Evidence of meeting #46 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was wood.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Aran O'Carroll  Executive Director, Secretariat, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
David Lindsay  President and Chief Executive Officer, Forest Products Association of Canada
Pierre Lapointe  President and CEO, FPInnovations
Catherine Cobden  Executive Vice-President, Forest Products Association of Canada
Jean-Pierre Martel  Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, FPInnovations

3:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Good afternoon, everybody.

I want to welcome members of the committee back after a constituency workweek. I hope you had a good time meeting with constituents and everything that goes along with that week.

We're here today to continue our study on the renewal of Canada's forest industry. This study follows a study that I tabled in the House in June 2008 on the forest industry. It was done hand in hand with members of the forest industry. I thought it was a very productive study, released jointly by this committee and FPAC in an announcement. I think that was a very productive way to follow that.

This is a follow-up meeting to see what's actually changed in the industry and where the industry is now compared with where it was back then and what we see into the future. It's a very interesting study indeed that the committee has taken on.

We continue today with three groups of witnesses. First, from the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, we have Aran O'Carroll, executive director, secretariat, and Mark Hubert. Welcome, gentlemen.

From FPAC, the Forest Products Association of Canada, we have David Lindsay, president and chief executive officer, and Catherine Cobden, executive vice-president. Welcome to both of you.

By video conference from Vancouver, British Columbia, from FPInnovations, we have Pierre Lapointe, president and CEO, and Jean-Pierre Martel, vice-president, strategic partnerships. Welcome, gentlemen.

I want to start by thanking you all very much for coming today. We're looking forward to your presentations. When we're finished the presentations, we'll go to questions and comments from members in the usual order.

Members, we'll leave about five minutes at the end of the meeting to review the budget of this committee for this study and hopefully to pass the budget for this study. I don't imagine that it will take longer than that. We'll leave that until the end.

We'll go ahead with the presentations in the order in which they're listed on the agenda today, starting with the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

Aran O'Carroll, executive director, secretariat, please go ahead with your presentation, sir.

3:30 p.m.

Aran O'Carroll Executive Director, Secretariat, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

Thank you very much, Mr. Benoit, and thank you, all, very much for inviting us here today.

It's an honour to be able to share with you some of the innovative work the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement signatories are doing as part of renewing Canada's forest industry.

My name is Aran O'Carroll, and as the chair said, I'm the executive director of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Secretariat, which is based here in Ottawa.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the work of the CBFA, which brings together environmental organizations and forest companies from across Canada's boreal region to work together towards a sustainable future for that ecosystem and the jobs and communities that rely on it.

Before I begin, I'd just like to introduce my colleague Mark Hubert. Mark is the vice-president of environmental leadership with the Forest Products Association of Canada, one of the signatories of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement both as an association and with their membership. Mark is the senior industry representative to the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. Mark will be available for questions and answers after my presentation.

In 2008 Canada's forest industry was unquestionably in crisis, facing a soaring Canadian dollar, depressed U.S. housing market, and intensifying global competition amongst other things. At that time, this committee held hearings—as the chair reminded you—and concluded that industry, governments, and other stakeholders needed “to work together to lay the groundwork for the industry's renewal, prosperity and sustainability”.

In 2010, after two years of intensive negotiations, the CBFA answered that call to action, as forest industry partners and environmental groups signed on to the most ambitious conservation agreement in the world. But the agreement isn't just about conservation. It's also about the health, sustainability, and prosperity of Canada's forest industry. The CBFA recognizes that, although forestry and conservation in Canada's boreal forest rest primarily with governments—including, very importantly, aboriginal governments—both the industry and the environmental community have a responsibility to help forge that future.

Imagine a future for a moment, if you would, in which manufacturers of high-end products look for ways to appeal to ever more environmentally conscious consumers, and Canada's forest products are in demand the world over. The CBFA is part of that vision. The work we are doing is helping to differentiate the Canadian boreal forest industry in the global marketplace by showcasing its world-leading commitment to sustainability.

We're achieving real progress towards that goal, but sometimes we forget the scale and scope of the challenge we face. The boreal forest is Canada's largest terrestrial ecosystem. It's the largest wilderness area on the planet, and more than half a million Canadians depend upon a competitive boreal forest industry for their livelihoods. The road to progress involves preserving both of these national treasures and finding ways for them to thrive together and endure for the sake of conservation and economic prosperity.

As you can imagine, bringing diverse interests together towards this common goal is not always easy. We've endured some setbacks, but the agreement has also seen some significant progress. Northwest of here, in Ontario, the provincial government is working on implementation of our recommendations, which aim to secure the future of the three million hectares of boreal caribou range found in the Abitibi River Forest, to conserve those woodland caribou, and also to maintain hundreds of jobs in the local communities.

In Alberta, our working group has drafted a set of recommendations for caribou conservation for one of the most contested areas of Canada, northeastern Alberta—ground zero for the oil sands operations. These draft recommendations have been shared with the provincial government and have been the subject of productive discussions between the CBFA, the oil and gas sector, and first nations.

In Newfoundland, the CBFA participants have contributed to the government's new forest management strategy, which identifies significantly large landscapes, about five million hectares, or approximately 50% of the island of Newfoundland, for a 10-year deferral from harvest. This supports the CBFA's conservation planning work, but at the same time the commercial forest management area set out in this strategy creates certainty for economic development and the promised forest development strategy will help ensure the prosperity of Newfoundland's forest sector.

We're proud of these sorts of developments under the CBFA. Environmentalists and industry leaders are working together to support provincial leadership in making the forest economy truly sustainable. This work is contributing to Canada's forest industry transformation from its traditional role as hewers of wood to a truly renewable and responsible source of eco-friendly, high-tech materials as advances in technology make wood an increasingly desirable material.

For example, Lincoln Motor Company has announced a new project in collaboration with the CBFA member Weyerhaeuser, and Johnson Controls, to use wood as an alternative input to fibreglass in auto parts. Meanwhile, in the world of consumer electronics, there's a very exciting prospect of wood-derived touchscreen technology, which could soon displace non-renewable plastics. Even neighbourhoods are being transformed as architects look to new engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber, which has the strength of steel and comes from a renewable resource.

A future where a reinvigorated Canadian forest industry can compete in new and previously unimagined markets on the strength of its celebrated environmental and social credentials is within our reach. I believe the committee's call for collaboration in the face of the 2008 forestry crisis strikes at the heart of the matter. The CBFA is real evidence of the success that can come from cross-sectoral collaboration and a move from an era of adversarial positions to one based on the joint pursuit of common solutions.

As our forest industry continues to diversify and revitalize itself, I hope that all stakeholders can work together towards a stronger and more competitive forest industry and a better protected and more sustainably managed boreal forest.

Thank you. Mr. Hubert and I look forward to any questions you may have.

3:40 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We go now to the second presentation. From the Forest Products Association of Canada, go ahead, please, Mr. Lindsay, president and chief executive officer.

I don't know, Ms. Cobden, if you're going to get involved in the presentation, but if not we'll hear from you in the questions and comments sections after.

But go ahead as you choose.

3:40 p.m.

David Lindsay President and Chief Executive Officer, Forest Products Association of Canada

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, good afternoon.

Catherine will correct me after I'm finished.

3:40 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

3:40 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Forest Products Association of Canada

David Lindsay

It's a privilege to appear before you this afternoon, particularly with my colleagues from the CBFA, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, and my colleagues at FPInnovations. As “innovation” is in their name, I think it's only appropriate that they are with us virtually. We work very closely with these two organizations, and it's my pleasure to be here. As the chair stated, I am David Lindsay, and I'm joined by Catherine Cobden, the executive vice-president of FPAC.

In preparation for today's deliberations of the committee, I went back and looked at the 2008 standing committee report. I also had an opportunity to review the ADM's presentation from January 29. As Glenn Mason reported, since the report of 2008 there has been considerable progress on the part of industry, our partners in the innovation space, and the government to create an alignment and move forward on a journey of transformation for the Canadian forest sector.

As Aran already alluded, the perfect storm of economic circumstances we faced over the last decade spurred the Forest Products Association of Canada, working closely with our partners, our member companies, and the academic community, to develop a strategic planning exercise. About two and a half years ago, we published a very ambitious Vision 2020. This vision contains several very clear metrics for our products, our performance, and our people.

Mr. Chairman, I've spoken to many members of the committee and to others, both individually and in small groups, about our Vision 2020. We recently distributed to members of the committee our first two-year report card holding ourselves accountable for the metrics of Vision 2020.

For the committee researchers, or those who are helping write your report, it's also available on our website if you want to obtain copies there. We're in the paper business, so we're glad to bring paper copies for you.

The standing committee report in 2008 recommended that the industry pursue a strategy of diversifying our markets and creating new value-added products. We thank the committee and the government for their support over the last couple of years. I would like to report that we are making good progress. We had a growth of 10% in exports last year after a number of difficult years. Forest products are now Canada's largest export to China. We are quite proud of that factoid. We climbed from about two billion dollars' worth of exports to China in 2009 to currently about $4.7 billion. We're exporting to 180 countries around the world.

Working with our colleagues at FPInnovations and the academic community, and of course our government partners, we are continuing to invest in new innovation, creating new products and new opportunities in everything from bioenergy to biomaterials and biochemicals for the forest industry, and seeking maximum value from every tree we harvest.

In 2008 your committee report touched on the challenges of greenhouse gases, for example, and the role the forests can play in climate-friendly forest management and conservation practices. Our Vision 2020 report card reports on our environmental metrics. For greenhouse gas emissions in particular, we're proud to say that we've reduced those by more than 70% since 1990. We've exceeded the Kyoto recommendations. The government's PPGTP was also a very helpful program in terms of helping our companies make further reductions in GHG emissions.

We're continuing to hold ourselves accountable on a dozen different environmental metrics, including reduction of energy use, reduction of water use, reduction of waste sent to landfill, and a number of other metrics outlined in the report. I won't go into details, but we're well on our way to achieving the Vision 2020 goal of a further 35% reduction in our environmental footprint by the year 2020.

Shifting to the employment objectives we've set for ourselves, we're currently the largest employer—or if not the largest, then among the largest employers—of first nations in the country. For example, looking at the 2006 census, for each province, we have on average about twice the percentage of workers from first nations communities as is represented in the worker population of that given province. We want to continue to build on that. We want to increase our aboriginal representation, increase the number of women in the Canadian forest industry, and encourage more new Canadians to come and work in the forestry products industry, because we'll need 60,000 additional employees by the year 2020.

In some respects, Mr. Chairman, I would say we've come a long way since the report of 2008 and this committee's deliberations. However, if I could be so bold, I would say I don't think the challenge is behind us. I think the challenge is actually ahead of us. I don't think we, as an industry, and those we represent can rest on our laurels. While we have been doing considerably well on all fronts and we've invested, we are in a competition with the rest of the world.

Canada once accounted for about 20% of the globe's forest products. Today, we're contributing about 10% of global production. This is in part due to the downturn, but it's also due to the increased competition we're facing from Brazil and many other countries. Canada has one of the largest fibre baskets in the world. Aran talked about its ecological importance and its economic importance.

According to the 2014 Leger study of global customers, Canada's forest sector has one of the best environmental records in the world. We have huge potential and we have huge opportunity. Canadian forest fibre can be part of the solution to many of the resource stresses our planet is facing. For example, the carbon footprint of forest products is much smaller than the carbon footprint of many other building materials. I know FPInnovations is going to speak to you in a few minutes about many of the new materials we can make from Canada's trees: biochemicals, bioplastics, biomaterials. They're all made from a green renewable resource.

We need to keep going. We can and we must continue to innovate, but doing so requires investment. It requires continued access to Canada's renewable fibre basket.

I look forward to exploring a discussion about these various challenges and opportunities with the committee today, Mr. Chairman, and in the weeks to come as you're working through your submissions.

Let me conclude by pointing out the size of Canada's forest products industry. We're obviously part of the resource sector and that's why we're in front of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources today. But what many people forget is that we're actually a huge manufacturer. We account for 12% of the manufacturing sector of Canada. Now, while automobile manufacturers get lots of publicity and employ directly about 120,000 workers in the auto assembly and auto manufacturing sector, there are at least one and a half times that number of direct employees in the forest products sector. Depending on which study of employment you review, we directly employ roughly 200,000 to 230,000 people, and there is double that again in indirect employment. We're the primary employer in literally hundreds of communities, and we're a huge contributor to Canada's exports.

So making sure we have the right tax incentives, the right transportation infrastructure, and the right climate investment is critical. Because we're in a global competition for investment, we must be vigilant with respect to all of these hosting conditions.

In summary, we need to continue to innovate. We need to continue to protect and enhance our environmental credentials. We need to continue to manage our costs and improve our competitiveness. Our Vision 2020 report card contains a series of recommendations for building on this momentum. We've made recommendations for government, industry, the academic community, and our environmental partners. I commend this report to you as you go through your deliberations, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it in more detail.

Thank you very much.

3:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you very much, Mr. Lindsay, for your presentation on behalf of the Forest Products Association of Canada, FPAC.

We go to the final presentation now by video conference from Vancouver, British Columbia. From FPInnovations, we have Pierre Lapointe, president and CEO, and Jean-Pierre Martel, vice-president, strategic partnerships.

Gentlemen, thank you once again for being with us here today and for your patience. Please go ahead with your presentation. We'll follow your presentation with questions and comments from members of the committee.

3:50 p.m.

Pierre Lapointe President and CEO, FPInnovations

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to mention that we sent a slide deck to you. I will refer to it. I won't go through each slide, but I will refer to them, because some pictures are worth a thousand words.

FPInnovations was born in that era of 2008 from the merger of four research organizations. Today, as we speak, we are the world's largest industrial R and D organization in the forest sector. We have 600 employees and a $100-million budget: one-third from industry, one-third from government, and one-third from contracts, royalties, and licensing.

I think it's important to note that we are doing the research from genes to markets, so we have the entire value chain. One thing that is important to understand is that we don't do all of this research personally. We make sure that this research gets done and gets done by the best.

You'll see here that we're looking not only at upstream innovation but at downstream innovation. On the upstream, which is harvesting, inventory, and genomics, I think it is important to know that we're working from what used to be the forest industry to what will be the forest industry of the future.

I have two examples. If you look at the enhanced forest inventory, you see that it was done by walking in the woods. As we speak, we're doing forest inventory using drone technology, and we will be doing species identification in the near future using genomics content. It's the same thing with forest harvesting. One of the issues with forest harvesting is that it's very hard work. We're working with different equipment companies in Canada to go from man-driven forest equipment towards unmanned forest equipment.

In the case of the downstream, it is very important to note that the philosophy and culture of the organization now is to make sure that we get the best value from the trees at each step of the harvesting. At the beginning, obviously, it's the wood product. After that, it's the pulp and paper, and then the chemicals. We are now at the step where we can extract other value from cellulose: cinnamon, nanocellulose, lignin, and sugars. At each of the steps, we try to go into the pre-commercial phase and go from there.

Let's look at some of the impacts. As David was saying, we live in a global context. Some of the driving forces in the global context are the driving forces for our research priorities. Population growth, urbanization, the emerging middle class, and the growing need for sustainable housing are obviously very important.

Let's look at some examples of the type of work we do. It's all related to the building code of Canada. In 1941 in Canada, you were able to construct wood-framed buildings of up to eight storeys. Because of the impact of other sources of building materials, in 1953 the building code only allowed us to go to four storeys, which meant that the construction impact of wood was much less. We hope that in March 2015 the building code of Canada will go back to six- and eight-storey buildings.

How do we do this work? We publish a lot of technical handbooks and technical solutions. Cross-laminated timber was mentioned a little earlier, as were engineered building woods for high-rise construction and also code implementation. A lot of research is done to make sure that Canada can construct in wood safely.

The opportunity obviously is really to increase the volume of wood used in construction using different technologies and different methodologies from light wood frame to hybrid.

If you look at the slide, you will see some of the new projects that are already in the system. I'll give you an example. The bridge you see in the picture is one of the seventeen bridges constructed by Nordic from Chibougamau to link Chibougamau to the Stornoway diamond mine. Those bridges can span 160 metres and can carry a 175-tonne load. Once the cement base is completed, a bridge can be constructed in one week.

A totally new era of infrastructure is in front of us. If you look at slide 12, you will see an eight-storey building in Prince George, which was opened only a few weeks ago and which holds the UNBC wood engineering school. That's already in place. If you look at slide 13, you will see a 13-storey building in Quebec City, which will be announced in a matter of days. Those are really the new types of products that allow us to go back to what we could have been doing in 1905. If you look at slide 14, you will see a series of other examples like the Richmond skating ring here in Vancouver, which was used for the Olympics and was constructed in four months from cross laminated timber.

In the future, we will be going towards a project that will be done, first, in Ontario and then in New Brunswick and Quebec. They are integrated wood product manufacturing systems. These will be, if you like, the sawmills of the future. So we will be able to do not only two-by-fours but also insulation, platforms, and acoustic platforms. We hope those will be built in 2015 and 2016.

Another project is the extraction of cellulosic sugar in northern Ontario, which will involve a partnership with the chemical industry in Sarnia. So the sugar stream is going to be changed into some of the green chemicals and shipped to Sarnia to be sold and transported and eventually challenge some of the hydrocarbons. At the same time, the byproduct, which is the lignin, can be used for bioproducts. As we speak, we are testing the lignin to be used in animal feedstock.

Since 2008, with Canadian industry—first with Domtar—we have been able to create the first cellulose nanocrystals plant in the world, producing one tonne a day in Windsor in the Eastern Townships. Last spring we opened a cellulose filament plant with Kruger in Trois-Rivières, and as we speak, we're completing a lignin extraction plant with West Fraser in Hinton, Alberta. If you look at those investments, they're worth well over $100 million. The first two are world premieres.

Finally with regard to improving competitiveness, the challenge of an R and D organization is to put new products and new processes into the market, but also to ensure that the integrated companies that are still doing pulp and paper and wood products can be efficient.

We have a competitiveness program optimizing existing assets in Canada. By 2020 we will be delivering savings of more than $50 million per year for each of the companies. One company alone in northern Ontario was able to save $15 million because of this optimization.

What you see is that from 2008, when FPInnovations was challenged to become the R and D and innovation branch of the forest sector, we have delivered. We'll continue to deliver. Transformation is the next step that we have planned, and we are already seeing examples of this.

Thank you.

4 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you very much, Mr. Lapointe, for your presentation on behalf of FPInnovations.

Thanks again to all of you. Your presentations are helpful for us in continuing our study. We go now directly to questions and comments.

In the first round of questioning of up to seven minutes for each member, we have Ms. Crockatt, followed by Mr. Rafferty and Mr. Regan.

Go ahead, please, Ms. Crockatt, for up to seven minutes.

February 17th, 2015 / 4 p.m.

Conservative

Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here. This is a very interesting panel.

First of all, I wanted to talk about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It's one of the things that we MPs had a briefing on this morning. Much of the discussion was on forest products. I was interested to learn that 40% of the world's market is there, and that it is Canada's biggest export to China. I'm wondering if you can tell us how we achieved that and what you think the prospects for growth are.

I'm not sure who is best placed to answer this, but I'm thinking it's our industry representatives.

David, could you take that, please?

4 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Forest Products Association of Canada

David Lindsay

Thank you very much for the question.

As I mentioned in my opening comments, we're quite proud of the success we've had in opening up the Chinese market, for example. The partnership between the Province of British Columbia, the federal government, and the industry worked aggressively over a long period of time, for over 10 or 12 years. It's like the comedian's joke; it took me 20 years to become an overnight success.

It took us 10 or 12 years to get into the Chinese market. The use of wood was not common in much of the residential construction in China and other forms of construction, and we literally built schools, trained architects, and worked with the construction industry in China to grow that market. Thanks to the governments, provincial and federal, and thanks to our companies, we have gone from virtually zero to, as I said, over $4.7 billion.

But that's not the whole of Asia. The Japanese have been a traditional customer of ours since the beginning of the last century. After the earthquake in 1924, we were considerably generous in helping to get them rebuilding, and they've continued to be a good customer and a good partner throughout the last century. Though Japan has had some economic difficulties, we've maintained that marketplace. The free trade agreement in Korea is also very helpful to us. Australia had already entered into a free trade agreement, so making sure we were competitive in our tariffs was very important.

If you mention those three countries—China, Korea, and Japan—they are among the three largest international customers we already have. My board chair, the president of Canfor, Don Kayne, when asked what our next opportunity is, likes to say that the next China is China.

Continuing to expand our opportunities in the Pacific Rim is incredibly important. The TPP is a significant part of that, but I know that Catherine has made presentations to the trade committee saying that it's not just trade agreements. We also need to make sure we have a transportation system that gets our product there.

We have very capable trade representatives in the embassies and in the trade commission offices to help us open up doors and understand procedures. While we have good work happening, there's still much more we can do.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

We heard from Mr. O'Carroll that the industry, as well as the innovation sector, as well as government, worked very well to rise to the challenge on this and see this resurgence that we're seeing in the industry. I'd like to know a little more about that.

Maybe I'll stay with you, Mr. Lindsay, for this question. What did government do that worked? If we can put our finger on best practices, what would you say was the key to that on the government side?

4:05 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Forest Products Association of Canada

David Lindsay

We've had a number of challenges in the forest products industry in the last decade. U.S. housing starts went down significantly, from a high of about $2.4 million or $2.5 million down to about $600,000. There was an incredible drop in demand from the United States. Recognizing that was a vulnerability—we had 80% of our product all going to the United States—and that we had to diversify our markets and spread, we've just finished having a conversation about opening up China and international trade opportunities. That's a significant contribution, working cooperatively with provinces and with the federal government to open up new markets.

As you've heard from my colleagues at FPInnovations, and from Aran in his presentation, new products, new uses of the fibre, are incredibly important. We're in a globally competitive world. We need to come up with new technologies and continue to invest in the innovation cycle, with support for FPInnovations, support for the academic and research community, and support for our companies to get through what's quite often a very expensive investment. The investment in transformation has been very much appreciated by the industry. That's where the government has been a big partner.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

Thank you.

I'll now go to you, Mr. Lapointe, on the technical side of the same question. What do you think government did during this period to help pave the way for this resurgence? What should we learn from this? I'm fascinated, too, that we've heard about wood-derived car parts. I think we've all seen some of these stories, but maybe we're consolidating a little bit more of that knowledge in terms of electronics, with touch screen TVs, and so on.

You talked about two world premieres. I wonder if you could go into some of the front end of this advancement, but first touch on what government did that helped us get here.

4:05 p.m.

President and CEO, FPInnovations

Pierre Lapointe

In the case of those two premieres, what the federal government is doing is rather a premiere in Canada, whereby they accept the fact of going in to finance pre-commercial testing facilities. In the case of the nanocellulose with Domtar in Windsor, they facilitate about 50% of the plant. In the case of the CF in Trois-Rivières, it's about 40%. Being able to go toward pre-commercial financing is a first in Canada, and that has helped tremendously.

In the case of some of the other projects, such as the lignin extraction in Hinton, Alberta, it's the IFIT program, run by NRCan, that provides a less risky financial commercialization process. In the case of the lignin extraction, again the federal government, with the IFIT program, has been really instrumental in getting that new process in.

What the federal government has done as well, which I think is also very important, is to finance for three years a series of university centres of excellence in the forest sector. That has provided us with more than 27 universities and 130 professors as partners. We've put together over three years 400 to 500 master's and Ph.D. students. Those projects have been really helpful in going towards pre-commercial but also going towards making sure we provide highly qualified people.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you, Ms. Crockatt.

We go now to the official opposition with Mr. Rafferty for up to seven minutes. Go ahead, please.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

In particular, Mr. Lindsay, it's nice to see you again, as always. I have a second question for you, but let me read some things into the record here just so we can get a sense of “then and now”, as the chair outlined in his opening remarks. I'll just read some facts into the record about the forestry sector and what's happened since this government took power.

Since 2005, annual revenues in the forestry sector have declined from more than $80 billion per year to less than $54 billion in 2013. In 2005 the forestry sector was contributing more than $31 billion to Canada's GDP each year, but by 2013 it had plummeted to just $21 billion. In 2005, the year this Conservative government came to power, there were 339,000 jobs in the forestry sector. By 2015 there were just 216,500 jobs in the forestry sector.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

On a point of order, Ms. Crockatt.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

Joan Crockatt Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

Mr. Chair, the parameters of this committee were to take where we left off with the last study—I think we looked at the period up until 2008, if I'm not mistaken—and to look from there forward. I just wonder if this is where we need to be going if we want to move ahead now with this, Mr. Rafferty.

Over to you, Mr. Chair.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Thank you for your advice, Ms. Crockatt, but as you know, members have a wide range of freedom to ask questions as long as they're on topic. Mr. Rafferty is setting his up.

Certainly do go ahead, please, Mr. Rafferty.

4:10 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

The bottom line is that under this government's watch over 112,000 jobs, or 36% of all the jobs in the forestry sector, have been lost in the last 10 years: 21,400 jobs in British Columbia; 40,700 jobs in Ontario; and 41,600 jobs in Quebec. The worst part of this, of course, is that the jobs have been lost in just 200 or so so-called forestry-dependent communities.

You all know the communities: Miramichi, New Brunswick; Shawinigan, Quebec; Fort Frances, Ontario; Pine Falls, Manitoba; and Prince George, B.C. These communities, like dozens across Canada, experienced loss. They lost their primary employer and hundreds of good-paying jobs. It was devastating to these small communities, as hundreds more spinoff jobs were also lost, along with millions in tax revenues for these small municipalities.

Now, if anyone on the government side or anywhere else doubts these numbers—they shouldn't, of course—they're from this government's own numbers. They're publicly available and updated annually by Natural Resources Canada. With these facts being on the record, I'd like to move on to some specific issues for witnesses to comment on. I have a lot of questions, and I do understand that I've already used a couple of minutes of my time.

While we have you here, Mr. O'Carroll, let me ask you the first question. With regard to the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, I'd like to commend our witnesses today, their organizations and members, and the Canadian forest industry in general for their ongoing commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting their operations to new environmental realities.

However, with regard to the Boreal Forest Agreement, while I see negotiation and cooperation between leading Canadian environmental organizations and the industry, there is a glaring omission in the signatories. I see on your web page that no first nations communities or organizations are cited as signing on to these agreements.

I wonder if you could elaborate on the negotiation process that led to the Boreal Forest Agreement and specifically comment on whether any first nations or related organizations were consulted on this project. If so, what issues were at play that prevented those communities from signing on to the agreement? Is there a chance to expand this agreement in the future and to have first nations participate in this process and eventually sign on to it?

4:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit

Go ahead, Mr. O'Carroll.

4:15 p.m.

Executive Director, Secretariat, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

Aran O'Carroll

Thank you very much for your question.

Let me start at the beginning of the negotiation of the CBFA. Fundamentally, the agreement, which was publicly announced in 2010, was a truce between two warring factions at the time: the Canadian forest industry and the environmental community in Canada. That was a memorandum of understanding, if you will, between those two sectors, and it was intended to be a foundation upon which the two sectors would then speak to others.

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement has a vast scope stretching from British Columbia across the boreal forests of this country to the island of Newfoundland. There are almost 600 first nations communities in that scope. It was certainly not our intention to exclude communities in signing this peace between our two parties, and we did have conversations with first nations communities at the time. But it was fundamentally to bridge the gap between those two warring parties and strike a new relationship between those communities that we entered into the CBFA.

4:15 p.m.

NDP

John Rafferty NDP Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON

Is there a chance now to expand this agreement in the future?

4:15 p.m.

Executive Director, Secretariat, Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

Aran O'Carroll

The agreement is an open agreement. In fact, we have working groups that are actively collaborating with first nations in their traditional territories across the country.