Hi, everyone. Thank you for today, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for your introduction.
My name is Derek Orr. I have a little bit of background in forestry and economic development. I grew up in Prince George and was able to eventually become the chief of McLeod Lake Indian Band, which was a major player within northeastern B.C. in forestry. We were able to develop a number of companies for economic development and made profits to provide us with revenues for health, education, culture and other things. We were also fairly innovative way before my time. We were able to develop companies within the area of our traditional territory to promote employment and economic recovery.
I was the chief of McLeod Lake Indian Band in 2008, in the downturn. I worked diligently to come out of the economics and provide jobs for our members, our community and even the province of British Columbia. It was a great feat and one that I had a lot of help with, and we were able to develop some projects.
I see change in forestry, and obviously the AAC, the allowable annual cut is shrinking, and less product is going to be available to companies. We've been able to see areas where we could make value-added products. We developed a cant mill that basically took wood waste—lumber or brush piles. We were looking for logs from three to five inches in diameter. We set up a cant mill in B.C. and were able to ship those cants overseas and develop some markets in China. We even went over to China in 2015 to develop a customer base, and we were doing well.
Unfortunately, due to some factors and limited opportunities, we were pushed out a bit because that tree we were looking for kind of went up in price once there was a demand for it, so there are some issues. We also worked with the B.C. government to get the Mackenzie pulp mill back in order. We were able to negotiate a forest licence to cut and were able to get that back in 2010, and employment. We're definitely focused on value added.
I have a number of ideas so that we can start utilizing more of the forest. I think it was in 2019 that the forest sector provided $23.7 billion to Canada's GDP—no small slouch in that. I think it's one of our major sectors, and if we can utilize it even more, I think there's great opportunity to be able to develop some other opportunities.
Some of the challenges we faced were that a couple of the bigger companies have the majority of the shares, so it's hard to break into that. In terms of forest utilization, if we could limit the burning that goes on, releasing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, maybe through waste management pricing or whatever, I think it would be great. If we're not able to do that going forward, we're all in trouble because if the global warming gets to a certain level, it's no good for any of us.
I think that I provided some information on what the possibilities could be. Basically, I think a bit of tenure reform, some logging practices reform and just a bit of a culture shift within the industry could really help to utilize a lot of what we're wasting in the industry right now.
My friend from Paper Excellence said that we're taking all the steaks and leaving the chicken wings. I thought that was pretty funny. We're not utilizing what we could and then using it for pellets and other such things. I think that's a detriment, especially with the lower AAC.
I won't go on much further than that. I think a focus on waste billing, selective logging and local ownership will all contribute to increasing and helping us get out of this economic challenge that we will have, going forward.
Thank you.