Natural Resources Committee on Dec. 7th, 2020

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Great. Thank you.

I have a last question. In Alberta, a commitment was made to increase fibre access by 33%. Now, access has been increased by about half that—by about 13% or 15% or somewhere around there. How do we get the rest of that? How do we achieve that goal? What's holding us back?

[Devin Dreeshen]

Early on, when we were elected, we had a forest jobs guarantee to try to grow our industry. One of the first things I did as minister was task the department to say that if we were to be true environmentalists and look at how we should actually manage our forests in a proper way, where we are doing sustainable harvest and trying to reduce fire risk as well as pest risks—mountain pine beetle spread and areas that are very susceptible to massive forest fires—and if we were to go out and just properly manage our forests, what would our annual allowable cut level be? They crunched the numbers and found it to be 33% higher than it currently was. About 13% of that 33%—so about a third—was something that we in Agriculture and Forestry knew we could do within the department. We've already initiated that. The remaining 20% of that 33% does come from federal regulations as well as environmental regulations.

We are looking at how we can increase our annual allowable cut in a sustainable way, as true foresters and environmentalists would, to make sure that we can have healthy, sustainable forests in Alberta for generations to come.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Ms. Harder.

We go over to Mr. Sidhu for five minutes.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all the witnesses for taking the time to be here with us today.

Minister Yakabuski, you mentioned tree planting. Many of us were dismayed to see, in Ontario's 2019 budget, cuts that hurt the forest sector. I'm speaking about the cuts that resulted in the elimination of the 50 million tree program. We've heard at length in this committee, and I think we all understand, the importance and benefits of planting trees.

Why did your government make the decision to cut this important program?

[John Yakabuski]

It was a budgetary decision at a time when the budget was extremely tight, but the program was not meeting any of its targets with regard to 50 million trees within a prescribed period of time. It had planted fewer than half of those trees at the time of the 2019 budget.

To put it into perspective, in 2018 we planted over 70 million trees as a province through our sector in one year. We plant an average of between 68 million to 71 million trees a year in the province of Ontario.

This program was not fulfilling its intended targets. Quite frankly, it wasn't doing it in the fiscal framework that we expected. That was a decision we made, and I'm quite comfortable having made it, because these were trees, many of them being planted on private property, and they were begging for people to take trees to try to make the program work, because it just wasn't administered properly. It wasn't meeting those targets. They were quite comfortable with that decision, because in our industry, we plant, as they say, an average of somewhere around 70 million trees a year.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you for that, Minister.

Definitely tree planting is very important. Our federal government stepped up to provide the funding that the Ontario provincial government cut to Forest Ontario. This is a program that benefits and partners with conservation groups, with landowners, like you just said, and with indigenous communities.

I have heard from many concerned constituents, and they are worried about further cuts by the province of Ontario.

While you're here, are there any further funding cuts planned in the forestry sector?

[John Yakabuski]

I don't think that's a question that I'd be answering at this committee, but thanks for asking it.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you for that.

Your department runs an interesting program, the forest sector investment and innovation program, the manufacturing and processing of wood products. Can you share more about the uptake and the impact of this interesting program?

[John Yakabuski]

Yes, as I did with MP Lefebvre, we had Oxford Pallet, which was a big one. We also have CRIBE, which is another very innovative organization that we've recently worked with on agreement. I'm not a hundred per cent sure if the agreement has been finalized yet, but this is, as I say, a forest innovation and investment program, and it's designed to create employment and also broaden the industry.

In the previous funding program, we did deal with a mass timber production facility that should be opening this spring, which we think will put Ontario on the cutting edge of that very important part of this forestry sector. I think there are tremendous opportunities for mass timber.

I've had the opportunity to be under more than a few bridges. People may not know that they are supported by timbers as opposed to concrete and steel. It's amazing how sturdy and solid these structures are. They've been in existence for some time.

We see great opportunities in tall buildings, mass timber buildings, and also in the construction of bridges and that kind of infrastructure that hasn't been traditional for some time. As for mass timber, we've got the highest quality wood in the world here and, with all respect to Alberta and B.C.... We're among the highest quality, we'll say that.

We're looking forward to opportunities from that. Those are the kinds of things that we're trying to support in those programs.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one more quick question?

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

You do.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you.

Our committee has heard a lot about the bioeconomy and the exciting new products and opportunities it presents. We heard last week from GreenNano Technologies with whom NRCan funded a very similar program to yours that is creating automotive parts from wood fibre. Would this be a program that you would consider expanding in the future so there are more types of these products?

[John Yakabuski]

We're already there in our industry. Part of our forest sector strategy, putting more wood to work and investing in innovation, markets and talents speaks to exactly that, the uses of wood that can be broadened in so many different ways that we're not currently using but have opportunities. Wood is used in a lot more things than most people see, understand and recognize, but there are still other opportunities out there.

The United Nations has forecasted that the demand for wood products is going to increase by 30% by 2030. We want to make sure that we're right there here in Ontario and, of course, in Canada to be able to supply that global demand. Some of it, of course, will be in traditional uses of wood, but much of it will be in non-traditional uses or ones where innovation has allowed us to fill that need in a marketplace with wood, whereas previously it was some synthetic. We're looking forward to those opportunities.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Over to you, Mr. Patzer, for five minutes.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to begin with Minister Dreeshen.

Your government has been investigating the issue of disinformation campaigns against the Canadian energy sector. Members of the forest industry have told us about a certain stigma against their trade despite the great care and effort that they take. Some, including Derek Nighbor for the Forest Products Association of Canada, have been mentioning a similar type of misinformation being used against forestry.

First, could you quickly share with the committee how serious this problem of disinformation is?

[Devin Dreeshen]

Disinformation is alive and well. It's something that we've seen from the Natural Resources Defense Council. They had a campaign that was picked up by our mainstream media earlier this year. I think it was called “The Issue with Tissue: How Americans are Flushing Forests Down the Toilet”. Essentially, it attacked, with unfounded attacks, our industry saying that our Canadian forestry industry is not sustainable, they don't have sustainable forestry practices, they don't have any replanting regulations, and it was a laundry list of untrue accusations against an entire industry. It was baffling to me personally, and at the ministry even, how our mainstream media would just take that and run with it and report it as news where it was complete fabrication.

I think it is something that is very real to have sometimes even international bodies come in and to run a campaign for a very intended purpose, which is to discredit and to try to move the needle when it comes to global investments. That's something we take very seriously, not just in forestry, but also in our energy sector. It's why we launched a campaign called the Champions of Agriculture and Forests that's working with industry to actually promote the good work that they do, because I think there are lots of people who don't understand for every one one tree that's harvested in Alberta we plant two. With all the environmentally sensitive areas, we're not going in there. We have 200-year plans that get constantly renewed with our industry, as well as with our officials here in the government.

We do, I think, forestry better than any other country in the world, but yet we still get attacked for it. So it is something that we think is very real. We try our very best as government working with industry to promote against a stigma that's completely unfounded against our industry.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

We even had one witness say that he is sick and tired of being treated like a Neanderthal when it comes to forestry. He has a very compelling story to tell about the strides that the industry has taken and, like you said, what makes it a world-class leading industry.

These same witnesses are also expressing a need though for federal and provincial governments to do more in responding to misinformation. Have you heard of any effort from the federal government to help stop that disinformation?

[Devin Dreeshen]

Not specifically. It is something that with our Champions of Agriculture and Forests campaign we initially went out and wanted to talk with industry and to partner with them to discredit a lot of this misinformation. If we could broaden that to make it a more national-level fight, I think would be a worthy endeavour for sure.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to switch over to Ms. Nicholls.

I notice that the B.C. government groups together forestry, natural resources and rural development, which actually makes a lot of sense. Along with agriculture these are key industries for rural areas. One thing I've noticed over my time in Parliament so far is the government has really struggled to define and grasp what being rural actually means.

I'm just wondering if you could help the government with that and just let us know what metrics are used to define rural in B.C.

[Diane Nicholls]

The majority of British Columbia is actually rural B.C. We have population centres like Vancouver, the Lower Mainland, Victoria and parts of the Okanagan, however the rest of it is pretty much rural.

When we look at the dependency on the forest sector, it's really looking at how many different industries are supporting those rural communities, how big the population is and how many of those populations are focused on or are employed by the forest sector or an industry that supports the forest sector. It could be transportation, it could be supplies, it could be goods and services.

That really defines in British Columbia the rural area from a forestry perspective.

Our ministry is combined because a lot of the forest sector-dependent communities are rural communities and certainly indigenous nations and their communities fit into that realm as well. It's an effective way of looking at those communities and focusing in on the programs that we need to support them going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

Your time is up, so we're moving on to Ms. Jones for five minutes.

[Yvonne Jones, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the panellists today, and I really appreciate the ministers being able to join us and give us those updates.

I'm going to move a little bit more to current situations that we're in with the COVID-19 pandemic and how it's been impacting forest enterprises and workers in each of your provinces, just to get a bit of an idea of how you're managing your way through that, how the impact has been especially on indigenous people and minorities who work in the forestry sector. I know that oftentimes they are affected in a much more difficult way. I'd like to get an update from each of the provinces on how the impacts are being dealt with there. Also, maybe you could talk about how the federal emergency programs have been able to help support people in your jurisdiction who are directly employed in the forest industry.

We can start in Ontario, if you want, and then go to Alberta and British Columbia.

[John Yakabuski]

In our opening remarks, you would remember that we did talk about some of the early supports for the industry, and clearly they directly affect the people working in that industry. While the supports may have gone to the operators and the companies that operate the businesses, the impacts that they would have had would have certainly been directly on the workers, for example, the special care we took in ensuring that there was proper PPE available for those who were in the tree planting end of that spectrum.

Also, not directly part of the sector, but important to the sector, we took special care this year to ensure that our forest fire rangers were protected, because a big part of the forestry industry is our ability to ensure that we're doing what we can to put out fires as quickly as possible if they're ones that the directive is for. We had a very robust attack plan this year for forest fire fighting, and it was quite successful.

There is another program coming through the federal government that will be funded through us. We'll be doing the funding, but it will be funds that will be coming from the federal government for small and medium-sized operators in the forestry sector, specific to the needs of those smaller operations. That will be something we'll be looking at as we get into the recovery stage, because while there are probably some difficult days ahead in this pandemic, we are now looking, talking and planning for recovery. We have to ensure that we're able to capitalize on that when that time comes.

[Devin Dreeshen]

When it comes to COVID and our forestry sector in Alberta, production was slowed when COVID first hit, early in the new year, but once safety standards and new protocols and PPE were in place and physical distancing was done in mills, production ramped right up to full capacity. There were COVID cases, but there were no shutdowns of mills due to COVID. That was a positive thing that the industry obviously considered to be very important. If you're in your mill, safety standards are the most important thing so that you can keep all your workers safe and so that they can then go home at the end of the day.

When it comes to indigenous employment, about 8% of employees within Alberta are indigenous.

Within the Government of Alberta, in our tree-planting program as well as our wildfire efforts we had zero cases. When you look at the camps that we had set up, we had over 800 firefighters lined up this year. We actually hired an additional 200 going into the season knowing that we wouldn't be able to rely on our international wildfire fighters as we normally would. That 800-member standing army, if you want to say it that way, was the largest we've ever had at the beginning of any fire season in Alberta. Obviously we did that in response to not being able to be as flexible with COVID, but when you look at the 2019 wildfire numbers in the province, two million acres burned out of our 87 million acres in the province, and that's about 133 megatonnes. In 2013, the entire province of Alberta, including all of our industries, including oil and gas, emitted about 267 megatonnes. So about half of what Alberta typically emits in a year actually came from that terrible wildfire season that we had in 2019. That's why properly managing forests and reducing the risk of wildfires is so important.

I'd like to throw a shout-out to our wildfire fighters this year because in 2020, although it was a wetter, cooler year than 2019, with all the extra wildfire fighters and the work that they did, they put out over 99% of the fires by 10 a.m. the next day, and only 8,000 acres burned within Alberta.

[The Chair, Liberal, James Maloney]

Thank you.

I'm going to have to move on to Mr. Simard. You have two and a half minutes, sir.