Good afternoon, Madam Chair.

My name is Jeff Bromley. I am the chair of the United Steelworkers wood council. It's comprised of approximately 14,000 members across this country: from Quebec and Ontario, west through Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and, of course, British Columbia, where I'm calling in from today.

I will not reiterate the numbers that my counterpart from Ontario just mentioned, but the impact of the eight-year softwood lumber dispute between the two countries on my membership, forestry workers as a whole and those largely rural communities where they work and live has been far-reaching, wide and, in fact, devastating.

In terms of the number of direct jobs for steelworkers, we believe that approximately 2,500 to 3,000 direct jobs have been impacted over the last eight years, largely due to the increasing costs that the lumber duties have put upon our industry, making those logging and harvesting operations uneconomical. Clearly, it's due to the long-standing dispute over the last eight years.

It is time that our government stands up for one of the pillars of our Canadian industry, and certainly a pillar of the province that I'm in, British Columbia, because it has been devastating.

I'll focus on a couple of recent announcements.

I've spent 30 years in this industry, 18 years in a manufacturing mill, a medium-sized operation in the southeast corner of British Columbia in Elko, and the last 12 years advocating on behalf of my membership, both locally in British Columbia and across the nation.

The latest announcements by Canfor were in two communities in British Columbia: Vanderhoof, with Plateau mill, and Fort St. John, with the Canfor Fort St. John mill. In approximately 30 days, both of those mills will close, and the impact will be far-reaching. Those communities have about 10,000 people each, and there are going to be 500 direct jobs lost. For the most part, those mills cannot operate due to, obviously, the ever-increasing duties, tariffs and lumber tariffs set by the U.S.

Of course, as my counterpart mentioned, next year at this time or in the summer of 2025, it's expected that those duties, currently sitting around 14% on average across the nation, will double, at least, to the 28% or possibly the 30% range, which will mean a devastating impact to the industry. I would be very surprised about any operation that will be able to continue to run under those circumstances.

Acute attention is needed to try to address this and to try to begin to find a solution, to have the Americans come to the table and try to find a reasonable trade solution to what is, in my opinion, illegal and unfair duties to our industry, which is unfairly accused by the powerful U.S. softwood lumber lobby of being subsidized. I think that attention needs to be focused by our Canadian government on trying to find a solution, as the devastation to the communities and jobs is going to get worse.

Thank you.

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