Natural Resources Committee on March 1st, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're going to have to answer that in 30 seconds, and I'm serious.

[Michael Loseth]

If you look at British Columbia, you'll see that 95% of the forest lands are owned by the government and, frankly, are a public resource. Producing more products, advancing innovation, using wood in interesting and expanded ways, and generating greater value out of that resource of course generates greater value for the public resource and provides additional dollars for hospitals, schools, highways, and all that fun stuff.

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Perfect.

[Michael Loseth]

There's a definite link, absolutely.

[TJ Harvey, Liberal, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all our presenters for their presentations this morning. They were insightful, thoughtful, and passionate.

Mr. Loseth, I think you had a very passionate presentation, and that's why I'm going to start with you. I think you've earned it.

A lot of the presenters we've listened to seem to base their presentation and their rationale and argument on the fact that wood absorbs CO2 and greenhouse gases. Just as a matter of clarity—because if you build with wood you're going to be absorbing and sequestering all this carbon—does wood continue to absorb carbon once it's been used in a building?

[Michael Loseth]

Yes. Let me just back up a minute—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Yes? The answer was—

[Michael Loseth]

The product that is in the building does not continue to sequester carbon. The carbon is sequestered during the growth of the tree, and then it continues to be stored in the products that are used in the building. When forests are harvested in Canada, they're replanted and regenerated, so those new healthy trees are continuing to sequester new carbon out of the atmosphere while the previously harvested products continue to store the carbon from previous periods.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

See, if I want to take the advocate position here.... A lot of the presenters have almost given the impression that wood is going to absorb all this carbon and that's why you need to use wood, but I would say that once you shoot the cow, it doesn't produce milk anymore, right? That kind of works for me. I understand that. If I were to argue the position of sequestering and absorbing carbon, I'd say to leave the forest intact, and it would actually work against your argument.

I see that Mr. Martel is eager to respond to that. That's great, because—

[Michael Loseth]

I would like to respond to you quickly before that.

I'm not a scientist and I'm not a forester, but the basic fundamentals are fairly straightforward. As a forest grows and ages, like all living things, of course, trees will eventually die. When they die naturally in the forest, they will decay, and they will emit the carbon that was stored during their lifetime. If you harvest trees before that, as they're reaching the end of their life, you take the product, produce wood products, put them in buildings or other applications, and you continue to sequester the carbon that was in those original trees.

What you are doing, as I've said, is that you're replanting the next forest. Young healthy forests sequester a lot more carbon than old dying forests. It's not just one cycle. It's a continuous cycle. That's one of the strong reasons the forests in North America and around the world are such an important element of sequestering carbon and in our carbon action requirements.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Good. You've done a good job of articulating that. Thank you. I wanted to give you the opportunity to do that today.

You've also shown in your presentation here that the buildings that have been constructed using structural timber, mass timber, or laminated timber, whatever you want to call it, are all government buildings. One of the comments you made about the Brock Commons facility is that it actually came in cheaper than a traditional concrete and steel building. Why do we not see the private sector using wood structure buildings like this if that's really the case?

[Michael Loseth]

We are. The images I showed you today were really focused around public buildings in British Columbia because that was the focus of the bill in front of this committee. I could easily have shown you a number of other examples that are being driven by cost, performance, versatility, and aesthetics where the private sector is using wood.

Here's one example for you. In 2009 British Columbia changed the building code to allow five- and six-storey residential construction. Since that time, there's been a significant growth, commercial growth, in using wood for five- and six-storey construction, and it's because of affordability concerns, costs and savings, and environmental performance. Last year, more than 80% of five- and six-storey buildings in British Columbia were using wood, whereas in 2009 it was zero—

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Good. Thank you.

I have to cut you off because Mr. Martel wants to weigh in on this. I'd be curious to listen to him, but it's important that the committee note that wood should be able to compete on its own. From the testimony you're giving, you say that wood can and will compete on its own. When we look at this bill, some amendments are definitely needed in order for us to all get on the same page to support it, where it's a fair competition for concrete, steel, and wood and the benefits of each need to be considered. As Mr. Cannings in his bill has said, there needs to be that analysis.

Go ahead, Mr. Martel.

[Jean-Pierre Martel]

First, I'm a forester by training. Your explanation was very good, so I don't have to repeat it. You did very well.

Actually, people look at forests more as a straight Polaroid picture than a video. Nature is a living ecosystem. It goes up in fires, has insects, and whatever. They are not static ecosystems; they are living ecosystems. That's one thing.

A second part of your question was about wood standing on its own merit and whether there are private buildings. We referred earlier to two buildings: one in Quebec City, a 12-storey building, and an eight-storey building that is one of the largest projects in downtown Montreal, in Griffintown. Both are private investments. Both actually sold out pretty quickly, especially the one in Montreal, because they marketed the aspect of wood, carbon sequestration, a different type of living, and the numbers show that they are also competitive in terms of cost.

One thing, though, that we need to be careful not to forget when we talk about Brock Commons, the first wood building in the world that is that tall, is that when the builder looked at this, he saw it was a new system and he needed a premium in order to get ready, but once more and more of those systems were in place, the cost would go down significantly.

We have to make sure we compare oranges with oranges and apples with apples. In this case, when you have a new system in place, the first one will be more costly. As you get more experience, the cost will go down for sure.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Good. Thank you for that.

It is important that we recognize there's a place for all our natural resources. Whether in the building trade or elsewhere, we need to value and protect them. There is a place for wood, and it can earn its way into the competition, just as concrete and steel have over the past.

Last week I sat in a timber frame restaurant. It was beautiful. I was sitting with three other couples and my wife. There was a loud noise, and we asked what it was. The timber frame was cracking. Apparently it does that once in a while. When the timber cracks, it sounds like a high-powered rifle going off. There was discussion, then, around the safety of wood construction from a structural perspective.

Do you want to address that at all?

[Jean-Pierre Martel]

I don't know the specifics of that, nor the restaurant, but in terms of the quality of the product, in drying wood, wood is a living material as well. We try to dry it down to a certain level. After it gets into an environment, things change, and when you look at the structural side, that is taken into account. I would not be that concerned, actually, but when living material is being tested, we understand that it's living material.

I haven't seen too many wood buildings that have collapsed.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you. We're going to have to stop there and move on.

Mr. Cannings.

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

Thank you for being here today.

I'm going to start with Mr. Loseth.

First, as a comment about the concrete schools you mentioned, fairly recently in Penticton they demolished my old high school, Princess Margaret Junior Secondary School, and rebuilt it as the most depressing looking concrete building—with all due respect to Mr. Falk and his aggregate business. The school looks like a prison, and I don't know what the students who go to good old Princess Margaret think these days, but this is only a few hundred metres away from Structurlam's plant. Why they couldn't have built a beautiful wood school, I don't know, but I would just make that comment.

I want to pick up on trade. You were talking about international trade. First of all, I've been asking various witnesses about the concern around exposure to international trade litigation if certain products are specified in a project. Are you aware of any problems that British Columbia industries have encountered with that because of B.C.'s Wood First Act or any other issue?

[Michael Loseth]

As the committee will notice in B.C.'s Wood First Act, it speaks to placing a priority on the use of wood; it doesn't say B.C. wood products or wood species. I understand that there are interprovincial and WTO requirements where there are limitations on specifying a particular jurisdiction's wood. In British Columbia, that's not the case, and to my knowledge there has been no formal legal challenge on anyone against trade rules and this act.

There are other jurisdictions that also have similar policies. There is Japan's act for the promotion of wood in public buildings. There are wood encouragement policies in various states in Australia, in Tasmania.

I'm not aware.... I'm not involved directly in the international trade relations group, but there's nothing to my knowledge.

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

You spoke of other use of wood promotions in other countries. Have British Columbia industries, and specifically around mass timber technology, been able to take advantage of those? In Japan, I know they are talking about building very large buildings. Is British Columbia seeking opportunities?

Have British Columbia industries, and specifically around mass timber technology, been able to take advantage of those? In Japan, I know they are talking about building very large buildings. Is British Columbia seeking opportunities?

[Michael Loseth]

Yes, very much.

We in British Columbia have very active programs to promote wood products in various markets, in Asia, China, Japan, Korea, India, for example. The innovations that we invest in at home in British Columbia are absolutely critical to the work we're doing to try to advance wood use and expand opportunities for B.C. companies internationally.

As I mentioned briefly in my opening comments, we're able to demonstrate what is possible. We're able to use public projects and other projects to showcase and demonstrate the opportunities to use wood and build credibility. We can go to China and say, “Take a look at how we build five- and six-storey wood buildings. Take a look at how we built this 18-storey wood building in British Columbia. You have very specific needs around increasing densification of housing and such. Why don't you look at these things?”

We often get a very open response saying, “I would like to come to British Columbia. Would you show me what you're doing? Can you take me through? Can you introduce me to the architects and engineers and design and construction teams that have built these projects? We would like to learn more, and then in turn we would like to start doing that. We will use your engineered wood products or your lumber products to help us to build these kinds of projects in China or Japan or what have you. It's very important for us.”

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

Thanks.

I'd like to move on to Monsieur Lavoie and pick up on some of the questions that Mr. Falk had around the sequestration of wood. You have your pie chart on page 7 showing that the tree biomass is a small part of the carbon that is sequestered in forest.

I am wondering if you can comment on some concerns that I hear. I am an ecologist by trade. People are concerned about the forest harvest process disturbing the soil organic matter and the litter, and then the burning of dead wood and scrap material after the forest harvest has taken place, negating some or a significant part of the sequestration that then takes place.

I wonder if you could comment on that concern.

[Patrick Lavoie]

Sure.

The representation that Michael presented on carbon cycle plateauing I think is very accurate. What happens is that when we take out some of the biomass in the forest, it is going to buildings, but that doesn't mean that the 80% in soil and that organic matter or litter are untouched. There are some emissions that are related to forest activities in terms of ecosystems.

What the science shows is that after a period that ranges between 20 and 30 years, that small carbon debt that results from disturbing the environment locally and pulling the biomass is payback. After 20 or 30 years, and understanding that forests are harvested over long periods of time and grown over 75 to 80 years, we do have that 50-year period where we are increasing that capital, that carbon that's present in the ecosystem.