Evidence of meeting #5 for Natural Resources in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was right.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Liberal
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Okay. Thanks.
I'd like to ask Peak Renewables some questions.
Mr. Baarda, you mentioned the wood waste that you use in your plant for energy. Do you use wood waste at all to create the pellets, or is it just used to drive the plant?
Chief Executive Officer, Peak Renewables
In Fort Nelson it's a bit of a unique situation. The plant will be using deciduous aspen trees that grow effectively to maturity. We will be harvesting them and turning them into wood pellets. We will be using the bark and so on as the wood waste to heat the plant and dry the pellets.
To some of the points around forestry, there's a lot of debate around forestry and whether we take care of the environment. The one issue I would say for sure in this particular situation is that these trees, obviously, regrow naturally, but as you can see with some of the forest fires that we've seen in British Columbia, some of these areas are prone to such large natural disturbances as fires or bug kills. The actions we take can prevent that type of situation from happening close to some of the communities we work in.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Right. One thing I was going to ask about wood waste...because one of the big climate issues around the forest industry, at least in British Columbia, is the burning of slash in the fall. As I travel around my riding at either this time of year, or a few weeks past, it's very, very, very smoky. The slash burning in B.C. puts out as much carbon as all the cars in the province put together. I'm wondering whether you or other pellet-type plants can use that waste material. I have a new plant being built in my riding, near where Mr. Kalesnikoff is, actually over the hill in Fruitvale.
You mentioned also creating renewable natural gas from these wood waste products. I'm wondering if you have any plans for that in the future, or if you knew of other initiatives like it that could stop us from burning slash, instead creating cleaner fuels for industry.
Chief Executive Officer, Peak Renewables
To answer that question, I think, absolutely, that any community that has the ability to put in a pellet plant can use that residual waste. Again, it's subject to the length of distance that it gets hauled, but there's really no need to burn that slash in situ in the forest. Ideally we'd be able to use that in a pellet plant or in some sort of biomass conversion facility.
We've been speaking to a lot of different companies about their technologies because, ideally, what we would like to do is just what you're saying—to take some of that biomass and turn it into a more advanced product, something that's obviously based on this renewable resource that we have. There's a nice little facility called B.C. Biocarbon that's doing some pretty interesting things in McBride, B.C. We've been spending some time with them, looking at something that might turn into something, but with a lot of them it's very early in terms of the technology and they need the support from—
Chief Executive Officer, Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. Ltd.
Mr. Maloney, sorry, but can I make just one quick comment on that subject?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
—but thank you.
Mr. Zimmer, you have five minutes, followed by Ms. Jones for five minutes.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Chair, maybe we'll address the motion first.
In that regard, I have no problem with the members of the minister's office appearing to speak to that particular motion. I have no problem with that, so if you want to.... I don't know if it's necessary to add an amendment for that to occur. I don't see that, but again I have no problem with officials appearing with the minister.
I would like to speak to Mr. Baarda again. You spoke about McBride and about Fort Nelson. One thing that folks on this call, who are at this committee meeting today, don't often see but that I see every day when I drive through the Pine Pass is all of the standing red deadwood and the standing yellow wood. Now, it's really a new thing, and it actually looks quite beautiful. My wife pointed it out to me and I thought they were just deciduous trees, leaf trees, that we normally see losing their leaves in the fall. But these are all evergreen trees that are turning yellow, and it's from the new spruce beetle kill, instead of just the pine beetle kill.
This is where I see the real opportunity, and you spoke about it, to deal with this wood in a productive way rather than just literally adding fuel to the fire by not addressing it. I see that our American counterparts to the south have really carried out some initiatives to clean up their parks and forests, with all of this fuel that is just on the forest floor. To me, when you see opportunities like you and Brian have obviously seen, to use some of this wood, pull that fuel out of there, not only does that help prevent forest fires, but it's also used for something positive as well.
That's really the message. We talked about some of the negatives, the groups that want to shut forestry down in B.C. I've heard about different groups that want to shut down all of forestry, but here's a really positive message all around for the environment and forestry.
Can you just speak to what I highlighted there, Mr. Baarda?
Chief Executive Officer, Peak Renewables
Certainly making some of that fibre available to some of the smaller players like us, and Mr. Kalesnikoff, whom you also heard from, as opposed to its being in the hands of the four or five major tenure holders in British Columbia, is beneficial. They are not incented to take that type of product out; we are.
So, creating the small licences, creating the opportunities with indigenous communities and giving us an opportunity to get in there and get that fibre out is absolutely something that I think is quite beneficial.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Do you see incentives for doing that as sufficient? In the current situation, often I look at what the stumpage rates are in B.C., and they're very high. To me there needs to be some kind of movement. We're stepping on some provincial jurisdiction here, but it maybe speaks to more of a need for a national forestry plan.
Do you see the need to incentivize groups like you to go in there and go after this wood for the sake of preventative medicine, given the larger cost of having a large forest fire in some of your communities?
Chief Executive Officer, Peak Renewables
I'm certainly familiar with some areas. If you live in the Cranbrook area as Brian Fehr does, or the Castlegar area as Mr. Kalesnikoff does, some extensive fireproofing has been done. That fireproofing is done through incentive programs that I believe are supported by not only the B.C. government, but also the federal government.
There certainly are things like that, which I think are highly beneficial to communities in making sure that we fireproof the communities and, to the extent there is a lot of dead fibre around a community, take care of that as well.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
To me it's a great story. I don't know if it's been understood vastly enough. There is a little bit done in close proximity to communities, but to see it province-wide.... We have so much of that wood standing. It would be so nice to use it an efficient way and really help the environment and all involved.
Mr. Kalesnikoff, you had some things to add. You wanted to finish by saying something, so I'll give you some time to finish.
Chief Executive Officer, Kalesnikoff Lumber Co. Ltd.
Thank you, I really appreciate that. I'll say two things.
First, this is a provincial issue, a legislative issue and a stumpage issue. The cost right now of taking that wood that goes into the slash pile to a pulp mill incurs a full stumpage rate. The licensees are subsidizing those facilities, which is completely wrong. Working with a stick rather than a carrot is not going to work.
Second, I appreciate what you're saying about salvaging those trees. Why are they in that state? How could we have let it get to that point? We should have been managing that forest before. We should have been farmers of the land. It is so frustrating for me when I hear that.
Thank you.
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Yes, as a British Columbian, we saw some things that could have been done when it was coming across the border. We were all looking for some kind of action with the government of the day. That didn't happen, but—
Liberal
Conservative
Bob Zimmer Conservative Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC
Thank you for all your testimony today.
Thank you, Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.
Ms. Jones, you are at last, but not least, for the day. You have five minutes.
Liberal
Yvonne Jones Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our panellists for very informed presentations and good responses.
I'm in Labrador. My riding is in Labrador, in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. I have certainly seen lots of transition in the forest industry here. As Kruger will know very well, we were very much a supplier to the pulp and paper industry in the province. With the decline in those mills, we have seen the whole industry evaporate from under us, because without the by-product for pulp at the time, there wasn't a developed market.
My question is to Mr. Cossette. In the province right now, Kruger still has their pulp and paper operations at Corner Brook. First, how has the decline for pulp and paper products affected your operation overall, particularly in that area? Also, have you looked at diversifying some of the work you are doing in the industry within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador?
Vice-President, Fiber, Biomaterials and Sustainability, Kruger Inc.
Thank you for a very good question.
In fact, I'm not going to paint a pink picture of the situation. I don't think that is the case right now. We're struggling because of the structural changes in the market. We have a very competitive mill over there in terms of manufacturing cost. On one side, you've got great manufacturing costs, but on the other side, you need to have a market for it. The market is declining at a rapid pace and we're competing against other mills that are also trying to survive.
We've been lucky enough to get some support from IFIT recently to perform a deep-down diversification study, which we are in the midst of. We're looking at all of the options, where we would be able to capitalize on current assets. What we've seen so far leads us to believe that there will be a need to invest massive capex into the mill to transform its operations and its final product.
