I move that, in the opinion of this House, the government of Ontario should aggressively promote the use of Ontario wood products in residential and commercial construction throughout Ontario in order to support the more than 63,000 direct jobs and the 130,000 people who owe their livelihood to Ontario's forest industry.

One might wonder, I guess, why a member who sits in the Toronto caucus and has one foot firmly planted in Toronto on one side of the Rouge Valley and the other foot firmly planted in Durham region and Pickering on the other side of the Rouge Valley would bring forward a resolution in regard to Ontario's forest industry.

I'm going to explain why that is in just a moment, but just prior to doing that, there are a few people I would like to introduce who have taken the time to join us here this afternoon: from Ontario Wood WORKS!, Marianne Bérubé, the executive director; Steven Street and Max Torossi, both technical directors. In addition, we're joined by Craig Marshall, the president and principal of Marshall Homes; and from my office, Bill Hepburn, who has been assisting in bringing the resolution together and bringing the folks here. Thank you for joining us.

Last month, in mid-summer, I had the opportunity to attend in Oshawa an event displaying a home that was being built by Mr. Marshall and Marshall Homes, one which was highlighting the fact that this particular home was being built with only Ontario wood products. That didn't seem to be overly significant to me at that point. I've known Mr. Marshall for some time. He does very good work in our communities. I understand the minister was going to be there, so I figured it would certainly be an opportunity to continue to show my support for work going on in our communities.

Minister Gravelle was there, our newly minted Minister of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry in this case, along with other leaders with respect to the forest industry and related industries, including Jamie Lim, who's the president and CEO of the Ontario Forest Industries Association, and Stephen Dupuis, who's the president and CEO of BILD, the Building Industry and Land Development Association, as well as the folks from Wood WORKS!. They all took the time to be there.

One would say, "Why be at an event for a home being built in the greater Toronto area? What's so terribly significant about that?" During the event, the announcement really was about the fact that this particular home was a home being built with all Ontario wood. In Ontario, surprisingly, a large amount of the product that goes into homes and into commercial construction is from outside of the province. We have an industry in Ontario that's second only to the auto industry in significance in the form of employment and generating revenue and activity in the forest industry, and yet the vast amount of materials that are being used in Ontario in homes and commercial construction come from somewhere other than here.

Today close to 200 families rely on the forest industry for their livelihoods. The forest industry remains second only to the automotive industry for its impact upon the province. There are some 300 Canadian communities that can be described as heavily forest-dependent, having at least 50% of their employment based in the forest-related industries, in the forest sector. Only about 30% of the product going into Ontario homes comes from Ontario, and it makes eminent sense that we should look and see what we can do to improve that situation.

In the GTA alone, home builders purchase some $800 million of lumber annually to frame wood homes. If we move the figure of 30% of product to something closer to 100%, that could be a shot in the arm in this province for that industry, just from GTA building alone, of over $500 million.

The residential sector is really only one part of the equation, because the non-residential or the commercial sector is significantly important. Ontario's non-residential construction represents about 42% of the national total of the non-residential and multi-storey permit value. That's a huge amount of construction here in the province of Ontario, and we're not using home-grown products for that purpose.

In 2007, the total non-residential market in Ontario was valued at some $11 billion. The quantums in the scale are really very, very significant. For the most part in those sectors, both the residential and the commercial sector, we probably take it for granted that we're gaining an awful lot of that activity within Ontario industries. In fact, we're not. In fact, the majority of this is coming from somewhere else.

Some market research that was done only three or four years ago, in 2006, revealed that there's a potential to increase wood consumption by four times the current level here in Ontario for these particular kinds of functions we're talking about. Through some urban intensification and through the use of stick or wood construction for buildings at four, five and six storeys, if it were allowed, we could dramatically increase the amount of product that they would be using locally.

Currently, the Ontario rules, as I understand them, allow for wood frame construction to a maximum of four storeys. It was only a few years ago in my own riding of Pickering-Scarborough East that the Parkway Retirement Residence was built as a four-storey wood frame construction building, and I recall the discussion that we were having at that time within the municipality about building even at that height in wood construction. But now it's more the norm and certainly far more accepted.

There are other jurisdictions: Recently in BC, the building code made some changes that allow for frame construction of up to six storeys. You can see the dramatic impact that those kinds of changes can have on the opportunity to grow our industry.

We all know that wood is a renewable and recyclable type of product. It certainly adds value in the overall stream of activity.

Let me tell you a little more about Mr. Marshall if I can, just for a second. Mr. Marshall is known in the industry for his interest in sustainable building and for being on the leading edge of a number of types of initiatives. I want to speak just very briefly about a project in Oshawa a little bit distinct from wood, but which he undertook a couple of years back. That was probably the first residential subdivision in which there was an option to put geothermal in each house. I remember Minister Cansfield-who at the time was the minister, I think-was out to see what he was doing. He's looking for innovative ways, new ways to make both the building of and the use of housing more sustainable. He's probably the first builder who did a green driveway, which garnered a lot of attention as well. I understand the purchaser after a while wasn't really happy with all the grass that he was tracking in across his carpeting, as the case might be.

But Mr. Marshall doesn't miss an opportunity to promote the idea of sustainability in building. I think this is a particularly important opportunity that he has presented us with, with the support of the minister-who was there and who was very excited about what was being proposed-and with the industries: the Ontario forestry industry, Wood WORKS! and BILD, with their interest in working together to find out how they can do more at the industry level to get builders and purchasers aware of opportunities to use Ontario products.

I think there is an opportunity for us, through this process, this resolution