Natural Resources committee  Bioeconomy means a lot of things to a lot of different people, you're quite right. Engineered-wood product also means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The context in British Columbia, in terms of how we use the bioeconomy, is that it's looking at these: What can we use wood fibre for?

Natural Resources committee  Potentially.

Natural Resources committee  British Columbia has made substantial progress in the WildSmart program, in combination with the federal and provincial governments in our communities. Multiple supporters or providers of that service do wildfire mitigation, forest management techniques surrounding the communities and make sure that we have that very ability happening close to communities.

Natural Resources committee  Some Scandinavian companies are further ahead of us with regard to looking at the new bioeconomy products, and I think we can learn from them as to how they did the commercialization. Some of it was driven by government policy. Some of it was driven by programmatic supports on an ongoing basis to establish commercialization and then lessen it as they became successful.

Natural Resources committee  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.

Natural Resources committee  At this point the Wood First Act is a suggestion, as you put it. That's a good way to describe it. However, work is being done on it to bring some more strength into that act. We don't know what that looks like yet. We've just got a new government in place, of course, so we're looking for those mandate pieces in the direction.

Natural Resources committee  In British Columbia, we have a biodiversity network system and we also have practice requirements to maintain biodiversity across the land base. It's ingrained into our forest management framework. With regard to herbicide use, there is concern in northern British Columbia about the use of herbicides for coniferous species.

Natural Resources committee  Okay. That's a big question. You are right. People have been talking about these new products for quite some time, and we're not seeing commercialization to the fundamental level that we're needing. When you look at Scandinavia, however, they have been successful in producing some of these products, and when you think about what wood chemicals are being used in the cosmetic industry, that's a multi-billion dollar opportunity.

Natural Resources committee  That's fine.

Natural Resources committee  No. We've done some work with both our economists and Canadian Forest Service economists. When you look at the amount of renewable natural gas that's being produced globally, most of the feedstock is corn and whatnot. It's much more efficient, effective and cheaper economically.

Natural Resources committee  That's a really complicated question. It would take longer than two minutes.

Natural Resources committee  It is a balance. What we manage for is a variability of mosaics across the land base so that we have that diverse, opening-closing forest management, fire mitigation and all those practices combined in a balanced effect so you have transition across your landscape.

Natural Resources committee  As I said earlier, I think it really is a combination of products that we want to develop. Certainly, renewable natural gas and/or the pellet industry for energy, shipping overseas and exporting are very helpful globally in the sense of getting us off coal and moving us to a cleaner energy fuel source, so it helps globally.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, we do have elements in our policy and our regulations that help that. Most of how the wood is used is based on business-to-business operations. Sawmill operators are making dimensional lumber, two-by-fours.... If it's a high-value log for that product, they will be utilizing it for that product.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, I would suggest a different approach in the sense that B.C. very much benefits from the program that you infer. It is around commodity, dimensional kinds of products, and certainly mass timber, which is very important to the province of British Columbia and others across Canada.