Natural Resources Committee on Feb. 8th, 2018

[Robert Larocque]

We had mill closures in B.C. this year because they didn't have enough wood supply because of the forest fires. It took about three months before they restarted. That's one of my concerns.

I agree that in Quebec there is lots of biomass to make biofuels, but out west, because of those pine beetles and whatever, the wood supply is very tight. We need to do something to protect the forest.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Good. Thank you.

Do I have another minute?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have two minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Going back to Mr. Bouchard, when you talked about markets, were you talking about internally replacing energy sources in markets already in Quebec? Is that your market, or are you talking about exporting to other provinces or internationally?

[Éric Bouchard]

Currently, the international markets, like the one in the United States, are already a logical option for us. If we indeed want to build a foothold at home, and make sure that our environmental footprint is favourable in Quebec and Canada, we need to stimulate the domestic markets, and use this biomass for our needs, here in Canada.

We use fossil fuels. This gives us the opportunity to use biofuel or to mix our products to establish a green sector in our economy. I believe that the Canadian market should be stimulated and improved, and that we should be considering all resources available to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Go ahead, Mr. Cannings.

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

Thank you all for coming before us today.

I'm going to start with Monsieur Larocque, mainly because he mentioned me in his speech. I want to start by thanking you for saying that.

[Robert Larocque]

Well, you deserve it.

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

I would like to jump in where Mr. Shields left off about fire. You mentioned FireSmart communities. It's a huge concern in the interior communities in British Columbia, where I'm from, and I'm sure it is across much of the boreal forest of Canada. Communities are worried about the interface between fires and their communities. I see this as an opportunity, if all levels of government get involved.

In British Columbia, we had the Filmon report, which said we should spend millions of dollars on thinning forests around communities. I think this would obviously provide jobs for the people doing that, but it would provide fibre supply for all the things you mentioned. It would probably mean changing the ways a lot of companies do things and the kind of fibre they would be getting in.

I'm wondering if you could comment on that aspect, on how the federal government could push that agenda forward.

[Robert Larocque]

Yes. Thank you very much.

We're right now having some conversations with Natural Resources Canada's Minister Carr to create some kind of federal-provincial working group, as well as with indigenous peoples, environmental groups, and industry, to discuss what we call the “forest forward”. It's about how we can make sure that with forest fires, we have species and a healthy forest and fibre access for the next 20 to 35 years.

Fires and pests are a part of that, but we need to look at the global picture, including some of the carbon policies that the current federal government is working on and how we can incent that.

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

Right.

Speaking of carbon, I am an ecologist, and when I dive into the primary research on carbon sequestration in forests and the effect of forest harvest on not only the carbon sequestration that might happen afterward but the carbon release that happens when that forest is cut, it gets very confusing quickly, even for me.

[Robert Larocque]

Yes.

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

I know your industry is anxious to say forest harvest is good because then everything grows back and sequesters carbon, but I wonder if you feel there's a need for more research into exactly what happens in terms of carbon sequestration there, the different forest harvest techniques that might be better—

[Robert Larocque]

Yes.

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

—in different habitats, whether it's a boggy situation or dry.

[Robert Larocque]

I completely agree.

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

I'm wondering if that's something the federal government should get involved in.

[Robert Larocque]

The federal government has started. The Canadian Forest Service, for example, has some kind of information, but to deeply dive to the level you're at is where forest inventory at the actor level is critical.

Regarding some of our forest practices, Mr. Shields talked about wetlands. We know about it, we do a good job, but we don't always calculate it. Then there's the whole aspect of sequestration you are mentioning, to make sure the forest does regenerate over time.

To give you a perfect example, “The State of Canada's Forests” report in 2016 said there was 240 million tonnes of carbon emitted because of forest fires. In forest management land, where we harvest, we were a negative 26 million tonnes of carbon.

We need to minimize forest fires and take advantage of advanced forest practices.

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

Okay.

I would like to turn to Monsieur Tardif. You mention that your company is fairly different, I think, from most Canadian companies in that you do buy primary products from the United States, remanufacture them in Canada, and then export back to the United States.

Can you comment on the softwood lumber agreement implications of that? I was in Washington, D.C., last summer talking to representatives from Maine, and they mentioned this problem—that a lot of their forest companies were selling into Quebec for remanufacture. I assume they were talking about your company. Could you talk about that?

[Charles Tardif]

Yes, exactly. I'm part of the group. We call ourselves the Quebec border mills. We had a special condition, a special statute, over the last four disputes. Yes, due to the location of the forests in Maine—especially northern Maine, northern New Hampshire, and northern New York: those states have a kind of a greenbelt where there is no [Technical difficulty—Editor] and it is against the U.S.–Canada border. On the Maine border, the [Technical difficulty—Editor] is there, and the service. About 75 or 100 years ago, entrepreneurs in the United States had fibre they couldn't use, so the entrepreneurship in Canada offered to transform that resource. That's the way it started. Since then, there has been s an important industry right along the border that is established to transform that wood.

This time in this actual dispute, for the first time in 30 years, the border mills haven't been able to have a statute recognized yet. In the past, either we had a preliminary exclusion because we were transforming U.S. wood or we had no special, specific review, which was allowing us to have our own rate.

This time, the dispute didn't allow any preliminary review or preliminary exclusion, which means that even if we are not a target of this dispute, we're still in front of it. We don't transform any wood coming from public land. Of all the groups I represent—we are eight companies—just 2% of our wood supply comes from crown land. The rest is all private land in the U.S. and Canada.

We're fighting. We're developing our support. In the U.S. we do a lot of lobbying toward the senators in the states where we buy the wood. That's the fight we're in. We're really affected by that because we're buying most of our wood in U.S. money, so we need that currency selling our lumber. We need access to that market, which is close to us. We're quite affected.

We know we have the support of Canada on that. We've been working really closely with Global Affairs Canada, but that's really an affecting situation.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you. We're out of time, unfortunately.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you're next. I think you have two or maybe three minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

My question goes to you, Mr. Larocque. I'm very interested in wood's potential in the building sector. Steel has the advantage of being strong, obviously, but it also can have a negative impact on the environment.

A recent study published in the well-regarded journal Nature says that densified wood is actually stronger than steel. Can you comment on densified wood? I guess the process of getting there is that it's heated at 93°C and boiled in a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfite. Long story short, it's 11 times stronger than natural wood and is in fact stronger than steel.

Could you speak to that? If these findings are accurate, I think there's a great potential for wood to continue to be so important in the building sector in the long term.

[Robert Larocque]

I don't know the exact details of everything. Maybe some of my colleagues in Quebec know about the study and might be more expert than I am on it, but I do know that engineered wood products are the new trend, for sure.

We can build wood that is as strong. It's also quicker to make a building, so you save money there. We've done all kinds of testing with earthquakes and all kinds of testing with fire prevention. That's the next step. We can make that wood. I'm not sure about the densified one. I'm not sure we're there yet, but for some of them, like CLT, for example, and some of those companies in Quebec....

What we need to catch up on is the building code. We've done a lot of trial buildings. Brock Commons in B.C. is 17 storeys high, but the building code is not keeping up.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

For the folks who aren't here with us, does anybody want to take that question?

[Charles Tardif]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] ...which principle it is, but there are many different processes in development right now in the world. We're heading into an area that is really important, which is the durability of the product and the protection in the product. To also have strength is another element. We need to do more research on those elements and we need to try to go faster to develop those kinds of products and to make sure that products that I use outside are competitive with other plastics that exist or other materials.

We know the technology is there. It's just a matter of applying it properly and to make products that need really minimum maintenance. As you say, the stain on the wood siding that Maibec does allows us to now be able to give you 50-year guaranteed maintenance-free material. That wood siding from the 1960s was about 80% of all the siding that was on houses in North America, and now wood is used for just 4% or 5%, due to the maintenance. Knowing how to achieve durability of the product and use the stains and all of that allows us to bring that material back to the forefront on a competitive basis, since we're able to have it closer to maintenance-free.

The densified wood has pretty much the same orientation for the future in building structures that are really stable, and it probably will allow us to build higher and stronger with wood.