What I would say is that the Wood First Act and the wood charter came early on in the uptake of mass timber construction. When those bills were introduced, there were literally only two companies producing mass timber products in Canada. There was Chantiers Chibougamau in Quebec and Structurlam in Penticton. Now there are many more, depending on how you define that. There's StructureCraft in Abbotsford, and the member from Abbotsford's brother, I know, is involved with that. There's Kalesnikoff Lumber in Castlegar. It is growing.
The reason I first introduced this bill is that I've talked to the people involved in these industries, and they've needed some help with government procurement to really get them going. They were leading in North America, but it was such a small part of the market that they wanted that added government procurement to boost them.
The forest industry has been through such turbulent and tumultuous times that I'd be hesitant to put any stock in the numbers of hours spent building this or the number of projects, but the number of projects for mass timber has gone from 10 across the country per year in 2010, to about 50 now. There has been a quintupling of the growth in the last 10 or 12 years. I think that's a better indication of where this part of the industry is going.
Any time you promote the use of mass timber, you're promoting the use of the two-by-fours and two-by-sixes that go into that construction from mills across the country.