Thank you very much, Mr. Duguay.
I'm very pleased to be here with you.
My name is Mike Rosen. I'm the president of Tree Canada. I'm also a registered professional forester in Ontario, so I have some background knowledge. I've worked for 35 years in forestry, one way or the other.
Thank you so much for inviting us here to talk to you. What I want to talk to you about today is the dilemma that Canadians face. We're stewards of 10% of the world's forests. We are the forest nation. It's very important for our country, yet we're a very urban people. Over 82% of Canadians now live in cities and towns. This is the dilemma that we at Tree Canada try to wrestle with, if you will. It's how to reflect trees into the lives of people who are essentially urban people.
The committee had asked us to come in and speak about forest pests. I do want to touch briefly on those, because you've asked me specifically about the mountain pine beetle and the spruce budworm.
The mountain pine beetle is an interesting one for us, because it's a native insect that normally was controlled by low temperatures in the winter. We don't get those temperatures anymore. We get hot summers as well. It's meant that we've had a proliferation of mountain pine beetles beginning in 1996 in British Columbia. It absolutely decimated the lodgepole pine population of British Columbia. Then it crossed into the Rockies in 2006 and entered into Alberta. We were really lucky because we worked with the Province of Alberta on a program to actually replace residential trees on private land that were killed as a result of the mountain pine beetle.
There are a number of things that can be done to try to limit the infestation of the mountain pine beetle but it's incredibly difficult, just as it's difficult with the spruce budworm. Spruce budworm is another native insect. It functions on a 35- to 40-year cycle, but it's really predicated on mature balsam fir, overmature balsam fir. Unfortunately, balsam fir is not a tree that a lot of mills like to use. It's an underutilized species, if you will.
There are some things that the industry can do to protect trees until they're ready to harvest, but it's mainly a stop-gap measure. It's really an insect that ecologically has a purpose in the forest and is on a cyclical basis.
The other thing that I was asked to talk to you about today, though, was actually the Canadian urban forest strategy. Tree Canada was part of a larger effort that was called the national forest strategy. It went from 1988 to 2008. It was a government NGO effort that really tried to show the world that Canada is moving towards forest sustainability. In the last iteration of that strategy, urban forests were included. When the national forest strategy was not renewed after 2008, Tree Canada picked up the ball with respect to the Canadian urban forest strategy, and we have kept that alive to date.
We interact with 950 urban forest professionals across the country in implementing and keeping alive the Canadian urban forest strategy. What's interesting for you as a committee is that the words “urban forestry” were actually invented by a Canadian. Dr. Erik Jorgensen, in 1974, at the University of Toronto, coined this term, which was totally oxymoronic until recently. People could not put the two words “urban” and “forestry” together. It's only lately that people really get it. Now we have a proliferation of groups across the country, like Trees London, GreenHere and Soverdi, that are working to keep our cities and communities green.
The irony I want to tell you about is that unlike every other G8 nation, we really don't have urban forestry reflected at a federal level. It's really been relegated to that of the municipalities. It's in stark contrast to our friends to the south, the United States, that have, at the deputy minister level, someone actually responsible for urban forests. There are a number of historical reasons for that, but it's something that we would really like to see remedied.
We don't have to tell you how important cities are. No matter how you look at it, environmentally we need trees in our cities. People are living in our cities. Besides that, there is an economic piece to this as well. We have to attract the best companies and the best minds to our cities in Canada. We're up against all the other cities of the world. Industry wants to locate their workers in a place that is green and welcoming, and we feel that trees obviously add to that. I just want to get the point across that the tree piece is not just an aesthetic piece. It's also something that has to do with livelihoods as well.
There are many problems occurring in our urban forests. They've actually been in decline in the last 20 years. Our Crown cover has been going down in the last 20 years, and we really want to see that remedied. There are a number of things that we could be doing, but the main point that I want to leave you with is that whether it's Dutch elm disease, emerald ash borer or whatever that is invading our urban forests, we need the help of the federal government to do that.
I'll pass it over to Léo.