Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 28th, 2011

[Mark Corey]

Mr. Chair, for the time being, the government has announced that it will renew the program this year only. That's the only announcement made by the government. That means that the program is renewed for the year 2011-2012. It's only for one year.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Until March 30, 2012?

[Mark Corey]

Until March 31, that's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Day and Mr. Lapointe.

We go now to the government side, and Mr. Anderson, for up to five minutes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this is probably for Mr. Rosser in particular. I want to come back to China and what we're doing there. You're putting more money into the forest innovation program and expanding market opportunities program. Can you talk about what specific products account for the great increase in our shipments to China?

Secondly, talk about what things we're doing to try to convince them to use wood. The minister addressed this to some extent, but maybe you could expand on that.

[Tom Rosser, Assistant Deputy Minister, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources]

Sure. Thank you for the question.

Regarding our forest product exports to China, as the minister described, we've seen very rapid growth, both on the pulp and paper side, particularly pulp products, and also on the wood products side. On the wood products side, there is a mix of products, but the bulk of that would be lumber. What's particularly exciting about the growth we see on the wood products side, and the minister alluded to this, is that although China has a long history of building with wood, it has been latent in recent years. Through the Canada wood export program, we have been actively promoting wood construction—that is, the use of wood products in traditional Chinese building techniques—with significant success. It's a demand that we in partnership with the provinces and industries have helped to create, by encouraging the Chinese to use more wood in their building practices. We've seen significant progress in that regard.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Is our goal then to get them to use wood as we traditionally do in our kind of construction, or are you talking about their traditional beam construction, using their methods? What's our longer-term goal here? Is it just to get them using wood for whatever way they want to use it, or are we trying to show them that the way it's used in North America is a very logical way for them to look at improving their construction?

[Tom Rosser]

It's a bit of both. Of course, in North America wood gets used in a variety of different types of construction, but primarily in residential construction. In China, of course, you tend to have much higher population densities, much more multi-family housing. So in many cases we've had to adapt our products and our building technologies to their circumstances. For example, we've had projects to build roofs out of wood on five- and six-storey apartment buildings as opposed to concrete or other materials. For example, regarding roof trusses, we've worked with affordable housing authorities in China to try to get them to use wood in interior walls.

So in some cases it's a transfer of traditional North American building practices to the Chinese context; in other cases we're adapting our products to their circumstances and realities.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

What's NRCan's role in the building code development in Canada and then what role have you been playing in these other countries such as China and Japan? The minister alluded to that as well.

[Tom Rosser]

In the overseas context, we do fund programs in partnership with industry and provinces to do work on codes and standards to actively promote wood construction. In addition to that, in China and other target markets we maintain a government to government relationship, working with them on codes and standards. Of course, the use of wood in any construction, or construction in general, is governed by building codes worldwide. So government plays an important role in determining how and where wood can be used. In many cases, with governments in Japan, China, and elsewhere, we will have a government to government dialogue around building codes and standards, often in conjunction with other federal agencies.

In a domestic context the National Research Council is responsible for the model national building code; but again, we work with them on making sure that wood is appropriately recognized in the model national building code.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

How are we partnering with industry then? We have two different programs there, including the forest product innovation program. I have been to one of the labs, and you can see the remarkable work that's being done there, but I'm also wondering about of the market opportunities program. What's the role of industry, what's the role of government, in those programs?

[Tom Rosser]

We co-fund what is called the Canada Wood Group. So there are federal, provincial, and industry contributions that go to a not-for-profit organization that administers offices—in the case of China, in Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai, as well as offices in Europe, South Korea, and Japan.

Beyond the funding model in the organization there's also robust cooperation on government to government dialogue. When Minister Oliver was in China, for example, he sat down with Premier Clark of British Columbia and some senior industry representatives with senior representatives of the Chinese ministry of housing and urban development to talk about some of these codes and standards issues.

So there is a formal partnership through the Canada Wood Group in terms of funding and governance; but more generally, there's a wider-ranging partnership with industry and provincial governments on related initiatives.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

In my role in agriculture, I had a chance to go to Japan and see some of the work that we've been doing there in terms of branding our Canadian food and how successful that's been. Do you want to talk a little about how we've been branding Canadian wood and some of the certification programs that are involved in that?

[Tom Rosser]

Certainly we do have initiatives in partnership with industry to brand Canadian forest products as environmentally preferred. One of the selling points of wood construction is that on a life-cycle basis, wood construction tends to have a lighter energy and environmental footprint than alternative building materials.

Another major selling point of wood construction is that it has very good seismic properties. Wood buildings tend to fair very well in an earthquake. That is a major attraction of wood frame construction in earthquake-prone regions of the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

We go now to the official opposition.

Madame Day, you have up to five minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Do I have seven or five minutes, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Yes, you have five minutes.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm going to digress from the ecoENERGY program to ask a question.

Mr. Trost, you asked the minister a question earlier about regulation, since this is a subject that affects you closely. In committee, businesses often come back to training, agreements with the first nations, infrastructure needs and obsolete energy systems. We're always adding on-site processing, in Canada, primary processing, which we're very committed to.

How will the government promote policies to try and achieve these overall goals of businesses? They've all stressed these points.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Who's going to take this question?

Mr. Rosser, go ahead, please.

[Tom Rosser]

Maybe I can talk about our efforts to promote innovation and the production of value-added products in the forestry sector, if that can help answer your question.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm talking about the mining sector and development in the far north.

[Tom Rosser]

That's fine.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I'm going to ask you another question.

Apart from the ecoENERGY program, what is your department's overall financial strategy for combating climate change and developing energy efficiency in Canada?

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, Mr. Corey.

[Mark Corey]

Mr. Chairman, again, the leadership on climate change is obviously with the Minister of the Environment, but Natural Resources Canada does play a role in it.

As we mentioned before, there is $469 million in spending in the renewed ecoENERGY programs, which are in supplementary estimates (B). They were actually only introduced in the budget, which is why they're coming here now. Those programs are in fact all targeted at improving Canada's energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I'll give you some specifics. On the ecoENERGY efficiency program, we'll be spending $35.6 million. On the marine renewable energy enabling measures, we'll be spending $534,000. On the clean energy policy group, we'll be spending about $2 million—again, directly related to policy issues around clean energy. On the ecoENERGY for alternative fuels, there will be $735,000. On the ecoENERGY innovation initiative--this is the one where there is a lot of research and development--we'll be spending $31.2 million. And as we mentioned, the largest program in the bunch, coming in at just under $400 million, is the ecoENERGY home retrofit program.

These are some of the things our department is doing directly to encourage the use of clean energy, increase energy efficiency, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.