Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 4th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Ms. Sansoucy, go ahead.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks also go to both witnesses for their presentations.

My questions are for any of the witnesses, who can answer as they see fit.

In your presentations, you highlighted the breakthroughs made in construction projects that promote the use of wood, particularly in the construction of high-rise wood-framed buildings. You have also made it clear that Canada is now a world leader in the use of those new technologies.

Although you have touched on this briefly, could you tell us more about the current demand for wood-framed high rises and what the future looks like?

[Eric Karsh]

As I explained, five years ago we published the research report showing that we could build tall wood-framed buildings.

At that time, there was a lot of criticism on the Internet. As might be expected, a lot of people reacted, saying that wood-framed high-rises were vulnerable to fire, termites, and so on. In just five years, I think there has been enough discussion and research to show that high-rise wood-framed buildings can be built very safely.

Right now, we are working on the design of high-rise buildings in Brazil, China, France, Canada and the United States. More and more, I think it's becoming an international trend. Yet more importantly, we are moving from demonstration buildings to buildings that are financed by commercial investors. We are not necessarily talking about 20- to 30-storey buildings, but six to 12-storey buildings.

This is the future. This will have a major impact on the use of solid wood.

[Rick Jeffery]

Perhaps I could just add to that.

I have another hat, as a director of the Canadian Wood Council. We have done extensive research. When you talk about construction up to six floors, we have changes now to the national building code that provinces have been adopting. Here in British Columbia, almost all six-floor buildings being built now are being built with wood. That is a big market segment for us.

We've done market segment analysis on the sixth-to-twelfth-floor building segment. That's another building segment that is important here in Canada. It is probably even more important in the United States. We have a lot of effort going into the building codes around the sixth-to-twelfth-floor segment and into developing the technologies and building systems to meet that segment, because it is fairly significant. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but we can certainly get them to you. The Canadian Wood Council can get them to you as well.

We are also looking at commercial low-rise. A lot of these malls and things that you see that are done with cinder-block bricks and steel trusses could equally be done using wood construction techniques and gain the benefit of energy efficiency and savings in the carbon GHG world.

There's significant research on up to six floors, the sixth-to-twelfth-floor segment, and low-rise commercial. Those are the new segments that we as an industry are focusing in on beyond just residential housing.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Earlier, I was saying that in Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, the riding I represent, we are very proud of a new six-storey office tower made of wood, which is now complete and has the maximum number of tenants.

How can the Government of Canada use its procurement policy to better support your industry and help eliminate the risks of using new ways of doing things, such as building solid wood frames?

[Rick Jeffery]

What I would say is that we have a very rigorous process around building codes. We need to ensure that we continue to do the research and development in support of building codes, to make sure building codes are designed in a way that supports safe buildings with any kind of material, whether it be concrete, steel, or wood.

The 2020 building code will be a results-based code rather than a prescriptive code. As we embark upon completing that code, we need to make sure that we build in all of the safeguards that we need to ensure we have safe buildings.

On top of that, as I said earlier, there are a number of federal government programs around green construction through wood that will help us promote the use of wood in construction in Canada, over the next four years.

Also, as government undertakes a procurement policy for its aggressive infrastructure programs, we should make sure that wood has consideration in those projects. Then, as Eric has said, we also need to ensure that we're spending appropriate amounts of money with our engineers, designers, and architects, so that they are comfortable building with wood, as well.

Do you want to pick up on that?

[Eric Karsh]

Yes.

The construction industry is relatively slow to move. To have codes in place is key to confirming the research and development required to ensure that the use of the material is safe. I think we're making a lot of progress in that way.

The other side of the equation, as Rick mentioned, is education. It's the chicken and the egg. If there are very few graduates who come from engineering schools that teach wood, there will be few professors who can then go back and teach it. How do you break that barrier? How do you form more engineers and architects?

At the moment, most engineers and architects who start designing with wood are self-taught. I never took a course in timber engineering. I learned it on the job, essentially. However, as the price of timber buildings comes in line with concrete—and I think we're almost there—the demand will grow very rapidly. Then there's going to be a bottleneck on the design side, or on the expertise side in general, not just in design but in manufacturing and construction.

I think we need to prepare for that growth throughout the delivery chain, including in education.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Serré.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My sincere thanks to both witnesses. You have shared a lot of information today. I am pleased to know that you will be able to provide us some more.

Both of you talked about leadership and the fact that Canada has played quite a significant role in creating jobs in the forestry sector. Mr. Jeffery, you mentioned superclusters in the forestry sector. I have been very active in the mining sector, and let me point out that this sector has been included in the list of nine innovation supercluster proposals.

My first question is quite specific, Mr. Jeffery. When you mentioned our government's initiative, you talked about the investment made by the organization called International Forest and Environmental Development (IFED) in the innovation sector. Do you have any specific recommendations for the committee so that we can improve that program? In other words, can we do anything to help improve the program for the benefit of the industry?

[Rick Jeffery]

Those programs are very well thought out. One thing we could improve upon is being able to access them in a time- and cost-efficient manner. Quite often, some of these programs require a lot of paperwork to make your application, get selected, and be able to get the money. Streamlining those kinds of things would be good.

You've covered the waterfront, and we're extremely grateful for it. We have export development things. The additional money that's in the expanding market opportunities program is federal money. It doesn't require matching from the province or the industry. That's very useful, especially when we think about doing demonstration projects to demonstrate our technology in places like China, where they have considerably more housing starts and needs for energy-efficient, GHG-friendly buildings. We would encourage continuation of that program. It's been renewed for two years. It's hard for us as industry to be able to plan. That supports our offshore market offices in Japan, China, Korea, and India. It's hard to plan—to have staff there—if you're always working on budgetary cycles, so if we could get long-term funding in those things, that would be useful.

On the green construction through wood program, we're not sure exactly what the details are, but we're certainly looking forward to the conversation. Maybe that goes back to streamlining. When these things are developed for implementation by Treasury Board and the appropriate federal departments, pre-consultation on what they look like, how you access them, and how you track them would be useful to make effective use of those dollars.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

The next question is to Mr. Karsh. An hour ago, we had the vice-president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, who had some significant concerns. It seemed to be surrounding how he wasn't sure about the weight load or the fuel load. There seemed to be a lot of misinformation, or not enough information. I was wondering whether, from an engineering association perspective, you have any specific recommendations regarding any of the concerns that the firefighter associations have had. They haven't been participating in the building codes since 2005.

Is there anything you would have specifically for us to bring back to the firefighters' association and to the committee on their concerns?

[Eric Karsh]

It's quite natural for people to react to the idea of building timber high-rises in wood. It's quite natural to react this way, because wood is a combustible material. The distinction that we've been making as designers is that there's a difference between combustibility, or combustible construction, and fire-resistant construction. Steel melts, and for that reason has to be protected in buildings, but it's not combustible. Timber is combustible, but it doesn't melt. It retains its structural integrity through hours and hours of very intense fire exposure.

It's a matter of education. Fire professionals—for lack of a better word—who see a fire test ongoing with, say, mass timber, develop a certain level of comfort. They understand that there's a difference between light-frame construction, as an example, and mass timber construction. You don't light a fire with a log. You light a fire with a small stick. Likewise, mass timber construction behaves differently in fire from light-frame construction. It's not to say that light-frame construction is unsafe, but it's appropriate in certain types of construction, whereas mass timber, which behaves quite differently, has to be dealt with in the codes by using different rules.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

I just have a quick question. The fire association talked about building codes—that's one thing—but then there's the issue of renovations afterwards. There don't seem to be enough regulations on the renovation of wood structures. Is there anything you could add to that?

[Eric Karsh]

Again, it's about classifying different types of timber construction correctly. Light frame relies on finishes to maintain its structural integrity in a fire, whereas mass timber is inherently resistant to fire, especially if using mass timber panels. I would say that in light timber renovations, yes, that's absolutely true. You cannot allow anything to go on. You have to make sure that the finishes that were originally part of the design are reinstated in a renovation. It's less of an issue in mass timber.

[Rick Jeffery]

I'd just like to say that we have world-class research at the National Research Council and at Carleton University in these fire-related kinds of things, so we should be engaging our firefighter friends in getting them familiar with that kind of research and maybe getting involved, because they're an important part of the equation here.

[Marc Serré, Liberal, Nickel Belt, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thanks, Mr. Serré.

Mr. Falk will have five minutes.

I have one question. We've been hearing a lot from all of our witnesses about wood-frame construction. Are the two of you confident that a 12-storey wood-frame building is equally as safe and has the same structural integrity and durability as a steel and concrete-frame building? If the answer is yes, does that change depending on whether it's in Vancouver, Timmins, or the Northwest Territories?

[Eric Karsh]

My opinion is that the safety of a building, whether it be from a fire point of view or a structural point of view, is a design issue, a performance issue. This is why codes are moving towards the performance-based approach.

There's no doubt that the integrity of a mass timber structure in a fire is extremely high, much higher than it would be in a steel building should the steel be left exposed, for example, because mass timber protects itself by developing a charring layer. In addition, a building that is built entirely of mass timber panels, which are airtight—and this is the case for CLT—will contain a fire and keep it from propagating throughout the building.

When you look at it from a performance point of view, I think it can be demonstrated that a timber building will perform as well as a steel or a concrete building if properly designed. There's no doubt about it.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Does this change once you get above a certain height?

[Eric Karsh]

Again, it's a design issue more than a material issue. The need for compartmentalization of fire in a higher building is more critical, and that can be achieved with mass timber panels.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Falk, you have five minutes.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of our witnesses for your presentations. It's been very informative.

I have a question just on structural integrity for cross-laminated timber, or mass timber. Is there a certain span that is ideal or that you would not exceed with mass timber?

[Eric Karsh]

This is an economic question. There are efficiencies that are achieved with certain spans, with certain products, and that's true of all products or materials. If you're asking about whether there's a limitation, an upper limit, on what you can do with wood, I would point out that we have built soccer stadiums in Quebec out of wood with spans of 225 feet. There are stadiums in Europe that are 350 feet in span, and a speed skating oval, although it's a steel-wood composite.

If you look at timber from a weight-to-strength ratio point of view, it is superior to reinforced concrete, because it's a sixth of the weight, and modern engineered wood has similar strength as normal reinforced concrete. From a purely structural point of view, wood can achieve what concrete can achieve or what steel can achieve.

[Rick Jeffery]

I'd just like to say something. We're not essentially saying that a building has to be made all out of wood, or all out of concrete, or all out of steel. Smart guys are figuring out that by using hybrids or combinations of these materials, we can engineer all kinds of things.