Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 7th, 2020

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Unfortunately, Ms. Nicholls, you didn't have time to finish your answer earlier. I was asking you what makes it difficult to commercialize bioproducts. You gave us the example of some Scandinavian countries that have done it.

I'd like to hear the rest of your answer on that.

[Diane Nicholls]

Some Scandinavian companies are further ahead of us with regard to looking at the new bioeconomy products, and I think we can learn from them as to how they did the commercialization. Some of it was driven by government policy. Some of it was driven by programmatic supports on an ongoing basis to establish commercialization and then lessen it as they became successful. Certainly it's working with the demand side—making sure that the demand is strong and that the public is looking for those green-based products, making sure that they're aware that they are a possibility and therefore going out and looking for those alternative products so that we could then have an investment world for commercialization.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you.

My colleague Mr. Cannings was talking earlier about the attempts that have been made to have an act to encourage the use of wood. We have a wood charter in Quebec. We know that, over the years, it has been rather difficult to get such legislation passed.

Perhaps I expressed myself poorly earlier. After speaking to several stakeholders in the community, it was suggested that perhaps the best solution was to include a carbon footprint in government procurement contracts.

Chantiers Chibougamau, a Quebec company that makes glulam beams, appeared before the committee. The company's biggest customers aren't Canadian, but American and French. France, in particular, already has this kind of legislation that encourages the use of materials with a low carbon footprint.

Do you support that?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You have time for a yes-or-no answer.

[Diane Nicholls]

Potentially.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

That's a good one.

All right, we're going to have to leave it there.

Mr. Cannings, we'll move over to you.

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

I'll go back to Ms. Nicholls again, as usual.

Several people have mentioned the increasing catastrophic fires we've been having. We had a report in 2004 in British Columbia, the Filmon report on wildfires, and how we should be addressing FireSmarting around communities.

We also have issues around access to fibre in British Columbia.

I have two questions. One, how is British Columbia progressing on meeting the asks of the Filmon report in terms of FireSmarting communities?

Two, could you let us know what the forest service is doing about adapting harvest plans so we have a more resilient forest that is less likely to be hit by catastrophic fires?

[Diane Nicholls]

British Columbia has made substantial progress in the WildSmart program, in combination with the federal and provincial governments in our communities. Multiple supporters or providers of that service do wildfire mitigation, forest management techniques surrounding the communities and make sure that we have that very ability happening close to communities. Obviously more work can always be done.

The wildfire seasons of 2017 and 2018 were a combination of climatic effects—the lightning storms—but also the fuels that were on the land base, which was part of the refuse of the mountain pine beetle epidemic and the dead wood on the land base. Part of cleaning that up is time and natural regeneration.

We're also doing forest management where we underplant those areas to make sure we have some green capacity, which always slows down the fires. We saw that with the wildfires of 2018 and 2017 where the plantations stopped the fires and they moved around them.

We've been using a number of different techniques in British Columbia and progressing and ongoing with regard to wildfire smarting our communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Perfect, you're right on time. Thanks, Mr. Cannings.

We will go over to Mr. McLean.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Could I defer my time to Mr. Zimmer, please?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Yes, of course, it's up to you.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Yes, I can go, that's for sure.

Mr. Dreeshen, I'm going along the same lines as the first questions I had for the B.C. witness.

What kinds of numbers are you seeing for the spruce beetle infestation on the Alberta side of our province? You're our neighbour, as you know.

[Devin Dreeshen]

It is cyclical. Right now the spruce beetle numbers in Alberta are very low, so that's been positive. We are focusing primarily on mountain pine beetle.

I want to jump in on MP Cannings' question on FireSmarting for a while.

We have 13 communities that have nine projects, worth over $20 million, essentially building a fireguard around them. If you can completely eliminate or reduce the fire risk of what is up around a community...we saw that early on in 2020. In one of the worst fires we had in 2019 we had to do a controlled burn right beside the town of High Level, which obviously had high risks associated with it, but because the trees were right up and there was a fuel source right up against the community we had to do a very expensive controlled burn. That's where we came up with this idea of having fireguards around sensitive communities.

So far those nine projects should be done by next fire season in 2021.

I'm sorry to have gone a little off script on that, but I wanted to comment on it.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

That's no problem. Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

I have one more question. I'd like to finish off with Ms. Nicholls, where I wanted to finish off last time but ran out of time.

You talked about our need to highlight the bioeconomy. I think some of us understand the bioeconomy—or at least what I see. We use this wood waste from mills. We see as an example in Prince George where wood waste is used to heat basically all the municipal buildings downtown. That is the most obvious example of that bioeconomy.

There has to be a larger understanding of this, and maybe I'm grabbing onto it. I see a lot more potential there. My son works in the forest sector and he's been part of dealing with burn piles before and all that wood that just seems to be, again, going up in smoke when it could be used in other ways. The cost-effectiveness is the biggest challenge, isn't it? Some of these areas are remote, and how do we get that in a cost-effective way to utilize this?

Maybe just expand on what bioeconomy means for the room here. Most of us might not have a full understanding of that term.

[Diane Nicholls]

Bioeconomy means a lot of things to a lot of different people, you're quite right. Engineered-wood product also means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The context in British Columbia, in terms of how we use the bioeconomy, is that it's looking at these: What can we use wood fibre for? What kind of economies or manufacturing products will that support? It can be, as I said, chemicals made from wood fibre that support a cosmetic industry. It can be paint emulsifiers, as an example. It can be fibres that are extracted for materials. You've all heard about bamboo clothing. Lululemon is looking for biomass-based rather than petroleum-based to produce sustainable clothing. It can be things like mass timber, where you're taking two-by-fours and pulling them together for mass timber production and utilizing that in construction.

It has a far range. When you look at forestry and the forest sector, we have to really be thinking of it from seed to product, all the way through. Part of that is the cost-effectiveness of using that fibre. How we process that fibre? How do we harvest it? How do we move it? Where do we take it to? Currently in B.C. we don't have anybody making biomaterials, bioplastics or biochemicals, so we don't have a place to take it to. We do have pellet producers, so that's one avenue for us, but I would like to see the creation of that in B.C.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

This becomes the cat chasing its tail, right? We need the economy to sell it to before we can really get an industry off the ground. I see that there are some other innovators, too. We had Brian Fehr on the committee a couple of weeks ago. He is doing a pellet plant up in Fort Nelson, with potential expansion plans into the future.

The old analogy is that it's easier to turn a ship when it's moving. The new ships, I suppose, are a little different, but the same analogy applies. I guess the next question, then, is how do we—

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You're out of time, Mr. Zimmer. I apologize.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Last but not least is Mr. May for five minutes.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's always a pleasure to bat cleanup on this committee.

Minister Yakabuski, in 2018 the Ontario government announced it would be entering into agreements with first nations on resource- and revenue-sharing in the forestry sector. Could you update this committee on how many of these agreements are in place? What are the plans to pursue additional agreements and partnerships with first nations?

[John Yakabuski]

We continue to have these discussions. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to go beyond that. We are continuing to make payments to first nations—

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

There are some agreements? Okay.

[John Yakabuski]

There are some agreements in place. I think we'll leave that discussion for the ones that are going on between me, Minister Rickford and first nations, at this point. We're not ready to go public with the discussions yet.

[Bryan May, Liberal, Cambridge, ON]

That's fair. I just wanted it to be known that this is something that in Ontario has been in place for a couple of years now. They're pursuing that.

[John Yakabuski]

Yes, 100%—