Evidence of meeting #86 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was procurement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Right.
I think some of that is already happening, as we said in our study, through innovation and competition.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
We talked about that building in B.C. already, and that may have happened through the provincial legislation. Maybe some of that was tied in, but that technology and innovation got there because the industry and market forces kept pushing it that way.
9:20 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I agree. We are already doing some things. As you say, that building got built in British Columbia, and there are other buildings built in B.C. Bill Downing would say that it's because of the Wood First Act and that culture of building with wood. The first one they built was in Prince George. There is, in fact, a wood building in Prince George. I forgot to mention in my talk that one thing about this construction is that the materials can be made with such precision—this building just set the world record for airtightness—if you want to have passive wood structures because they can be built to tolerances of less than a millimetre, whereas you can't do that with steel or cement.
To get back to the first point, yes, we are doing things. The government had some money in last year's budget—we'll see if it's still there today—about promoting the use of engineered wood. That's great, but I think this just adds that whole lens onto government procurement that says that these are the two things we should be looking at and that we should be considering wood, giving wood a chance. That's what it's about.
February 27th, 2018 / 9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Yes, and I do appreciate that. I think it's always good, but my concern again is the government.... In this case, I know that your legislation doesn't exactly pick winners and losers, but it kind of ensures that there is probably a lot more focus going on it rather than using market forces. As you said, the construction is done in such a way that you can make a building airtight with this technological innovation, so we're already moving it that way.
One issue I also have, and we're seeing it here in Ontario with energy, Mark Serré, is that the more the government funds this, that, or the other thing, the less innovation we're going to have. As I said, we're seeing it with the energy file now. We get some innovation—someone is always going to innovate—but I think we'd have more innovation, rapid innovation as you just pointed out, if we just have the government get out of the way and ensure that there's competition and market forces that push it that way.
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I think that if the government got out of the way and you had market forces, it would just go to the cheapest alternative, and we wouldn't have that innovation to the same extent.
I'm trying to get this government procurement to help us in that innovation. We've heard time and time again here about how innovative technologies struggle in that gap.
Suppose you have a working model built. You know how to do it. You might have built one building using that technique, but you need help to expand. You need those orders to keep coming in. Government procurement would bridge that gap and allow these companies to grow.
Again, I come back to Structurlam because it's a company I know well. It's been slowly growing over the years. Sometimes they struggle. Sometimes they're working all day long. They would like to grow. They would like to expand. They need all the orders they can get, and government procurement would give that to them and to others.
We heard how Irving is interested in this technology. They've gone to Europe to look at the technology. I'm sure other big companies are doing the same because they see that this is happening. This would give them that extra impetus to do that so that we can stay ahead of the curve. Otherwise the market, just the inertia of the market, would hold us back.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Okay.
In terms of the market forces, you're talking about the cost. Suppose the government says, “These are the plans we like. This is what we're pushing towards,” and the consumer says, ”Well, we really don't want that plan,” or, “I don't like that plan.”
Some might say, “Yes, I like that plan. That building's airtight. That's going to save me on energy bills. This is awesome.”
Again, this is already happening. I don't think you should be picking winners and losers. If you are the winner, it's great, but what happens if you're the loser in this equation?
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
You talked about the consumer there. The consumer in this case would be the government. I mean, the government is—
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I didn't have time to lay all that out. I wanted to get in a big thing. I had 10 seconds. That's the best I could do in 10 seconds.
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Thank you. I'd really like to thank you, Mr. Cannings, for introducing Bill C-354. Forestry is very important in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia. We have about 12 mills, ranging from internationally owned to family owned mills. People of Kootenay—Columbia really care about climate change and carbon. We'd welcome more federal government buildings and offices in the riding as well.
You mentioned earlier that B.C. already has legislation similar to what Bill C-354 proposes. How has that policy worked in British Columbia? Does it offer us a template for how this could be rolled out federally?
9:25 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
As I said before, I think it has changed that culture incrementally towards one in which the government now seriously considers the use of wood and has done a lot of wood buildings.
There's one part of it in which I was disappointed. In the bill, there's a clause that allows for reporting, such that the lieutenant-governor can set up regulations that require reporting out about whether, when the government has built a building, it been wood or not.
That regulation has never been implemented, so we don't have any reporting. That was something I was disappointed in. I was hoping to come here and dump a lot of statistics on you about exactly how well it's done, but we don't have that.
There are a lot of pictures up on various sites of beautiful wooden buildings, government wooden buildings in British Columbia. I'm sure it has worked well in those cases, but I know they're still building schools out of cement and steel in British Columbia on occasion as well, so I assume that it's not 100% of all provincial buildings that are wood.
It has changed that culture, and that's what I think is really important.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
Is that the most important impact, do you think, that the B.C. legislation has had on forestry communities, or are there other benefits?
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Well, as I say, when you build a big building with wood, whether it's one of these iconic buildings like the Olympic skating oval in Richmond, or the Rocky Ridge Centre in Alberta, the effects are felt farther than just the company. Structurlam, which builds with wood, buys the wood from other, smaller companies. A lot of them are family owned.
I know the mills in your riding are very exposed to the American market. For some of them, 95% of their trade is with the States. One of the aspects of engineered wood is that it can be exported to the United States without softwood lumber tariffs.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I think that's a huge aspect of it. Not only can they sell their wood to a Canadian company, but that wood can then be exported to the United States without getting involved in softwood lumber tariffs. I think that's a huge benefit to all the forest industry in Canada.
We've seen how the forest industry suffered in the past when we had these softwood lumber disputes. Right now the tariffs have put the price of lumber so high that everybody is doing okay, but I think all of our mills will be benefiting all across the country if we do this.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
In terms of Canada as a whole, and how it would apply, what kinds of woods are used in these mass timber projects, and how does that work within sustainable forestry practices? Can it be done across Canada?
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
That's just it. It can benefit basically any mill in Canada. At Nordic Structures, which is in northern Quebec in Chibougamau, they build their cross-laminated timber panels using black spruce. If you go to the tree line of Canada, the last tree you will see is black spruce, pretty much. It can use these small northern trees, and it can use big Douglas firs. The Structurlam beams are made using interior Douglas fir from the Kootenays. They can use basically any sort of wood—softwood, hardwood—and they do use it, depending on the need. They will often put the nicer, high-quality wood on the outside, and put beetle-kill wood on the inside of these panels because it has staining. It can be used across Canada, and any forestry company in Canada would benefit.
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Wayne Stetski NDP Kootenay—Columbia, BC
In terms of your riding and my riding, how would you see this legislation benefiting the public?
9:30 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
I think the benefits to my riding would be immediate because I have one of the two main companies in Canada that construct engineered wood—Structurlam—but as I say, they buy that wood from all across the interior of B.C. If you go to any mill in British Columbia, and I'm sure any big sawmill in Canada, you'd see that they do so much horse-trading between mills in their area, depending on the kind of wood and what they are looking for, that this would immediately spill over from my riding to yours in terms of bringing in wood.
As I say, if we start doing it across Canada, if companies spring up in Alberta, or Ontario, or New Brunswick, that would very quickly benefit the forest industry all across the country.
9:35 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Yes. I don't know about Prince Edward Island. I don't know if they have much in the way of forest industries there, and the territories might have a harder time, but that's why I said sea to sea, not sea to sea to sea.
