Natural Resources Committee on April 28th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you.

We go to Mr. Bevington again from the official opposition and then finally to Ms. Block after Mr. Bevington.

Go ahead, please.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I think my colleagues have decided that I'm the one who should talk here today because of being northern development critic and a resident in the Northwest Territories. It's easy for me to talk about this subject and I'm pleased to do so.

In reality, right now, the 44,000 people in the Northwest Territories are using 10% of the pellet supply in Canada. If this becomes a trend across northern Canada where there are many more people than that who don't have access to natural gas services, would you say that the opportunities for the market for pellets in Canada, with the price of fuel oil what it is...? The BTU cost of pellets versus fuel oil is almost double. Fuel is almost double for BTU of the cost of pellets and they're very similar in terms of the way that they can be automated.

Do you see that there could arise a problem in the future where we need to develop these northern sources of pellets to ensure that we have a reliable supply? That's to the Northwest Territories.

[Evan Walz]

Yes, you're correct. The plan that's in place right now with this pellet mill in the southern part of the NWT would and could not only feed the demand in the north, but as things ramp up, it could provide to southern Canada. There is demand in southern Canada.

We are on the highway system, so transportation is perhaps not as much of a challenge. But right now, in its infancy, our focus is on trying to secure that mill to allow a domestic supply in the NWT. We'll deal with that first.

But Mr. Bevington is right; there is certainly demand beyond our borders in the Northwest Territories.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

To your knowledge, have there been any conversions of federal buildings in the north to wood pellets? It's something I've tried to work on down here, to encourage the federal government to get involved in this program.

[Evan Walz]

We're shaking our heads here.

We know that the territorial government has taken steps to convert a number of its buildings—schools—but none of us around the table has first-hand knowledge of any federal buildings that have moved to biomass fuel.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

That would be something that this committee could look at as an opportunity for the federal government, not only to reduce its cost but to provide a stimulus to an emerging northern economy.

[Evan Walz]

Yes, you're correct.

It would and it could provide yet another anchor client to help further develop and advance this industry as we go forward. Clearly anybody investing a significant amount of money in developing this industry will need solid blue-chip anchor clients. The more industrial or commercial-sized buildings that we can get on board, the better.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

I don't know if I have a lot more questions now. I think we've covered most of it.

I do think there are some more things to be said about the relationship with the forest fire situation. When we burned up three and a half million hectares of forest last year and the average burn across Canada for the last decade is two million hectares, you know we have significant resources that have been taken up by this.

Mr. Lepine, you talked about the timeframe to harvest. Is the government moving forward with a plan to deal with harvesting the fire-killed wood that's in these massive burns?

[Frank Lepine]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

Yes, we have been assessing burnt wood to ensure that it's a valuable fuel for biomass. But there is a certain point in time when it's no longer valuable; it becomes quite rotten and begins to fall and so on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

We go finally to Ms. Block, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Natural Resources.

Go ahead, please, Ms. Block. You have up to five minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to join my colleagues in thanking all of you for joining us on such short notice. This has worked very well, the teleconference. I don't think we were sure how it was going to go but it's gone very well. Thank you very much.

I want to go back to some of the comments that were made in the opening remarks.

Mr. Walz and Mr. Ross, respectively, you made comments about being on the cusp of developing the biomass industry and also introducing—I think this was Mr. Ross—a draft bioenergy strategy very recently.

I also understand that the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations are working with NRCan through the Canadian Forest Service aboriginal forestry initiative or AFI on a strategic approach to supporting forest-based economic development for aboriginal peoples across Canada and that in 2014-15 AFI is investing $80,000 in the sustainable use of biomass to drive local economic development. I understand as well that there are some factors driving this. First of all, there is the assessment of the cost of energy over time as well as a goal to reduce the use of imported energy products, notwithstanding industry's interest in seeing some value-added products for your area.

Is there any pan-territorial initiative ongoing right now that you would like the committee to be aware of or are there any partnerships and opportunities for pan-territorial initiatives? Lastly, what could the federal government do to help foster any sort of pan-territorial efforts?

Any one of you can answer that question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Go ahead, please, maybe someone from the Government of the Northwest Territories to start.

[Evan Walz]

I might throw this over to Bill and Frank. I know that at a pan-territorial level, just wearing another hat, there's some work under way on the greenhouse gas front. While we haven't talked a lot about that today, this technology and this industry does help us on that front as well.

I don't know if Frank or Bill wants to add anything to that on work they're aware of that's pan-territorial in nature or how the committee might help foster that sort of thing.

[William Mawdsley]

GNWT is aware of the AFI program and we do endeavour to, at least working with our aboriginal partners, make sure the opportunities that are available through that program are available to be accessed by our aboriginal partners. We would encourage the Government of Canada to continue to provide that on a pan-territorial basis.

In terms of the biomass strategy, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Yukon have been working together over the past number of years on looking into the biomass and bioenergy, greenhouse gas, biomass strategic direction, and the support that we can get from FPInnovations, and our partners in CFS. The Government of Canada is instrumental in making those programs work successfully, so we would like to see NRCan and the support for FPInnovations continue on a pan-territorial basis.

That's about all I can say about that right now. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Okay. Is there anything from the others from the Northwest Territories? If not, is there anything from the Government of Yukon.

[George Ross]

I would just observe for the committee that having a pan-territorial focus on the forestry industry is important from the Yukon's perspective. I think you heard today that there are a lot of similarities in the challenges and opportunities faced by the Yukon and the Northwest Territories when it comes to growing the forest industry. These challenges and opportunities are unique to the territories, quite different from what you will find in a more established traditional forest industry economy as you see in southern provinces.

I do think that having that kind of pan-territorial focus and understanding the unique dimensions of the challenges here are very important. Our focus, and we share this with the Northwest Territories, is really growing our local forest industry and linking that with the other policy imperatives of government such as energy strategy and other economic development strategies. I would just answer the question by saying I do think it's an important thing for us to have a northern forest sector strategy focus on this and to make sure that it's understood that it is unique from some of the other challenges facing the other parts of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Thank you, Ms. Block.

Thank you to all the witnesses once again; from the Dakwakada Development Corporation, Mr. MacDonald; from the Northwest Territories, Mr. Walz, Mr. Lepine, and Mr. Mawdsley; from the Government of Yukon, George Ross, and Lyle Dinn.

Thank you all so much. We really appreciate your input. It will be helpful to us in our study.

We will suspend the committee for a minute as we go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]