Keith Anderson

Senator Mike Duffy was in Kamloops Sunday to speak at a town event involving Tory MP Cathy McLeod and Senator Nancy Greene Raine. Duffy is photographed at the South Thompson Guest Ranch.

Coming up with creative solutions now to help Canada’s forest industry weather the economic downtown will position it to survive future financial strife, Senator Mike Duffy said Sunday.

“Let’s think of what can we do now to position ourselves for better times and be more competitive,” said Duffy.

A member of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Hall of Fame, Duffy was named to the Senate last December by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Duffy was in Kamloops as a guest of the local Conservative riding association. He took part in a social gathering at Rivershore Golf Club before speaking at a dinner Sunday night.

He talked with The Daily News during the afternoon, where he discussed the future of the forest industry, a focus for Duffy as a senator. He sits on a senate committee on forestry and has been listening to input from industry representatives.

The Conservatives have set aside $1 billion to get the industry back on its feet. But he said the effort has to be handled carefully so as not to be seen as a subsidy by the United States.

Duffy is aware of recent mill closures in the region. He said extending Employment Insurance by five weeks will help those people who are out of work.

But the answer — outside of the recession ending tomorrow — is to come up with innovative ways to prevent further downturns from hurting the industry.

“It’s all about building for tomorrow. What can we do to make ourselves more competitive for when we come out of this recession, because it is going to end,” said Duffy.

The Conservatives have given the Canadian Forest Institute $10 million to develop teaching tools for architecture students that promote constructing buildings out of wood.

He said Scandinavian countries build multi-storey office buildings out of wood, but Canadians still rely on concrete and brick.

“Why aren’t we doing more of it (building with wood)? We’re surrounded by wood in Canada,” he said.

By using more wood construction like what is seen at the Vancouver Convention Centre and Olympic Velodrome, Canada will develop a whole new market for wood, said Duffy.

“It will give us another outlet. And if we can start teaching architects to build with wood, maybe we can infiltrate some of that knowledge into the United States and people there will start building with wood as well,” he said.

Duffy believes it’s important to provide value-added products from Canada’s timber resources rather than just exporting raw logs.

Builders in the U.S. are interested in Canada sending them finished wall panels and flooring in secured containers, what Duffy calls buildings in a box.

He said that cuts down on the construction site theft and speeds up the building time.

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