Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, members of the committee. On behalf of the Corporation agro-forestière Trans-Continental I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Natural Resources for having invited us to speak about the challenges facing the forest industry. The main issues in this context of globalization are economic, social and environmental issues.
I would like to start by saying that I did not speak to the economic impact in Quebec of plant closures and thousands of job losses. Mr. Asselin spoke to this earlier. Because I have a limited amount of time, I did not address this in my brief. I focused rather on the kind of action that must be taken in order to resolve this situation.
The Corporation agro-forestière Trans-Continental is a collective, a forestry association that includes more than 450 voluntary members including owners and shareholders. Therefore, this is a collective enterprise.
Our mission includes intensive forest management, both private and public forests, and the creation and an increase in socio-economic activities stemming from natural resources in rural areas, more specifically the maintenance and increase of quality employment. Furthermore, we are also partners with the NBG sawmills group and the Bégin & Bégin hardwood group. Both plants are 50% owned by woodlot owners. That is rare in Quebec and in Canada. The communities and the woodlot owners own more than 50% of that plant.
I'd like to explain the terms that I will be using. Our goals involve intensive forest management, labour, industrial development and forest certification.
Allow me to begin with intensive forest management. The forestry industry depends on one main resource: wood. For an industry to be competitive, it has to have a sufficient supply of quality wood in order to meet market needs. Intensive forest management on lands with high wood production potential will increase the productivity of our forests and protect other resources. Furthermore, a healthy forest will also capture carbon. That is not trivial. It has been scientifically proven that more wood production results in less greenhouse gas emissions.
Private forest in Quebec provide more than 20% of the wood to plants. These are forests that are close to communities and to mills. This therefore results in savings in transportation and reduction in greenhouse gas production. I mentioned greenhouse gases earlier. If wood is transported over long distances, greenhouse gases are produced. This type of forest has the highest production potential and forestry workers can earn a decent living from it.
Nonetheless, it is essential that funding to private forest be increased in order to meet intensive forest management goals. A study on the impact of public investment in private forest was undertaken by the Université Laval together with the Canadian Model Forests Network. It showed that public spending on private forest management is a structuring investment for the government. You can find this study on the Canadian Model Forests Networks website. I also have a copy of the study with me.
For those reasons and many others, we recommend that the Canadian Department of Natural Resources invest in intensive forest management program for private forests in Canada. In Quebec, we have a program for private forests. However, additional amounts are necessary in order to meet expected outcomes, that is, an increase in the quantity and quality of stable supply at competitive prices for our forestry industries. Cost of fibre constitutes a significant part of the industry's production costs. If fibre costs go down, then those costs also go down. In order to achieve this, we need to increase the forestry potential of our lands.
With respect to labour in the forestry industry, I only dealt with one aspect, and that is aging workers. We have good training programs. However, we need a new generation of workers and we need to assist young people in going back to school in order to get the forest training they need. In Quebec, and elsewhere, the forestry crisis has led to an abandonment of this area. There are no young people going back to school.
Forestry workers, whether they be in mills or in the forest, are the cornerstone of our industry. They're all aware that the current crisis is disseminating the industrial sector: temporary or permanent shutdowns, consolidation, technological change, etc. Forestry labour is generally very experienced and its average age is often over 55 years. However, the majority of workers, especially those in the forest, have no retirement funds. They therefore have to work for a longer time period. A sylviculture worker, whether they be a logging seller or a brush cutter make a considerable physical effort. These people are going to require special assistance in order to be able to continue developing this collective wealth which is the forest.
We recommend creating a fund for forestry workers and plant workers who do not have a pension fund, under the national community development trust, that would take them to their retirement years in dignity, given the efforts they have made. This program should be set up with each of the provinces in order to meet the needs of their clients. The objective of the program is not to put them completely out of the loop, but to help them through the current crisis, because at this point in time, they are having trouble working a sufficient number of weeks to be eligible for employment insurance benefits.
I will now talk about industrial development. The value-added forestry resources industry is a very important sector for the economic development of many communities. Thousands of jobs are directly tied to it, both in plants as well as in the forest. There are many others that are indirectly related, such as the transportation and building of processing equipment for wood products.
Within the context of globalization and competition from emerging countries, we must face the challenge of increasing industry productivity by developing a strategy that is based on high value-added products. In order to do this, we will have to work very closely with all of the provinces.
We must understand that industry consolidation will not settle all of these problems, quite the contrary. As Mr. Asselin was saying, in our region, it is the smaller mills that are still open. The big mills are virtually all closed, for all kinds of reasons: their production costs are too high and very often, they are bringing their wood in from too far away. Ideally, we should invest in small communities so that they can make a living from this industry locally.
We recommend the following measures: adapt the investment programs for small- and medium-sized businesses; give refundable tax credits to businesses in the resource processing sector, particularly for those who turn to value-added; develop the wood, forestry biomass-based energy and bio-refinery sectors; and increase the use of wood as green material, particularly in public and commercial buildings, as a replacement for more energy-consuming, non-renewable and more heavily polluting materials.
One issue that will allow the forestry industry to set itself apart on the world stage will be to have a forestry sector that respects the criteria of sustainable development. Several countries require that the wood used in the construction of public buildings comply with these criteria. Forestry certification will allow us to meet these requirements. We believe that each province is responsible for having its public forests certified. However, the costs that the industry must bear to comply with certification standards are very high. Private woodlot owners must band together in order to lessen certification costs. It is very difficult to have a private forest certified because cost is so high. The owners must therefore set up a forestry cooperative.
We therefore recommend the following measures: the creation of a refundable tax credit program so that the industry can move forward with forestry certification; the setting up of technical assistance adapted to each region so that they can better meet certification criteria; the creation of a funding program for small private woodlot owners, in order to decrease certification costs.
In conclusion, the forestry management and forestry resources processing industry is and will remain an important pillar of the Canadian economy and that of its provinces. Currently, we are experiencing a crisis. We know that this is temporary; the wood will be resold in the form of other value-added products. However, manufacturers and small communities must take on responsibility for themselves and they will need assistance to do so. The forestry crisis will require major changes in our industry. The Government of Canada must support this industry so that it can make this critical change from tradition to innovation.
Thank you very much.