Evidence of meeting #135 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was waste.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Liberal
5 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Wayne, before we go to you, we would normally be at the last question for three minutes. Given the time, we can add in one six-minute round for each of the parties. Do you want to take your six minutes and save your three minutes for the very end? Or do you want to go with your three minutes and get your six minutes at the end? We're flexible here.
5 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
Hans, I want to thank you for the work you did in Nelson. It's a lovely town that values its heritage and its heritage buildings. Thank you for your part in it. I very much appreciate that.
This is a question for Robert or Kate. One of the suggestions we had when we were doing our study on reaching 10% marine area protection and 17% land protection was that 50% of the boreal forest potentially should or could be set aside for conservation purposes. I'd be curious to hear your view. It's interesting to think of forests in terms of the value of carbon sequestration compared with the actual timber value of a tree. It has value either way. What do you think of that concept of conserving 50% of the boreal forest from both an economic and a climate change perspective?
5 p.m.
Vice-President, Sustainability and Environmental Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
It's an interesting question. I sat on the Pathway to Canada Target 1 committee, which looked at ways to get to 17%. One thing I would start with is that I think there's more conservation taking place within working landscapes than currently gets credit or gets counted. When you look at the forest sector, significant portions of our managed land are in some form of conservation right now, whether it be riparian areas, wildlife management areas, or so on.
I think you want to recognize what you were probably hearing from folks at the Canadian Forest Service around the systems approach. The real benefit of wood and storing carbon is that the tree stores the carbon, but the product stores the carbon as well. If we look at it in terms of full systems, we want to make sure we're utilizing the wood that we are extracting from the forest. We're replanting those forests and getting trees growing again and storing carbon. We want the products we make to be long-lived so that things like tables and tall wood buildings are storing that carbon for decades and centuries. You're really maximizing the benefit of using wood products as well as regrowing those forests, keeping forests in a working landscape so that it can do both. It can provide conservation benefits and it can provide carbon storage benefits.
5:05 p.m.
Kootenay—Columbia, NDP
One of the concerns that come to me from my constituents is about whether or not we're keeping up with reforestation. I mean, it's hard to see little trees, but what's your sense of how we're doing in Canada with reforestation?
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Sustainability and Environmental Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada
That's a very good question. It's legally mandated to regenerate after harvest. I think what we're seeing, particularly in B.C. and now in Alberta, is that when we have big fires and pest outbreaks, we need extra efforts on behalf of government, industry and others to get those areas re-established and regrowing faster. That will take more efforts on behalf of government and industry.
5:05 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Thank you, Mr. Stetski.
We'll jump over to the Liberal members. You can split up your six minutes however you like.
November 29th, 2018 / 5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
It's great to have another opportunity to discuss this.
One thing I would like to point out, for those around the table who may not know this, is that Hans Honegger is one of the people who actually helped design our committee rooms and tables—the set-up of the whole operation. I have to throw that out there. He's a remarkable individual who has had an influence in many different ways. He also used the copper from the old Centre Block roof in innovative ways. He maximized the materials to the utmost benefit. I just want to get that out there.
On the forest side, I know that in the construction sector we're talking about being able to build bigger structures by using wood. What are some of the other engineered products? Is there the possibility of our using more and more wood in our construction sector instead of things like drywall and the like? We're using chipboard and stuff like that on the other side of buildings, but what about inside in the construction of residences and commercial spaces?
5:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Forest Products Association of Canada
There's tremendous opportunity. On that one we're leading, I think, with the European countries. Fibre insulation, for example, is a huge, huge opportunity.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Forest Products Association of Canada
Exactly.
Number two, for example, is that even on the OSB now we're seeing two conversions in Canada. Swan River is one example, and there's another one in B.C. The old OSB now is called the siding business. This lasts 50 years. It's just a panel. You can paint it. It's on the outside.... There are a lot of opportunities to modify or tweak existing technologies, such as flooring and whatever, and make it value-added to last longer. We're looking at all of those.
I think the technology is there. Cross-laminated timber is another one. Glulam is another. That's using wood chips and waste to make panels and particleboard. There are some investments that have to be made. The last conversion to OSB, for example, was $75 million.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I'll be happy to pass the rest of time over to Mr. Casey.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Bill Casey Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thank you very much.
We've seen developments in Nova Scotia with vertical farms. They're basically hydroponics farms. What is the energy comparison between a vertical farm and a traditional farm? What are the impacts for the environment?
5:05 p.m.
Director, Biological Carbon Canada
Well, I'm not trying to avoid your question, but it depends on the boundary conditions and how many opportunities you are trying to achieve in that vertical farm. I know of a vertical farm in the Netherlands with a dairy operation, aquaculture and hydroponics. There are about seven commodities being produced in that farm.
First of all, depending on what you put in your vertical farm, the energy will vary. It will dramatically decrease the land footprint. We can draw from the example of the greenhouse industry in southern Ontario right now what this is capable of doing, because tomato production within a greenhouse can be two to four times higher in yield than it is off the landscape. I want you to check me on that figure, because I'm not a tomato producer—I'm a happy consumer of ketchup.
As we move forward in the innovations we're looking at, if you were to put a vertical farm within the city, I think that would be a wonderful use of old school gymnasiums or whatever; if there's a school pool there, why isn't it filled with tilapia? You can shorten the distance for local food. I don't know what “local food” is, because people are going to be darned hungry if they rely on something being grown within 100 miles of Toronto; I don't think you've found anything yet that resembles soil, to get away from the pavement. The sarcasm there is intended.
The reality is that still again you have to define your system a little bit more tightly to be able to properly answer that question. The landscape right now is continuing to bring us more and more because the innovations are being used on that landscape to maximize their potential.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bill Casey Liberal Cumberland—Colchester, NS
Thanks very much.
I think I'll switch to tires now. I looked at that big pile of tires on the screen earlier and I wondered how many wall plaques you can make out of those. Is that a realistic use to recycle many tires?
5:10 p.m.
Co-Owner, Bon Eco Design
They are being recycled now—many are—and resold. Our tire industry is another one. We need tires to get around, but we make a lot of them. I couldn't make enough tire art pieces at this stage. Everyone on the planet would have one, I'm sure, because I made four out of my own tires.
Things are being done with tires, with reusing tires. Our tires are being sold abroad, the ones that are still pretty good, but not for our winters, perhaps; I know they get resold. Again, it's tire stewardship. I'm not sure what they're doing now. I have mats made of tires. I like stair treads made of tires.
5:10 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
I'm sorry. I think we're out of time. Thank you so much.
We'll now go to our Conservative colleagues.
Monsieur Godin.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bossio, thank you for letting us know about this artist.
As artists, you are unfortunately very humble and discreet, but I think you deserve to be recognized for your talent. Mr. Honegger, I'm happy to work on that. It's very effective.
Earlier, Ms. Butts, you said you were working to sell your products and that people were buying them with their hearts. That is certainly a constraint.
To facilitate your research, could the government not establish a registry of residues? This could allow you, other artists and other companies to see which residues are available. These products could be used to protect our environment.
5:10 p.m.
Co-Owner, Bon Eco Design
How could you see that happening? How do you see a registry being built? How would you get that registry?
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Joël Godin Conservative Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Every company that has residues should register them with either Natural Resources Canada or Environment and Climate Change Canada. It would simply be a matter of managing that data. They could be made public and published on a website. That would be a very simple, quite elementary solution. It is the kind of thing I tried to introduce in Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. Do you know what my problem was this summer? I had a budget to hire a student to make a list of it all, but we ran into a manpower shortage. That's another problem.
Could a tool like that make your research easier?