Cascades Inc.

1.9%, slightly below the industry's comparable of 1.6% decrease. Just a little bit, they also decreased 6% year-over-year for the same reason I just explained. These impacts more than offset selling price and raw material costs tailwinds. Moving now to our tissue segment. Sales decreased by 7% sequentially, reflecting usual seasonality. To this end, sequential shipments in the away-from-home market decreased 10%, while retail shipments decreased by 3%. I just said a bid of $33 million decreased 21% sequentially. This level was slightly below forecast due to higher operating costs following important cost pressure, most notably coming from transportation and fuel. Lower volumes were expected due to usual seasonality. These impacts were partially offset by benefits from lower raw material costs and higher selling prices. Over-year sales increased 4%. This was driven by an 11% increase in retail product shipments and a 6% increase in shipments of away-from-home, underscoring the growing traction of our commercial initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 11% from last year, with benefits from raw material costs, volume, and higher selling prices more than offset by operating costs and wins. I'll now pass the call to Alan, who will briefly discuss some of the financial highlights. Alan?

Good and good morning, everyone. So let's start with the specific items recorded during the quarter, which impacted operating income by $34 million on slides 14 and 15. Main items were gains totaling $49 million from the sale of assets in Canada, reflecting the company's ongoing optimization initiatives. We're also recording the first quarter, $8 million of implement charges related to a previously closed facility in the U.S., 3 million of restructuring costs related to saving initiative, and lastly, a loss of $4 million on financial instruments. Slides 16 and 17 illustrate the year-over-year and sequential variance of our Q1 adjusted earnings per share and the reconciliation with the specific items that affected our quarterly results. Supported Q1 net earnings per share were $0.38, compared to net earnings per share of 7 cents last year and 37 cents per share in the previous quarter. On an adjusted basis, net earnings per share were 7 cents in the current quarter. This compared to net earnings per share of 13 cents last year and 40 cents in the fourth quarter of 2025. The year-over-year decrease was different primarily by lower adjusted EBITDA in the current quarter. As highlighted, On slide 18, first quarter adjusted cash flow farm operations was $59 million, slightly down from $62 million in the year-ago period. This includes cash flow proceeds from the sale of assets. Slide 19 provides detail about our capital investments. The first quarter totaled $28 million. In 2026, we expect capex to be in the range of approximately $150 to $175 million. Moving now to our net debt reconciliation as detailed on slide 20. Consequently, net debt increased marginally by $5 million in the first quarter, mainly due to usual working capital requirements, a less favorable exchange rate on our U.S. denominated debt, and lease renewals. Proceeds from business and asset disposal reduced debt levels by $91 million. Our leverage ratio was unchanged at 3.3 times. Our available liquidity under our credit facility stood at $738 million at the end of the quarter. During the first quarter of 2026, we announced the sale of our enrichment facility, some equipment following the exit from the unecommon partition business segments, and private forest lands. Total cash proceeds received of $91 million have gone towards debt repayment in the first quarter. Including this amount, we have generated total proceeds of $149 million from the sale of assets over the past five quarters. We continue to expect to achieve our $230 million targeted level by the end of the third quarter of 2026, slightly ahead of schedule. Financial ratios and information about maturities are detailed on slide 21. Additional information and analysis can be found on slides 25 through of the presentation. We'll now pass the call back to Hug, who will conclude with some brief comments before we begin the question period.

Hug? Thank you, Alan. We provide our outlook for Q2 on slide 22. We're expecting our consolidated results to be slightly lower sequentially, driven by a cautious outlook for volumes in our packaging segment, expecting the continued macro uncertainty, cost pressure, and lower consumer confidence. Volumes in tissue are forecasted to be higher following usual seasonal softness in Q1 and new retail volume with strategic customers. On the cost side, we currently expect logistics, chemicals, and raw material cost levels to be higher across our business segments. Before opening the call to questions, I'd like to emphasize that while Q2 will be a period of margin pressure, we expect growing traction from ongoing initiatives to drive a stronger performance in the second half of As the dynamic macroeconomic and geopolitical environment continues to put pressure on input costs and consumer sentiment, operational resiliency is paramount. Working in tandem with this is keeping the customer at the center of everything we do, from speed of execution to quality of service. Commercially, we're winning in the markets where we want to grow. Our sales teams are aligned and are delivering on the strategy. Our product offering is best in class, and our focus is to ensure that our execution is also. We expect these actions combined with the rollout of the net $50 price increase published by RISI and other pricing initiatives to realign results in the second half of the year towards our targeted annualized run rate of $600 million of adjusted EBITDA. We are also on track to achieve our objective of generating a total of $230 million of proceeds from asset sales by the end of the third quarter, slightly ahead of schedule. Our leverage ratio target of 2.5 to 3 times remains unchanged. It may be difficult to achieve by year-end given expectations for the first half of 2026. We continue to prioritize debt reduction to reinforce financial flexibility, and position the company for future growth opportunities. With that, we can now open the call to questions. Peter?