Natural Resources Committee on March 7th, 2023

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

Personally, I like the way this bill presents things. As you say, engineers who know about wood and architects who know about building with wood and engineered wood know what a good product it is. They know that it's beautiful, it's safe, it's cost-effective and it helps the Canadian economy.

What I really wanted to do, and what I think the Quebec wood charter and the Wood First Act in British Columbia do, is point to wood. We should be thinking of wood. Too often, people who are building buildings have been building with cement, concrete and steel for so many years. That's all they think about. This would point them in the direction of wood and say, "You should consider using wood. It's a great product, and it's widely available."

That's the approach I thought would be best, rather than prescriptive use. You know, across Canada we have some provinces like Quebec and British Columbia that are very wood-centred, but other provinces are not. I think this process is very beneficial and would achieve the same.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

I understand completely, Mr. Cannings, but let me give you an example to illustrate my point.

In 2021, before the election campaign, I believe, a person came to see me. She was distraught because the Canada Revenue Agency was planning to erect a new building in Shawinigan, and the use of wood had been totally overlooked. This person, who is in the glulam business, was told that the subcontractors didn't have a wood culture.

If it's not binding, then, I'm afraid that people responding to government calls for tenders will focus on materials currently in use and won't make an effort to use wood. If we want a change in culture, I have the feeling that we will need more binding language.

I don't want to change your bill, but there may be a need for more appropriate language to make sure, at the very least, that people make an effort to use wood.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We're out of time, but I'll give you a quick response.

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

Again, I think it's always a delicate balance between being prescriptive and running into legal problems and, as I say, trade issues and things like that. What we really need here is for people to think about wood. It's a generational type of change we're after, and this is a pretty strong push in that direction.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Last but not least, we'll go to Mr. Angus for his six minutes in this round.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Senator Griffin, for participating.

Mr. Cannings, I know my colleagues sometimes think.... They miss you greatly. I don't know what that says about my being your replacement that they always talk about how great it was when you were at committee, so I'm going to be super on my game in cross-examining you and questioning you.

In the language of the bill, it focuses on the need to consider the GHG emissions of building materials. The Quebec Forest Industry Council says that one cubic metre of wood is about 60 kilos of carbon, compared to 252 kilos for steel and 345 kilos for the same volume of concrete. If this were implemented, it would certainly give a benefit to wood, and I, representing a region heavily dependent on the wood industry, would be very favourable to that.

I want to ask you a question. Do we have any sense that the government will do anything beyond rubber-stamping and saying this is a wonderful issue and then continuing to carry on? Have we seen any shift in how procurement is being done to make sure new wood materials are being considered in buildings?

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

You can perhaps question PSPC very shortly on some of the details with that, but we have the greening government strategy, where companies must disclose the amount of embodied carbon in building products and work to reduce that, so there is that shift going on within government. There is also that shift going on within concrete and steel as well. As I said, the cement industry is keen to compete on these terms. That's why I was happy to change the language of the bill to broaden it so that we focused on the environmental benefits rather than the actual products we end up using.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you so much for that.

Our committee is beginning a study of the impacts of Joe Biden's IRA—the Inflation Reduction Act, not the paramilitary group—and they have put aside $100 million for government agencies to “make determinations” on selecting “materials and products” that meet the standards that will “reduce greenhouse gas emissions” of federally funded building infrastructure and construction building. The funding will also help identify “low-embodied” greenhouse gas emission materials in products across the IRA.

That is a huge financial incentive. One reason that New Democrats have pushed for this study on the IRA is the real possibility that Canada could be left behind in the development of a sustainable economy if the Americans are putting that much financial muscle into this.

Mr. Cannings, in your work, do you think our putting this legislation in place will help set the table for Canada to be able to compete? As a follow-up, will we need to be putting aside funding, as the IRA is doing in the United States, to incentivize these wood products?

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

Yes. Thank you. The IRA is certainly an issue that I think a lot of committees are looking at. We're looking at it on the international trade committee as well. I think it is a serious issue because of the vast amounts of government money being out there for all sorts of things, including building materials, as you say.

Now, the advantage that Canada has with wood, for instance, is that we are the leaders in engineered wood and mass timber construction in North America. I mentioned Structurlam, a company in Penticton. They have a facility in Arkansas. They moved south of the border some years ago in order to expand, but the trees used in these products are in Canada for the most part. We have that advantage, but I think Canada as a whole has to really double down on anything that would create the climate to take on the IRA. Whether it's in natural resources or in clean-tech products, we have to be very cognizant of that and do much more than we're doing now.

The one thing I will mention about mass timber products is that we can ship them to the United States and export them without tariffs under the softwood lumber agreement. It's a manufactured product, so it's not hit by those tariffs. There's an opportunity for increased market there.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That's good to know.

I want to end on the fact that it seems this bill is receiving support from across all party lines, which is quite interesting in this Parliament. We've been getting strong stakeholder support.

I just want to get this on the record in terms of safety, because I've always been very careful when it comes to considering our firefighters. I've heard many times from firefighters about going into buildings where they're concerned about the standards and about the need to really bring up higher standards to make sure that, when they are going into fire situations in buildings, they are not going to be put at risk.

I just want to put this on the record: How safe are these products, and have you had any meetings with the firefighters over this issue?

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Please give a brief answer. We're at the end of the six minutes here.

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

I would simply say that mass timber or engineered wood construction is as safe as, or safer than, concrete and steel, based on studies that the NRC has done. These are very different products from the sort of “wood stick” construction of smaller buildings.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you. Given where we are with the time, I don't think we have time for another round.

I'd like to thank both Mr. Cannings and Senator Griffin for bringing this bill forward to us. We will have to suspend for about five minutes while we switch panels. We have a couple of people appearing online, and we need to do a quick final sound check.

Before I do that, since we have a few minutes, a copy of the budget for this particular study—the one happening today and Friday—was circulated to the members. The total amount is $5,350. That includes some witness travel, headsets and working meals. If anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to open the floor. Otherwise, I'll call the vote in favour of passing this budget for the study at $5,350.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you very much.

With that, thank you to our panellists for being here.

Senator, have a wonderful retirement. I hope to see you back on the Hill from time to time, unless, of course, you don't want to come back to Hill. Enjoy, and thank you so much for joining us today.

With that, folks, we'll suspend. We'll be back in a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

I'd like to call the meeting back to order.

We're now back in session. Once again, no photos are allowed until we adjourn.

I'd like to welcome our online guests and our one in-person guest. I'll introduce you momentarily.

For those who might be appearing for the first time, if you have anything to say, just use the “raise hand” function and then you'll have to unmute yourself. For language, you have the choice of floor, English or French at the bottom of your screen.

With that, on our next panel we have representatives from Natural Resources Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada. First of all, online we have Gregory Smith, director, economic analysis division, with the Canadian forest service. From Public Services and Procurement Canada, online we have Stéphan Déry, assistant deputy minister, and in person we have Jean-Rock Tourigny, acting director general, technical services, both with the real property services branch. We welcome all three of you.

With that, we have an opportunity for a five-minute opening statement, so I will go to the Natural Resources representative first.

Mr. Smith, you may take the floor. I use a card system, so if the camera is on me and you see the yellow card, that means there is 30 seconds left. If you see the red card, it means the time is up, but don't stop mid-sentence. Finish your thought, and we'll move on to the next item on the agenda.

Mr. Smith, if you would like to take five minutes, the floor is yours.

[Gregory Smith, Director, Economic Analysis Division, Canadian Forest Service, Department of Natural Resources]

Thank you very much.

Good day, committee members. I'm Greg Smith, the director of the economic analysis division of Natural Resources Canada's Canadian forest service. I'm here representing the trade, economics and industry branch at NRCan.

I'd like to begin by acknowledging that I'm delivering this speech on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

In this discussion today, I'd like to talk a bit about the linkages between the use of wood in buildings, environmental benefits and the Canadian forest bioeconomy.

Lumber has long been used in residential construction, but the use of mass timber and other engineered wood products is gaining traction in Canada and abroad. These wood buildings are renewable, require less energy to manufacture and are able to store carbon for the service life of the buildings, and even beyond if they are reused. These features speak to the benefits of wood building in terms of low embodied carbon and, therefore, to contributions to Canada's net-zero objectives.

A life-cycle emissions analysis of projects funded by the Government of Quebec showed that the carbon embodied in wood buildings is conservatively 20% less than in a functionally equivalent building made with more traditional materials. In some cases, that figure was 50% or even higher.

One of the first tall buildings ever built with mass timber is located at the University of British Columbia, as was noted previously by the honourable former senator. At 18 storeys, the Brock Commons Tallwood House student residence was the tallest wood building in the world at the time of its completion in 2017. The total equivalent carbon dioxide emissions avoided by using wood products instead of other materials in the building was more than 2,400 metric tons. That's equivalent to removing over 500 cars from the road for a year. Brock Commons demonstrates how the increased use of wood in building materials can help reach the Government of Canada's net-zero goals by 2050.

The federal government has recognized that in order to manage emissions in the built environment and increase the acceptance of wood products and systems domestically, it's critical to showcase the use of wood in non-traditional applications and to support a skilled labour force.

Since 2017, the federal green construction through wood program, or GCWood, has shown the innovative use of wood through support for projects like the Brock Commons. In addition, it has supported research and development, technical guidance and work to support the adoption of tall wood buildings into the national building code of Canada. GCWood has also funded the development and provision of training and education programs and resources and tools for professional design and construction communities.

Building with wood is also a priority identified by the federal, provincial and territorial Canadian Council of Forest Ministers, or the CCFM. Through its 2017 bioeconomy framework for Canada, the CCFM identified the need to increase value-added activity in Canada's forest sector. Growing value-added manufacturing is important to enhancing the economic resilience of the forest industry.

While I've been talking about forests in terms of their value as a wood product to this point, the 2017 framework recognizes the importance of standing forests to other things that Canadians value—for example, biodiversity, conservation, sequestering carbon, contributing to landscape and community resilience, human health and cultural well-being. The framework also acknowledges that climate change is putting pressure on wood supply.

By managing what is harvested and getting more economic value out of the wood we do harvest—including through the increased use of mass timber and other wood building systems—we help balance the contribution of Canada's forests to sustainable growth with their contributions to nature, climate and social priorities.

In 2022, the CCFM endorsed a renewed forest bioeconomy framework that identifies high-priority challenges to bioeconomy growth that are relevant across the country. The renewed framework includes actions for jurisdictions to take to help address these challenges. Most relevant to us today is the challenge related to a lack of support for demonstration and scaled-up financing, which are required to prove and commercialize innovative products and technologies, including wood building systems. To address this challenge, the renewed framework identifies the procurement of bioproducts by all orders of government as a responsive action.

In closing, there are significant environmental benefits to building with mass timber and other wood systems, including reducing embodied carbon emissions. Canada is well placed to access these benefits in the future given our innovative forest sector.

I thank you all for having me speak about this issue and wish you all a good day.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you for those opening comments.

We'll now go to our Public Services and Procurement Canada representatives.

I could be wrong, but I believe it's Mr. Déry giving the opening statement.

[Stéphan Déry, Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property Services, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to be appearing before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources in my capacity as assistant deputy minister of real property services at Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, to discuss the role my organization could play with respect to Bill S-222, an act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood).

I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which our head office is located is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. The Algonquin peoples have lived on this land since time immemorial, and we are grateful to be present in this territory.

PSPC manages one of the largest and most diverse portfolios of real estate in the country and is the Government of Canada’s real estate expert. PSPC provides safe, healthy and productive working environments for over 260,000 federal employees across Canada, including accommodation for parliamentarians and a full range of real property services, including the provision of architectural and engineering services.

The spirit and intent of this proposed legislation aligns with the government’s goals of supporting Canadian industry to further develop sustainable materials solutions, including wood products, in the pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment.

I would like to highlight the important work undertaken by PSPC in that regard.

The 2020 greening government strategy requires the government to reduce the environmental impact of structural construction materials by disclosing the amount of embodied carbon in the structural materials for major construction projects. There is also a requirement to reduce the embodied carbon of structural materials of major construction projects by 30% starting in 2025. Implementing tools to support these requirements within PSPC will be a key focus in the coming years.

Public Services and Procurement Canada considers the entire context of a project before starting new construction or rehabilitation projects by analyzing each project on a holistic basis. This approach ensures a balanced review of all of the various requirements, while respecting our commitments to indigenous collaboration, reducing costs, using sustainable materials and meeting our greening and net-zero carbon commitments.

The most recent mandate letter of the Minister of Public Services and Procurement requires that PSPC work with Infrastructure Canada and Natural Resources Canada to put a new buy clean strategy in place to support and prioritize the use of made-in-Canada low-carbon products in Canadian infrastructure projects.

Through its expertise in sustainability and as supplier of procurement, architecture and engineering services and real property assets, PSPC is especially well positioned to have a direct and significant impact on the greening of government operations. PSPC is actively participating in a number of initiatives that support the use of lower-carbon materials in construction projects.

Here are some examples. We are working with the National Research Council of Canada to produce a set of Canadian data on low-carbon building materials to enable informed decision-making through the life cycle assessment initiative and the incorporation of low-carbon requirements in construction and infrastructure projects in Canada. The Canadian National Master Construction Specification was updated in 2021 to include new details on encapsulated mass timber construction.

We are collaborating with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s centre for greening government to support the implementation of reduced embodied carbon in structural materials by developing mandatory requirements and carrying out pilot projects. Discussions are under way with the concrete, steel and wood industries in order to establish reduction targets.

At PSPC, we are always mindful of the materials we source for our infrastructure projects and continue to encourage green innovation.

In conclusion, Public Services and Procurement Canada will continue to lead the way in embedding environmental considerations into its requirements with respect to the construction, modernization, maintenance and repair of federal real property.

At PSPC, our practices allow for the use of wood and other green building materials in accordance with project requirements and in compliance with the health and safety requirements outlined in building codes.

Mr. Tourigny and I are now pleased to answer your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you for those opening comments.

We have a first round of six minutes each. First up, I have Mr. Patzer.

When you're ready, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for coming today. I definitely appreciate what all of you had to say.

I'm going to start with Public Services and Procurement. I'm wondering if the department is capable of making the right decision to build with wood products.

[Stéphan Déry]

Thank you for the question.

I would say that PSPC, as a department and as an expert in real property, requires a review of each project. Each project is looked at based on the benefits of which materials should be used in its construction. It's not a decision that is taken across the board. It's a decision that is taken on a project-by-project basis to ensure that we are using the most efficient material, the most secure material and the material that has the smallest carbon footprint.

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

Thank you for that.

In considering this movement towards building with wood products, has your department recommended a flexible approach to these projects?

[Stéphan Déry]

On the flexible approach, as I said, we are looking at each project on its own merit and, with our expertise and also hired expertise, we are looking at what the best solution is for each project.

As an example, since the Canadian building code 2020 has been changed to allow for 12-storey building construction in mass timber, we are looking at a project here in the national capital region on the possibility of erecting a 12-storey building with mass timber.

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

How will your department measure the environmental impact of using wood products? There were some numbers thrown around in the opening remarks, but I'm curious about how you guys are going to measure the actual impact that we're going to have by using wood products.

[Stéphan Déry]

I would turn to my colleague Jean-Rock, who is the expert in the domain of calculating GHG emissions.