Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 16th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you, Bradley, for being here. I really enjoyed your testimony and I really liked your comments about respecting the power of insects. I'm a biologist. I have two brothers who are entomologists, so through osmosis I've learned a bit about insects, at least as much as I can.

I'm from the southern interior of British Columbia, where it's very dry, with ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. There is that real history there of indigenous firekeepers and that land management system that has unfortunately been very disrupted.

I'm just wondering if you could comment. I'm not aware in British Columbia of any indigenous forest practices that are really incorporated into the provincial forest practices. Do you have anything you could add there? Does that occur somewhere?

[Bradley Young]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Cannings.

You have some of the jagged outcomes of colonization and the current administrative structures there, but I'm not going to critique that.

What I'm going to say is that British Columbians are slowly figuring it out. You have eight million cubic metres of tenure held by indigenous groups in B.C. There are a plethora of different types of legal provincial agreements under which these indigenous groups hold the forest management rights for tenure. In each of those cases, even though there are things on paper, there are things off paper that these indigenous groups, together with the regional forest managers, do to learn from each other, because there's a human dimension to it. There's what's on paper, but then there's what is happening when you get regional forest managers and indigenous leaders and elders sitting down and negotiating over time.

That has to be strengthened, sir, and I think you point to the fact that there has to be a strengthened role for indigenous knowledges, histories and past experiences with insect forcing and climate changes that have happened in the past. That has to be brought into the management mix. Is the response going to be the same? Of course not, because the landscape has changed. People have changed. Community patterns have changed, so that's where you need that adaptive and syncretic approach, and you just need that basic respect.

I think we have that now in Canada. Even despite some of the more dramatic headlines that we have in terms of indigenous and non-indigenous relations, when you actually look at it and see what's happening in the business world and on the ground between common people, there's a reflection that no one's going anywhere here in Canada. We just have to get together, roll up our sleeves and figure this out.

You, the Parliament of Canada, have a very special role, gentlemen and gentleladies. You have to set aside some resources. You have to let that federal plow bring in the provincial energy, the business energy and the energy from our regions, and let them tackle not only this issue, but the other issues in the forest sector and the natural resource sector. That's hopefully the approach that the committee will take and that we can get the civil service and governments to move into.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you for that.

In terms of central British Columbia, we have a lot of indigenous groups that were severely impacted by the mountain pine beetle infestation and the fires that followed. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts or input—or if there is any indigenous input going on now—as to what we can do now to build the forest that will grow from there. Are we going to repeat the mistakes of the past and just plant a lot of lodgepole pine? Is there any indigenous input to build the forest resilience that we really need to make our forests healthy for centuries to come?

[Bradley Young]

There are the beginnings of it. There are some good indigenous organizations working with the provincial ministry of forests and natural resources, the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council and, in the interior, some of the tribal councils. Stuwix forest management and some of the Nlaka'pamux groups are forging new ways of talking about and doing things on the land.

Is it formalized? Is it settled in terms of the provincial guidebooks being changed? I would say no. That story is still being written, but the trajectory is clear. The arc of history is clear. As Martin Luther King says, it's long but it points towards justice. It points towards doing things just a bit better every day, no offence to anybody. We can improve on what our ancestors, indigenous and non-indigenous, have done. That's happening.

Is it happening enough? I know that with the change of government there have been better talks, but I think that Keith Atkinson and some of the other indigenous leaders in the region, including Terry Teegee, vice-chief of BCAFN, who is a forester from the interior, could give you a really detailed answer on what could be improved. I would say there's no doubt that the provincial B.C. forest ministry would have questions, too, and would ask how we can improve.

It's a matter of resourcing that and creating the table space where those solutions can come.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I guess we're going to have the B.C. people here after you, so we can ask them that.

You mentioned a number for the actual cubic metres of indigenous tenure in B.C., or maybe it was.... I'm not sure. You mentioned percentages from the other provinces. What's the percentage for B.C.?

[Bradley Young]

I'll put it up on the screen, and my apologies to the committee members who don't understand English.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

I just need the number.

[Bradley Young]

Yes. The numbers are shown on the screen. Offhand, there are about 69 million cubic metres of commercial tenure in B.C. First nations have about eight million cubic metres of that, or 11%, a national best. As B.C.'s provincial forest is more or less equal to all the other provincial forests, 11% of B.C. is quite a lot. It's eight million cubic metres, which is a national high-water point.

Is the type of tenure right? Do there need to be some big changes? I would say yes, but the B.C. provincial forestry ministry and the indigenous leaders there will have the detailed information on what they need changed and where their disagreements are. It is clear that there are disagreements, but that's okay. You get that with anything you do in life. You just have to improve where you can and push forward.

That is the reality in B.C. I think there needs to be more manufacturing, indigenous manufacturing, because then you'll get regional business leaders and the regional governmental regulatory leaders on the non-indigenous side seeing the benefit of the indigenous prescriptions that these groups can come up with.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Hehr, go ahead.

[Kent Hehr, Calgary Centre, Lib.]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Young not only for coming, but for the tremendously detailed and interesting topic that he discusses and how he brings it out in a very relevant, easy-to-understand fashion. I find it very pleasant to hear you speak and actually be able to understand the way you communicate. That's refreshing.

You mentioned climate change six times in your presentation and how it has changed the landscape, how it has changed your area of the world. I come from a land of Treaty No. 7 people and the Métis region 3 in Calgary. I'm the member of Parliament for Calgary Centre, and we've seen how the mountain pine beetle has affected that area. We had experts who say that climate change results in the inability to have so many nights of freezing weather in the evenings to keep that man îcosak at the rate of change that it was previously.

You and I were talking earlier, and you were talking about even more man îcosak coming out and filling your neighbourhood and other areas in Canada. Can you talk about that a bit, the emerging of what we call “pests”, our word, or man îcosak, your word?

[Bradley Young]

Yes. Thank you for that, Mr. Hehr. It's man îcosak. I really appreciate the attempt at our language. It shows great respect for this experiment we call Canada.

So the man îcosak and the different forcings that we've noticed.... We have stories of different insect families overwhelming the landscape at different times. And everyone here knows, I think, the biblical stuff on that as well. It's not just here on Turtle Island; it's also in Africa and in Europe where you have the plagues of locusts. These are big, human, epic-changing events that can happen from the little ones if you don't respect the natural environment.

With climate change, we aren't facing the cold that we used to have in Canada quite as much. I'm in my early forties now. When I was a child, we had weeks of minus 40°C weather. Toronto barely had snow last year. You have these wild variations, but in general, we know it's gotten warmer in Canada. The children don't have to shovel as much, notwithstanding here in Ottawa when we get the northern Golden Horseshoe effect. But in general, Canadians aren't shovelling.

When you get a warming environment, bugs survive in the bush a bit more. That's something for people to reflect on. That's what we're noticing in the regions and in the indigenous forest. All the elders are saying that the insect life, the bug life is changing. It's unbalanced. A lot of it has to do with our winters not coming in and killing off the larval stages of insects.

[Kent Hehr]

Thank you so much.

We know that man îcosak do not respect civic boundaries, provincial boundaries, Treaty No. 7 boundaries and the like. They go where they need to go or want to go. How is it that the indigenous communities are able to work with provincial, federal and other bands, shall we say, or to impact the United States? Are you finding those avenues of communication open?

[Bradley Young]

I'd say we work very well together, and sometimes not at all. But I think there's a reflection now that people, at a minimum, have to talk at all levels of government. It doesn't matter what kind of political stripe you come from, because the insects and the ecological energetic flows don't follow human administrative boundaries. In most landscapes, the energetic flows largely follow how the wind and the water move. The physical geography contains the energetic flows.

That's what you will find historically on Turtle Island with the different riparian systems. You had the different indigenous confederacies controlling.... For example, there was the Iron Confederacy of the Cree, the Ojibway and the Nakota Sioux, with the northern Saskatchewan watershed, going from the mountains all the way up to James Bay, Hudson Bay. You had that logical political confederation there and they looked at the energetic flows within that. It was a different time, a different era, but that's how collaboration happened in the past.

I would suggest that this is actually highly scientific, and that's how our political entities.... We have some of these experiences with the Great Lakes Commission and the different cross-border commissions. It's not perfect in today's political environment, but the political environment changes, gentlemen and gentleladies, and I think we should always be bringing it back to the science and seeing how human beings actually worked with that in the past.

[Kent Hehr]

You were talking about businesses and the opportunities that lie out there. You also said at the start of your speech that we have sometimes been referred to as “hewers of wood and drawers of water”, and how we want to change that. Under Minister Bains, our government is putting a lot into innovation and into what we call the scaling-up of businesses to do more of that processing and packing of finished goods.

Are you finding that indigenous communities are able to connect with opportunities like this, with ways to scale up and not only use better forest management practices to ensure a healthier forest, but take advantage of all the business opportunities right here at home in Canada?

[Bradley Young]

I think the innovation focus is great in this government. Indigenous groups are ready for more innovation supports. I think it has to be improved regionally, because as we all know, the business environment of each indigenous region and each provincial region in Canada varies according to inputs and capital structure—in this case, what the nature of the forest is and how far it is from transportation.

In general, you see a trend for indigenous peoples to want to move into—and they are moving into—advanced manufacturing. This is where the trade agreements and the innovation funds that are set up should take a look at some indigenous set-asides. They should be reaching out through their regional arms to the indigenous business groups across Canada. There are good ideas. I know from talking with the various business leaders of first nations entities that they're interested in the innovation funds and in the planned Canadian climate action fund, but there needs to be some assistance there and some catalytic activity happening. That's what the civil service is for, both provincially and federally.

I think we have the formula right. I think there are things in there that need to be adjusted. Of course, I'm always going to say we should have more indigenous supports. In terms of capital flows, I'm just—

Yes, we're talking about pests, Mr. Hehr. We're going way deep into business.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

We're going to have to stop you there.

[Kent Hehr]

That was a good answer, Brad.

[Bradley Young]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Aboultaif, you have five minutes.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Edmonton Manning, CPC]

Thanks for being here this morning.

Of the 347 million hectares of forest in Canada, about 5% is affected by insects, less than half a per cent by fire, and even less than that by harvest. This report is quite clear. I travel to British Columbia every year. I drive for 10 hours to Kelowna and Penticton from Edmonton. I see the problems—the mountain pine beetle and the effect on forestry—at all levels.

I have a report here from Natural Resources Canada, which came from the Library of Parliament. It's showing that forest areas affected by the MPB in Canada in 2005-2015 went from a little above eight million hectares down to below two million hectares in 2015.

Can you help me understand this chart? If I am to look at it and try to understand why the effect per hectare is going down significantly within 10 years, I would look into two areas: Either we're doing a good job in dealing with the problem, or there's migration from area to area—maybe from western Canada toward eastern Canada. That definitely presents a bigger problem.

Do you have that report? Do you believe in this observation? How can we understand it better? Having you as an expert, especially from the indigenous community.... My belief has always been that if anyone can understand our nature well, our land and landscape, it would be the indigenous community.

[Bradley Young]

Sir, you have me at a bit of a disadvantage because I don't have that report in front of me, but I get the point that you can read some of the statistics in different ways. You get an appreciation that what's on paper is quite different from what the situation in the forest actually is.

Let's say you pose that question to a community that hasn't had a fire in its area for 50 years. There are big, beautiful, mature lodgepole pines, and they're green. It just looks perfect. That community doesn't have to worry. Guess what: You have the big energetic increases, through temperature, into our forests. You have the insect forcings that are already there in B.C., and they're moving. To say that it's happened in the past, so we shouldn't do anything now.... I think that might work in terms of a theoretical argument. If you had talked to the people in Fort McMurray after the town burned down and asked them whether they would have changed things in the forest around them before the fire, if they could, I think the people of Alberta, the people in Fort Mac and the indigenous groups there, would all have said, “We could have done things a little differently.”

It's one thing to look at high theory, to have a theoretical disagreement and to look at statistics, but it's another to know that at the end of the day there are real communities and businesses out there that are potentially at risk. I take the point, though, that there is a theoretical, academic debate. It's an interesting debate, but I don't think we have any more time for that—and we don't have any more time for that in my answer right now, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Actually, you're absolutely right. We don't have any more time for that now.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!