Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to question the Minister of Environment to get a clear answer on my question from my December 2, 2016 exchange.
I like to call my riding “the promised land”. It is a land flowing with milk and honey to some degree. It is also a land filled with promise. It is one of the youngest ridings in the country and it has a very vast landscape. It is about half the size of Norway. It is about the size of Iceland. It is three times the size of the Netherlands and has a population of 100,000. Many of the people are employed in primary industries such as logging, agriculture, and the oil field.
The implementation of the new carbon tax has had some significant impacts in northern Alberta with respect to jobs, and I will focus my remarks on the forestry sector. I had the opportunity over the Christmas break to ride along with my cousin in his logging truck for a day. It was a real opportunity. We drove out into the bush, loaded 45 tonnes onto a logging truck, and hauled it 120 kilometres into Whitecourt, where we unloaded it at the big sawmill. I saw some huge equipment in action and participated in a little of the banter that was happening on CB radio. It was fascinating to see all that heavy equipment in action and all the people it took so we could buy a two-by-four at the Home Depot for $4.50. It was fascinating to watch.
I also had an opportunity to meet with folks from ANC, the Alberta Newsprint Company. It operates a large paper factory in Whitecourt. I also took a tour of the La Crete Sawmills in La Crete, Alberta. All of the people I met told me that this was an industry that operated on very slim margins and it was commodity-based. Unlike a lot of other businesses, they do not have the opportunity to pass the new expenses on to their consumers. The price of a pound of paper is the price of a pound of paper. The price of a board length is the price of a board length. They are subject to those prices because they are international prices. They have said that when the carbon tax comes in, it will make a significant cut into their profitability and also the jobs.
It would be one thing if this were the only thing that was happening to the forestry industry in northern Alberta, but it is not. Electrical rates are changing significantly in northern Alberta. The softwood lumber agreement has not come into play, so people are worried about that.
We also have a cariboo range plan. I have contacted the minister's office a couple of times about this issue as have stakeholders from my riding. We are looking to the environment minister to give us a reprieve on not only the carbon tax, but also the cariboo range plan initiative. I know there is a hard date of October of this year for that range plan. We are looking for a reprieve on that date so we can get a good range plan in place, especially in light of the new carbon tax coming into play.