Unlike many other research programs, this one translates into jobs quickly. We used to have the universities, the institutes, and the industry all apart. Now we've integrated all the research institutions under one, under the guidance of the ind

Natural Resources committee  Predicting the economy these days is a really hard thing. We know there's going to be a global fibre shortage. Of that we're very certain. We think there will be a price peak for lumber, followed by a drop, and for us, one of the key things is not to overreact on either side. O

Natural Resources committee  We certainly do. The agreement is quite long and detailed. It sets the terms and conditions for engagement, but it is the responsibility of all signatories to defend the jobs and to defend the caribou.

Natural Resources committee  We're ready to respond. When I say “we”, I mean the industry and the environmental groups. When we're dealing with this politically, the environmental groups in, say, Manitoba and Saskatchewan would say that huge amounts of intact forest have to be left for the caribou. Industr

Natural Resources committee  We can speed it up. We have chosen areas where the risk to the caribou is highest or where the economics are most dire. We have focused on them. One of the reasons—

Natural Resources committee  One of the reasons we can't do it all at once, frankly, is that we just don't have the funding. You'll notice in our request for the next budget that there is an extension of the LEAF program. A specific request is that the program be revised so that we can use it for problem sol

Natural Resources committee  The taxpayers are the ones who are going to pay for it anyway if you try to do it through regulation. We'll give you better solutions, faster, that will be more enduring. We're not talking about megabucks. We're talking about a couple of million dollars a year. And it will accele

Natural Resources committee  Sure, and I have publicly many times. The U.S. program was basically cash in the pocket, without any change in behaviour. So the American companies were rewarded for using green energy, which is a fine thing, but they didn't have to use any more green energy. They didn't have to

Natural Resources committee  I understand the challenge. But I have to respectfully—when you say “respectfully” it means it's not going to be a nice answer; I don't how we've managed to twist that language so badly. I have to respectfully reply that, seeing as we've extended it year after year, it would have

Natural Resources committee  It's pretty close, yes. It's market development; environmental reputation; R and D, not just in the labs but bringing it up to commercial scale; rail; and continued long-term dependability of accelerated capital depreciation. And we would like another couple of billion dollars

Natural Resources committee  Sure. It's got two pieces to it. The first is obvious: that the sector's acceptability in the marketplace depends on its environmental credentials. It used to be that most people thought environmental problems were industry's fault. It's no longer true; most people now hold thems