Environment Committee on June 3rd, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Good afternoon, everybody.

Welcome to our environment and sustainable development committee. We are holding a bit of a special meeting today. There was a motion that our committee agreed to a couple of weeks ago:

That the Committee schedule one meeting with witnesses to discuss disaster mitigation and insurance, in relation to severe flooding, wildfires, and other extreme weather events in Canada.

We have two panels—one now and one at 4:30. First, from Forests Ontario, we have Rob Keen; second, from Quinte Conservation, Bradley McNevin; and last from the Forest Productions Association of Canada, Kate Lindsay.

Welcome to the three witnesses. We have 10 minutes scheduled for each of your opening statements. Once we have had the three opening statements, we'll go to rounds of questions. Our questions are six minutes each. We go from the government side to the opposition side to the second opposition side. We'll see how many rounds of questions we can get in before we get to 4:30, when we need to reset for the next panel.

With that, who would like to start?

Ms. Lindsay, do you maybe want to start? I'll give you 10 minutes for your opening statement.

[Kate Lindsay, Vice-President, Sustainability and Environmental Partnerships, Forest Products Association of Canada]

Great.

Can you hear me all right?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're good.

[Kate Lindsay]

Good afternoon and thank you, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Kate Lindsay, and I'm the vice-president of sustainability. I'm pleased to be here to represent the Forest Products Association of Canada as part of your study on disaster mitigation and to provide context on the role of forest management in supporting disaster mitigation and adaptation in the face of climate change.

FPAC provides a voice for Canada's wood, pulp and paper producers nationally and internationally in government, trade and environmental affairs. Let me give you a quick snapshot of how important the forest products sector is to Canada's economy. It is a $69 billion a year industry that represents 2% of Canada's GDP. The industry is one of Canada's largest employers, operating in 600 forest dependent communities coast to coast. We directly employ about 230,000 people across Canada.

The sector is also important when it comes to the Canadian environment. As custodians of almost 10% of the world's forests, we take our responsibilities as environmental stewards very seriously. Canada has the most independently certified forests in the world: 166 million hectares or about 43% of all certified forests. In fact, repeated surveys of international customers have shown that Canada has the best environmental reputation in the world.

Climate change is emerging as a signature issue of our time. To respond to that, the forest product companies have been ahead of the curve by aggressively reducing their carbon footprint and running more efficient facilities. In fact, pulp and paper mills have cut greenhouse gas emissions by an impressive 66% since 1990, an equivalent of nine megatonnes of CO2 per year. The sector does not use coal and barely any oil—less than 1%. We now have more than 30 facilities that generate green electricity from biomass residues at the mill sites.

Following Canada's commitment under the Paris Agreement, the forest products industry pledged in May 2016 to remove 30 megatonnes a year of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. That's about 13% of the government's emissions reduction target. We call this initiative the “30 by 30” climate change challenge, and we're proud to be part of the solution.

The effects of climate change have had and will continue to have an impact on our sector. Whether negative impacts such as forest fires and insect outbreaks, or positive impacts such as accelerating the transformation of the sector to produce value-added bioproducts, today I would like to focus my comments on the management of our forests to both mitigate climate change and build resiliency and help mitigate disasters such as wildfires and flooding.

Canada's forests are truly an astonishing resource. They represent 348 million hectares of forest land. The forest absorbs a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide, and by doing so, helps regulate the world's climate systems. We are continually looking to support and enable the forest sector to optimize carbon absorption. In some areas of Canada, this will include more active management of forests to sequester carbon: harvest the wood, which locks in carbon, and renew the forest so the cycle can repeat itself. In each forest or forest region, careful planning ensures that features such as wetlands and riparian areas are maintained and managed to allow these features to further enhance carbon mitigation but also to help with flood attenuation and protect drinking water.

At the very same time, the forest industry is utilizing the products from this renewable resource over the working landscape to transition to a low carbon economy with innovative products such as bioplastics, biofuel and tall wood buildings to displace more carbon-intensive products.

To further enhance the carbon sequestration of natural infrastructure such as wetlands, peatlands and watersheds, we have a long-standing relationship with academics such as the Saskatchewan Research Council and partners such as Ducks Unlimited Canada. We have been working with these partners to quantify the carbon sequestered and to codify forest management practices that conserve and enhance these features in providing carbon sequestration as well as the many ecosystem services.

As per the component of your study on the role of nature and natural spaces in mitigating disaster, I would also like to highlight a significant potential unintended consequence of the preservation of nature. As you can appreciate, there's a variety of ecosystems across Canada.

Much of the forested area in Canada falls within disturbance-driven ecosystems. These are primarily wildfires, but also forest pests and wind blow-down. Thus these ecosystems have naturally had stand-replacing fires across much of the forested landscape through history.

In more recent history scientists believe our forests are under greater stresses such as drought and disease, likely due to climate change, and this has resulted in more catastrophic fires such as the fires in British Columbia in 2017 and 2018. Due to fire suppression and forest preservation in the form of protected areas and conserved areas, there are also more forests that are older and denser, producing more fuel for the forest pests and fires. Compound that with the expansion of towns, cities and infrastructure and this is a growing challenge for community safety.

This area, known as the “wildland-urban interface”, will require new and different approaches to management and emergency preparedness.

I would like to highlight one example that illustrates some of the proactive work needed to help mitigate fire disasters. Jasper National Park, located in west central Alberta, is an iconic natural space managed by Parks Canada. For many years Parks Canada and the Town of Jasper have had growing concerns about fire safety. Since 2003 Parks Canada has been managing fuel by implementing a FireSmart plan, for the most part utilizing tree removal and prescribed burns, but the plan was no longer addressing the scale of the risk. Mountain pine beetle moved into the park, with significant damage in 2017-18.

The community was asking for further action, and in March 2018, Canfor, a forestry company located in Alberta, won a bid to use large-scale forest management to create a firebreak above the town of Jasper within the park. It was an unlikely partnership, but over the last year the project has involved careful planning and the harvesting of over 300 hectares of forest. As of this week the project is nearing completion and the objectives have been met. The harvest has significantly reduced the fuel-loading to mitigate for fire for the town residents and park visitors, but also the ecological values, such as maintenance of soil and wildlife habitat, quality have been met.

This is just one example of where the creation of natural spaces such as parks and set-asides have to be considered carefully and/or for which management treatments may be required to mitigate fire and flooding risk in those areas in the adjacent communities.

There are existing broader tools that can be used, such as FireSmart at the community level and vulnerability assessments at the forest management unit or regional level. We encourage governments to look at expanding and supporting these approaches.

We believe there is a responsibility and role for professional foresters to support community safety and stability and we encourage a national dialogue on addressing innovative ways and investments to address wildfire risks in the future.

Thank you for your attention this afternoon. I would be happy to address any of your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Excellent. Thank you for those opening comments.

We'll jump right now to Mr. McNevin for his opening 10-minute statement.

[Bradley McNevin, Chief Administrative Officer, Quinte Conservation]

Thank you for the opportunity to address the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development regarding the study on disaster mitigation and insurance.

First off, I would like to formally introduce myself. As mentioned in the introduction, I am Brad McNevin, chief administrative officer with Quinte Conservation. I've been employed in the environmental sector for the past 20 years, working with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, private environmental and engineering consulting firms, and currently with Quinte Conservation for the past 15 years.

Quinte Conservation is one of 36 conservation authorities across the province of Ontario, which is the only province to have these great organizations. Conservation authorities began to be established in the 1940s to address severe flooding and erosion problems. The most severe flooding on record in Ontario occurred in October 1954, when Hurricane Hazel passed through southern Ontario. Eighty-one people died and damages were estimated at $180 million. Following the devastating impact of Hurricane Hazel, a flood forecasting and warning system was established in the province of Ontario. Several flood control facilities were significantly upgraded and constructed. Operational practices were designed to respond immediately to changing conditions. Regulations were put into place to limit and control future development and inappropriate land use activities in flood hazard areas.

As I stand here today, many places throughout Ontario and other provinces have recently gone through significant flooding within the last month or so. In my own region, we are still experiencing Bay of Quinte and Lake Ontario surpassing their historic high-water level that was established a mere two years ago, in 2017. In contrast, the Quinte Conservation region experienced a significant drought in 2016. It impacted many user groups, not just rural residents, with dry wells. In fact, 100% of the Quinte Conservation region was impacted in some way. Drought conditions observed in our lakes and rivers impacted fish and wildlife. Our agricultural community experienced hardship trying to keep livestock and crops watered, which resulted in financial impacts. Homeowners were hit with costs associated with purchasing bulk water to keep their households running. Municipalities had to implement bylaws for restricting water use.

Extreme and unpredictable weather events are occurring frequently throughout the globe. There is no doubt that it is prevalent throughout our region and our watersheds. These extreme and unpredictable weather events can be related to disasters in the form of impacts on our forests, lakes, rivers, wetlands, fish and wildlife, and also, as many people have recently experienced, property destruction.

We can build resilience to a changing climate through proper planning and adaptation. Quinte Conservation developed a climate change strategy in 2016, recognizing the reality of extreme weather events related to flooding, drought and an increase in intense rainfall. Several action items have been developed with the aim of meeting our goal in helping our watershed residents both adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Natural infrastructure has a pivotal role in preventing and mitigating impacts of extreme weather events.

Collectively, conservation authorities own and protect 150,000 hectares of land, including forests, wetlands, areas of natural and scientific interest, recreational lands, natural heritage and cultural sites, as well as land for flood and erosion control. The forests, wetlands, moraines, grasslands and other natural features and ecosystems found throughout conservation authority lands help to prevent and reduce the harmful impacts of climate change. They protect and improve water quality, reduce flooding, act as drinking-water sources, increase biodiversity and provide healthy habitats for a wide range of wildlife, fish and birds. Conservation authorities play an important role in natural infrastructure protection, restoration and management in Ontario.

We see on a regular basis large-scale deforestation, which takes away the natural ability of water to be absorbed, retained and recharged slowly into the water budget. Protection measures are needed to help preserve forests. Forest cover allows for improved water quality, slows overland flow after extreme and intense rainfall, and in turn promotes infiltration into the groundwater. An increase in forest cover through such properly funded tree-planting programs as “50 million trees” is an important part of disaster mitigation. We have many partners, including municipalities and the private sector, and collectively plant close to 2.5 million trees per year. We partner with Ducks Unlimited Canada and alternative land use service programs to restore wetlands and other natural features.

There is a strong need to enhance and strengthen protection measures for all watercourses, wetlands and headwater drainage features. Wetlands provide benefits during drought and flood events. They store water, recharge ground water, allow sediments to deposit, and provide important habitat for fish and wildlife.

They help to slow water flow, improve water quality and sequester carbon. Urban watercourses in many areas consist of historically constructed concrete channels where water flow is restricted and is encouraged to flow as fast as possible. One step in flood mitigation can be addressed by allowing watercourses to use their natural flood plains, overflow their banks and slowly allow the water to move through the system.

Some areas that have already been urbanized will be difficult to mitigate. We need to encourage all levels of government to put a high priority on reviewing development applications so that development is in the right location. Flood plains and wetlands are not the place to allow development.

Conservation authorities support green infrastructure and low-impact development initiatives. We take a watershed management approach to planning and developing strategies for restoration and management. Disaster mitigation should include recovery programs where if homes are in flood plain areas, the government should require flood-proofing as a condition of funding. Where possible, rather than building on the same footprint, homes should be moved away from current and future predicted flood risks.

Programs should consider relocation funding rather than rebuilding. Investing in flood plain mapping and increasing the coverage of flood plain mapping will help with disaster mitigation and prevention. Some of the flood plain mapping equity conservation is from the 1970s. There have been significant changes in infrastructure and land use, and this impacts the accuracy of existing mapping.

In our region of Ontario, many watercourses do not have flood plain mapping. We require accurate and up-to-date flood plain mapping to guide in decision-making during development reviews.

Flood plain mapping needs to include flood scenarios to assist with emergency responses to public safety. For example, if a known area is susceptible to flooding and we have details regarding what flood levels occur at specific flow events, emergency responders will have the tools and information required to know where to direct resources.

We need to invest in more real-time models to better track specific events and see how storms will affect flood plains and the surrounding landscape, as well as invest in improvements to the existing precipitation, snow depth and flow monitoring networks. In a flood event, precipitation is typically the most unknown quantity and has the largest impact on flooding. Precipitation is the driver of flood events, so let's build a better network to monitor quantities.

Environment and Climate Change Canada is doing a good job with rating curves, which are basically the relationship between water height and flow. However, we need to continue to improve their accuracy and expand the monitoring network. Although dams and infrastructure are not necessarily natural, they play a very important role in disaster mitigation. Investing in flood control and water management structures provides value during extreme events by capturing run-off and controlling the release when appropriate to reduce the timing of peak flows.

They also are important in reducing the impacts of drought when properly operated. However, reservoirs at these structures are limited to specific capacities and cannot be expected to be the only answer.

Dams have substantial public safety and operational risks and liability. Many structures need significant investment to avoid potentially worse flooding and drought impacts. In the Quinte region alone, we have 42 water management structures that require significant investment for major, minor and preventative maintenance. As we explore options for these structures, consideration will be given to de-commissioning and refurbishing to a natural dam design to allow for less financial needs in the future.

In summary, we know that climate change is directly impacting our weather and our communities. There is no better time than the present to start taking the necessary precautions, preparing for these impacts and ensuring that our country is prepared for the future. We need to promote forest preservation, support tree planting programs, and enhance and strengthen protection of watercourses, wetlands and headwater drainage features. We need to ensure that development is located in the right place, not in flood plains and wetlands.

The natural environment has built-in mechanisms to mitigate extreme weather. We need to allow these features to function properly and allow intense rainfall to flow into the natural flood plains of lakes, rivers and wetlands. Urban stormwater management facilities can help, but protection of wetlands and flood plains is a better solution. We need to invest in enhanced and expanded flood plain mapping coverage, continue to invest in improved real-time models to track storm events and continue to invest in improvements to precipitation, snow depth and flow monitoring networks.

Canada needs to be a leader in addressing the impacts of severe weather events. This committee is tasked with an important focus that cannot be ignored.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you. There is almost 30 seconds left. We appreciate it.

Mr. Keen, we'll go over to you for your 10-minute opening statement, please.

[Rob Keen, Chief Executive Officer, Forests Ontario]

Thank you very much.

It is a real pleasure to be here today. It's a hazard of being the third speaker that a lot of good comments have already been made, so I'll try to avoid stating those yet again.

In terms of a few of the high points, I think one of the things that I'm hoping you heard was the importance of ensuring the natural infrastructure. There are certainly, particularly in southern Ontario, a lot of threats to our natural infrastructure—to our wetlands, to our grasslands and certainly to our forests.

Certainly, here in southern Ontario, we see development pressures and agricultural pressures constantly impeding those natural infrastructures and, as a result, I think, we have seen an increase in the flooding in this particular area. One thing of interest to note is that the flooding situation is not new to Ontario. In fact, some hundred years ago, flooding was a rather natural occurrence. Well, not natural: it occurred because of the heavy deforestation that occurred throughout southern Ontario, with the land being stripped forests and trees. Certainly, thereupon, we saw an increased amount of flooding through much of southern Ontario.

There was a fellow by the name of Zavitz, a forester, who more than a decade ago recognized that the solution to this was to plant trees, so he started planting trees—well over a billion—throughout southern Ontario to address the flooding situation. Today, you can see throughout the moraines that a lot of the sand-flats that used to be there are now treed and moving into natural forests. It has worked. It sustained and reduced the amount of flooding from what occurred back in that period, but we're seeing it again now with the constant influx of development. We're seeing areas stripped away. I see that in eastern Ontario 600 acres of forest has been stripped for agricultural purposes.

This is not sustainable. Unfortunately, these types of cash crops have a long-lasting impact on our natural environment, and there need to be some incentives created to encourage landowners to keep trees on their property and/or to establish more trees on their property.

In Ontario, we certainly have programs such as the managed forest tax incentive program and the conservation land tax incentive program. These reduce the taxes that landowners have to pay for those properties. Also, we had a program called the 50-million tree program, which reduced the landowners' costs of planting trees on their property. From my perspective, if we as a society expect landowners to provide their lands and to put trees on their property and create that societal benefit, we need to encourage them to do so, and that's by reducing the costs for the landowners.

These are the kinds of programs that are essential to making sure that we have that natural infrastructure in the future.

I think we recognize that with wildfires—Kate touched on this quite well—we have seen an increase. Just to speak to that briefly in terms of what can happen, I think there has been an increase in wildfires, primarily because of the increase in drought. As well, we as a society have tried to fight fires for decades by putting out relatively small fires. What's happening now is that we're getting a certain situation where you have drought, high winds and an incredible fuel load, and now these fires are the so-called perfect storm and we can't put them out. We see fires such as Parry Sound 33, which burned well over 11,000 hectares. That was well over 11,000 hectares of fire. There was a fire up in Temagami of about 33,000 hectares.

Although fires are a natural phenomenon in our ecosystems and there are a lot forests that depend on fire, you need to realize that these fires are far more severe than the natural ground-burning type of fires. Because of that, they're scorching the soils and increasing the amount of erosion that will occur after the fire. It's incumbent upon us as a society, I think, to get in there and do something to get those forests established back on that land.

There are various aspects to this that we need to look at. As I originally started to speak to in my comments, in a large part of this, trees are the answer. We've known that trees provide incredible benefits for society, from sequestering carbon, as Kate mentioned—and not just reducing carbon emissions, but actually sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere—to all the other values that they provide. I think it's just incumbent upon us to look towards methods and means to ensure that we keep those forests on our landscape.

Certainly with forest management, utilizing the wood products that come out of our sustainably managed forests.... As Kate mentioned, we have the best-managed forests in the world here in Canada and certainly in Ontario. We should all recognize and be very proud of that. At the same time, we also need to realize that using wood products that are sustainably managed is good for the environment, and so we should be making sure that we promote that every time and at every opportunity we can.

Those are my comments for this afternoon. I tried to keep them brief because there have been some very good statements made already, and I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Excellent. Thank you to all three of you for those very thoughtful and thought-provoking opening comments. I look forward to some great conversation.

I want to welcome Mr. Shipley to our committee.

It's good to see you back here.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

It's good to be here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We'll start off with Mr. Bossio.

You have six minutes.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you for those great presentations. It's great to have you here today for this very important discussion.

I'd like to start with Brad. It's great to see you again. I saw you a couple of weeks ago for a great announcement at Quinte Conservation about a $250,000 federal investment being made into drought management to help better understand, manage and monitor the situations that we experienced in 2016. Maybe you can give us a description of why this is so important, especially today with the advent of climate change and as we try to find ways to adapt and mitigate.

[Bradley McNevin]

That funding is very important. Our conservation authority is represented by 18 municipalities, and this funding is going to help prepare drought management plans for all 18 of those municipalities, to have them better prepared.

We're in a situation in which the Quinte region has, I'll say, a limited supply of groundwater—there's a lot of fractured bedrock—so most regions really depend on sustained rainfall to recharge groundwater. This funding will allow us to look closely at each of our municipalities and to help them be prepared for the next drought that will be impacting our local residents. We'll look at individual landowners from certain perspectives. The plan is more developed on a municipal basis, but we'll be talking to landowners, forming some steering committees and really reaching out to the public to engage them in the process.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

The vast majority of people who live in our region, Hastings County, rely on wells—

[Bradley McNevin]

That's correct.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

—for their water, so it's vitally important in a region like ours, which has a vulnerable aquifer, to have both a drought and a flood management capability. When we have floods, of course, those wells also become contaminated. They get dry under one condition and then they become contaminated in other conditions. Thank you so much for the really important work that you guys do at Quinte Conservation in helping us to better understand how we can adapt to the changing conditions we're faced with.

I'd like to go to Rob now.

Rob, you talked about the impacts of trees—and actually I want to read a quote, because it's a really powerful quote from you. You said, “We need to realize that to have a healthy economy and a healthy society, we need healthy forests. To have healthy forests for our future, we need to plant more trees.”

To date, the 50-million tree program has planted 27 million trees, so you're more than halfway there. With our 15,000 hectares of new forest, on average, every year the program has planted 2.5 million trees on approximately 4,000 properties. According to the environment commissioner's report, average forest coverage in southern Ontario stands at around 26%, with some areas seeing as low as 5% forest cover. The report identified that 30% of lands need to be planted with trees to restore the forest cover in southern Ontario to optimal levels. That equates to 680,000 hectares.

So just how devastating is the cutting of this program? I guess you've talked a little bit about not planting them, and the problem of a lack of forest. Maybe you could expand on that.

[Rob Keen]

Sure.

To add a little bit more to the percentages you were providing, Environment Canada put out a report a few years ago called “How Much Habitat is Enough?”. It's in its third edition now and speaks to the need for at least 40% forest cover for the forest to sustain itself in a healthy manner. If you get anything less than that, particularly when we see climate change advancing, forests will feel the effects of climate change. They won't be able to adapt as readily to climate change. You need to have that large, healthy, contiguous, diverse forest in order to adapt as we see climate change progressing.

With regard to the cancellation of the 50-million tree program, yes, it's quite devastating. It was the largest afforestation tree planting program in Ontario.

To qualify afforestation from reforestation, the forest industry is required under law, under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, to regenerate any areas they harvest. Part of that could be due to planting. With the work that we're doing....

That's for Crown lands. That's part of the forest industry. It's just regular business. They'll plant 60 million to 80 million trees per year in northern Ontario on Crown public lands to fulfill their legal agreements.

The areas that we're planting are due to afforestation, which is essentially establishing new forest cover. This is done in abandoned agricultural fields or some municipal lands that traditionally haven't had forests on them. We're creating new forest cover with this program.

Certainly with the loss of the 50-million tree program, there is no other program that services large-scale tree planting to the tune of two and a half million to three million trees per year for southern Ontario to regenerate these areas to get that forest cover up to 40%. It's extremely devastating.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you very much for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're going next to Monsieur Godin.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us.

In this committee, we want to know what can be done to limit natural disasters. We're aware that climate change exists. You would need to be blind to fail to see or notice it. It's important for you to be here so that we can do our job properly.

I'll start by asking Ms. Lindsay from the Forest Products Association of Canada some questions.

You painted a beautiful picture of Canadian forests. You showed us that Canada has done a great deal in the past to protect its forests. You mentioned some solutions such as bioplastics, biofuel and another item that I unfortunately didn't note. What more could we do? We're leaders, but natural disasters still occur. What more can we do, as federal parliamentarians, to try to protect our planet? I think that forests are an important part of protecting our planet.

[Kate Lindsay]

Thank you. That's an excellent question.

I think there is a bit of a paradigm shift that needs to happen. I completely support what Rob has mentioned about trees being the answer. Having productive, working, healthy forests will do a lot to mitigate catastrophic fire and consequential flooding.

Flooding is a bit more complicated. I would suggest that, given climate change, given that we are in these natural disturbance-driven ecosystems, what we've learned from the past is not necessarily going to guide our future.

If we're having hotter fires with more serious burning, I think we need to look at a few things. One is doing vulnerability assessments. This is something that NRCan, Natural Resources Canada, provides some funding for right now. We would encourage it to expand that funding. That is for provinces, forest management companies, regions, community-managed forests, to understand what their vulnerabilities are. That will be different in different regions. It may be drought, it may be wildfire, it may be pest outbreaks, depending on where you are. It may be a combination of those.

It's actually a Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, CCFM, mandate framework vulnerability assessment. It walks an organization through what the steps are: “What are my vulnerabilities, given climate change, and then what are my options to adapt to those to further mitigate them?” Some of them are no-regret options; really, they're just the right things to do. Some of them will require more money, more investment.

Some of them may require policy changes. For instance, some jurisdictions have a fairly prescribed set of what trees you can plant and where you can plant them. Perhaps we may say, let's plant some adapted seed stock that may come from a little further south that we weren't allowed to plant before. We know that particular seed tree is going to be adapted to the future climate. It might be drought resistant. It might be pest resistant, etc. I'm not talking about genetically modified trees; I'm talking about natural seed stock that's been adapted.

I think there are some excellent things we can look at and that the federal government could be supportive of.

Then, I also think we need to look at the FireSmart concept. That's at the community level. It needs to be expanded, because some of those same principles may not apply to a much larger landscape. For instance, when our forest managers go into a community forum to manage forests, particularly in British Columbia right now, communities will say that they have to leave those forests because of visual quality constraints, or they have to leave the trees because of a deer winter range. All of these are important values and what we call “constraints on the landscape”.

However, now the community is saying that they'd prefer to mitigate the risk of wildfire: “I don't want to have to evacuate my town. Can we look at going in there and thinning some of those forests and treating some of those forests, so we have a better mitigation plan so we don't have a catastrophic fire come through?” Some of that wood might be used.... We might pull the residue out, the fuel out, and that can be used for a biofuel or a bioproduct.

I think there are lots of things we can do, but it requires looking at things a little differently from how we have in the past, having an honest conversation about values, and having fire and flooding risk as part of that analysis.

Thank you.

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Lindsay.

I'll hurry up and ask one last question, before the chair calls me back to order.

You spoke of a pilot project that you and a company whose name escapes me launched in 2008 in Jasper National Park, managed by Parks Canada. In 2008, we were already aware of climate change. You said in your introduction that you had achieved your objectives for this pilot project. What were these specific objectives and over how many years did your project take place so that you could measure their achievement?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

A very brief response. We're at the end of the six minutes.

[Kate Lindsay]

Okay.

It's still early, but the objectives set out by Parks Canada were to mitigate the fire risk, and also a number of other values, as far as wildlife habitat, soil, maintenance of soil, coarse woody debris are concerned—a lot of technical aspects.

It was, I would say, an element of a logging operation that took extreme care. The objectives were met in the length of the contract to pull out the amount of wood—the diseased trees—that would mitigate the risk for the town of Jasper. Also, all the follow-up assessments and audits by Parks Canada and the regulators have shown that the operation was done by Canfor in a way that met their objectives as far as maintenance of soil and habitat is concerned.

As far as mitigating long term, I think we'll have to wait and see whether those firebreaks are in fact successful.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Stetski, you're next for six minutes.