Madam Speaker, it is great to be back. This is my first opportunity to rise in my place since we have come back for the fall session. I want to re-emphasize the gratitude I have for the people of northwestern Ontario, in the Kenora riding, who have placed their trust in me to represent them in Parliament. It is an honour to be back, as we work to make life more affordable for all Canadians, to address the housing crisis and restore safe streets, but that is not the topic of the debate presently.
I want to acknowledge the member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay for bringing this bill forward. I understand he has announced that he will not be running again in the next election. I wish him the best in whatever comes next. It is perhaps a bit premature as we still have a couple of years left in this Parliament, but I want to wish him the best. I did not get the opportunity to work with him as much as I would have liked, but I have always appreciated the chances I had to work with him. I find him a very fair and reasonable person from the other party.
I want to thank him for bringing this bill forward. This is a very important bill that we are debating, and one aspect that I really like about this bill is that it does not prescribe the use of one material over the other. It does not explicitly state any restrictions, but, rather, encourages the consideration of all materials that can help reduce emissions and what has been a primary example of that. This is important because Conservatives believe in the duty of the federal government to ensure openness, fairness and transparency in the procurement process. We certainly would not want to see anything handicap that ability, so to speak, or anything that would place strict limitations on the procurement process. The member got this proposal right in ensuring that he is not doing that. He is simply helping to encourage the alternatives.
The environmental components of this bill are perhaps the biggest benefits that we see. Conservatives believe in common-sense measures to help reduce emissions. We have spoken quite a bit about, and will continue to talk about, our plan to bring in innovative technologies and support innovative greener alternatives instead of taxing hard-working Canadians. We know as well that our plan to address climate change and to lower emissions has to include responsible and sustainable forest management, and wood products are an incredible way to do that, as has been mentioned by other colleagues during this discussion.
In Ontario alone, there are over 20 million tonnes of carbon stored in wood products. It is an incredible way to sequester carbon and ensure that it is harvested and utilized. When trees are harvested, it makes way for younger trees to be planted, which will absorb carbon more rapidly and help to reduce emissions, and the carbon within those products is taken away before forests can burn. Unfortunately, we continue to see forest fires. Fortunately, in the Kenora riding and across our district, we did not have any major evacuations that we saw in years previous, but forest fires continue to be a challenge.
We have to make sure that we are harvesting trees before they catch fire and release the carbon stored within them into the atmosphere. It is twofold: It is the ability to ensure we are absorbing and preserving the carbon within wood products, and that new trees are planted to help ensure that we are reducing emissions.
To that end, there is a statistic I would like to share, which is something we should all be proud of: In 2020, there were over 62 million trees planted across Ontario. I think that is an incredible achievement. It shows the sustainability of our forestry industry and the incredible work we are doing to protect the environment here in Canada.
Of course, we cannot ignore the incredible economic benefits that come with it as well. To have a sustainable resource and industry such as forestry is massively important to our economy right across the country. As the member for Kenora, I am going to focus more specifically on Ontario and northern Ontario. It is vital to our economy. In Ontario, as of 2020, $4.3 billion is the amount that forestry contributed to the domestic product, and, of course, there are billions more in exports. In 2021, the sector supported nearly 150,000 well-paying union jobs right across Ontario, important jobs for the people in my riding and right across the north.
With the resource revenue-sharing, 35 participating first nations in Ontario received over $93 million from Ontario's forestry sector as a direct benefit to first nations across northern Ontario. As a member who represents 42 first nations, I can say again that it is an incredibly important piece of our economy to support jobs for first nations and the communities as well through that direct resource revenue-sharing.
Whether I am in Kenora, Dryden, Ignace, Ear Falls or any of the communities across my district, there is obviously an urgent importance to support forestry, the environment and the good jobs that come with those across our district, but it flows right across northern Ontario. In the summer I had the opportunity to join the Leader of the Opposition, our common-sense Conservative leader, on a tour across northern Ontario. We had an incredible visit, although outside of my riding, with workers at the GreenFirst mill in Kapuskasing. It was an incredible opportunity to engage with them and learn about the work they are doing in their everyday jobs to support our economy and our environment. It is really extraordinary work they do.
As we were going around, I would think about the workers back home in our district of northwest Ontario, in Kapuskasing and all across northern Ontario. We emphasize them as the importance of supporting this vital industry, not just through the procurement process, of course, which is incredibly important and is the topic of the debate here today, but looking at duplicate or redundant regulations and ways that we can help support the forestry sector to make it easier for the sector to thrive. Of course, addressing the softwood lumber dispute is something that is very important. The government must act with urgency on this to help provide stability for the sector and the workers who rely on those great jobs right across Canada.
In short, I appreciate the member from the NDP for bringing this forward. It is a very important initiative. I want to urge all my colleagues here in the House to ensure we are working together to support Canada's forestry sector and good jobs for first nations and people right across northern Ontario while ensuring we are protecting our environment at the same time.