Natural Resources committee  Yes, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. I couldn't agree more. I think there have been some attempts from our organization and from our leadership, especially as the forest fires have been increasing in the last couple of years, to seek out a new program and support the investment.

Natural Resources committee  I absolutely do want to point out that a lot of the dialogue in our communities has been about prescribed fire and traditional use of fire from our communities as a forest management strategy, I suppose you could say. The traditional knowledge and use of fire over the years would have left the forest in a different environment than the intensively managed forest plantation monoculture that we've created through forest management.

Natural Resources committee  Okay.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Thank you for that. Establishing a research department or a program from an indigenous perspective has been on our mandate since our organization was created. Our community has provided a mandate to the First Nations Forestry Council. It really came from—and I mentioned it briefly in my opening comments—how do we translate our traditional knowledge into useful information, standards and policies that we can use today and talk about collaboratively for the best management of resources?

Natural Resources committee  Yes, very much so. Our perspective, and the reason my opening comments weighed so heavily on these new mandates and contexts, is that we strongly believe that the standards developed by indigenous peoples and the United Nations in that declaration create a good framework for how we can collaborate across jurisdictions.

Natural Resources committee  Great, thank you very much. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to contribute to your hearings regarding the study on forest pests. It's my pleasure to speak to you today on behalf of the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council. Our organization works to support first nations throughout western Canada, approximately 203 first nations, whose combined territories encompass all of British Columbia.

Natural Resources committee  Thanks for that. It's actually been one of the keystone programs of our organization in the last six years to try to enhance the potential for aboriginal people in the forest sector workforce. The manufacturing sector has been an interesting component that we've been really challenged by, since traditionally the manufacturing sector has held onto great jobs to offer the community, with a line-up of very skilled workers and people ready to take those jobs.

Natural Resources committee  Great. Thank you for that question. I think that's part of what I was challenged with in presenting to you today. What it really boils down to, in our opinion, is about the federal framework on policy for the manufacturing sector, the federal commitment to a reconciliation with Canada's aboriginal peoples.

Natural Resources committee  What I was referring to is the challenge we're having with the lack of manufacturing facilities in B.C. We have seen very little investment in the last couple of decades to replace the older, primary forest manufacturing facilities. Instead of welcoming that and seeing that investment take place in the province, companies have decided not to do that, and now we're seeing an increase in raw log exports.

Natural Resources committee  Our experience with recent versions of the softwood lumber agreement is that each time we go through a softwood lumber agreement, smaller companies end up dying and going out of business and we get a reduced number of larger companies, so we have fewer and fewer corporate holders of the woodlands producing softwood lumber in B.C.

Natural Resources committee  The main one I talked about was the bioenergy. Because of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, we had resources and investment to work, so we prioritized our efforts and wanted to participate in the bioeconomy by utilizing the dead pine. Numerous small ventures were created through that.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you very much for the invitation to contribute to your hearings regarding the secondary supply chain products in the forest sector in Canada. It is my pleasure to speak to you today on behalf of the BC First Nations Forestry Council. We are a non-profit society here in B.C. supporting 203 first nations communities—approximately 200,000 first nations citizens—in this part of the country.

Natural Resources committee  Good afternoon. Can you hear me all right?

Natural Resources committee  I'd reiterate the numbers I shared earlier. This is an extremely good opportunity. The research we've seen for the labour market shows.... I talked about 14,000 new workers in the next five years, just about 3,000 workers a year in B.C. alone, and that is only the replacement need for the sector.