Good morning.
Thank you very much.
I'm honoured to be back. Thank you very much for requesting a return visit so we can deepen our discussion on an issue I care about very deeply.
As I mentioned to you the last time I was here, my name is Catherine Cobden. I'm the president of a small boutique consulting company called Cobden Strategies, and in addition to a number of things, I do work with innovative forest product companies as well as other sectors that are all exploring the use of forest fibre in new bioproducts and processes.
I was born in rural Ontario, in a pulp mill town just down the road from your riding, Mr. Serré. I became a chemical engineer, and I've worked in various communities across the country who rely almost entirely on the forest industry. I was also the executive vice-president of the Forest Products Association of Canada where I led studies on bioproduct creation and supply chain development for the industry.
The vitality and viability of the forest industry in the long term is a true passion.
I believe I was asked back to talk a bit more about some tangible examples of how forest biomass can and is being used in innovative ways. I can tell you that the opportunities are quite endless.
From ice cream to plastics, from perfumes to car parts, wood fibre-derived products are making their way into many consumer products already. To give you a deeper portrait of the degree of activity happening in Canada in the bioeconomy space, I have worked with the assistance of NRCan to share with you a map, which is in front of you. This shows you the developments that are happening coast to coast across the country. These are significant developments.
When I share this with the committee electronically, you will find that each of the 27 projects is hot-linked to a two-pager dans les deux langues that describes the project in more detail, providing facts and figures that I think are very relevant, such as how many jobs were created, how much investment was leveraged, and those sorts of things. I encourage you to take a look at that.
I'd like to reinforce, however, that this map is only reflective of the projects that have been funded by the IFIT program, that is, the investments in forest industry transformation program. I'm excited to tell you that there are many more, both within and outside the forest sector.
You asked for some explicit examples, and you will find plenty. But to help, I thought I would dive a little bit into some of these examples. Some of these will be on the map and some of these will not. Some exciting participants in the bioeconomy are here with me today—CelluForce, for example—and I look forward to hearing about their latest developments. But the folks you've been meeting are not alone. There is lots going on. So when you hear about cellulose filaments later this morning, we will tell you that we have a lot of development going on in this country. In Canada we have the world's first cellulose filament demonstration and commercialization plant at Trois-Rivières, Quebec. Cellulose filaments are a revolutionary and unique bioproduct. They can be incorporated into a variety of products to make them stronger, more flexible and resilient, lighter, and more economical. They also happen to be chemical free and biodegradable.
Lignin is another area where things are happening. I'm sure you've had witnesses in here talking about the lignin opportunity. West Fraser, for example, is home to another first in Canada at its mill in Hinton, Alberta, where they're recovering lignin from pulp operations, becoming part of that next generation of renewable biochemicals. Lignin is natural, it's renewable, and it's a green alternative that can be used in plastics, dispersants, and polymers, and even as new resins in our exciting engineered wood products.
Speaking of engineered wood products, we talked a lot about tall wood frame buildings the last time I was here. There's Structurlam in B.C.; there's Nordic Structures in Quebec, whose hybrid glulam trusses were just used in the new arena for the Buffalo Sabres; and StructureCraft is building a new facility in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia. You all know that the tall wood market is developing, and that's a very exciting thing to keep an eye on.
Over a week ago, FPlnnovations and Resolute announced a new pilot project in Thunder Bay to find ways to produce and commercialize green biochemicals from wood. I think you heard from them earlier this week, and that's a really important acceleration of the bioeconomy in northern Ontario.
There's the power generated from biomass—carbon neutral green electricity produced from the residuals of our operations from coast to coast. There are 40 mills in Canada that are doing this green energy generation. They use it to support their own operations, and some of them even use it to contribute green power back to their grids.
Woodland Biofuels is another example. You'll find them on your map. They're producing ethanol from woody biomass. You also heard from Domtar earlier this week on NCC and some opportunities they're producing outside of the IFIT program.
The examples I've just touched on are all within the forest industry, but I want to move a little beyond that to assure you that all sorts of Canadian industries are exploring the tremendous potential of what I like to call “the miracle of biomass”. Research, demonstration, and development projects are either being undertaken or are in development in a number of key areas of the Canadian economy. It's happening in energy production—in large-scale power production at OPG and Capital Power, for example, right down to small-scale energy production in indigenous communities. It's being looked at in steel manufacturing, not as a fuel but as a sophisticated bioreactant to support their production of steel and reduce their carbon footprint. The cement industry, the aviation sector, and the natural gas sector are all looking at the use of biomass.
Clearly, exciting things are happening. The forest industry is reinventing itself, and other sectors are taking this agenda very seriously as well, and discovering for themselves the benefits of a bioeconomy. Canada is making leading-edge advances, but of course there's always a “but”, which is that there is robust global competition. We cannot drop the ball.
Europe continues to be a leader in this space. In 2012 the European Commission adopted a strategy called “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: A Bioeconomy for Europe”. EU figures show that the bioeconomy—what is that, five years later?—now has a turnover of over 2 trillion euros each year and employs more than 17 million people. Individual countries such as Sweden, Finland, Germany, etc., have also adopted their own detailed bioeconomy strategies.
I believe that with our abundant renewable resource—350 million hectares of forests—our strong global reputation, our green credentials in sustainable forest management, and our effectiveness as a global exporting nation, we have the bioeconomy as an opportunity to create jobs and bring growth and expansion of trade to our country.
Please remember our last discussion on how government can help and how we can work together: we can spur further demonstration and technology advancement, we can change building codes, we can ensure comprehensive quantification of sustainable fibre supply, we can bring in smart incentives to help aging pulp mills to retool, and we can bring the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers' bioeconomy vision and framework to life.
Thank you very much for inviting me back. I look forward to questions.