Industry committee  Just to follow up on that, our members have done a tremendous job in surviving up to where they are now, but the pain is quite real in a lot of these communities. For an industry as large and as capital intensive as ours is, the rates of return on investment are below what you can get on GICs, in some cases.

Industry committee  In certain cases, we fund programs at both colleges and universities to train workers for our industry. Our organization is not equipped to provide that level of training. We're not in the business of building a school for woodworkers, for example. But our members spend more and more time trying to attract the people they need, and, where appropriate, we have members who partner with local colleges to meet those needs.

Industry committee  I would just add that the notion of the Canadian government getting behind our industry the day before a plant closes in Quebec is obviously a terrible one, but I think what we're trying to go towards is the Canadian government and the industry working together to promote this industry on its merits to Canadians so that, not the next day, not the next month, but further down the line, fewer and fewer of those stories occur.

Industry committee  It's the chicken and the egg.

Industry committee  Well, I'm not going to get into an argument about one particular case. We're very comfortable standing behind our industry as a whole. We're not asking the government to put its credibility on the line. I would only pose this question. Why do the procurement policies of the Canadian government favour importing steel to build an arena in the small town that you're talking about when wood is cheaper, Canadian, and more environmentally friendly?

Industry committee  Forestry is 10% of B.C.'s GDP. So $1 in $10 in B.C. is due to the industry.

Industry committee  The decline in exports is due to many factors, largely competition from lower-cost producers. For example, Brazil is coming online with a lot of wood these days, and some species in Brazil grow four times faster than they do here, due to the climate. So their cost structure is much lower, and in some of these markets they're “eating our lunch”, to use a phrase.

Industry committee  To go back to what we were saying earlier, Scandinavian countries are aggressively promoting their own products to their own people. Both industry and government are doing this. Governments are fully and overtly backing using wood as a building material versus using concrete or steel.

Industry committee  I think it's fair to say that the cyclical nature of our industry is a given. In recent years the pace of change of that cycle has been almost unprecedented with regard to energy costs and the dollar. Going back to your point about housing prices versus housing starts, I think you are talking about how the average price of a house is now over $300,000 in Canada.

Industry committee  We have several programs in our education portfolio where we do try to increase, for example, the amount of education around wood that is in engineering and architectural programs and try to get people into those industries. Going back to what you were saying before about what type of specialized work area you're looking for, if you look at the example of just someone working in one of our plants somewhere across Canada, it's pretty high-level work.

Industry committee  There are several universities--UBC is an example--that have dedicated, more heavily involved wood programs than others across the country.

Industry committee  Not in total, but by way of example, our members pay to us 19¢ for every thousand board feet they sell. On top of that, for the past number of years, they've been paying 2¢ to the black hole, that is to say, lawyers, on this issue. It's fully 10% of what they pay to us.

Industry committee  No. As I said, the non-residential opportunity in North America is $12 billion every year without any changes to building codes. It's largely because in the design community—architects and engineers—they do not come upon the opportunity to design with wood very often, so that knowledge isn't retained.

Industry committee  The labour shortage--the looming labour shortage, the present labour shortage, however you look at it--is a problem not just for manufacturing; it's a problem everywhere. It's a problem just about everywhere you go. One of the things I've noticed in recent years is how universities have really started to make significant gains based on the high level of federal investment that was made in roughly the past decade or so, which in certain areas really brought the cream of the crop to the top in areas where universities are developing specialty labs and that kind of thing.

Industry committee  I think Marta might be better off.... But whether or not it would be better or not, in terms of mollifying the complaints coming from south of the border, look at our members of the Maritimes; they've been exempt from the softwood lumber dispute specifically because they get their trees from private land.