Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to share my views and comments this morning with you. Those views reflect my experience as a former federal employee with the Canadian foreign service, and recently, as executive director of bioindustrial development with an organization called Alberta Innovates.
Alberta Innovates is a provincial corporation dedicated to research and innovation. We have an arm that engages in research activity, but for the most part the various components of the organization fund research activities.
Since 2007 when I joined the organization, I've been working with both the agriculture and the forest sectors to identify opportunities for economic development and economic sustainability through new product and process development.
In many ways, we've been fibre agnostic. I know that your focus is the forest industry, but in many parts of Canada the forest industry is not that far removed from the agricultural industry. There is opportunity to combine the fibre stocks, to address the needs of a growing bioindustrial sector in the country. I would encourage a more agnostic approach, an approach that recognizes the value of all fibre, from agriculture and forestry.
Biomass is biomass, to many end-users. I'd even go so far as to suggest that municipal solid waste represents a very significant opportunity that can also be combined in the mix with agricultural and forest fibre. Lord knows here in the province of Alberta we generate enough municipal solid waste. I suspect it is the same all across the country. What we need to do is create programs that cross the boundaries, that allow for integration and allow us to tap into the various sources of feedstock for bioindustrial development.
We probably therefore want to make further investment to address the bigger questions of systems and logistics for effectively dispersing or transporting that biomass to facilities looking to utilize it. We need to support research and development into new products from biomass and processes for biomass conversion.
As was indicated by the previous speaker, where they've made investments in areas of opportunity, we too in Alberta have invested in a number of areas of opportunity, including advance materials with the focus as well on cellulose nanocrystals, lignin and the multiplicity of products that are envisioned from lignin, biofuels, and an increasing opportunity to make a variety of energy products from municipal solid waste.
Recent announcements in the province of Alberta have identified significant financial resources for climate change-related activities, most recently the climate change innovation and technology framework. That funding focuses heavily on GHG reduction, as well as job creation, economic development, and community stability. GHG reduction is probably the most significant target when it comes to those new funds.
This is an oil and gas province. There's a lot of activity focused on the oil and gas sector. No doubt a good portion of the CCITF funding will flow to the oil and gas sector. The existence of the oil and gas sector in this province creates opportunities for the forest sector that perhaps don't exist elsewhere in the country. It's from that perspective that I gain hope that as we move into the future we'll see greater emphasis on the bio sector, on bio opportunities, and on the opportunity to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions through bio means.
This opportunity for us is to use biological materials that would replace petro-based. When it comes to adhesives, perhaps lignin is the replacement, bioplastics from lipids as well. CNC creates the opportunity to move into very different realms than what the forest sector has explored in the past. Medical and electronics are all related to those special properties of CNC.
In this province, traditional forest companies have right of first refusal to the fibre resource. They operate under forest management agreements. That pertains not only to the traditionally merchantable bole of the tree, but also to the residual biomass. Many of those companies have looked at ways of diversifying their revenue streams through biorefining activities, at alternative products for development, and at ways to sustain their viability.
I give credit to the federal government for the bio-pathways project a number of years ago, where people looked at the opportunity to bolt new technologies onto existing mills in the country in a plug-and-play way that would not be too destructive when it comes to the traditional product lines but add new product lines and therefore new revenue.
However from outside Alberta, many non-traditional forest companies have been attracted by the vast amount of biomass that they've been told exists here. It's rumour. It's conjecture. It's a perception. They come to Alberta and they want to know where this biomass is. What it's comprised of? How much of it is there? I'm sad to say that up until a few years ago we couldn't tell them. We knew it. You could go out into the cutovers and you could see residual slash. You could go to mill sites and see piles of sawdust and whatnot, but quantification was very difficult.
We started a project called BRIMS, bio-resource information management system. We developed that through a private sector geotech company. Last week, January 24, we publicly launched BRIMS. It's an online interactive system that will allow any entrepreneur interested in tapping into the biomass resources of this province to point to a site on the map and determine how much biomass is available. You can find it at brims.ca. Try it. It's very easy to use, but it's very powerful.
With that, we're able to address the questions as to where the biomass exists. How available is it? That allows the entrepreneur to forge a partnership with the traditional FMA holder. Many FMA holders are looking for the big answer; they're not looking for the smaller opportunities. A small to medium-sized entrepreneur wanting to capitalized on biomass availability for his production facility is well-advised to form a partnership with an existing FMA holder.
I talked earlier about the fact that this is an oil and gas province. That means there are significant opportunities for existing forest companies to move into the bio-industrial space in a slightly different way in support of the oil and gas sector. In some respects that could mean assisting with land management, assisting with reclamation activities, utilizing biochar produced from mill facilities as a soil amendment, for soil remediation.
In some instances, it even means taking mill waste water and piping that to oil exploration sites as opposed to utilizing surface or groundwater, so it's a revenue opportunity for the mill, but it's a cost saver for the oil and gas company, and they don't have to butt their heads against regulations around groundwater usage.
From my perspective, where do I see the federal government fitting in? Well, I think we have a pretty good array of activities related to bioindustrial development in the province of Alberta, but I'd dearly love to work with cohorts in other provincial jurisdictions. For the last several years I've been trying to work with BIC, Bioindustrial Innovation Centre, out of the London area. It's difficult to do, and my funding source is from the Province of Alberta. Their funding source is from the Province of Ontario, and you're not permitted to spend in the other's jurisdiction.
The federal government can solve that problem. You could serve to harmonize, bring people together in partnerships, and facilitate cross-boundary initiatives.