Good afternoon.
My name is Richard Briand. I am the Chief Forester for West Fraser's Alberta operations. I'm a registered professional forester in Alberta, with 27 years of experience working in Alberta's forests. I thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
West Fraser is a diversified North American wood products company, with 45 manufacturing facilities in western Canada and the southern United States. Our primary products include lumber, plywood, medium-density fibreboard, laminated veneer lumber, pulp, green energy, newsprint and wood chips.
We've been operating continuously in western Canada since 1955. We invested over $1 billion in our Canadian operations between 2013 and 2017, and continue to invest in 2018. We currently operate 25 mills across 10 communities in Alberta and eight communities in British Columbia. We have over 5,000 direct employees in Canada.
Due to the nature of our business, we operate in smaller communities and are often the primary employer in those communities. Communities such as Fraser Lake, B.C., with a population of 988, and Manning, Alberta, with a population of 1,183, depend on our company for employment, and we take great pride in being a stable, long-term employer.
The primary feedstock for our facilities is coniferous timber, predominantly lodgepole pine trees and white spruce trees. We are committed to sustainable forest management principles and manage for timber and non-timber values in our operating areas.
The current mountain pine beetle infestation in western Canada is having a significant negative impact on our operations. It is killing valuable timber—valuable not just from an economic perspective but also for a wide range of ecological goods and services such as water, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities and carbon sequestration.
The current mountain pine beetle infestation started in B.C. in 1999 and its effects are still being felt today. The two years of record-breaking wildfires in B.C. in 2017 and 2018 are, in part, a result of this infestation. The trees killed by mountain pine beetles contributed to volatile fire hazard conditions, and those fires threatened thousands of homes and impacted the lives and livelihoods of many residents of B.C.
The salvage of economically viable beetle-killed timber in B.C. is essentially complete, and reductions in timber harvest levels are imminent. This will result in mill closures and job losses.
In 2006 and 2009, significant in-flights of mountain pine beetles into Alberta occurred, resulting in the mountain pine beetle infesting parts of northern Alberta that had never seen the insect before. Prior to 2006, most experts believed that spreading of mountain pine beetles from B.C. into Alberta over the Rocky Mountains would never happen. They also believed that Alberta's colder climate would not be suitable for mountain pine beetle survival. They were wrong.
Immediately upon learning of the mountain pine beetle's spread into Alberta, the Alberta government initiated an aggressive control program and requested that companies alter their harvest plans to focus on susceptible pine. Recognizing the wisdom in this concept, in 2006 West Fraser embraced this new approach to forest management, called the “healthy pine strategy”. As a result, the vast majority of our timber harvest in the foothills since 2006 has been in pine-dominated stands, but we have also invested significant resources into direct control of infested stands through single-tree and stand-level operations. In recent years, all of our timber harvest in the west-central region of Alberta has been in stands infested by the mountain pine beetle.
Between 2007 and 2010, the federal government contributed just over $18 million towards control efforts in Alberta. To date, the Alberta government alone has invested over $487 million in direct control efforts. Interestingly, the Saskatchewan government has recognized the potential for spread of the beetle from Alberta into their province, and they have contributed over $5 million to Alberta's control efforts to stop the spread of the beetle into their province.
In terms of pine volume, if the mountain pine beetle breaks through Alberta into Saskatchewan, there are continuous pine types that will allow it to spread across the country to eastern Canada. Pine runs all the way to the east coast. It would be decimating vast tracts of pine forest along its way.
Research is showing that the mountain pine beetle can persist in Jack pine, which means that it can get through the Jack pine and lodgepole pine hybridization zone in northern Alberta and spread east. It is truly a national threat.
As recently as 2013, Jasper National Park had very low levels of mountain pine beetle infestation. However, limited action was taken to control that infestation, and it is now feeding mountain pine beetle into Alberta. The Hinton and Edson region of west-central Alberta was inundated by mountain pine beetle raining in from Jasper National Park at record-breaking levels for over two months. Typically, this would only happen over a two-week period.
The spread of the mountain pine beetle into our operating areas is putting our businesses at risk and will eventually put the very communities we operate in at economical and physical risk from wildfire. Without aggressive control, the mountain pine beetle will spread north and south along the critical watersheds of the east slopes of the Rocky Mountains, and it will also continue its steady march east into Saskatchewan and beyond.
Some of the impacts the outbreak will have on West Fraser include increased fire risk to the forests we depend on. Significant wildfires will reduce the available timber for our forestry operations and, again, put the communities we operate in at risk.
It will also result in the production of lower-value products by feeding dry, beetle-killed logs into our mills rather than fresh, green timber. This reduces the viability of our operations.
There will be increased costs and reduced production at our facilities due to limited forest resource availability. There will be fewer trees available for harvest if the mountain pine beetle has overrun our operating areas. Increased costs for logging and hauling dead timber will also be a result. There will likely be watershed impacts, which can damage our road infrastructure. As well, we will have to invest more into our facilities to be able to handle the dry logs that will be provided to our sawmills.
The situation in B.C. is very troubling but beyond our ability to do much, other than reconcile the remaining forest inventory, consolidate businesses and close some mills.
Due to the proactive and aggressive program in Alberta, we are not in the same situation as B.C. The program is well coordinated with industry and municipalities to ensure that control treatments are aligned, which we certainly appreciate. Resources for this program, however, appear to be tight. We believe that continued support of Alberta's program would be very beneficial.
We believe we need to continue with the aggressive control efforts, and we will also need some help from Mother Nature. Control efforts will slow the spread of the mountain pine beetle and allow government and industry to work together to manage the forests and mitigate the impacts of this pest. Slower spread rates will help maintain the economic viability of the timber resource, which means that we can harvest and then reforest pine beetle-infested stands, which will then support the many values they provide. Left unharvested, many of these areas will not regenerate until a wildfire burns through them.
It is a challenging situation, but through co-operative, coordinated actions we can have a significant impact on the spread of the mountain pine beetle.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present and provide our perspective on the mountain pine beetle.