Bill C-354 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood)

This enactment amends the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act to require that the Minister may, in developing requirements for public works, allow the use of wood or any other thing that achieves environmental benefits.

Department of Public Works and Government Services Act

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I proudly rise today for the final right of reply to Bill S-222 at third reading. This bill, commonly known as the use of wood in government infrastructure bill, has a long history in this place, but I think it is safe to say after debate this afternoon and a vote tomorrow that it will finally become law in Canada.

I will try to be brief in my remarks, but I should give a little history of what is happening here today. It all started 13 years ago, in 2010, with a private member's bill put forward by the Bloc Québécois MP Gérard Asselin, as my colleagues here in the Bloc have already pointed out a couple of times this afternoon.

That bill specifically asked the minister of public works to consider the use of wood in building federal infrastructure, much as the Wood First Act had done in British Columbia the year before that and the Quebec Charte du bois did later in 2013.

My legislative assistant, Cameron Holmstrom, brought the bill to my attention in 2016 when I was looking for private members' bill ideas. I was keen on supporting the emerging mass timber sector, because the main proponent of that sector in Canada, indeed North America, was Structurlam, a company based in my hometown of Penticton, British Columbia.

I tabled that bill as Bill C-354 in 2017. It passed second reading into committee, and there it was amended to deal with some concerns about its specific focus on wood. Thanks to collegial work and some good ideas, some of them coming from Sandra Schwartz at Natural Resources Canada, the language in the bill was changed to emphasize the environmental benefits of prospective building materials.

I must say I was actually happier with the new version, which is something one does not always hear from someone who has had their private member's bill amended. It passed through the House of Commons in May 2018. Unfortunately, it languished in the Senate, an innocent bystander to some shenanigans there, and died with a lot of other private members' business when that Parliament ended just over a year later.

I want to thank once again my friend, Senator Diane Griffin, who introduced it in the other place as Bill S-222 in this Parliament in November 2021. That is what we are debating today. After passing through the Senate, it came to this chamber and is nearing the end of that journey.

I want to thank everyone who has spoken to this bill over the years and everyone who has supported it and made good suggestions about it.

I have talked to Adam Auer, an old student of mine, who is now the head of the Cement Association of Canada, about the new concrete products that will compete well under the terms of the bill.

I want to highlight also the support of the Forest Products Association of Canada, particularly Derek Nighbor, who has been a constant source of encouragement.

For decades, we built our big buildings out of concrete and steel. One of the main goals of this bill was simply to point out to the government and society as a whole that engineered wood is now a real option. Engineered wood, mass timber, will give our forest sector another domestic market to sell to, allowing us to reduce our reliance on the United States for lumber sales. Canada leads the continent in these sectors and government procurement will help us keep on track to stay in the lead.

The government has the capacity to carry out the intent of this bill. Through life-cycle analysis, it can provide fair assessments of all building materials for their carbon footprint and other environmental benefits.

This bill is a win-win-win for Canada. It would help build better infrastructure in our country, beautiful and safe buildings that would have a light footprint on our environment. It would also help us meet our climate targets and would spur innovation in the building materials sector.

This bill has enjoyed unanimous support throughout its latest journey in Parliament, and I am hoping that will continue after this debate.

Thanks once again to all who have spoken to this, to all who have contributed to it over the years.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to this Senate bill.

First, I would just like to point out that the Conservative member who spoke earlier talked about how much the Conservatives support the bill. Of course, they could really show that support by ensuring that it receives speedy passage to move on to the next stage, instead of prolonging debate on the matter.

Canada's built environment is a significant contributor to GHG emissions, with more than 25% of GHGs coming from the construction, use and maintenance of residential, commercial and institutional buildings. The embodied carbon is the GHG emission arising from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance and disposal of building materials from building construction. It is responsible for 10% of all energy-related emissions.

In 2019, the World Green Building Council called for a 40% reduction in embodied carbon by 2030. To ensure that Canada meets its GHG reduction commitments, both energy use and carbon emissions need to be reduced simultaneously. This bill puts into law that, for most federal construction, GHG reduction must be a part of the planning process. It is the smart thing to do, and it is the right thing to do. Currently, this is only an internal federal policy.

Wood is one of the best materials for reducing the carbon footprint in buildings. The low embodied carbon of wood products stems from the fact that the manufacturing process is not energy-intensive, because it relies predominantly on electricity and uses long-lasting forest products that have sequestered carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Great advances have been made in tall wood construction. It is now possible to build more buildings in a safe, ecologically sensitive way than in past construction. These new technologies offer an obvious opportunity to increase the use of wood in building and thus support the forest sector in Canada, which has been beset by difficulties caused by American tariffs through the softwood lumber dispute, the pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia, catastrophic forest fires and reduced fibre supply because of past harvests.

As the largest producer in Canada, the federal government could give this sector a much-needed boost by using this cutting-edge technology at home. If passed, this bill would require the Department of Public Works to consider any potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits when developing requirements for the construction, maintenance and repair of federal buildings.

In 2009, B.C. passed the Wood First Act, which aims to “facilitate a culture of wood by requiring the use of wood as the primary building material in all new provincially funded buildings”. In 2013, Quebec adopted the Wood Charter, which requires all builders working on projects financed in whole or in part by the provincial government to consider wood in their construction plans; it also requires project managers to prove that they have calculated the greenhouse gas emissions of wood versus other materials in the pre-project stage.

Different versions of this private member's bill were introduced in past Parliaments, and they were supported by the NDP. Early versions of the bill explicitly asked the minister to consider using wood. However, that text was amended in the 42nd Parliament to direct the minister to consider any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits instead; it may also allow the use of wood or any other thing, including a material, product or sustainable resource that achieves such benefits.

That bill, Bill C-354 passed in the House but died in the Senate at the end of that Parliament. It was introduced as a Senate bill in this Parliament. This version of the private member's bill is inspired by new developments in wood construction technology. Large buildings constructed with mass timber can be built quickly. They are also cost-competitive, and they meet fire safety requirements.

Advances in wood construction technology have demonstrated that large buildings and other infrastructures can be built with wood. Recently, the University of British Columbia constructed the Brock Commons student residence; it is the world's tallest wood building, at 18 storeys. Toronto's George Brown College is currently building Limberlost Place, a 10-storey mass timber structure, at its Waterfront Campus; this will be the first institutional building of its kind in Ontario.

In 2014, the Cree community of Mistissini, Quebec, opened the Mistissini Bridge, a 160-metre-long bridge with semicontinuous arches made of glue-laminated wood beams. It is one of the largest wooden structures in Canada, and it won two national awards at the 2016 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards.

Canadian companies lead the mass timber sector in North America, with production plants in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. Because wood has lower embodied carbon than most building materials do, this bill offers us the opportunity to support innovation in the forestry sector while, at the same time, helping the Government of Canada to meet its GHG emission reduction targets. This is especially the case in these difficult times, because the sector faces large duties from the U.S.

Given the developments in the technology, this idea is one that is being used more and more around the world. It makes sense to use this technology more at home. In budget 2017, the government provided Natural Resources Canada with $39.8 million over four years, starting in 2018-19, to support projects and activities that increase the use of wood as a greener substitute material in infrastructure projects.

Bringing this forward is our way to call on the government to continue to support this activity through government procurement. It is time for us to move forward. This bill has been around and through the block a number of times. I repeat, as I stated at the beginning of my speech, that if the Conservatives say they support moving forward with this bill, then they should show it with actions and stop the delaying tactics. Let us get on with it, get it done, support the industry and do what is good for the environment. That is the path forward.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour, once again, to rise to speak to this small but mighty bill, Bill S-222. It would require the minister of public works and government services to consider the environmental benefits of building materials when building federal infrastructure.

This bill has come a long way to get to this point. Today, we begin third reading with a real chance of seeing this bill become law in the coming days. I am very encouraged by the unanimous support that Bill S-222 has received here in this House at second reading and in committee, where it was passed and returned here without amendment.

I would like to thank retired senator Diane Griffin for sponsoring this bill in the other place in this Parliament. It began its life as my private member's bill, Bill C-354, in the 42nd Parliament. It passed through the House in that Parliament but died an unfortunate and unnecessary death in the Senate. It was an innocent bystander of some other political manoeuvring. I will mention as well that an earlier version of this bill, one more specifically targeted at wood alone, was tabled by Gérard Asselin, a member of the Bloc Québécois, in 2010 as Bill C-429.

It has been a long and tortuous path to get to this place here today. I am really looking forward to seeing this bill become law at last.

One thing I have not mentioned in my previous speeches on this bill is the role that Natural Resources Canada officials played in helping move this bill forward in the 42nd Parliament. I want to mention in particular the efforts by Sandra Schwartz, who helped amend the bill and focus it on the environmental benefits of building materials.

I would like to concentrate my comments today on the testimony we heard at committee on Bill S-222.

One of the witnesses in the hearings was from the Quebec Forest Industry Council. They pointed out three ways that forest products can help decarbonize construction. The most obvious of these is the fact that long-lasting wood products store carbon that was taken out of the atmosphere as the trees were growing.

The second is that the new trees that replace the trees that were harvested continue to store carbon throughout their lives. This is a more complicated calculation that must take into account the full life-cycle analysis of harvest and production. The QFIC has asked that such life-cycle analyses be developed by the federal government. It is my understanding that those analyses are being developed. They have been developed for other building products but are being developed for wood products.

The third is the fact that forest products can help decarbonize construction because there is such a huge potential for growth in the use of these products. Only 5% of large buildings use wood as a primary component, so increasing that percentage would have an increasing beneficial effect.

Both the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs testified as well before committee. Firefighters are naturally concerned about the safety aspects of building construction in Canada, as they are the ones who literally put their lives on the line to fight fires within these buildings.

As building codes change to include new advances in mass timber construction, firefighters ask that their safety be an added objective in those new codes. I can add here the assurance from other committee testimony that mass timber construction has been shown to be as safe as or safer than standard concrete and steel structures after testing by the National Research Council and other agencies. Government officials pointed out that the procedures asked for by the bill are generally in place in government policy or are in the process of implementation, including the life-cycle analysis of environmental impacts of various building materials.

There is a real sense of urgency in the forest industry for any policy changes that would help that sector produce more jobs and create more wealth within our rural communities, all in the face of a reduced harvest. This bill would do that. By increasing the government procurement of mass timber products, it would increase the domestic markets for our lumber and create new jobs for turning that lumber into long-lasting mass timber beams and panels. We lead the North American mass timber industry, but it is still a small sector and needs careful attention or we will lose that lead very quickly.

Structurelam, the pioneer company in mass timber in North America, based in my hometown of Penticton, has recently been forced to restructure and sell its assets because of an unfortunate contract disagreement with Walmart. Hopefully, it will remain in Canada and regain its strength as the leading proponent of engineered wood on the continent. However, its story is a reminder that the sector is in a vulnerable position, still open to growing pains. A bill promoting government procurement could provide significant benefits at a critical juncture in the growth of the industry.

I spent much of last week in Washington, D.C., talking to American legislators about international trade between Canada and the United States. One of the big issues there obviously is the softwood lumber disagreement. The wonderful thing about mass timber is that not only is it beautiful and safe and not only does it create new jobs, but it can be exported to the United States without facing the illegal tariffs we have under softwood lumber. This bill would help create domestic markets so our mills that create two-by-fours and two-by-sixes will have more domestic markets, allowing them to grow and keep going in the face of this dispute, which has really harmed mills across the country.

I have to remind everyone that, while I and others have concentrated on wood products in this debate, the bill is open to any materials that provide environmental benefits. I met repeatedly with the cement industry and heard of its efforts to decarbonize the concrete that makes up so much of our infrastructure today. The cement industry believes it can be competitive with forest products in many cases in these full life-cycle analyses on environmental benefits. I commend those efforts and would simply say that this is what I hope to accomplish with this bill.

Buildings contribute up to 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and we must take all steps to reduce those emissions. Whether those reductions are achieved through the use of mass timber, new decarbonized concrete products or other sustainable products is not important. What is important is that we act quickly to change the way we construct buildings as part of our existential efforts to fight climate change.

Bill S-222 would be a step in that direction. I hope that today we will see continued support so that this bill can become law at last and create beautiful, safe and environmentally friendly buildings across this country, and support industry and mills across this country.

After unanimous support at second reading and at committee, we have the opportunity today to end debate and see this bill become law within a day or two. I hope that all other parties will allow debate to collapse so we can get to a vote quickly. I do not know why any party would want to prolong this process.

I thank everyone here for their support of Bill S-222 and look forward to a short and positive debate.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, it being Valentine's Day, I do want to send my love to my wife, Margaret, at home in Penticton. She texted me last week reminding me that it was our wedding anniversary, so I have some ground to make up when I get home next week.

I rise in reply to the debate on Bill S-222, a bill that comes to us from the Senate, but originated as my private member's bill, Bill C-354 in the 42nd Parliament, and has been mentioned before that. There was a version that was a Bloc Québécois bill earlier than that.

I would like to thank Senator Diane Griffin for introducing this bill in the other place and Senator Jim Quinn for carrying the torch after Senator Griffin retired last year.

This bill has been on a long journey to get here and it is gratifying to see the strong support it is getting from all sides of the House. I wanted to say I especially enjoyed the enthusiastic support that I was getting from the member for Longueuil—Saint-Hubert when he was unfortunately interrupted. I was enjoying that discourse.

This is truly a piece of legislation whose time and place has come. This is a bill that simply asks the minister of public works to consider the environmental benefits of building materials when creating federal infrastructure.

The built environment represents up to 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and one key component of those emissions, and the opportunity to reduce them, lies in the choice of building materials. Wood and especially the new technologies of creating mass timber or engineered wood are an excellent example.

Wood contains huge amounts of sequestered carbon. If it is harvested properly and sustainably, and used to create long-lasting building products, it can be a very valuable tool in our fight against climate change. I would like to acknowledge my colleague from Nunavut, who mentioned that this has to be developed and harvested considering the rights of indigenous peoples across the country.

I was inspired to bring this bill forward in 2016 by a company in my riding called Structurlam. Structurlam has been the leading manufacturer of mass timber in North America for many years. In Quebec, we have Chantiers Chibougamau, which has been leading that industry in eastern North America for the most part.

I see the member for Abbotsford is here and I have to mention StructureCraft, a company in his riding, that is producing similar materials. Just recently, we added another major supplier of mass timber with the Kalesnikoff family, who are building a very large modern facility in South Slocan in my riding.

These facilities are creating glulam timbers and cross-laminated timber panels that, in turn, are producing large, beautiful and safe buildings that are not only functional, but are also sequestering large amounts of carbon.

They are also providing relief for the Canadian forestry industry, which has been struggling through firestorms, beetle epidemics, illegal tariffs and a shrinking available harvest. With mass timber, we will have more jobs and added value for each tree we cut. We need to support this sector in Canada.

This bill does not exclude other building materials. The cement industry is developing new technologies that sequester carbon. The steel industry is developing new technologies that make steel production greener.

When the minister looks at the life-cycle analyses for each of these products, and those analyses are already being developed by the federal government, this bill would make sure that government procurement creates a significant environmental benefit.

Government procurement could also ensure that Canada remains a leader in the mass timber sector. It would allow new facilities to grow and prosper, creating jobs and providing a new domestic market for lumber in a time when our major trading partner to the south is doubling down on protectionism. Government procurement, guided by this small bill, could spur innovation in the cement and steel sectors.

I want to thank everyone who spoke to this bill. This bill would be a simple but significantly important step in our fight against climate change. We would also have beautiful buildings that would last generations.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, my apologies to the member for Abbotsford for getting a little off topic there, too.

My first experience in dealing with wood in a substantial way, which goes beyond the general framing of a house in Winnipeg, is when I had actually bought a home on Burrows Avenue. I went into the home. We had to replace some drywall. Instead of a concrete foundation, it was actually a wood foundation. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me. I am somewhat familiar with the construction industry. I have family members who have been doing it for many years.

A thought that crosses my mind right away when I touch a wood foundation versus a concrete foundation is there is a far better insulation value. If one is from a city like Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary or Regina, out in the Prairies, insulation value is quite important. If members were to do a Google search, which I have, they would find, to the surprise of many, how skyscrapers are actually now being made. Someone made reference to a wooden structure of eight floors. In Wisconsin, there is a 25-storey timber building. In Canada, if we look at British Columbia, by UBC, I believe it is called the Brock Commons. It is an 18-storey complex.

More and more, we are seeing wood being used in these taller buildings. I believe it is a vastly underestimated potential for Canada's wood industry. Like others, I have had the chance to travel abroad. Often in the countries I have visited, we do not see wood being utilized as we would here in North America. I believe that it is speaks volumes to the potential markets out there if one could really get out there and communicate the advantages of wood over other products.

We have talked a great deal about the transition to a greener economy. When we think of that greener economy, a big part of it is within the construction industry itself. As we see our wood industry grow at least in part, recognizing the potential of that growth and talking about it would add even that much more value to it.

This is not the first time that we have had this type of legislation come to the floor of the House of Commons. Some have already made reference to, I believe, Bill C-354, which went through a while ago, passing in the House of Commons. It was the election in 2019 that killed the bill because it did not quite get through the Senate. It bodes well, in terms of where we are today, talking about Bill S-222. Within that legislation, given the very nature of the fact that it is originating from the Senate, and we have seen the wide support from a previous House, where members on all sides saw the value of supporting it, I suspect that Bill S-222 would in fact be able to pass the House, and ultimately receive royal assent. That is a very strong positive.

As I said, there is nothing new, from a government perspective, in dealing with the environment and having a greener transition, because I think it fits what we have been talking about. We have seen a number of legislative and budgetary measures to support a greener economy.

I am thinking of those magnificent timbers, beams, one-by-threes for sidings, two-by-fours and, nowadays, two-by-sixes that are being used in many of the construction codes for exterior walls, for example. We have seen far more opportunities in recent years. As building codes continue to evolve and give more strength, I believe we will see that the demand for wood will continue to increase.

At the end of the day we do want to see a reduction in greenhouse emissions, and the bill would support that in principle, because of the product itself, a product that is renewable. Someone made reference to the province of B.C., where one tree comes down and three are planted in its place. We have a commitment to plant two billion trees, coming from our government. Many of those trees are going to be planted within our cities to provide beautiful plush green canopies over our municipalities, cities and communities, but a good number of trees we see that are planted today are there so that we can ensure that we can continue to harvest.

We have heard a great deal about British Columbia, and we do not want to give the impression that it is the only place where there is an industry of that nature, because one could easily talk about hardwoods and others that go from Ontario to Quebec and a couple of the Atlantic provinces, where there is very much a healthy industry, and that is not to say my own home province of Manitoba does not have great potential in the development in that industry.

I think that, in looking at the bill, we see sustainable forest management. We see a government that is committed to greening federal buildings, whether it is by retrofitting, building new or just completing repairs, and what the legislation would do is allow the minister to recommend wood usage, not necessarily compel it, but recommend it.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

moved that Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy and proud to rise in the House this morning to begin debate on a bill from the other place, Bill S-222. This is a small but mighty bill that would create beautiful, safe federal buildings, support our forestry sector during difficult times, spur innovation in the cement and steel industries and help us reach our climate targets.

What would this bill do? It simply states that when building federal infrastructure, the Minister of Public Works “shall consider any potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits and may allow the use of wood or any other thing — including a material, product or sustainable resource — that achieves such benefits.”

I mentioned the bill came from the Senate, but, in fact, this bill started its life in the House of Commons, first as a Bloc bill more than a decade ago. I took up the bill in the 42nd Parliament where, as Bill C-354, it passed in the House of Commons, but died in the Senate when that Parliament ended.

I would like to take a moment to thank my friend, Senator Diane Griffin. Senator Griffin guided the bill through the Senate in 2018 and 2019 and when the bill stalled there, through no fault of her own, she reintroduced the bill in the 43rd Parliament. As many here remember, that Parliament ended prematurely due to an election, so Senator Griffin introduced it once again last year in this Parliament. It is through her persistence that we are seeing it again.

Senator Griffin retired last spring, so she passed the torch to Senator Jim Quinn, who saw it through its passage in the Senate earlier this fall.

The initial form of the bill over a decade ago was a direct ask of the minister to consider wood in the construction of federal infrastructure. It was modelled on the Charte du bois in Quebec and the wood-first bill in British Columbia. It was designed then to ensure that the federal government actually considered wood when building large infrastructure. Until recently, the construction industry had been totally geared to cement and steel when doing that.

My version of the bill was amended in committee to remove the overt preference for wood and replace that with preference for materials that had environmental benefits, in particular regarding the greenhouse gas footprints of the building materials. This amendment allayed a couple of concerns around the trade implications of potentially favouring one sector over another and also recognized the emerging work on making concrete and steel more environmentally friendly. I will speak more on that later.

I was initially inspired to take up this bill in 2016 because of a company in my riding, in my home town of Penticton. That company is Structurlam, and it has been at the leading edge of mass timber engineered wood construction in North America.

While Structurlam leads that sector, it still faces some of the hurdles that confront all innovative companies. It needs help to scale-up its production, and the easiest way for a government to help a company in that situation is to provide business through government procurement. That is one of the core benefits of this bill. It would help Canadian companies scale-up to maintain our dominant position in the engineered wood sector in North America.

Forest products, with their sequestered carbon, are obvious candidates for decisions under this policy. If we can use more wood in government infrastructure and grow the mass timber market in Canada, it will obviously benefit the forest sector overall.

These are benefits to a forest industry beset by challenges on all sides. Beetle infestations, catastrophic wildfires and a long history of harvests have all reduced access to fibre. To top it off, the softwood lumber dispute has brought illegal tariffs from our biggest trading partner, the United States.

Reduced fibre access means we have to get more jobs and more money for every log we cut, and that is what mass timber provides.

To make glulam beams or cross-laminated timber panels, mass timber plants use lumber sourced from local mills. That gives those mills a new domestic market for their products and it reduces their reliance on the United States. On top of that, we can sell those mass timber products to the United States tariff-free, so it is a win-win.

Just to reiterate, the bill and a rejuvenated domestic market for lumber would not mean increased forest harvest, as that is limited by other factors, but it will mean getting more value added out of the trees we do cut. There are benefits to using mass timber, benefits for the construction industry and benefits for the users of that infrastructure.

First, I will mention the construction process itself. Engineered wood is produced indoors in plant facilities. The building can be literally constructed indoors with no weather delays or complications, while the site is being prepared for construction. Then the building components can be put together quickly and delivered to the site exactly when needed.

Brock Commons, an 18-storey residence complex at the University of British Columbia, the tallest wood building in the world, was built in 57 days, two storeys per week. It is now home to over 400 UBC students. Because the component parts are built indoors, they can be constructed to very fine tolerances, within millimetres, and that means a lot when one is constructing the buildings of the future that will have to be built to passive energy specifications.

The buildings constructed in this way are beautiful. The exposed wood components are like furniture. Structurlam has an entire finishing plant devoted to smoothing and treating every exposed beam and wall panel as if it were a piece of massive furniture.

It is not surprising many of the early examples of mass timber construction were civic buildings meant to look good as well as be functional, buildings such as the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the Olympic speed skating oval in Richmond, B.C. and the Rocky Ridge recreation centre in Calgary. The Rocky Ridge facility has over 2,000 glulam beams forming its huge roof, and no two are the same.

I would like to also mention that Canada leads the way in engineered wood construction in North America. Structurlam has projects all across the continent and has recently opened up a branch plant in Arkansas. Nordic Structures in Chibougamau, Quebec was another pioneer of this technology.

Another major mass timber plant has recently opened in my riding just outside Castlegar. It was opened up by Kalesnikoff Lumber. I would like to give a shout-out to Ken Kalesnikoff and his son Chris and daughter Krystle for making this major investment that will pay off for the future of the West Kootenay and the forest sector in British Columbia.

One issue that often comes up when talking about tall wood buildings is fire safety. I hear from firefighters who just simply do not like the concept of wood buildings of any size. We heard testimony of that nature in both House of Commons and Senate committees. However, I need to reiterate that large infrastructure projects under this legislation would be constructed with mass timber. Firefighters I talked to are concerned about buildings constructed with traditional wood frame construction such as two-by-fours and two-by-sixes.

Mass timber is another thing entirely. When we have glulam beams a metre thick or cross laminated timber panels nine inches thick, those materials react to open flame in a completely different way. They simply slowly char instead of bursting into flame. Think of trying to light a log on fire with a match.

The National Research Council has conducted fire safety trials with mass timber and has found it is just as safe, or safer, than traditional concrete or steel construction.

More detailed studies are under way, including those at the University of British Columbia with Felix Wiesner. Dr. Wiesner has found, perhaps not surprisingly, that thicker components, say panels made with five layers of lumber versus those made with three layers, burn more slowly and that the type of adhesive that binds those layers also has an impact.

Suffice it to say, large buildings made with mass timber provide both occupants and firefighters ample time to exit the building in case of a fire and, as I said earlier, are just as safe or safer than traditionally designed buildings.

I would be remiss if I did not mention some of the other materials that might compete successfully in the government's analysis of environmental benefit. We have been hearing a lot about green steel production, and there are new cement products that sequester carbon dioxide to reduce some of that material's carbon footprint.

When I first put forward this bill, I heard concerns from the cement industry that the direct mention of wood might be unfair to the cement sector, which has made impressive advances in sustainability over the past few years. Those concerns were largely met by the amendments that were made in the committee in the 42nd Parliament and carried through to this version of the bill. I just talked to the cement industry last week, and it is supportive. It pointed out it is working with the federal government to provide data for life-cycle analysis of greenhouse gas footprints of building materials.

These analyses will be critical to the use of the legislation before us, as it will provide decision-makers with all the details they need. We will need similar full life-cycle data for steel and wood products, of course.

In recent conversations I have had with members of all parties around Bill S-222, I am heartened by the support I am hearing. Members of all parties know that this is the right way forward; that this bill will set us in the right direction when it comes to meeting our climate targets; that this bill will support the forest industry, a sector that has been beset with challenges from all sides in recent years; and that this bill will not discriminate against other building material sectors, such as cement and steel, that are working hard to innovate new solutions to make their products truly sustainable.

I hope that every member here will support Bill S-222 at second reading. I look forward to discussing it at committee to ensure that it will truly have the beneficial impacts that it promises. With this legislation in place, we can literally build a better Canada.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

moved that Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood), be read the first time.

Madam Speaker, I am very proud today to rise to introduce Bill S-222, which has come to us from the other place. I thank the member for North Island—Powell River for being my seconder.

This is a small but mighty bill that asks the government to consider using environmentally friendly materials such as wood when building government infrastructure. It was my private member's bill, Bill C-354, in the 42nd Parliament, when it passed through the House of Commons but unfortunately died in the Senate when that Parliament ended. I look forward to seeing this bill pass through the House once again and finally become law.

I want to thank Senator Diane Griffin, who has championed the cause of this bill in the Senate over the past five or six years, and also Senator Jim Quinn, who took up that cause after Senator Griffin's retirement this spring.

(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)

Forest Industry

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the forest industry in B.C. has had some tough years recently. Beetles and forest fires have reduced the timber supply, so we must create more jobs for every tree we cut.

There was some good news out of British Columbia last week.

First, Kalesnikoff Lumber announced that it is building a mass timber plant in my riding at South Slocan, to create cross-laminated timber panels and glulam beams. These components are at the centre of a revolution in how the world is constructing buildings. Canada is leading the pack in North America in this technology, with companies like Structurlam in Okanagan Falls and now Kalesnikoff joining those leaders.

Second, the B.C. government announced changes to its provincial building code, allowing beautiful and safe mass timber buildings to be constructed up to 12 storeys.

Along with those in my private member's bill, Bill C-354, these changes encourage the use of environmentally friendly materials in building federal government infrastructure, and will help keep the forest industry healthy.

Natural Resources

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in relation to Bill C-354, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood). The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendment.

I would like to thank the committee members, the clerks, and the analysts for working so hard to make this happen, and in particular the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for introducing the bill and being so accommodating with the committee members.

Wood Infrastructure

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, later this month, we will be debating my private member's bill, Bill C-354. The bill calls on the government to consider wood when building federal infrastructure, applying a dual lens of lifetime cost and greenhouse gas reduction.

First, we are witnessing a revolution in the architecture of large buildings around the world, tall wood buildings that are beautiful, safe, and cost competitive. The government loves innovation, and Canada is at the forefront of this mass wood innovation in North America. Government procurement will help our industry thrive and stay ahead of the curve.

Second, the government made commitments in Paris to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Much of that footprint is in our buildings and how they are constructed. The carbon captured in wood could significantly reduce those emissions.

Finally, building with wood will support our forest sector. Unfair softwood tariffs in the U.S.A. have hit this industry hard, and expanding our domestic markets will help workers across the country keep good, well-paying jobs.

I ask everyone here to support Bill C-354.

Opposition Motion—Support for Forestry Workers

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to this motion, because I am proud of the Canadian forest sector. I know how important it is to hundreds of communities, small and large, across the country and I am concerned about the future of our forest industry.

However, I must say, off the top, that I cannot support this motion put forward by my Conservative colleagues. Their former government is equally to blame for this crisis, and for them to play partisan politics with people's livelihoods is something I cannot condone.

My riding has the complete range of forest industry operations. There is the big Celgar pulp mill in Castlegar; big Interfor sawmills in Castlegar and Grand Forks; Kalesnikoff's more specialized sawmill at Thrums; the ATCO plywood veneer plant at Fruitvale; the Vaagen Brothers mill at Midway that processes small dimension logs; the family-run Son Ranch just south of Eholt; pole mills at Nakusp community forests and woodlots; and Greenwood Forest Products in Penticton that produces wall panelling and edge-glued laminated panels; and Structurlam which the minister mentioned in his speech just now, a continental leader in the manufacture of glulam beams and cross-laminated timber panels that are at the heart of the large wood building revolution. As well, there are all of the fallers and truck loggers, and the whole logging sector that supplies logs for these mills.

It is a long list, and I hope I have not left anyone out. It is repeated many times over in many ridings across Canada, in communities big and small, from Campbell River to Cornerbrook. More than 200 communities across rural Canada depend on the forest industry for at least half of their base income.

Across my riding today, I see a forest industry that is innovative and efficient, each mill specializing in some niche that will allow it to survive and, hopefully, thrive. I imagine that is the case throughout the forests of Canada. The forest industry is critical to the Canadian economy and to the hopes and dreams of thousands of hard-working families across this country.

In British Columbia alone, it contributes $12 billion to the economy every year, and $2.5 billion in direct government revenue. It creates 145,000 British Columbia jobs; one in every 16 jobs in British Columbia. Across Canada, the forest sector contributes more than $20 billion every year to our real GDP.

Canada is a world leader in sustainable forest management. Our forests account for 40% of the world's forests certified as sustainably managed, the largest area of third-party certified forest in the world. Canada has become a leader in the use of biomass energy, using waste and residues from forest manufacturing practices to power mills across the country.

However, the industry has suffered in the past few decades. A vast pine beetle epidemic swept across B.C. in the last decade, killing trees throughout the interior. That epidemic has now moved into Alberta and is threatening the forest industry there. Catastrophic wildfires burned over a million acres of forest in British Columbia this summer, and climate predictions tell us that these hot, dry, and smoky summers will only happen more frequently in the future. That, of course, has reduced the annual allowable cuts for these mills. Mills that were already suffering from the pine beetle epidemic now have even less forest to access.

Then there is the softwood lumber dispute between Canada and the United States that has pressured many mills to close in the last 10 to 15 years. I will talk more about softwood lumber at the end. I just want to say that in my riding that dispute resulted in a lot of job losses: the Weyerhaeuser mill in Okanagan Falls closed in 2007, putting 200 people out of work; and the closure of the mill at Slocan hit that small community hard. In fact, during the years of the Harper Conservative government, Canada lost over 134,000 jobs in the forestry sector, including about 21,000 jobs in British Columbia, 40,000 jobs in Ontario, and 41,000 in Quebec.

I would like to spend the next part of my speech talking about the positive ways to give the forest industry a boost in Canada. An obvious strategy to mitigate the losses from the softwood dispute is to develop markets outside the United States. We have been working on increasing our share in the Asian market, particularly in China.

The minister mentioned some recent efforts there. British Columbia exporters have been in China for over 10 years, though, and doing quite well. However, those efforts have plateaued because we are up against Russian competition that can simply move products to the Chinese border by train. With the low value of the Russian ruble, it is very difficult for Canadian companies to compete from the other side of the Pacific, for the foreseeable future. That is what I hear from the industry in British Columbia.

As an aside, lumber prices are so high because of the softwood lumber dispute that builders on the east coast of North America are starting to turn to European markets such as Romania and Germany to supply their needs. It is crazy. I think a better strategy in the mid-term is to expand our domestic markets through innovative new wood products and new ways to use wood in buildings.

As I mentioned earlier, in my home town of Penticton, there is a company called Structurlam that creates glulam beams and cross-laminated timber panels that can be used to construct large buildings entirely out of wood. The company just completed an 18-storey project at the University of British Columbia, Brock Commons, the tallest wood building in the world. The only steel and concrete in the building is in the elevator shafts. As the parts were pre-built off-site, Brock Commons took only 66 days to construct. That is 18 stories in just two months. The UBC project used 1.7 million board feet of B.C. lumber. Structurlam gets its lumber locally at mills such as Kalesnikoff, so the benefits spread through the region.

I was happy to see that the government included some money in the latest budget to help this innovative part of the forest industry grow. The minister mentioned that as well. Canadian companies are real leaders in this new technology in North America, but they need to expand to maintain that lead.

With this in mind, I have tabled a private member's bill, Bill C-354, which promotes the use of wood in government infrastructure buildings. This bill asks the government to assess the material options for large buildings, balancing the overall dollar cost of the project and the impact of its greenhouse gas footprint. That way we can decide whether wood, concrete, steel, or a combination of those materials is best for the building.

This bill is not meant to exclude non-wood materials but simply to ask the government to look at these new wood technologies that can be used to create beautiful, safe, and environmentally sound buildings. I was happy to hear from the concrete industry a couple of days ago that it has almost exactly the same ask of the government. It was not, of course, asking for the government to use more wood in buildings; but it was asking the government to use the same lens to look at the lifetime costs of the materials and the carbon footprint of the project when building infrastructure.

I believe that this process would result in more large wood buildings being constructed by the federal government. Many of them could be hybrids, of course, built with concrete and steel as well. This would have three positive impacts on the forest industry. It would stimulate the growth of this exciting new technology, keeping Canada ahead of the pack in North America; it would help all the players in the local forest industry to weather the difficulties they are facing through the softwood lumber dispute; and it would be taking real action to meet Canadian goals in the fight against climate change.

The forestry sector is facing serious challenges in Canada: a future with declining wood supply, more catastrophic fires, insect epidemics due to climate change, and rising costs associated with trade disputes with the United States. I want to turn now to that trade dispute, the softwood lumber dispute with the United States.

About year ago, on October 17, 2016, in this place we debated a similar Conservative motion that specifically focused on softwood lumber. The motion urged the government to take all necessary steps to prevent a trade war with the United States over softwood lumber exports. I supported this previous motion, of course, because for the many thousands of Canadians whose livelihoods depend on this important industry, it is imperative that Canada secure a fair deal with the United States, a deal that respects our regional differences and protects high-quality Canadian forestry jobs.

However, a year later, here we are. The Canadian government continues to fail in its ability to get a deal. The industry has been hit by the U.S. Department of Commerce with massive, unfair tariffs reaching as high as 27%. These tariffs and our government's inability to secure a trade deal have led and will continue to lead to devastating job losses and damage to this vital Canadian industry.

A report released by The Conference Board of Canada at the end of May 2017 stated that the U.S. softwood lumber duties will result in the loss of 2,200 jobs and a $700 million reduction in Canadian exports over the next two years. Softwood lumber is a vibrant part of Canada's forest sector, and as I mentioned, for many rural communities it is the backbone of the economy.

According to Canada's labour force survey, in 2015 the forest industry counted for 300,000 direct and indirect jobs, compared to more than 400,000 jobs in 2003. Hundreds of sawmills across Canada have been shuttered, taking with them high-quality, well-paid jobs.

Today, the softwood lumber industry is on the verge of more job losses. If we consider such factors as the crash of the U.S. housing markets and the other environmental impacts I mentioned, our already hard-hit industry will be further devastated. Canadian producers and workers need a new softwood lumber agreement that will bring fairness and predictability.

This dispute first began back in 1982. For 35 years, the American industry has argued that the Canadian producers benefit from subsidization, which is a claim that has been defeated time and time again in trade tribunals. I think it has been 14 or 15 times.

Over the years, there have been several managed trade agreements, but upon their expiration Canadian exports have seen more duties applied, and Canada has spent approximately $100 million in legal fees to defend our position. While it is true that Canada has consistently won tribunal warnings under the free trade agreement, NAFTA, and the WTO, which found that U.S. tariffs were unjustified, Canada has lost tens of thousands of jobs. I find it extremely disingenuous that the government touts these so-called tribunal challenges as wins. However, I am quite certain that the people who lost their jobs due to poorly negotiated agreements are thoroughly unimpressed with them.

I also find it extremely concerning that Americans are hell-bent on eliminating NAFTA's chapter 19, the dispute resolution mechanism that has protected Canada against those challenges for so long. After the previous agreement expired in 2001, the U.S. levied $5.4 billion in duties on Canadian imports. This was money that should have stayed in Canadians' pockets, but instead was given to the American industry. It was the beginning of a decade of massive job losses in the Canadian industry.

Soon after the Conservatives were elected in 2006, they negotiated a new agreement with little or no consultation with Canadian stakeholders. The result was a very controversial agreement that many argue represented a sellout of Canadian interests. That agreement took $50 million from Canadian industry to create a binding dispute settlement system whereby the U.S. was able to bring more actions against Canada. Perhaps most egregiously, the agreement allowed the U.S. to keep $1 billion of the duties it illegally levied on Canadian producers. Canadians were furious with the 2006 SLA. When the Conservatives brought it to Parliament in the form of Bill C-24, the NDP argued vehemently against the agreement.

When we look back at this agreement, it is fair to say that the Conservatives caved to American interests. Today, it is imperative that the Liberals do not do the same, and yet, considering the lack of leadership they have shown during the NAFTA renegotiations, I fail to see any change between our past and current governments.

As we know, the 2006 agreement was renewed in 2012 and expired last October. Again, after the Liberal government failed to negotiate a new agreement, the Liberals seemed to spend more time denying their own responsibilities and blaming the previous Conservative government rather than ensuring forest industry workers had the job security they so desperately needed.

Despite the Prime Minister's highly flaunted bromance with former president Barack Obama, the Liberals broke yet another one of their own commitments and failed to get a deal done before the time ran out.

Now we must negotiate with President Trump, whose administration has moved to hit our softwood lumber industry with even more tariffs. As with the huge hit lumber companies took in 2006, our industry is again reeling, and it is the forestry workers who will suffer most. After years of being unable to negotiate a fair deal, Canadians are left feeling unsure and, quite frankly, abandoned by their government. There seems still to be no path forward.

After two months of foot-dragging, the government introduced a compensation package, which the NDP welcomed, but I must point out that it contained nothing to improve EI benefits for workers who lost their jobs because of this dispute. The $867 million support package was a good short-term measure for industry and forestry companies; however, forestry workers need long-term solutions.

While many concede that another managed trade deal is better than more costly litigation, there is something inherently unfair about the fact that, despite continued findings that Canada is not in the wrong, we continue to negotiate agreements that are clearly in the interests of the U.S. industry.

Many witnesses expressed a desire to see Canada and the U.S. reach a negotiated settlement, one that would work for all our regions, but we also heard in committee, very clearly, that people do not want to see another bad deal. In Quebec, for example, they made a lot of changes in their forestry practices, and any new agreement must recognize these and other regional differences. A one-size-fits-all solution simply will not do.

In the spring of 2016, the Standing Committee on International Trade held meetings on the softwood lumber agreement and submitted a report to Parliament. Sadly, one important voice we did not get to hear at all at the committee was that of labour.

The United Steelworkers, which represents some 40,000 forestry workers, has laid out several requirements for what it would like to see happen. First, it wants to see the creation of a provincial forest community restoration fund, to be invested in workers, forest-dependent communities, and forest health. It wants fair access to the U.S. lumber market, and it discourages a new quota system. It also wants a guarantee that Canadian producers will have the same access to the U.S. market as other countries will enjoy.

I appreciate the Steelworkers' perspective because it represents the workers' point of view. These three things would help give workers greater job security and strengthen the industry instead of weakening it.

In the committee's final report, there were five recommendations made to the government, including that it get a deal done that serves Canadian interests, that it consult with big and small producers, and that any new deal respect regional differences.

I want to raise an issue I have seen more of recently, due to the NAFTA renegotiation process, one that has affected many aspects of the trading relationship Canada has held with our American neighbours. That is, it is an extremely unbalanced and abusive relationship. Repeatedly, whether it has been the 35 years we have argued over softwood lumber, or the nearly 30 years we have had a bilateral and trilateral trade agreement with the Americans, consecutive Canadian governments have continually negotiated bad deals. Perhaps this has to do with the size, strength, and wealth of the United States, but I cannot dismiss this huge lack of leadership and apparent cowardice and weakness shown by consecutive federal governments.

We often speak of political will in this place, so when I see Canadian producers being hit with U.S. tariffs of around 27% in forestry or 300% in aerospace, when I see mills and manufacturing plants being shut down right across Canada, and when I see thousands of people's lives at risk and jobs lost, I have to say that something is wrong. The way we negotiate trade deals is wrong.

I hope the government understands the gravity of what these job losses mean in our communities. Thousands of people have no job to go to and no more paycheques to bring home. Families are worried about how to pay the rent or make the next mortgage payment. I urge the government to act in the interests of those whose jobs are on the line. That means getting the right deal and working collaboratively with the communities.

If the Liberal government is serious about holding out for a good deal, instead of signing a bad one tomorrow, then it owes Canadians more transparency and openness about how it will help Canadians and Canada's industry weather the impending trade storm. Canadians deserve answers from the government, not more empty promises and hollow words.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise to debate Bill C-44, the budget 2017 implementation bill.

Back in the days when I taught zoology at UBC and comparative anatomy labs at Memorial University, we talked a lot about form and function. Today I would like to begin by talking about the form of this bill and move on to its function, its contents, and what that means in regard to government priorities.

As others have commented, the most obvious thing about this bill is its sheer size. It is almost 300 pages long. It amends more than 30 separate acts and even incorporates Bill C-43 within it, which was already on the Order Paper. Many of these components have nothing to do with the implementation of the budget. For instance, the bill includes major changes to the powers of the parliamentary budget officer, which I will talk more about later.

This bill is the very definition of an omnibus bill. Many Canadians will remember quite clearly what the Liberals said about omnibus bills in the previous Parliament. They and the New Democrats pointed out that omnibus bills were clearly designed to pass disparate pieces of legislation without providing opportunity for proper debate or committee study. The Liberals loudly complained that one of the Conservative budget bills was 175 pages long. That was a micro-bill compared to this one.

The Liberals were so outraged by the omnibus bills of the Conservative government that they put clear promises in their 2015 election platform, saying, “We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny” and “We will change the House of Commons Standing Orders to bring an end to this undemocratic practice”, yet they could not resist doing the same thing with budget 2017, and in a very egregious way. The Liberals have broken a growing number of election promises, but this broken promise, one that puts them in the same camp as the Conservatives when it comes to eroding Canadian democracy, must be one of their most disappointing acts for many of their supporters.

Now I would like to move from form to function and some of the consequences of Bill C-44.

One of the main themes of the last federal election was the struggle to reduce income inequality in Canada, an inequality that has been steadily increasing for the past 20 years or more. The NDP has led this battle for years, and in the last election the Liberals agreed with us in principle and said they would, as we have heard so often since, support the middle class and those trying to join it. In the last budget, the Liberals disappointed most Canadians in the middle class by doing absolutely nothing for those making less than $45,000 a year, instead bringing in income tax changes that gave tax relief primarily to those making $150,000 to $200,000 a year.

The Liberals promised that they would plug the loopholes that allowed CEOs to pay taxes at half the rate of middle-class Canadians, but did nothing in last year's budget and, I am sorry to say, did nothing in this budget as well. Bill C-44 has no provisions to close this loophole, which costs the government almost $800 million each year and leaves that money in the pockets of the wealthy Canadians who least need it.

Who do the Liberals choose to squeeze money out of instead? It is transit riders, the middle class and those seeking to join the middle class who take buses and trains to work every day. Under Bill C-44, they would lose their public transit tax credit so that the government could pocket $225 million in savings. Wealthy CEOs get to keep $800 million, while bus riders have to cough up $225 million. Budgets are about choices, and this is the unfortunate choice the Liberals have made.

On top of that, we in the NDP were hoping that the Liberal government would take concrete steps to shut down offshore tax havens, where the wealthiest of Canadians and corporations that have pocketed billions of dollars in tax cuts move their profits to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. However, neither Bill C-44 nor any other legislation before us addresses this critical step in reducing income inequality in Canada.

As I mentioned at the start, one of the features of Bill C-44 is a section that would change the role and powers of the parliamentary budget officer. This has no place in a budget implementation bill. Maybe the Liberals thought they could slip it in because of the word “budget” in the title of this important office. The parliamentary budget officer must be independent and neutral, but Bill C-44 would degrade that independence in several ways.

First, it requires the parliamentary budget office to submit an annual work plan to both the Speaker of the House and the Speaker of the Senate. This requirement could only benefit the government, as the PBO would not be able to undertake any study unless it had been approved in the annual work plan.

Second, only committees—committees dominated by government MPs—would be allowed to request that the PBO estimate the cost of any proposal that relates to a matter over which Parliament has jurisdiction. At present, individual MPs can request the PBO to undertake these analyses, but if Bill C-44 becomes law, they could only request cost analyses on proposals that relate to a bill, a motion, or an amendment that they themselves had made.

Again, this bill would greatly restrict the independence of the PBO and restrict the abilities of individual MPs to study the costs of government proposals. It was this type of independent initiative that exposed the true costs of the F-35 fighter jets to Canadians, and it was this independent action that showed that the so-called middle-class tax cuts of this Liberal government only benefited the wealthy in our country.

Another point of disappointment in the budget is the change that would index the excise duty on wine to the consumer price index beginning in 2018. My riding, I must admit, produces the best wine in Canada, and the wine industry plays a large role in the economy there and in other wine regions of the country.

Canadian wine producers are very concerned that this duty will now rise automatically every year, despite already being almost twice as large as the duties levied by other countries. For instance, the duty is 63¢ per litre in Canada versus 38¢ in the United States, while Germany has no excise tax on wine at all.

This automatic increase will exacerbate those differences and undermine the growth of the wine industry in Canada, impacting the entire economic value chain from farm gate to retail.

I would like to end on a positive note by mentioning a few measures that I am happy to see in the budget.

One is the promise to spend about $40 million to support projects and activities that increase the use of wood as a greener substitute material in infrastructure projects. Using wood as a primary material in large buildings is a technology for which Canada is already a world leader. One of the leading companies in Canada in the construction of these buildings is Structurlam in my home town of Penticton. Structurlam sources a lot of wood for its glulam beams and cross-laminated timber panels from the Kalesnikoff mill near Castlegar on the other side of my riding.

Expanding this part of the forest industry in Canada would give it a much-needed boost in these troubled times as mills across this country face trade sanctions through the softwood lumber dispute. We have heard a lot recently about efforts to diversify our foreign markets, but here is an opportunity to build the domestic market as well, and to build it quickly. Unfortunately, this spending is not scheduled to start until next year, when it might come too late.

Another way that the government could move forward on this file is by adopting my private member's bill, Bill C-354, which directs the government to consider the use wood in building projects. Government procurement is a powerful force that would immediately boost the forest industry across this country.

I am pleased that the Liberal government is keeping at least one of its election promises, albeit a year late, which is to phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. In 2014, the Pembina Institute estimated that more than $1 billion in fossil fuel subsidies still exist in our tax framework, so I am happy to see that budget 2017 will exclude producing wells from the Canada exploration expenses tax deduction.

In conclusion, I will simply say that budget 2017 represents yet another lost opportunity for the Liberal government to turn the corner on rising inequality in Canada.