NRGO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESSOURCES NATURELLES ET DES OPÉRATIONS GOUVERNEMENTALES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 2, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Joseph Volpe (Eglinton—Lawrence, Lib.)): Gentlemen, colleagues, I'd like to call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are undertaking a study of Canadian forest management practices as an international trade issue. I welcome all of you back after a very brief stay in the riding. I'm especially pleased to welcome back some of the witnesses who are here to make our understanding of the issues a lot more profound and to give us some directions as well, if such is the necessity.

This morning we have with us in our first group Mr. Jim Irving, who's the president of J.D. Irving Limited, and Mr. Blake Brunsdon, who's the chief forester from the same organization. Gentlemen, I welcome you both.

I think you've already been given an indication of how we operate and I'm sure you're familiar with the process. Despite the fact that we're late, we're hoping to carry on for about ten minutes with your presentation. You can be briefer if you like. You can even use more time if you like, but the time you use in excess of that takes away from the opportunities to have dialogue with colleagues, members of Parliament on both sides of the table.

Without much further ado, gentlemen, I bid you both a good morning and welcome. Who's going to be first?

Mr. Jim Irving (President, J.D. Irving Limited): Good morning. I think Blake is going to give a small presentation. We'd just like to say we appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning and we look forward to your questions.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon (Chief Forester, J.D. Irving Limited): I'll give a presentation for about ten minutes and then we can go right to the questions.

The Chair: We're ready when you are.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Okay.

[Translation]

My French is really awful, so I will do my presentation in English. I hope that you will excuse me.

[English]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with this parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations to discuss the topic of forest certification. It's a timely topic, and it's an important issue for Canada's forest industry.

We believe certification can be an excellent tool and mechanism to improve forest management. Customers are looking to purchase certified products, and consistency of certification standards is of paramount importance to avoid barriers to trade. We believe that the government has a vital role to ensure that forest certification standards are consistent and that certification processes are open, transparent, and broadly supported.

Before I get into that I'll take a few minutes and give you just a bit of background information about J.D. Irving Limited's forest products business. J.D. Irving Limited is a private, family-owned company that has been in the sawmilling business for more than a hundred years. We're a regional company, with forest lands in the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and in the State of Maine. We operate 15 sawmills in the region, in addition to a pulp mill, newsprint mill, corrugated medium mill, and several tissue mills.

On a global scale, J.D. Irving Limited is a small regional company. However, we are one of North America's largest private land owners. We own almost 1.5 million hectares of land, mostly located in the maritime provinces. We also manage approximately one million hectares of public crown land in New Brunswick.

We have a long history of forest management. We're well known for our tree-planting investments, a program started in 1957 by Mr. K.C. Irving. The management and staff and the employees of J.D. Irving have a strong and sincere commitment to continuous improvement in doing things right. We're very proud of our forest management.

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Our company first became interested in forest certification in 1993, when the concept was introduced to us by one of our major customers, the Home Depot. After researching forest certification we made a decision to proceed with a Forest Stewardship Council audit of our Black Brook district in northwestern New Brunswick. In 1998, after making some changes and improvements to our management, Black Brook became the second forest in Canada to be FSC-certified. Even today, Black Brook is by far the largest and only FSC-certified forest in Canada that is owned and managed by an industrial forest products company.

A lot has happened since we made our FSC certification announcement in the summer of 1998. Since then we've made the commitment to have all the lands that we own or manage certified by an independent third party by the end of the year 2001. We're pursuing ISO 14001 environmental management system registration for each of the eight districts we manage. In March of last year, March 1999, our Black Brook district became the second forest in Canada to achieve ISO 14001 registration. Since then, in January 2000 both our Nova Scotia operations also became ISO 14001 registered. It's our commitment to have all the lands we manage ISO registered within the next 18 months.

In addition, over the past year we've undergone additional FSC audits on about half a million acres of land that we own in the State of Maine. We're the largest landowner in that state. We've also had FSC audits done on two additional districts in New Brunswick: our Deersdale district, an area of about 200,000 hectares in central New Brunswick; and one of the crown licences that we manage, an area of about half a million hectares we manage in New Brunswick. We've had both those districts audited according to the international FSC principles and criteria.

This past December, very biased anti-industry local FSC standards were endorsed for Canada's maritime provinces. These new standards clearly lack the support of the vast majority of forest products companies and provincial forest industry associations. The local standards were not supported by any major woodlot owner organizations in the region. Both the Government of New Brunswick and the Government of Nova Scotia also formally registered their concern about the FSC process in the region.

As a result of this endorsement decision of the FSC standards in the Maritimes, our company has withdrawn from the FSC process in the Maritimes. We've notified our customers that we'll no longer be shipping FSC-labelled products from our lands in Canada. As a result of these concerns that we and many other stakeholders have raised about the FSC process in the region, the FSC, at the prompting of some of their stakeholders, have decided to mandate a commission of inquiry to look into the FSC situation in the region.

Personally, I'm an FSC member, and I have appealed the endorsement decision of the maritime standards. The major concerns in my appeal were that the group that developed those standards didn't have adequate representation and had a strong anti-industry bias; the endorsed standards are not supported by most stakeholder groups in the region; many of the local standards lack a scientific basis; and probably most importantly, the standards are very inconsistent with and much more restrictive than FSC standards in neighbouring regions.

My appeal was supported by most other companies in the region, as well as other concerned stakeholders from across Canada as well as internationally. The appeal document I filed cites many specific examples to substantiate the concerns I've expressed. Many organizations from different sectors, including environmental groups, have formally expressed concern regarding the endorsement of the maritime regional standards. Even the FSC international organization has recognized and agreed that there were serious flaws in the process to develop FSC standards in the Maritimes, and they've ordered the Maritimes group to restructure itself and broaden its stakeholder representation.

I should note that while we have issues and concerns about the FSC process in the Maritimes and in Canada, we're impressed with the FSC leadership in the United States. The FSC process in the northeastern U.S. has been open and equitable, and their standards have a strong science-based foundation. As a result, we have decided to continue pursuing FSC certification for our American lands. We expect to make a public announcement sometime within the next six weeks regarding the results of our FSC audit in Maine over the past year.

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Over the past year we've also taken a close look at the American Forest and Paper Association's sustainable forestry initiative, or their SFI program. We believe this program has the potential to evolve into a credible and dominant forest certification standard. We also intend to have our lands, both in Canada and in the U.S., third-party-verified under the SFI program within the next two years.

In 1998 we also had an accredited certifier review one of our district operations with respect to undertaking a Canadian Standards Association certification audit. At that time, for a variety of reasons, we decided not to proceed with CSA, but instead to focus on ISO and FSC. However, we fully expect to take another look at CSA certification some time in the future.

Forest certification has been a very positive experience for our company. The audits and discussions have provided us with an impetus and objective to strive for change and improvement. Our interest in forest certification has helped us to focus on improving our knowledge and improving our practices on the ground.

Following up on our Black Brook certification, we decided to establish a scientific advisory committee. The mandate of this group was to assist the company in addressing knowledge and research gaps relative to ecosystem function, biodiversity, and wildlife issues. A prominent group of seven internationally recognized scientists and program managers with strong local knowledge and experience are active on this scientific advisory committee.

We can sincerely tell you that forest certification has helped us to improve our forest management and our practices. We were recently publicly commended by the World Wildlife Fund Canada for our leadership and our commitment to protecting forest ecosystems. Last year the Home Depot honoured us with their first environmental partner of the year award.

I'd like to take a couple of minutes to provide our perspective on several important issues related to forest certification.

First, why is our company interested in forest certification? Simply because some of our customers are requesting certified products. Not surprisingly, we're interested in supplying these requests. We see third-party certification as a means to provide customers and the public with an independent verification that our forest management is ecologically sustainable and socially responsible. We believe that certification can provide independent credibility. We also believe that forest certification can be a progressive and positive objective-based alternative to overregulation.

Why did we initially choose the FSC standard? The Forest Stewardship Council standards were the first choice of our customers. This is probably because the FSC system is the choice of the environmental movement. Our customers also say they are looking for a label on products and they're looking for what they call a “chain of custody” that traces the origin of the wood right back to the certified forest. These attributes are features the FSC system provides. Most other certification programs today lack a meaningful on-product label.

Do we have concerns about the Forest Stewardship Council? Sure. I've talked about some of them. We're very concerned about the FSC leadership in Canada and at the international head office level. Although the FSC has an excellent process on paper, we have seen that process ignored, while a very biased and unrepresentative group has taken control of the FSC in the Maritimes. Transparency, openness, broad stakeholder representation, and consensus are values the Forest Stewardship Council claims to pride itself on. Unfortunately, we can site numerous examples where these important values have been deliberately ignored.

Now, having said all that, we want to reiterate that we believe in and support the documented FSC process. We hope the Forest Stewardship Council is wise enough to fully appreciate that its strength is its process, and that this process has to be rigorously and consistently followed.

Is forest certification affecting forest products markets? It certainly is a force in the marketplace. However, with the exception of particular specialty products, there is no price premium for certified forest products. Many customers and markets are actively seeking suppliers of certified products. We're very concerned about inconsistencies among regional FSC standards. These inconsistencies will effectively become trade barriers.

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The big question, to my mind, is should government play a role in forest certification? There's a definite and vital role for government in this regard. As a large forest landowner, the government is certainly a major forest stakeholder.

Government should be very concerned about and should play an overseeing role to ensure consistency amongst local certification standards. There has to be consistency at regional, national, and international levels. Government should act as an unbiased watchdog to ensure forest certification standards are based in science and decision-making processes are open and transparent. Government should speak out when certification standards are not consistent with government regulation and policies. Government should not accept or endorse only one single forest certification program.

With that background and preliminary information, I'd be pleased to try to answer any questions any member of the committee might have.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Brunsdon. You stayed pretty close to the time—not bad.

I'm just a little curious about how you began to equate government decision-making with decision-making processes that are both open and transparent. I thought I'd say that before the opposition did.

Mr. Werner Schmidt (Kelowna, Canadian Alliance): I'm so glad.

The Chair: That was a lead for you. I guess you want the first question. Is that it, Werner?

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Mr. Schmidt, go ahead.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen.

My preliminary comment would be, I think that's the frankest statement we've had before the committee on the forest certification system. We've had a number of them, but this is a rather significant opening statement, and I want to commend you for that.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: We're knee-deep in it.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I'd say you're probably in a little deeper than knee-deep.

The question I have has to do with one of the debates we've had here, and I certainly haven't had the answer yet. What is the science they refer to? There is this beautiful, nice, smooth statement that says it should be based on science, and I agree it should be, but the question I have is, what is that science?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Well, it's the science of forest management, in my opinion, and forest management is a little bit of an art and a science. But what we're really talking about here is trying to balance social responsibility and ecological sustainability. We get into a lot of debates, certainly in the FSC process, about the science. One of my criticisms of the FSC is it tends to be driven by what's popular or what's emotional and not by the science.

Mr. Jim Irving: I'd like to add to that.

When we say science, we mean science. We have a blue ribbon committee, made up of a dozen either ex-deans or professors or senior people respected in their field, on how to manage the forest—fish, wildlife, habitat, flora, fauna, and all the things that go into managing a piece of timberland—so that nature and the operations are preserved today and also 25 years down the road. So it's the long-reaching impact of the operation.

We can't deal with emotionalism in this business, because it's so wide and varied. Everybody has an opinion.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: That's the point exactly. I'd like to ask you, if you put 25 professional foresters in a room, would there be 25 different sciences, or would they agree on a science?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: I think foresters would tend to agree. It's a little bit like the plumbers can agree on what's good plumbing code, but the plumbers and the public can't necessarily agree on what's good plumbing code.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: It seems to me there's an ownership interest here too.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Absolutely.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Is there an agreement between the science the foresters would come up with and the science the owners would support?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Absolutely. We want to be right. In the long run we have to be right. We can't be compromising ecological integrity in our forest management, because it will catch up with us. So the sooner we know, the better.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: But that's exactly the issue, isn't it? It seems to me there isn't this agreement. The very fact that you had to criticize the FSC as you just did tells me there is not agreement on the science, there is not agreement between owners and science.

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Maybe that's not where the difficulty is. I'm not sure. The difficulty must exist somewhere, because I witnessed some of the science—the supposed science—that went into the Kyoto environmental agreement, an international, global agreement, and that science is certainly questionable. Are we dealing with the same kind of science, which can be squished and squeezed and changed in terms of public opinion?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Well, I think we have to be careful to try to stay based on science. It's a continuum. It's not black and it's not white.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Well, if it's not, then how can you ever be sure you have the science?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Keep working on it.

Mr. Jim Irving: If you don't mind, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to add something.

The science has evolved. We've been doing reforestation, as a family and as a company, longer than any private organization in Canada. Over the years our technology and our methods have changed as we've learned and discovered and become better educated, using the best science available. That's what's been happening with us as a company on our timberlands, and our approach is still the same.

There's no question about it: you'll get a lot of divergence of opinion on what is the right way to do something. But in general, people who come from the industry and have spent their careers studying wildlife or biology or some other facet of it will come to agreement, in general terms.

Our timberland is certified in agreement with the U.S. regulations and in agreement with the northern European regulations. These regulations are not satisfactory to the local branch of the FSC. They want a much higher standard. Our attitude is, let's certify ourselves to the same level as the U.S. and northern Europe. Let's establish that benchmark. As technology improves and time passes, the benchmark will be raised, and we will be challenged to keep up with the best technology. That doesn't bother us, providing it's done on a very methodical and logical basis.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Yes, and that's the dilemma with forest certification in the Maritimes. We own land in the state of Maine and we own land in the Maritimes. All this product is going down the eastern seaboard to the same customers, and they don't differentiate between wood from Maine and our wood from New Brunswick. The fact of the matter is we can make the grade according to the U.S. standard and the international FSC standards, but in the Maritimes we can't put the label on the product because we can't make the grade, because they've written a standard that frankly nobody's interested in making.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Brunsdon.

Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin, Lib.): Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for being here. Excuse my voice.

Along the lines of Mr. Schmidt's remark, the comments this morning have been very interesting and very much to the point. Obviously whatever process was followed to establish at least the first draft of the Maritime regional standards.... I take it from your comments the FSC international has ordered a reworking of those. Could you give us a couple of examples of what were in the standards in the Maritimes that wouldn't have been across the border in Maine, for example, or any other region where there is an acceptable regional standard? A couple of specifics would be helpful.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: First, the correction is that the international group ordered the Maritimes group to restructure itself. The standards in the Maritimes are still endorsed. This commission of inquiry may make recommendations otherwise, but today they are endorsed.

Our big concern about the standards is that the process hasn't been open and the legitimate stakeholders that should be at the table haven't been allowed to be at the table. They haven't been afforded the opportunity to be at the table. The forest industry has not been allowed to pick its own representatives to be on the committee.

To get right to your question of what are some of the specifics—

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Say there's a tree in Maine and a tree in New Brunswick, and they're within eyesight of each other. Obviously there's a different regional standard for those two forests.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Well, there are hundreds of local criteria, and my criticism of the local standards is that a lot of these standards lack a scientific basis for how the allowable harvest level is calculated. Harvest prescriptions that are okay and aren't okay lack a scientific basis in the Maritimes and are clearly very different from the ones in the U.S.

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The use of pesticides is certainly a big issue. In the northeast U.S., it calls for wise and careful use, to look for alternatives before using pesticides. In the Maritimes, the standards say you have to be committed to absolutely no use.

In the northeast we plant a species called Norway spruce. It's a very fast-growing tree and has a lot of silvicultural characteristics very similar to white spruce, but it's not a native species. It grows a bit faster than white spruce but occupies the same type of habitat. In the northeast standards, it's no problem to plant Norway spruce. In the Maritimes standards, you're not allowed to plant anything that isn't native to the area.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: So if we were to put the question to the FSC.... Maybe we should have them back again sometime, because you're the first ones to actually say that they aren't consistent within their own organization. When the international FSC looks at the Maritimes standards, wouldn't they automatically look to the neighbouring region? The forests are contiguous, so there must be similarities. Why wouldn't they at least compare them and try to marry them at some level? I suppose this is in your appeal to the international body.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: That's exactly the issue: there has to be consistency. The FSC is all about an internationally recognized logo that would mean something to customers whether they're in Boston or London, and the FSC haven't paid enough attention to ensure consistency from one regional standard to the other. It's going to be a barrier to trade. It's going to block us from some markets.

Mr. Jim Irving: That's right. To go back to your question, why? How could these standards be mixed up? That's where we come back to the scientific fact. What we have today, really, is local politics, as base as you can get it. This has nothing to do with what's going on in the ground or in the forest or whether you should do this or that about the wildlife or anything else. This is about the politics of the environment, not the science of the environment. That's what is going on here; it's very fundamental, very local.

While we're a small player on the world scale, we're a large player in the region. It attracts some negative attitude, perhaps, and I think we're bearing the brunt of that. I think if we were a large multinational from a long way away, with a head office in Toronto or New York, and were trying to do this, we wouldn't even be having this type of discussion. I think this is a very local and regional issue as opposed to a big environmental issue.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: I greatly appreciate having a microscope on this, because you do operate on both sides of the New Brunswick-Maine border.

But you have competitors too, presumably, on the Maine side. They are, at least in this situation, at somewhat of an advantage, because they can get FSC certification for their wood on the Maine side. It's almost impossible for you with the Maritimes regional standards for you to get it on your side of the border, so there is a trade barrier there, in a way.

Mr. Jim Irving: The sad part of it is that from a commercial point of view, we've established the market for the product. We're the first people in North America to actually put 2x4s on the shelf, for the Home Depot, at a commercial volume. We established this. We have the success in managing timberland. We're able to mill the product. We have the retail distribution of it. All these are certified to the highest environmental standard in the world.

Once we've established that, then from a local perspective it becomes a hue and cry that these standards are not high enough, and we go into such a turmoil that we have to pull the product back now and say to Home Depot, no, we're sorry. To the largest buyer of building materials in the world, we say no, we're sorry, we can't put product on the shelf for you right now because of some local issue here. It's very bad.

The Chair: Mr. Irving and Mr. Brunsdon, you have to help me through some of this for a second. We had the local people and the national people here from the FSC. As I recall, the local people said they involved everybody. I stand to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure the record will indicate that their view was that they involved all the stakeholders, that the process was as open and as transparent as their mandate requires it to be. They also—again, if I remember correctly—indicated that they were very observant of scientific principles.

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So I've listened attentively when Mr. Schmidt and Mr. St. Denis both tried to get at the understanding of what is science, and I'm not sure I have a grasp on the issue just yet. I hear what you tell us, but I heard the local FSC people say almost exactly the same thing, except on the reverse side of that medallion. They said they acknowledged the efforts of the industry—in particular yours—and they are trying to make sure that industry does continue to profit.

Mr. Jim Irving: Continue to...?

The Chair: Continue to profit. Nobody had any interest—I'm not sure whether these are the exact words—in having somebody ship out logs; they wanted you to thrive in all facets of the industry.

I'm not sure whether my colleagues have the same lack of understanding that I'm beginning to admit, that is, you agree that the science is foremost and they say they're following the science; they say they're involving everybody and you're saying you want to be part of the FSC because everybody's involved. Now, as we heard before, we're hearing that there's some lack of transparency. But you're one of the stakeholders in this system.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: May I address that?

The Chair: Sure. Please.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: You spoke to an FSC member from the Maritimes.

The Chair: They were followed immediately by the national FSC.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Oh, okay.

The Chair: But you're right, yes, we did.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: I'm an FSC member in the region and I'm on the local FSC committee, so I'm part of the process, and I can tell you from the inside that it's not open and it's not representative.

The reason I say that—there are all sorts of reasons—is that since the committee was reformed in 1998, numerous companies and numerous industry associations have requested to be on the committee and their requests have been denied. In fact, they didn't even get answers to their letters. The Minister of the Department of Natural Resources and Energy of New Brunswick requested representation on the committee in order to be involved in the process. They never even got an answer to their letter. The Department of Natural Resources of Nova Scotia also asked to be involved in the process. They never even got an answer to their letter.

I made a lot of noise about not enough industry representation on this committee and asked that the Nova Scotia Forest Products Association be allowed to designate a representative to sit on the committee. Eventually the committee did agree that they should have sawmill representation on their committee.

Instead of allowing the industry organization to delegate a representative, they decided to recruit and pick their own. So this committee of 19 recruited their own representative who was going to represent the sawmill industry in the Maritimes on the committee. This group of 19 picked who was going to be the representative of the industry. The industry wasn't allowed to pick it. The vote was 18 to 1. I was the one. It's not open, it's not representative, and it's not transparent.

One of the preconditions that had to be met before these standards were endorsed was that the international group insisted that they demonstrate broad stakeholder support for these Maritimes standards. The fact of the matter is that they couldn't demonstrate broad stakeholder support.

The international group commissioned a consultant, a PhD at Dalhousie University, to assess whether these local standards really did have broad stakeholder support on some key issues. This PhD did some research and concluded that they clearly didn't have broad stakeholder support for the standards, which is a fundamental principle of an FSC standard.

I got wind of the fact that they had commissioned a study. I asked the international FSC if I could have a copy of this report—because it's a transparent organization. At first I was told they weren't sure this report even existed. I came back at them again. I said I know this report exists. I was told it was a confidential report. They said it was solely for the advice of the executive director and they were not going to release it. I raised some more noise, and other stakeholders in the environmental sector got upset about this too and said, if we're a transparent organization, we should release this information. Finally, on January 15, I got a copy of the report.

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Mr. Jim Irving: Which confirms—

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Which confirms that they're not transparent.

There are serious conflicts of interest in the FSC. I don't want to rain on the parade because I believe the FSC process is a good process. I'm saying it's an organization that's going through some growing pains, and there are some leadership issues and some conflict-of-interest issues that need to be resolved in order for the FSC to really be a quality standard. I believe it has the potential to be that.

The Chair: I have some more questions. I'll ask them a little later. Let me go to Mr. Cardin first.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin (Sherbrooke, BQ): Good morning, gentlemen. I am pleased to meet you.

In the last part of your presentation, you said that the various standards—the FSC, CSA or ISO 14001—are similar in their objectives, but may have different criteria. I would like to focus on that. When Mr. St. Denis asked you a question about regional criteria, you answered that there were hundreds of regional criteria that could also be applied.

You mentioned conflicts of interest earlier. Is this not simply a case of carrying over these conflicts? In the marketplace, there are competitors, people from the forest industry and others. At some point, these competitors will find themselves on a group that sets standards. Therefore, to some extent they bring their competing interests into these standards groups. When this happens, there may be no end to it. Depending on the interests of an individual, a group or a large company, one standard may be adopted rather than another. The competition that is present in the marketplace and between businesses, is reflected in the standards. Consequently, you are recommending that the government step in and rule on the standards. Is that what you are saying?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Yes. In my opinion, the government has a major role to play in maintaining standards and ensuring that they are based on science and that they are consistent from one region to another. In my view, that is the government's main role.

In the United States, the SFI took charge of this matter and created a scientific committee to evaluate all the regional standards, in order to ensure that they are all science-based. However, this has not yet been done in Canada. I believe that this is a pressing need. The standards organizations should do it themselves and, if they do not, the government should do it.

Mr. Serge Cardin: I would like to return to the subject of competition in the marketplace. We met with Home Depot representatives and one of them was on the FSC. He told us that you were in fact a major supplier and that you had a product that met the standards, but that, since you will perhaps be able to change to the ISO 14001 standard with such a client, you too have important interests. In the end, will not these important interests not tend, sometimes, to lower the standards slightly? In another sense, perhaps that becomes a kind of non-tariff barrier in international trade.

This means that we have a problem at the regional level, in Quebec and in the Maritimes, and that we also have a problem with regard to national, North American and, finally, international markets. A war of standards is being waged, based on the interests of the large companies.

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Mr. Blake Brunsdon: This is one of our main concerns and we are very interested in the SFI system which has brought changes for the better in the United States. It provides a better choice for clients. Having a single standard is in no way good for business.

Mr. Serge Cardin: But at some point, since markets are international, will we not have to adopt a standard that applies to the whole forest industry? Afterwards, whether or not we agree, it will be different in some regions. They may apply different conditions, but there should also be an international standard that applies overall.

Mr. Jim Irving: The most important requirement is that the standard always be based on science. In that way, we will always be solidly grounded. The science may change and the base may develop, but the problem in the Maritimes is that the standard is not based on science. We have the same base, the same rules in the State of Maine in the US, but we do not have any trouble following rules in our forest operations there.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Not at all.

Mr. Jim Irving: Not at all. But if we just cross over to the other side of the river, to Saint John in New Brunswick, we cannot meet the standards because they are influenced more by politics than by science. I realize that the representatives who came here said that they were based on science, but I would have to ask for proof. I would have to ask what science they are using, because we have spent several million dollars to create the information and science base, to further our cause and to check the soundness of all our forest operations.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: We have made changes. We have made substantial changes, but changes that are based on science. When I began working for this company 20 years ago, forest management consisted of ensuring that one did not run out of wood. There was no more to it than that. These days, we try to practice ecology- based forest management, so that all species can benefit. It is a major change, but it is a change based on science.

To say that we would do all our logging using horses would not be scientific. We are told we do not have the right to do clear cutting. One must realize that clear cutting is a science-based technique in certain desert locations. It is not appropriate for all locations, but it is a system that is science-based.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Brunsdon.

Mr. Bélair.

[English]

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Timmins—James Bay, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As far as certification is concerned, you mentioned a while ago that you did have some problems internationally, and you cited Home Depot in the United States. Was that the extent of it or do you sell some of your products on the larger, global scale?

Mr. Jim Irving: Basically, our general markets are the U.S. and northern Europe. We have other markets, but for the big volumes the major markets are for the U.S. and northern Europe. We got involved with Home Depot because they asked us some time ago on the certification business. We pioneered it. They're a major customer, and at their request we pioneered this procedure with FSC and we put the thing in place. But we also have people, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, and other well-known names in the consumer products business, who have said, yes, we're interested, or we want to try to put this in, and so on and so forth. For Canada as a country, to the extent we have the technical ability to qualify, it's good marketing.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: So does J.D. Irving sell to Home Depot—

Mr. Jim Irving: Yes.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: —or do they buy your product, I should say?

Mr. Jim Irving: Yes, very much so. It's a good thing they do because—

Mr. Réginald Bélair: You'd lose your shirt.

Mr. Jim Irving: Yes. Maybe more than the shirt.

They're a major customer.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: How did you make the adjustment given that you do not have your FSC any more?

Mr. Jim Irving: There's no supply because the standards are very difficult. Notwithstanding the problem we have in Atlantic Canada, the standards across the U.S. for FSC are difficult standards for the current industry. The maritime ones now have gone up to here. We comply with the U.S. standards, so we're able to have the product, but no other pulp and paper company that I know of currently has product that's certified in North America on this scale—these types of products.

• 1150

Mr. Réginald Bélair: I'll turn to another subject. I'm sure you're aware that Greenpeace and some other environmental organizations have engaged in a global campaign to discredit Canadian forest products. Have you been asked in any way to contribute to finance a counteroffensive?

Mr. Jim Irving: A counteroffensive?

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Yes, to counter Greenpeace's actions.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: To answer your question, no, but as professional foresters we're speaking out on issues. We're no longer being quiet. When things are said in the media that aren't right, we correct them, but there's no active campaign going on.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: That campaign happened in northern Europe a while ago. You're aware that Greenpeace is very active in central and northern Europe. Aren't you very concerned?

Mr. Jim Irving: Are we very concerned with what they're doing, you mean?

Mr. Réginald Bélair: With their campaign.

Mr. Jim Irving: What they're doing is terrible. To me, to wreck markets for Canadian product is terrible. It doesn't matter who does it, because as a country and a nation you lose your markets; you lose everything you have. Somebody who runs around and does that type of work, as far as I'm concerned, is no damn good at all, because they just wreck the economy.

This is not a big country we're living in, and we're spread out and the assets we have, we have to look after carefully. We should have the highest standards of forestry in this country, in the world, do a good job and sell it on that basis. But we should stick to a scientific basis because you cannot deal with the emotionalism that's out there on the street today. It doesn't work. But to do that we need good, strong leadership. You can't do it with weak and vacillating leadership like we've had from some of these FSC people.

The Chair: Are you talking about governmental leadership, Mr. Irving?

Mr. Jim Irving: It's always good to have good leadership in anything you do, business or government.

The Chair: Mr. Bélair, are you finished?

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Except for your presence here today in front of this committee as witnesses, have you ever been consulted otherwise by the Government of Canada as to what actions need to be taken?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: I spoke last spring to a committee of the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers on just where we were with respect to forest certification. But it certainly wasn't advice; it was just talking to them about where we were.

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Had you encountered your FSC problems then?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Sure. We've been talking about this since 1996, when the regional committee was first initiated.

The thing that really shocks me is that the standards in light of all these process flaws were endorsed, because I always fell back on the FSC process that talked about things like broad stakeholder support, open representation, and consensus decision-making. I said those are the things the process has going for it, and ultimately it will prevail.

I was shocked when the standards were endorsed last Christmas, and many other stakeholders were shocked. In the environmental community many other stakeholders were shocked, because clearly the FSC international has broken its own rules in endorsing these local standards.

The Chair: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Godin.

Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): First of all, I would like to welcome you. We talked about certification and, at the same time, we talked about social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and so on. But you are not the only company in the Maritimes; there's also Stone, Fraser, NBIP, and Miramichi Pulp & Paper.

• 1155

You went on to speak of the way in which the industry could appoint its representatives to the FSC committee. What kind of system would the industry have? Would there be a representative from each industry or would the industry have its own association, which would be selected to work on the committee?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are not large provinces, and everyone knows everyone else in the associations of these two provinces. One or two seats on the committee could be set aside for one of these associations. In my view, the associations could delegate one representative, who would wear the hat of each of them. This representative would have to come back to the association to find out its position on various issues. I do not think that each company has to be at the table, but the associations should be there and the pulp and paper companies should be there, as well as the small sawmills and the environmental community, but not just in an individual capacity. They should sit at the table as organizations or associations, because each representative should wear the hat of a large unit.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Let us look at the scientific side. I know that you said that the way people feel should be apparent. That is the human side. But scientifically speaking, we had quite an experience with the fisheries. As you know, we lost the fisheries from a scientific point of view. Do you agree that a combination of all the elements is needed?

I think that, if representatives from all the sectors involved met together around the same table, with some co-ordination being provided by the federal government and even by the provincial governments involved, so that they would be able to assume certain responsibilities and co-ordinate the different opinions so as to reach an agreement that satisfies everyone, this would really be the solution. We would be able to come out on top and say that the whole community was represented.

Industry, worker and environmental representatives and governments should sit down around the same table, come up with a solution and say: this is our certification and we are all in agreement. Do you not think that this would be the long-term solution? And this would happen everywhere, throughout the country, and not just the Atlantic region.

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: That is the precise goal of certification: to find an economic, social and environmental balance. It is a matter of striking a balance. Certification must include all essential aspects.

Mr. Yvon Godin: I would just like to add to my comment. I have always said that, in the forestry sector, the people are lucky to be working in an industry where we can replant the trees. I come from the mining sector. We cannot replant our minerals. If the forest is maintained and managed properly, it will be there for our children and for our children's children.

Those are all the questions I wanted to ask.

Mr. Jim Irving: You compared forests and fish. We must take this difference into account. With the forests, we have the advantage of being able to see the situation. It is easy to see and to count the trees, but it is a different matter with the fish. However, as Blake said, the three aspects of FSC constitute the main elements: the social aspect, the economic aspect and the environmental aspect. If we consider all of these three aspects, in theory, we should achieve good results. The problem, however, is that one of these aspects, the environment, has predominated in the Maritime region.

Mr. Yvon Godin: There's perhaps one other question that I would like to ask you. Would it not be important to have the federal government, since it plays a national role, be responsible for getting the international, national and regional players to find a solution in order to establish acceptable standards? If the FSC has all kinds of standards, as you have said, it is not really providing us with the standards we require. Would it not be up to the federal government to assemble these people in order to come up with an acceptable standard?

• 1200

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: As far as I am concerned, the role of the government is not necessarily to establish the standards, but to ensure that the standards are based on science and to verify whether what is said is true and whether the procedure is open. That is the role that the government can play.

Mr. Jim Irving: That's right. Industry must be allowed to adapt the science to the work in order to be efficient and to follow all of the required steps. The government should find a way to...

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: [Editor's Note: Inaudible].

Mr. Jim Irving: That's right.

Mr. Yvon Godin: The companies that plant the trees.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Jim Irving: I understand.

[English]

We'll finish with Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan (Vancouver Island North, Canadian Alliance): Thanks, Mr. Chair. I recognize that our time has run out, but we'll go a little longer because this is an appropriate set of witnesses.

Observers have told me that of all the certification systems, the only one that really tries to go out and sell itself is FSC, which leads to inevitable politicization. Would you agree with that sentiment?

Mr. Jim Irving: I think it's good that they sell themselves; we need people to understand. To me, that is the right thing to do. We don't disagree with them. We disagree with it when management, at a very local level, can turn it all upside down. If this were left at a very high level and the standards in the United States or North America were the same, we wouldn't be here today, frankly, because we'd be way down the road certifying more land. It's good they sell it. People need to understand the importance of certification.

Mr. John Duncan: Would it be better if somebody else sold it, though? You don't need to answer that.

Mr. Jim Irving: Do you mean somebody other than us?

Mr. John Duncan: Yes, I mean the customers, the clients, everyone else. To me the organization selling itself when it's a standard-setting organization is problematic. The other standard-setting organizations have basically made the choice and the decision not to do that.

Mr. Jim Irving: They don't need to sell it, per se. They have somebody like the Home Depot, the largest retailer in North America and the world, saying, “We want FSC product on the shelf, and by golly, we have it and it's the highest standard.” What a great sales pitch—the best marketers in the world selling your line.

Mr. John Duncan: That leads to my next question. You've filed an appeal with the FSC board of directors. Are they obligated to respond?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Yes.

Mr. John Duncan: Okay. So what happens if they respond and the response does not satisfy?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: They have an informal process where they try to negotiate the issue, look at the issue, and informally resolve it. If they can't resolve it informally, then you go to a formal phase and they appoint an arbitrator who makes a decision.

I filed an appeal, but this commission of inquiry is looking at exactly the same issues I've raised in my appeal. They've told me they're going to delay hearing my appeal until this commission of inquiry reports back, because again, they're the same issues. I told them that was perfectly acceptable to me. But there is no higher court after that.

Mr. John Duncan: Ultimately, if you don't get what you would consider to be resolution, you may decide to abandon FSC. Is it likely that the decision-making that would lead you there, which I assume would be well thought out, would be enough to have a major customer like Home Depot abandon FSC as well?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Ask them that question.

Mr. Jim Irving: They want certified product. They buy product for a lot of other reasons besides certification, but it certainly gives you an edge.

Mr. John Duncan: Is the reason why there's so much difference between Canadian FSC and American...? Can we speculate as to why the U.S. management is seen as better? Is it because the government got involved? How did we get there?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: I think they went through some of these growing pains in the U.S. about four years earlier.

• 1205

My interpretation of it is that some of the people funding FSC in the U.S. said, “Why is none of the industry interested in pursuing this standard?” They made some changes in management, and they have more leadership now than they had before.

Mr. John Duncan: With the difference, is it challengeable under NAFTA? Have you looked into that?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: Certainly in Europe there are some people making noises that this certification program is potentially a trade barrier.

Mr. John Duncan: Thank you.

The Chair: We'll close off here, but I just want to ask you one very brief and quick question, Mr. Irving. I thought I heard you say something about looking at ISO as a potential certifier, but I didn't hear you say anything about CSA. Why not?

Mr. Blake Brunsdon: We are committed to ISO and we have three of our eight districts ISO-registered now. We looked at the CSA in 1998, and at the time we decided to focus on FSC and ISO. We're going to take another look at CSA. At the time we were very concerned that CSA was very bureaucratic and required a very onerous commitment from the stakeholders, who had to help develop the criteria with you. Again, people like Home Depot were not asking for CSA. They said they wanted a product that had a label, a chain of custody, and environmental support.

The Chair: Thank you very much to both of you. You've very patient with us, and we've appreciated your input.

I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes. Because we're going to be sitting for another two hours, there's some lunch. I'd appreciate it if members and witnesses would avail themselves of some of that lunch very quickly and bring it over to the table. Then we'll get on to business and our second set of witnesses.

Once again, thank you very much.

• 1207

• 1215

The Chair: Mr. Johnson and Mr. Janhager, if you will be patient with me for a moment longer, I just want to very briefly take care of a couple of items of business.

There have been some minor changes in our proposed itinerary from last week, so I need to have a motion. I think you all probably have it in front of you. It would be by unanimous consent on the motion of.... It was agreed that the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Government Operations request an order of reference from the House of Commons to travel from May 7 to May 12 to Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay—there's been a minor change for Quebec—Baie Comeau, Rimouski, and then to Bathurst for its consideration of forest practices in Canada as an international trade issue.

The rest is fine. So the two changes are Baie Comeau and Rimouski. Do I have such a motion?

Mr. John Duncan: Just for clarification, is the committee including travel to New Brunswick?

The Chair: Yes, Bathurst.

Mr. John Duncan: But we're not going to St. Leonard, which is in the middle of the certification area.

The Chair: No, I think we agreed we would go to Bathurst initially.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: Could you just remind me? I was absent for two weeks and, unfortunately, there was no one in my office here, in Ottawa. I arrived this morning, but I didn't see the changes. What had we planned to do beforehand and what are the significant changes?

The Chair: The changes are not earth-shattering. At the start, we had thought about going to Amos, but the committee had already visited Amos, in Abitibi. We wanted to go to places that were a little bit different so as to give committee members a chance to see another situation. We had thought about going to Baie-Comeau and Rimouski, to get to know a different region and to see a forest that has been managed a specific way. Also, travelling to these regions was easier. That's all. Is that all right?

[English]

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: There was another motion as well, and I want to deal with it very quickly. Mr. Chatters wanted us to use a room where it could be televised. I think the committee also wanted to do that. We just checked the room and it is not available for either date. I can deal with the motion. We can say we want to go there and we can have unanimous support, but the room has already been occupied by Finance, apparently.

Mr. David Chatters (Athabasca, Canadian Alliance): As of this morning.... Of course it might not have been the finance committee meeting. It might have been something else.

The Chair: I had the clerk check it yesterday and we double-checked it about an hour ago. The answer is it's unavailable, impossible. Those were the two words they used.

Mr. David Chatters: On both days?

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. David Chatters: Okay, then I will withdraw the motion.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Chatters.

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Janhager. We have with us two gentlemen. We have with us, from the Standards Council of Canada, Mr. Stephan Janhager, who is the senior program officer, EMS registration. I'm going to ask him to explain his relationship with the Canadian Standards Association in a moment. As well we have Mr. Peter Johnson, who is the manager of registration development from the Quality Management Institute, but he's here speaking on behalf of the Canadian Standards Association. It might seem a little problematic for some, but I think we'll get that clarification quickly.

Both gentlemen were here before, so they understand the procedure well. I think they want to give us a brief indication of their position, so we can go into the same kind of back-and-forth dialogue.

• 1220

Neither Mr. Johnson nor Mr. Janhager are francophone, and I think Mr. Johnson in particular would like to put something up on the overhead to make the item run a little bit more quickly. He's provided our interpreters with a copy of some of those notes, but he doesn't have a written brief.

He has a deck? Oh, we're still waiting for a photocopy.

I've explained to both gentlemen that normally we like to have a bilingual copy, and they understand that. We're going to get that translated and distributed to all members.

Everything is simultaneously translated, if you could just begin, at any rate, Mr. Johnson. I can't accommodate the visual aids until we get the copy for our translators, and that's not here. So option denied.

Mr. Johnson, go ahead.

Mr. Peter Johnson (Manager, Registration Development, Quality Management Institute): Good afternoon, and thank you very much for the opportunity to meet with you this afternoon.

As the chair indicated, my name is Peter Johnson, and I'm going to try to explain the relationship.... I work for what's called the Quality Management Institute, QMI. We are a wholly owned division of CSA International, the Canadian Standards Association. You're probably most familiar with the CSA in terms of product certification when they affix the CSA logo onto things like light bulbs, fuses, and things like that. They also have a division that writes national standards for Canada, like the CSA forestry standard. They also have a third division, which is where I come in, and it's called the Quality Management Institute.

We are the auditing organization, and we undertake third-party registration audits to various national and international management system standards across Canada and around the world. Our head office is in Mississauga, Ontario, but we do have offices across Canada, the United States, and around the world. We work, like CSA International, as an independent, not-for-profit, private organization, and when I say private I mean we do not receive any government funding. Our revenue is generated from conducting third-party, independent audits. We are not a consulting organization. Under our terms of reference of operation, or what is called accreditation, we are not permitted to undertake any consulting activities whatsoever.

So the premise of our work is third-party auditing, and what I'm going to be sharing with you today is the perspective as it relates to sustainable forest management in Canada.

I am a registered professional forester in the province of Ontario. I have a background in forestry. I graduated from the University of Toronto and I did a master's degree in forestry at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. I worked for the forest industry. I worked as a consultant, and then I joined QMI six years ago to develop their EMS and their SFM registration programs. I have been working in that field ever since.

We have conducted several audits to ISO 14000 as it relates to forest management across Canada, and we have also conducted two registration audits to Canada's national standard called Z809, and I have led all of those audit teams. So I'm going to be sharing with you the experience, if the questions should arise, about what it's like to actually undertake those audits.

Stephan will share the relationship between SCC, which is our accreditation body, and Canadian Standards International and QMI.

In terms of presentation, there was a proposed text put forward to the committee that was provided to me. It was a proposal, and it indicated that the committee recommend that the federal government, in cooperation with the provincial governments and other stakeholders, actively promote integration of various SFM registration standards, both nationally, with the CSA and FSC, and internationally, where a number of approaches have been developed or implemented.

I would like to propose that consideration be given that the federal government and this committee should be focusing its attention on the national and international standards that have been developed within the context of the recognized national and international standards-writing and conformity assessment process. Meeting the CSA standard is the only national standard in Canada for sustainable forest management, and ISO 14000 is being applied to forests across the country. It certainly has its clear links to ISO in terms of the national and international recognition. We do not believe the FSC falls into the category of working within the recognized national and international standards-writing and conformity assessment process.

• 1225

My organization, QMI, did look very closely at becoming a certifier to the FSC standard, but when our senior management looked at the way the FSC had set itself up and the lack of transparency in their processes, our board of directors declined and said no, we are not going to be pursuing that certification. So our line of thinking has been that, yes, we will keep a watch on FSC, and if they should change, then we may change our minds. But as it stands right now, the value we can bring to the Canadian economy, the Canadian forest industry, and to the international forest products markets is by working and delivering truly third-party, independent registrations to standards that are recognized and managed within the national and international standards-writing process.

With that, I will conclude my remarks and pass it over to Stephan.

Mr. Stephan Janhager (Senior Program Officer, EMS Registration, Standards Council of Canada): Good afternoon, gentlemen.

The Standards Council of Canada is a crown corporation. It's a 70-member organization that oversees the whole national standardization system. For example, in regard to the Canadian Standards Association International, we are the body to approve those standards being developed by that organization.

We are also a member of ISO and the international electro-technical cooperation. When it comes to the sustainable forest management standard that Peter will be talking to, in December last year we included the CSA FSM standard in the conformed assessment program that the Standards Council of Canada oversees, which basically means that we have linked it to the ISO 14001 standard. So it is now a separate forestry program that has a link to the national standardization system itself.

QMI in this regard is the registrar, and Peter is representing that organization. We are the ones who oversee and ensure that they are applying the standards in a consistent fashion. So QMI is one organization in Canada accredited by us. There are six other member organizations that are also registrars, registering companies to ISO 14001, and they also have the opportunity to register organizations to the FSM standard if they so choose.

Thank you.

The Chair: Well, you've set a new standard for brevity. I compliment you on that. It means some of our colleagues are going to get a little bit more time at you.

Mr. Schmidt, who is first on your side?

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Does anybody want to go? I'm ready if you're not.

Mr. John Duncan: I can go. It doesn't matter.

The Chair: We have unanimity on the Canadian Alliance side.

Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan: I'll start.

Mr. Johnson, when you described the organization, you talked about your mandate. You were quite specific about your mandate. You were careful not to stray outside of those demarcations. The Quality Management Institute is self-financing from the standpoint that you derive your own revenues.

I believe you were in the room when I asked the last witnesses a question in reference to marketing. In the same vein, I guess I would ask you, how do you market your organization?

Mr. Peter Johnson: We market our organization through mainstream vehicles. We have a website. We have advertising brochures in the appropriate trade journals and magazines. We have a lot of discussion amongst our registered companies when they are discussing amongst themselves. We are the oldest registrar in the country. So we have a standing reputation, or people know of us when it comes to ISO. We are the largest ISO registrar in North America, in the Canadian market and in the United States market as a stand-alone market.

So websites, conferences, and trade publications would be our main vehicles for the promotion of our services. We do not promote standards in the sense of “Go out and register your company to this standard; it's a good thing”. The management systems standards, like the Z809 or the ISO standards, are voluntary.

• 1230

There has to be a benefit for an organization to adopt, implement, and become registered to those standards. If that organization does not recognize those benefits through both their customers and suppliers, there's no way we are going to be able to influence them or tell them this is a good thing. The premise behind it is that the marketplace will recognize those standards and they will drive the demand for those standards.

If I can understand where this question is going, the question may lead to why the CSA standard is not being marketed. Are we a vehicle for marketing the CSA standard? No, we are not a vehicle, nor is the CSA a vehicle for marketing its standards.

The CSA has produced over 2,000 standards: electrical standards, plumbing standards, all types of standards. They are not in the marketing business of selling standards. The marketplace picks those up and the marketplace will determine whether they are successful or whether they are not going to be successful. They will promote information, if needed, as well as requests for information, absolutely. For the CSA standard, they did facilitate workshops across the country to get the word out. But are they an advertising/marketing organization? No, they are not. That is not their mandate.

Mr. John Duncan: So it would be fair to say that if they entered into those activities, they would likely be criticized by their very customers.

Mr. Peter Johnson: That could very well be, but I think the customers would probably be saying to the CSA, “Stick to your mandate, stick to your priority. You should not be marketing or advertising any standard above and beyond any other standard.” The critics of the forest standards process and certification process would probably jump on that topic in particular, but the CSA does not promote any of their standards.

Mr. John Duncan: Right. The way I hear you describe all of that, it seems to me that it adheres very much to business principles. To stray from that actually doesn't adhere; it's contrary to business principles. Can you explain to me why a business such as Home Depot would apparently exclusively endorse the very system that, in my mind, goes out of its way to stray from business principles?

Mr. Peter Johnson: I can't speak directly for Home Depot or for any of the major purchasers of forest products, but I have a feeling that they probably have a shortage of information or a lack of information about what the standard is, what it is not, how it is applied, and the strengths of the standard. They have not been provided with the appropriate information or they have not pursued the appropriate information.

I think one of the other major pieces that has been missing is that there have not been, until recently, registered companies that have been out promoting themselves. We only have two registered areas or defined forest areas under the Z809 standard, and that was fairly recently. They're both within the past 12 months. It has taken a long time for companies to come forward and become registered, and then it's taken a long time for the word to get out.

At the time when Home Depot or any of the other suppliers were weighing which certification process they were going to be putting their weight behind or favouring, the CSA standard was a document that had been written but had not been successfully implemented. Companies had not been successfully registered to it. Now we have registrations, and there are many more registrations that will be going on in this country over the next year. I think we're going to see a dramatic change in the awareness about the Z809 standard because the companies that have become registered and will hopefully become registered to that standard will become the communication vehicles.

Mr. John Duncan: My concern, and that of many people, is that CSA standards be accepted internationally. Is there some effort going on somewhere so that the SFI—I think that's the American-sponsored group—and the CSA and others would all have some form of recognition of each other that would be easier to accept in the marketplace?

• 1235

Mr. Peter Johnson: Yes. That process has begun. The CSA has a technical committee that looks after the SFM standard, and a task force called the mutual recognition task force has recently been struck. They are going to be looking at the various certification schemes that are occurring around the world to look at mechanisms for harmonization and for mutual recognition of each other's work.

One example we already have of the acceptance of the CSA registration is in the Netherlands. A company in Canada, Weyerhaeuser, has registered its North Islands division to the Z809 standard. They applied through a process called the Kerhoot Foundation in the Netherlands. Kerhoot offers a chain-of-custody process, enabling companies that are successful to put the Kerhoot hallmark on their product.

The Netherlands organization, Kerhoot, looked at the registration to the CSA standard. They went through a review of the audit process, the auditor credentials, and they recognized and accepted that as a means of sustainable forest management. That is the first recognition outside of Canada of the CSA standard being accepted.

Mr. John Duncan: Is this a meaningful recognition? Is that a permanent group that's centred somewhere?

Mr. Peter Johnson: Well, the mutual recognition group is a permanent group. It's a subcommittee of the CSA technical committee. It has just recently been put together, so they are now embarking to find out what else....

Mr. John Duncan: Are there not CSA people involved in that, though?

Mr. Peter Johnson: Oh, yes, they're all members of the technical committee. The CSA technical committee is made up of a variety of constituents from federal governments, provincial governments, first nations, academia, consultants—

Mr. John Duncan: So it's all Canadian.

Mr. Peter Johnson: It's all Canadian, yes. The thinking is that they would liaise with the various countries or with the other certification processes.

Mr. John Duncan: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.

Some people look for that little dolphin label when they buy tuna that says that, presumably, when that tuna was caught in the ocean, measures were taken to prevent dolphins being caught in the net. I don't believe one in 100 consumers actually goes past looking at the picture to think about the dolphins. Some of us do sometimes, but I don't think the average consumer does.

Deep down, as important as certification and sustainable forestry are, what we're dealing with out there in the marketplace is consumers first, for whom, for the most part, a label is a label is a label. If somebody talked about sustainable XYZ forestry, they would accept that too. It really is about marketing some kind of a symbol and then having people believe it means something.

For better or worse, the FSC seems to have gotten out in front. But as we've heard from other witnesses and from the witnesses previous to you, they certainly have some problems in certain areas, particularly at the local or regional levels. Most of us around the table would certainly hope that something like a CSA kind of a standard would get out there, because we have confidence in our country and our standards and our ethics. I know it's not your job to promote it, but I think that's something we need to understand better.

Other witnesses, in referring to different certification schemes, say the CSA is a management system and there's no chain of command. You can read this in the testimony. There's no overt criticism of it, but it's passed off as being unimportant in the international scheme, whereas we might prefer that to be different because we have confidence in ourselves to be able to do a good job.

I wonder if we could just go a little bit deeper into your perceptions of the chain-of-command issue. Why do certain players dismiss the CSA standard? In every other sphere—you mentioned light bulbs—we are glad to see the CSA, but for this, people dismiss it. I'd like your thoughts on that, if you would, please.

• 1240

The Chair: There's only one question in there, gentlemen. You don't have a lot of time to answer it.

Mr. Yvon Godin: He'll lose his time after this one.

Mr. Peter Johnson: I would like to address the question about the accusation that it is only a management system standard. That is a strong accusation, but it is completely misinformed. It is thrown around by people who have no understanding about what a management system standard is. It is also probably one of the only areas—and it's not even a legitimate area—where someone could punch a hole in the CSA standard. It is true that it is a management system standard, but it is a management system standard that gets its teeth or its merit in terms of the use of what are called the “critical elements”, which are based on the criterion indicators for sustainable forest management that were established by the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. That is where the on-the-ground sustainability forest management issues are taken right to the woods.

People accuse a management system audit of being a paperwork audit where we never leave the office. Well, that is completely erroneous. Our foresters and auditors spend more time in the woods talking to the operators, the planners, and the people who are doing their day-to-day activities, and driving and flying the forests to confirm and verify that what they say they are doing in their management system is the reality of what is going on in the forest. So when they say it is just a management system, they are trying to find a crack—and it's not even a crack. They're trying to find something to hammer away at. But it is not. There are very rigid, performance-based components to the system that are audited, estimated, and evaluated right at the forest level.

In terms of the chain-of-custody question, yes, it is recognized that there is not a chain of custody associated with the CSA standard, and that is by design. The technical committee that came together and met for almost three years before coming up with the standard recognized that you have to get the forest management activities working properly. You have to get the forest house in order per se before you can start looking at the chain of custody.

So it really was a matter of priorities. Let's get the activities in the woods correct. Then the next task would be to look at a chain of custody. There are some concepts and proposals being discussed right now at very high levels about the possibility of establishing a chain-of-custody process for the CSA standard. So I think the technical committee recognizes that it is going to be inevitable. It's just going to be a matter of timing.

The Chair: Did that satisfy you?

A voice: Yes.

The Chair: Good.

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Godin.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Godin: When we talked about the CSA, I was under the impression that this standard focussed more on the quality of the product rather than origin. The FSC goes further. It takes into account the environment and these types of things. Otherwise, why would we have two or three certifications? This is what this whole debate about the various certifications is all about, in my opinion. Every certification has its raison d'être. The same thing applies to ISO 9000. This standard pertained to the quality of the product. Is this not what this certification is all about? It is not acknowledged by the others.

[English]

Mr. Peter Johnson: The systems do have their differences, there's no doubt about that. The ISO that people are historically knowledgeable about deals with quality—ISO 9000. There are thousands and thousands of companies in Canada that have ISO 9000 registration, which deals with quality. There is an ISO standard that deals with environment called ISO 14000.

Many forest organizations are putting ISO 14000 in place for two reasons: to deal with the environmental issues associated with forest management, and to build a management system. Forestry and forest management in Canada has historically not been done in a traditional management system style. There is very little that has been historically documented or written down. People received their training directly on the job or from their supervisors. It is a process that happens very repetitiously year to year to year. It goes with the seasons of the year.

• 1245

The management system now enables them to put together a systematic process that allows them to address both the environmental issues and good business management issues. And that is where the ISO 14000 is moving forest organizations.

The CSA standard has a small component of environmental issues, but it really deals almost directly with the forest management issues themselves. It also takes into consideration the economic values, social values, and first nation values. There is a mechanism for the identification and the inclusion of any type of value, whether it be environmental, economic, social, geological, or anything, into the CSA process.

So there are differences, but between the CSA and the ISO 14000, there is clear coverage of both forestry and environment issues. And with the FSC process, they look after a different, or overlapping, group of issues, arguably related completely to the environment or to forestry. So there are differences between the two.

The majority of those differences really rest on how things are achieved. ISO 14000 and CSA are a management system that builds a framework with performance parameters. FSC does not provide a management system framework. So with the FSC, you verify it once and then there is no assurance that it is going to be the same in the future.

With the management systems of CSA and with ISO 14000, you have assurances that there is going to be predictability. There is a systematic process of assurances that is going to be continued on in a predictable way into the future.

The Chair: Mr. Johnson, I'm curious. I want to follow the same lines of thinking that some of my colleagues did earlier on.

Let's for a moment accept that the chair is absolutely taken by the persuasiveness of your argument. Why is it that a company like Home Depot would have chosen an FSC designation certification to do its marketing? Why wouldn't they have come to CSA and said they like the fact that it's predictable, that it is so objective, and that the criteria are stable or are evolving as the science evolves? They'd know that there's methodology that's consistent. It won't change from year to year.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: From region to region.

The Chair: Exactly.

First, why would Home Depot not do that? But more importantly, I guess—because we'd have to ask Home Depot again—why wouldn't CSA go to distributors and retailers like Home Depot and say what forestry internationally needs is leadership that they provide and they're doing a disservice to their clientele by not following this set of criteria?

Mr. Peter Johnson: That's a very good question. I think timing has a lot to do with it, because when those major purchasers were making their decisions, there were no certifications to the Z809 or the CSA standard. So we could have gone to Home Depot, Lansing, Syntex, or any of the large purchasers and said, “Here's the standard. It's fantastic. It's really going to work well for the forests.” And they'd have said, “Can we talk to some of the companies that have certified, or where is your proof?” We didn't have any. Now we do. And now we're starting to see the companies promoting and communicating both certifications.

I fully think that meetings need to be set up with those purchasers so they can sit down and they can understand what the system is and what it is not, so they can make some fully informed decisions. I think they might receive a backlash in the future from some of their buyers for not having fully investigated the other certification avenues that are out there. Or if they are also going to be following or pursuing with one certification, if that certification process they have chosen falls into disrepute or turns into a big problem or conflict, then they're going to have to really start justifying why they chose that process. They may say it was the only one out there, or the one that was most recognized. And I would have to agree that at that time, that was correct.

• 1250

But I think whether it's done by the CSA organization or some other organization, the word has to get out about the merits and strengths of the CSA standard. It has been recognized by the technical committee as well, and they have created a communications task force to address this problem.

The Chair: Mr. Johnson, let me be persistent. You were here, I think, a few minutes ago when the Irving group of companies indicated that it had run into precisely the problems you've just alluded to. Yet when I asked them why they weren't going to CSA—I don't want to characterize them as being evasive; they weren't—they just simply said, we might look at them, but we might not. Is there not an opportunity there for CSA to seize upon a company that has already gone through a process and is already willing to put itself forward as a marketer for a certification system? What's missing?

Mr. Peter Johnson: There is an opportunity there to meet with the companies, but the companies are responding to what their customers are saying. I think either Mr. Irving or Mr. Brunsdon said their customers had not been requesting it. It is a voluntary process. We can say as many wonderful words as we want, but if their customers are not asking for it or not recognizing it, they could have a hard time justifying it within their organization, because it does carry additional cost to go through and maintain the certification process.

But I think what we're also hearing from the major buyers is, we don't really care which certification process you follow, whether it's ISO, FSC, or CSA; please just get something so that you can get the protesters out of my parking lot. We're seeing that the major buyers are starting to recognize that perhaps they cannot put all of their eggs in one basket, that first of all, for credibility reasons, they do have to look and see that there are alternatives out there. I think the companies will follow suit.

The Chair: A while ago, when this committee embarked on the second phase of this study, there was some concern amongst committee members around the table—they're non-partisan—that in their perception there wasn't the leadership required to combat the protesters in the parking lot, as you put it, because somebody was not taking—excuse me for mixing metaphors—the bull by the horn and selling the certification that's available and demonstrating that Canadian products are as certifiable as any other, in fact better. Who should be providing that leadership? Should it be the CSA; a government agency; an arm's-length government agency; or, as Mr. Duncan would say, the marketplace?

Mr. Peter Johnson: That is an excellent question and one that the committee and CSA have been grappling with. There are pros and cons to a variety of approaches. If the industry were to be the leaders, then people would perceive it as being an industry-based standard. If it were to be done by CSA, that would not fall within their mandate, and then they would be in a whole new role. Should they be out actively promoting their electrical codes, their plumbing codes, and their playground equipment safety standards and marketing those around the world as well? Should it be done by the—

The Chair: Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Johnson. Surely this is a little different. I think the forestry industry in all of its aspects is so important to the GDP of Canada, and most particularly to its export industry, that somebody has to be able to say this is what it is. I'm sure we can't be putting electrical codes in the same context as the weight of the forestry industry to Canada's GDP, can we?

Mr. Peter Johnson: I don't know. I don't know if we can weigh one industry against the other industry. I can certainly convey the interest back to the management at CSA International. But are there other alternatives? Is that the correct vehicle for promoting? We have that question as well. We want to get input as well. We're not trying to dodge it, but we don't know if we're the best ones to be doing it.

The Chair: Mr. Schmidt has an answer, I know.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I have some questions, though, Mr. Chairman.

• 1255

The Chair: You have about three minutes.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I have two points. First, I just want to make sure I understood correctly. It seems to me that implicit in your earlier statement, Mr. Johnson, was a judgment of FSC as not being a good certification standard. I think you did indicate that you were not going to audit them simply because they weren't transparent enough. I'm not quite sure what you meant by that, but I took from it that FSC doesn't measure up, so therefore it doesn't even qualify.

Mr. Peter Johnson: It's not that the standard is not of an acceptable calibre. It is the process by which they manage that standard, accredit certifiers, and certify their auditors, and the appeal process. So it's the infrastructure that supports the FSC standard that our organization is not compatible with.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: You're just as good as Jim Irving was in evading the issue. But that's okay.

The Chair: It's just a figure of speech.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I'd like to refer now to the proposal that is contained in this document here. I think it's a rather interesting one. I think it ties directly to the question that was just asked by the chairman. I think he was almost prescient when he did that. In the proposal, as I see it here, it says “the committee recommends”. What committee are we talking about here?

Mr. Peter Johnson: This committee.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: So you want this committee to recommend.

Mr. Peter Johnson: I took the information that was provided to me, and there were two proposals laid out.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: So you've included that in your proposal as well. When you take someone else's proposal and put it into your document, does that mean that's yours now, that you've taken ownership of this, as well as the committee?

Mr. Peter Johnson: No, this is a proposal that I would put forth to the committee.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: And you would want them to do this.

Mr. Peter Johnson: To consider it as a point of discussion.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: You're pretty good.

The Chair: In fairness, Mr. Schmidt, I should apologize, because Mr. Johnson asked me if he could put these up on the screen.

Mr. Peter Johnson: Yes.

The Chair: Had he done that, I think he would have made the connection between the previous page and that one, which would indicate the link with what his intent was. I'm sorry, because I—

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I'm going in a different direction. I understand the link only too well. What I want to know is, do you in your heart, as a quality management manager, say that this is what the committee should do?

Mr. Peter Johnson: Yes, I do.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Okay. That's the important thing here. If that is the issue, then you are saying, I think—and I don't criticize you for it—that the CSA process is so good and the way in which it gets input from the various stakeholders, be they retailers, marketers, or forestry people, is good enough for the world to look at and say, yes, that's what we should go for. It's similar to the point you tried to make before about light bulbs and other kinds of standardization that are taking place. Is that correct?

Mr. Peter Johnson: That is correct. I will stand behind that standard and the accreditation and the process.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That clarifies it very nicely.

Mr. Yvon Godin: With regard to what you just said, CSA doesn't go right to the point on the environment. Then you went to ISO 14000. Now you're coming back with a statement to Mr. Schmidt saying that CSA will be the answer of the world. That's how I get it. I just want to have that clarified.

The Chair: Do you want to clarify that, Mr. Johnson?

Mr. Peter Johnson: It's CSA for sustainable forest management as it relates to this proposal.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Okay. But it's not the same standard, and it now overrules the FSC.

Mr. Peter Johnson: Do you mean the FSC standard?

Mr. Yvon Godin: Yes.

Mr. Peter Johnson: The FSC standard does not fall within this realm because it's not operating within the national and international standards process.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Yes, but the problem we have in the world is that some people protest at some store or wherever because the environment is not looked at when companies look after their own standards. That's the idea of putting everybody together to come to a standard that's acceptable to the community, industry, and government.

• 1300

Mr. Peter Johnson: With the CSA standard, the sustainable forest management standard, it is a sustainable forest. It looks at the environment of that defined forest area. It doesn't have the word “environment” in it, but those components are covered off. But if someone is looking for an environmental standard, then ISO 14000 would be more appropriate than the Z809—Z809 is the forest and the forest environment.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Janhager, for your presentation. I think it was a fairly thorough response to each of the questions. It has been most helpful.

I thank you both very much. You were patient in waiting and patient in your responses, and, as I said, it will be very helpful.

Mr. Peter Johnson: Thank you very much for your time.

The Chair: We're going to suspend while we bring in our next group.

• 1301

• 1304

The Chair: We have with us this afternoon the very first group of representatives from the province of Ontario. I know some people have expressed a little bit of concern that we weren't getting representation from Ontario, either from the industry or from wherever. Although, as colleagues will know, some of the organizations that have appeared before us seem to have a head office in Toronto, they were doing business essentially in other provinces.

We have with us the Buchanan Group of Companies, from northern Ontario. The group is represented by Yves Fricot, vice-president and general counsel, and Glen Swant, the head forester.

Gentlemen, I know you were present at least during the last presentation and part of the one before it, and you're familiar with the process by now.

• 1305

You have about ten minutes. You can use less, or more, if you like, but we're limited in the amount of time. So depending on how much time you want to give my colleagues around the table for questions and answers, you can make that decision. You can get your points across really quickly. We all have your brief. We'll get a chance to read it a little later on, and we can take it from there.

Mr. Comuzzi, I guess I made the introductions for you already.

Mr. Joe Comuzzi (Thunder Bay—Superior North, Lib.): You did a wonderful job, Mr. Chairman. It's almost as though you were practising.

I was interested to hear that these are the first folks from Ontario to make a submission. By way of background, the Buchanan Group of Companies is made up of nine or ten individual free-standing mills in northern Ontario.

In the last couple of years, the single shareholder of the company, Mr. Ken Buchanan, decided he should understand something about how the Americans operate. He went down to Mississippi and picked up another couple of mills and is comparing the operations of the United States ventures with the ventures he has in Canada. It would be interesting to have him come before your committee one day to tell you what the differences are.

They're the largest manufacturer of softwood lumber in the province of Ontario. The Buchanan Group of Companies is responsible for somewhere between 55% and 60% of all the lumber that's manufactured and exported to the United States. I think they're now the sixth-largest producer of softwood lumber in Canada. They are the largest single private employer of people in the province of Ontario. Their payroll is now well over $250,000,000 a year.

I think the important thing to understand before these gentlemen give their report or submission is that this is not only and no longer an isolated company that produces 2x4s and 2x6s in dimensional lumber. It is so integral to the complete forestry industry in northern Ontario, and I'm sure other parts of Canada, that they are the supplier of fibre, the fibre that's needed to produce pulp and paper, for both Bowater, which is in our area, and Weyerhaeuser, Kimberly-Clark, Domtar, Abitibi, and just recently, I'm told, Donohue. They supply most of the fibre for these mills so that they can operate and produce the other forestry products. So it's not just 2x4s and 2x6s, but integral to the forestry industry in northern Ontario.

With that background, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Comuzzi. You've convinced us. We're going to have a fairly good perspective on the lumber industry as it pertains to Ontario.

Who's going to speak first? Mr. Fricot.

Mr. Yves Fricot (Vice-President and General Counsel, Buchanan Group of Companies): I will, if I may.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for allowing us to be here.

With respect to our approach, it's not our intention to read our brief to you. I understand you've received it, and usually, at least in my experience, when you read something you've already read or listen to somebody tell you, it's not very productive. There are a few things we would like to highlight, and then certainly to the extent that we can answer any questions the members may have, I believe that may be of greater assistance to you.

As Mr. Comuzzi has pointed out, we are a private company. We are a family owned business. Our head office and all our business is basically conducted in northern Ontario. That's important for us, because everybody in the company not only lives in that part of the world, but they also work in the forest and enjoy the forest.

We're very proud of the fact that for a long time we have been innovators in forest management. Certainly, as Mr. Buchanan continues to tell us to do, we manage so that we will be around in a hundred years, not only so that we have work but so that our children and our children's children have work. We're very integral to the communities there and we're very proud of that.

• 1310

We have read over a lot of the briefs that have been put before this committee recently. I think one of the things the committee ought to be aware of is that the situation with respect to sustainable forest management in Ontario is a little different from what it may be in some other parts of Canada. We certainly don't have experience in other provinces, but certainly there are some things about where Ontario is at today that are particularly unique. I think it's important for the committee to understand that, or at least to have it in the background, because it falls into some of the points we want to make about certification and some of the issues that are before the committee. And because I'm constantly told that only foresters really know the forest, I'll let Glen, our chief forester, address those.

Mr. Glen Swant (Head Forester, Buchanan Group of Companies): I want to take a few minutes to explain where forest management is today in Ontario. Before I start, when I was hired by Ken Buchanan to be the chief forester at Buchanan, he gave me explicit instructions. He said those are my seven grandchildren. I want to have forest for them when they're your age. That was my job line, so to speak.

In terms of forest management today in Ontario, with the help of the Ontario government, which brought the forest industry and the environmentalists together through the Lands for Life exercises, we're in an enviable position in that we have peace, so to speak, in Ontario.

The environmental groups and the forest industry and the Ontario government were working toward managing forests from the day the forest accord was signed. I believe that's a document that's attached to our brief. You'll see that there are a number of items in there that the environmental groups and the forest industry are working on to make the forest a better-managed forest in Ontario. An example of this is that tomorrow, on my way back to Thunder Bay, I will stop over in Toronto and meet with two members of the World Wildlife Federation. We're going to put the final touches to a draft of the latest enhanced tenure document for the province of Ontario. It actually is happening.

Through the Lands for Life process we set aside 278 parks and protected areas where nature can find its own course and where people can recreate themselves in a natural setting. We think that's important as foresters. An example of this is one that I hold near and dear to my heart. Every time I went timber cruising we flew in, and we would fly through this huge canyon that's just north of Thunder Bay called the Ottertooth Canyon. We set that aside. It's a unique fault seam that has cliffs that are 100 feet high on both sides. There's only about a 40-foot difference between the two sides of the fault line. It's quite unique, and the vegetation at the bottom of this canyon is some of the most unique in Ontario. So foresters, naturalists, and environmentalists agreed to set this aside so people could see it in its natural beauty.

This ever-evolving transformation of Ontario's forest management is added to by the existing Crown Forest Sustainability Act, which enshrines the principle of forest sustainability through enforcing it by making all of us practice biodiversity. A good example of practising biodiversity is we're managing a stand in northern Ontario and it has a 20% composition of trembling aspen. We have to manage that stand to its maturity so that 20% composition is there at maturity, at the time of harvest and at maturity. That means the forests are sustainable and they're also biodiverse. It isn't just the government that's checking us out. There are independent auditors. These independent auditors are comprised of professional foresters, biologists, and planners who do regular audits on our forest management planning process and on the work that's done in the field.

• 1315

Along with managing for biodiversity through the Environmental Assessment Act, we have been applying for a number of years now 57 different guidelines to protect all the forest dwellers. It ranges from guidelines to protect caribou to guidelines to protect osprey.

These are mandatory. They are incorporated in all our plans, and we include the public in those discussions about how the forest and these different wildlife species should be managed.

The most recent guideline, and one that may relate to you, is we're now following the pileated woodpecker guideline whereby we leave two to three trees per acre as snag trees for nesting sites for woodpeckers.

I'll just give you an idea of where we're at in Ontario. We're managing sustainably. We've made peace with the environmentalists, and we're encompassing and managing for the sustained growth of all species in the forest.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Mr. Swant and Mr. Fricot, thank you very much.

Mr. Yves Fricot: If I may, I wanted to make two more points. I'm a little bit back and forth here.

There are two things that I think are important. First of all, it's important to acknowledge the role the provincial governments play, and I know you have highlighted that in your interim report in how you've pointed out there is an area of divided jurisdiction. But where the goal of sustainable forest management is already being addressed, it's important that the federal government recognize this and that it continue its role, a role that it has performed well to date in terms of protecting our interests overseas.

In terms of the whole question around certification, which has been before this committee for some time, I think sometimes people forget that certification is not a guarantee of sustainable forest management or a lack of certification is not any statement that sustainable forest management is not going on.

Certification is nothing more than a business tool. A company can use its certification or can choose to become certified essentially for two reasons: number one, because that process will help it do its job internally better—in other words, through internal processes that will address whatever, and that's a business need it has; and the other business need that's available through it is perhaps access to market in the sense that the company says, “If I can say I'm certified, if I can become certified, then I will have access to market.”

That's what true certification does. That's the service it provides. But it is not the function of the certification systems, it's not the function of the certification businesses—because that's what I call the FSC—to tell us how to manage the forests or to tell us that we're doing a good job. That is really a function of the government.

The more we look at the various systems and the more I read and heard this morning, for example, about the FSC system and the Irving experience with it, the more I feel, and I think we as a company feel, uneasy with some of the things that are being done or some of the things that are coming at us, particularly with respect to the FSC.

Your committee has pointed out in its interim report that there are some very important ways in which the FSC system differs from the CSA system.

I think the third point you make in that report, and a point made this morning by the Irvings, is the most important one. First of all, government does not have a say in what the sustainable forest standards are going to be under the FSC. The Canadian government in any form, federal or provincial, doesn't have a say, doesn't have a voice, and really at the end of the day neither does industry.

That's not the case with the CSA. It's not necessarily the case with ISO, but fair enough, ISO does a little less on the ground than the CSA. But what makes us uneasy is that we look back at a system that has its origin with an industrial competitor of our business, and it then comes to our country and says, this is how you must manage if you want to be certifiable. That causes us great concern.

• 1320

We have appended to the back of our brief some excerpts from the evidence that was before this committee. You can sense in some of the questions exactly those kinds of concerns. I don't know the answer to that, but we're very concerned that we ask a member from the FSC whether they will certify old-growth forests. Well, whether they do or don't, ultimately that's a decision that we, as Canadians, make, and it's a decision ultimately that the government makes through input from its various stakeholders, as the Ontario government has done.

One of the members asked a question. Mr. Godin, I apologize for citing you, but you asked what to me is exactly the most important question: What is the government's role, and shouldn't government be bringing these people together? That's what's happened in Ontario. When the answer is, “No, government doesn't have a role; you don't have a vote and you don't have a say”, that is a very important concern.

When that same group then tries to market in Europe, in what we look at as very simply another form of the original attack, by saying, “Don't buy if it doesn't have this logo on it”.... I go back to the comments from Minister Goodale that are in your interim report, where he talks about concerns about sovereignty. We have those concerns and we share those concerns.

I would urge the members of the committee, or certainly the research staff, if you haven't done it already, to spend a few minutes on the FSC website. It's hugely instructive. It's a big balloon, but it's an organization with 600 members. It's not an organization with a lot of industry in it; it's not an organization with government in it. It's an organization that comes basically from Sweden. There are not a lot of members in this organization from Finland or Norway or a whole bunch of other places. Somehow they've done a very good job of convincing the world, or certain parts of the world, that they are the answer.

It is not that what they are trying to do is a bad thing. We, as much as any other Canadian company, are striving every day and will continue to strive to manage our forests sustainably. It's the approach that's being taken to it.

Mr. Chairman, you asked a question of the CSA people. To paraphrase your question, you said in essence, “Why aren't you marketing?” It is a concern to us that standards organizations do market. We don't think they ought to be in that business, because it implies that if you don't belong to that organization, you will somehow be treated differently. As I said at the very beginning, belonging or not belonging is not a measure of how well the forest is being sustained. So those concerns are there.

I'm concerned about a question you posed, Mr. St. Denis, to the member from the FSC, and I excerpted a little bit in the appendix. In the part that's not in there, you gave an example I find very interesting. You gave the example of selling light bulbs in China, I believe, or electrical systems, and you said if you're the first one there, you get to decide whether it's going to be the 220-volt system or the 120-volt system, and everybody who comes after you has to do the same thing.

The interesting thing about what's happening here is they have decided in Sweden to use a particular system. They've done that through the cooperation of government and industry and through a process that's being driven by environmental groups. They are now not saying, “If you want to come to Sweden, use our system”; they're saying, “We are insisting that the rest of the world use our system”, and that's a very different thing. Those are some of our concerns.

• 1325

What do we think the role of the government ought to be in all of this? First of all, the government has an important role in making sure that if somebody is in the certification business, whether it is the CSA, the ISO, or the FSC, they are not trying to take over the role of government at any level.

The second role our government has to play—and it has played this role, and it is a role some of the witnesses before you have urged you to play—is to expand the work you are presently doing internationally to combat what is happening overseas, and some of it now is happening in Canada. We certainly support that recommendation. If anything, it's one of the most important ones. As a country, we are way too often on the defensive. We do have one of the best systems, and by God, it should be the other way around.

As my last thought before closing, I'd like to take one of the questions that was put to Mr. Brunsdon this morning to the next step. A recommendation made, I believe, on a preliminary basis in your interim report was to harmonize the systems. Now that you've heard from the FSC, perhaps a second look should be taken at that recommendation. There is merit in a number of different systems, because at the end of the day, they do only serve business purposes, or they don't, in the case of the particular business. Requiring them to be harmonized we think is the wrong way to go.

But when you look at the discussion you had this morning, Mr. Brunsdon said, “Look, we pulled out of this because the system was not open, was not representative, and we have an appeal process.” And I'll just very generally describe that. One of the members asked, “What happens if you lose the appeal?” The answer was, “Well, then we'll pull out,” because really that's their choice.

But if the government has mandated that this is the only system, whether it's a harmonized one or an unharmonized one or whether the Canadian government supports this particular system, then what is the consequence to Irving? Now Irving overseas is really in a jackpot, even though it's doing a good thing.

That's why it's important at the end of the day to go back, when we look at certification systems, and say, do they serve a need for the particular business? It's a business decision. It shouldn't be more than that. The actual management of the forest is aided by or can be aided by belonging to a process. It's not something that tells you it's there or not there.

Sorry. I probably took up more than my ten minutes, Mr. Chairman, but I'll blame that on Mr. Comuzzi, who took up a little too much of my introduction.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Mr. Schmidt.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, gentlemen.

This has been an accelerating morning, Mr. Chairman. It has become progressively more focused in the approach to the problem. I really want to commend the way in which this has gone. I'm not sure anybody planned it in detail, but it worked well.

The Chair: It was all planned in detail.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Especially by you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: We work at least with some people. Right, Monsieur Godin?

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Werner Schmidt: The point I wanted to make—and it's an extremely good point that was made right at the end by Mr. Fricot—is this. Underlying the push for certification seems to be the assumption that there weren't sustainable forestry management practices before this. That's not true, because if I recall correctly, Mr. Swant, one of the first things Mr. Buchanan said to you was, “Now look, buster, if you want to stay here, I want this forest preserved.” If that's what he did, then clearly that was the issue. And that has been the issue all along here.

The whole certification issue came to the fore not because forestry officials wanted it, not because there wasn't good management, but because somebody got it into their bonnet that this had to happen because...I don't know why. Well, we know some of it was for environmental purposes. It could be for competition reasons. It could be for getting a market share, which perhaps they saw eroding because certain other people were coming into the marketplace, and this was a way to prevent this from developing.

• 1330

It seems to me there's a competition here among various other interests that have nothing to do with the forestry industry—the concrete industry, the steel industry, for example, which is competing with wood fibre as a good material with which to build. There are those dimensions and then the international global dimensions as well. As technology moves ahead, we can harvest forests much more effectively.

Given all of that, the motivator has to be for Buchanan and all the other companies to make money. Ultimately, they have to make money, and they have to do it in a way that's going to serve society well and at the same time satisfy the other environmental concerns.

Now, if certification is the way to go—and I think that's what Mr. Fricot said—if certification is the way to go to assure a balanced approach in the marketplace so that when people are buying lumber they know what it is they're buying.... They don't have to know from whom, they just have to know that this comes from this kind of a production facility, this kind of a management system. That's what they want to know. They want some assurance that this is going to be environmentally sound, that there are good labour practices here, good reforestation practices and all of that kind of stuff. Is that all there is to this?

Mr. Yves Fricot: Sir, I would just correct one thing. As a company, we are not necessarily of the belief that certification is the way to go. We have corporately looked very closely at the issue and made a decision, because of the way we manage and because of the things we already know we do well, not to seek certification, at least at this time.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: If that's the case, and you lose market share now because of that, what will you do?

Mr. Yves Fricot: Then we will have to make those business decisions at that time. Certainly as of this time both we and the customers we deal with have not had issues around our ability to manage the forest sustainably. There are two reasons for that: first, because of the nature of the political and regulatory background that we have in Ontario, which Mr. Swant has outlined; and secondly, because we have not hestitated to take our customers and show them what we do.

In fact, in some ways I think one of the things we pride ourselves upon in our organization is being very quick, very reactive, and very able to respond to issues, whether they're forest management issues or others. Certainly we're very proud of what we do, and we hold it up. We just have not seen certification as a necessary tool either to make us better or to convince our customers that the facts are what they are.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: Okay, but if the industry goes to certification and you're the only ones left without it, then what? No, no, seriously.

Mr. Glen Swant: There is a reality in our part of the world we have to deal with. Joe brought it up. We, unlike in other areas—maybe B.C. might be quite similar—operate on someone else's licence. There are a number of people who operate on the licence and regenerate that forest. So in order for the person who is in charge of that licence to certify, he would have to have all the rest of us certified, and that might be a colossal task. So that's another reason why we haven't looked at certification.

As Mr. Fricot says, we think we're doing a good job now. The forests are sustainable. We think our record stands. Also, in talking to my colleagues in the other companies in northern Ontario, it would be very difficult for us to implement certification just because of the integration of all of us.

Mr. Werner Schmidt: I have to follow that up, because it really isn't quite that simple, and I think you know that. We do have companies that are very much circumscribed in their business opportunities simply because of the international marketplace, and they would not sustain themselves if they didn't do something like certification. They have gone that way simply to assure themselves of a market. If eventually this moves that way.... And I know the pressures are perhaps unreasonable. Perhaps they're not even scientific. I think they're not. I'm fully sympathetic that they aren't. But the reality is that they're there. That's the problem.

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Mr. Yves Fricot: In reality, I'm not sure they are there—at least in our industry. In the pulp and paper industry, which deals in Europe, the pressures may be very—

Mr. Werner Schmidt: We're talking about B.C.

Mr. Yves Fricot: I'm sorry, in B.C. In fairness, my heart goes out to the guys in B.C., because when you look at their forest practices code, as you noted in your interim report, it's one of the leading codes of practice in the world.

So let us stand back and let us be honest and say that what we are being attacked with has nothing to do with how well we're managing the forest. It's an attack by business and it's an attack by environmental groups. The committee has recognized that. Let's deal with it on that basis.

In the case of this particular group, that's where the focus needs to be in the response. When I look at B.C. and the work they have done on their code and the work they do on an ongoing basis in terms of trying to reach consensus among environmental groups and social organizations and the forest industry, it's an ongoing problem. But even when they do reach that consensus, it doesn't appear to help them. In fairness, I don't know what the answer is for B.C.

Certainly in Ontario we're very lucky, because we've had the approach the provincial government has taken. I know that sometimes the federal government and the provincial government don't get along. One of the things this committee perhaps ought to look at is how better to integrate the responsibilities of the federal and the provincial governments in communicating the response to some of these attacks, because they're completely inappropriate.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis.

Mr. Brent St. Denis: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Please excuse my voice.

I appreciate your comments, Mr. Fricot, on the interim report. It was very much an effort to try to put something on the record and elicit some response. I think you picked up that it is a very complex issue.

I think one of the dilemmas for the committee is right now there are certain regions that are under attack or under the microscope. Look at the Irvings' dealings with Home Depot: to some extent the customer depended on their certification efforts. Areas Mr. Duncan represents, for example, and there are other parts of the country, either may never be under the microscope or may some day be under the microscope.

We're trying to get a handle on what you do with a problem that maybe now is somewhat regional but may or may not become a national problem later on. Part of having witnesses here is to get advice. If I remember your testimony a few minutes ago, you encouraged the government to be involved in trying to resolve these issues. Do I take it that from your point of view it would be better for the federal government to be involved in dealing with the regional issues and stay away from efforts to assist all players to integrate or harmonize certification? Or is it better for the federal government to...?

You're not at a point where you believe you need certification. You may never, but by your admission there may come a business decision point where you have to get into it. You don't know. So does the federal government go back to the interim recommendation—you suggested we might want to revisit it, and I believe we should, as it's only an interim report—where we recommended that the federal government, in cooperation with the provincial government and other stakeholders, producers, first nations, etc., actively promote integration of the various sustainable forest management standards nationally and so on and so forth?

How would you walk through that dilemma if you were in our position? You're asking for the federal government to have a part to play. What part?

Mr. Yves Fricot: Here's where you get into the wonderful inter-jurisdictional mess, as I like to call it.

The commitment the government has made internationally, if we sort of take one step back, is to manage its forests sustainably. In practice, that occurs at the provincial level through the laws and the regulations that are put in force in each particular province. The issue then arises again at the federal level when the products that arise from that system of management and production are sold internationally and are attacked, or when other interests come onto, for lack of a term, our turf and attack what we're doing.

• 1340

I think the federal government has a role in dealing with those things, and in order to address that role it needs to first of all be in a position that it can say yes, we are managing sustainably and we are doing so in a way that lets us—and by “us”, I'm referring to the federal government—do our role in responding, whether it's an attack in British Columbia, an attack in Alberta, or the promotion of Canadian interests overseas.

If you draw too fine a line, I think you get into too big of a mess between jurisdictions. Certainly what we do in our provincial jurisdiction I don't think the federal government would have any qualms about holding up internationally, in the same way that I think the federal government was very proud to go to B.C. and say look at this forest practices code. And I'm sure the same is true of other provinces as well, although those are the only two I can honestly say there's any familiarity with on my part. So that's where I see that role.

Secondly, I think it's important for the federal government to recognize that when the provinces, as in our case, are already managing sustainably and there comes before you, whether it's one group or another one or three years from now another one, that says “In order for us to approve a Canadian product overseas, you're going to have to do things certain ways in Canada”, we take a very strong stance against that. Historically, there are differences between governmental trade barriers, direct and indirect. The government has sort of taken a line and said “Look, once we get to non-governmental organizations, that's really not our area”.

Perhaps one of the things the federal government ought to do, when you look at the influences those kinds of organizations have, is to say yes, maybe we do have a role here. When I look at something that is funded out of a competitor's country with the competitor's government's money, with a non-government organization that attacks what we do as Canadians, and do well as Canadians, I think it's legitimate for Canadians to turn to the federal government and say “Give us a hand and please react”. The fact that it's not what I'll call a traditional trade barrier...maybe we ought to open or expand the horizons. That's probably the wrong wording. I apologize for the wording, but maybe we ought to look a little bit differently and not see it as anything other that what it is, which is an attack on Canadian industry, on the management of our resource, which we do well.

The Chair: Mr. St. Denis, we'll come back to you if we can.

[Translation]

Mr. Cardin.

Mr. Serge Cardin: Good afternoon, gentlemen. First of all, I would like to thank you for submitting a French copy of your presentation. I feel compelled, however, to draw your attention to a mistake found on page 2. I believe that you should have stated that you pay more than $65 million to the Crown on an annual basis, rather than $65 billion. When I read this figure, I said to myself that the government surely had the means to help you.

Mr. Yves Fricot: Yes, you are right. There seems to be a mistake.

Mr. Serge Cardin: Particularly since you mentioned that your payroll is around $240 billion. You certainly do have interests.

Mr. Yves Fricot: I apologize.

Mr. Serge Cardin: That is all right. I thought it was important to correct this point.

You, of course, talked about the importance of certification and the significant role that the government must play. I will be making comments rather than asking questions and I would invite you to give me your opinion on the matter, should you so wish.

We know that there are some environmental groups that are forcing industry to get its house in order and to establish certification standards. We are also under the impression that industry is defending certain interests with respect to certification. Different pressures are being brought to bear, and they vary according to the interests involved. We must also consider international pressure.

However, as soon as you start talking about protecting the environment, you can no longer really depend on industry by itself to protect the forests, biodiversity, etc. I think that this is a much broader responsibility. Although industries may come and go, the needs of the people remain. Needless to say, protecting the environment is very important.

• 1345

The federal government should, while at the same time respecting provincial and territorial government jurisdiction, provide some guidance with respect to environmental protection standards. If the government were to do this, it could also defend these standards, as well as industry, on the international scene. That is the way I see the situation. Moreover, the government has the financial means to do this. You said that your group alone paid the Crown some $65 million. I therefore believe that the governments have the responsibility to protect the environment as well as the means to defend industry at the international level.

Mr. Yves Fricot: Yes, certainly. An important dimension of any good certification or stewardship system is the capacity to act at arm's length from the sector, in this case the forestry sector. As you said, no party can be satisfied with simply saying, at the end, that it did its best and that it abided by the rules. I should point out that this is not what we are doing at present. In Ontario, we established standards, and our plant operations are audited by independent firms, that are separate from the government. We are already abiding by the FSC standards and we have implemented our own audit system. We are accountable for activities to both the public and the government. We believe that the government first of all has a role to play and that we must then be responsible for maintaining our system.

Certain groups that are appearing before you are promoting advantages that already exist in the system we have implemented. Although I do not know whether or not such systems exist right across the country, I can tell you that this is a reality for us. Standards are established as a result of consultations held with all of the stakeholders in the forestry sector.

It would be wrong to claim that industry is simply trying to protect its interests and that it does what it wants to do. This is not the case in Ontario. We hold consultations that include people representing various interests, including representatives from both industry and environmental groups. At the end of the day, it is the government which must, within the scope of its jurisdiction, make a decision, and not somebody who has an office in Mexico.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Godin.

Mr. Yvon Godin: You told us that the system was imported from Sweden and that you were being forced to apply a system from somewhere else. The representatives from J.D. Irving, who testified before us, said something different. They stated that it is a system from somewhere else that is being applied here, but that different regions were changing the rules. According to them the FSC system that is being implemented in the United States is not the same as here. There seems to be a contradiction between your two perspectives. If there were one uniform system, it might be acceptable around the world.

Mr. Yves Fricot: These are the two aspects of the problem that we are confronted with with regard to this system. First of all, the original standards and criteria, as witnesses have told you and as you will be able to observe reading the last appendix of our brief, were established by the industry in Sweden, which was then supported by the government. The Swedes did two things: first they helped build the Swedish system, then, naturally they got involved in establishing the general criteria to be applied in all countries.

• 1350

In some countries and some regions, people are being told that they need to establish standards based on each criterion that has been identified. So, on the one hand, a system is being set up with a whole host of standards originating from a country where these standards are not even enforced, yet they want us to impose them here. And the task of establishing regional standards is being entrusted to groups, such as those Mr. Irving alluded to this morning, even though these groups do not invite those who want to participate in the development of these standards, and who in my opinion, have a right to participate. So you can see there are all kinds of problems.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Would you recommend, as I have done in previous meetings, that the federal and provincial governments intervene in order to reconcile the demands of industry and of other stakeholders, and take a leadership role on the world scene, not to dictate our approach, but to act as a co-ordinator and bring all of the players to the table?

Mr. Yves Fricot: Yes. We could even say that this role is already being freed up because of the CSA standards, which have been supported by the ministers and the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers. These standards are being applied in Ontario. These standards are an example of the type of consensus needed, even though for now, there is no consensus across all of the country. This consensus can be found in our laws, even though the standards are not imposed on industry before they have been supported by the federal or provincial government.

Mr. Yvon Godin: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Duncan.

Mr. John Duncan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to take you in a different direction in one question here: Does the Buchanan Group have a formal position on the renewal—or not—of the softwood lumber agreement?

Mr. Yves Fricot: I'd be glad to address that issue and, if you would permit me, Mr. Duncan, to put my answer in a little bit of context.

The debate as it's presently framed has been very much one of “Are people in favour of quota or are they in favour of free trade?” The first thing to realize is that there has not been free trade in lumber for a very long period of time. There has been countervail, there has been a memorandum of understanding, there have been threats of other countervail, and now there has been a softwood lumber agreement.

Under the softwood lumber agreement, one of the things that is not perhaps said very often is that there has been stability for the last number of years. That has been important in two ways. Number one, it has been important in terms of our ability to manage our business, both in terms of trade to the United States and in terms of the other things that we need to do with our wood products. Also, that stability has been very important in terms of price for the product.

So when people now come to us and say to please ditch the agreement—and I use the colloquial—and replace it with free trade, there is nothing free. What they're really saying is that there will be a countervail under new American laws, that they hope they will win that battle in four or five years, and that in the interim they can't tell you how much that will cost you. If you talk to some people, Jeez, it will only be 1% or 2%, and if you talk to the same people that made the same argument when they wanted the quota system, it's going to be at least 30%. There's a huge degree of uncertainty involved in saying no, thank you, throw out the baby with the bath water.

Where are we at as a company? We would ask and are certainly in the position of advocating that before we make a decision to do away with the present system, we look at what options exist around renewing it or amending it to ensure that the concerns we have are addressed and to ensure that some of the concerns—in fairness, because it's an agreement, I guess—the Americans have are addressed.

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Some of those big concerns—and they touch on the other issues—are in regard to the fact that there has been a huge incursion of foreign producers into the American market. So obviously it's very easy to say “Canada, you can only ship so much”, and “Welcome, Sweden and FSC-certified wood”. Or it's very easy to say “Sorry, Canada, but by the way, you can't get certified yet because we don't have the standards written”.

Mr. John Duncan: It is related—

Mr. Werner Schmidt: It sure is, absolutely.

Mr. John Duncan: I don't want you to occupy the rest of the time talking about the issue, because we've talked a lot about the issue. I know all the sides of it. I just want to know your position.

Mr. Yves Fricot: We're not satisfied at present that all of the solutions associated with throwing out the agreement are really the true solutions that need to be looked at.

Mr. John Duncan: Yes, and in all fairness, the people who are framing the argument don't frame it in quite that polarized way that you expressed, either; they understand the countervail quotient.

Mr. Yves Fricot: Yes.

Mr. John Duncan: I think the big difference is the American interest groups that are now a part of the debate and are an interested party, beyond the Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports down there. They see it as a very visible tax. They would be onside with Canadian producers fighting that very visible tax known as the countervail duty.

Mr. Yves Fricot: One of the things that has happened in the last year is that the Canadian industry and the chief executive officers of the major Canadian companies have spent a significant amount of time and energy looking at the question. They have done so with the help of the federal government, as you are aware. There have been meetings in Ottawa. Some of the provincial governments have been involved. You're right: it's not a polarized debate, but it's certainly one in which both options need to be very carefully looked at. We're concerned that sometimes what you read appears to be a very simple solution when, as you know, because you've looked at it—

Mr. John Duncan: A communications device—

Mr. Yves Fricot: Yes, a communications device, and like the other issue we're discussing today, we tend to get worried about communications devices.

Mr. John Duncan: Secondly, you have obviously been following this committee's witness testimony and so on reasonably closely. Are you familiar with the presentation of and the proposal by the Forest Alliance of British Columbia and the IWA local in terms of a market promotion, the $1.1-million program? They're looking for $400,000 from the feds. Are you familiar with that?

Mr. Yves Fricot: I didn't read that particular brief; I read the evidence. We didn't sit down and say whether the specifics of the proposal were the right ones to answer the question. Certainly conceptually we would have to agree that there is no reason we should not go out and promote what we do. Sometimes the best defence is a good offence.

My understanding, incidentally, is that the Ontario government is undertaking some of that. Maybe one of the things that needs to be done—I don't know to what extent it has been done in B.C.—is that one of the things the federal government can look at is coordinating some of those efforts, because certainly the players have common interests at both levels of government and within provinces.

Mr. Glen Swant: If I could add to that, the Minister of Natural Resources for Ontario, John Snobelen, is going over to Europe this summer with a couple of the industry members to basically give the speech that I gave you here today, that we have—

Mr. John Duncan: One of the—

The Chair: Sorry, Mr. Duncan—

Mr. John Duncan: It's not a question; it's a comment.

The Chair: It has to be a really quick comment, because we're already well over our time.

Mr. John Duncan: The reason I asked this question is that there is a perception that bureaucracy currently endorses the view that certification will respond to all of this and we don't have to go out and do a market-aggressive campaign program. I welcome your thoughts on that.

The Chair: Mr. Fricot.

Mr. Yves Fricot: My thoughts would be very quick.

If you go back a number of years, people were saying to revise our forest practices code in British Columbia or in Ontario, because what we were doing was really bad, and if that was done, as it's being done in other provinces.... That problem hasn't gone away. Now certification comes, and they say if you do this, the problem will go away.

• 1400

In the same way that we continually have to improve what we do on a day-to-day basis on the ground and will continue to do in the future, this problem will not go away because somebody allows somebody to put a logo on something. I'm sorry. With that, I would disagree.

Mr. Glen Swant: If I could make one part of a comment since I probably will never come back here.... Yves may—

Mr. Yves Fricot: No, thank you.

Mr. Glen Swant: In answer to Mr. Schmidt, we have built a company from basically nothing. It's a private owned company. We don't appreciate people coming inside our company and telling us what to do. That's why we're dragging our heels. We drag our heels on a lot of things when it comes to that sort of interference.

Mr. Yvon Godin: But the environment doesn't belong to only you—

Mr. Glen Swant: That's right.

Mr. Yvon Godin: —it belongs to the people.

Mr. Glen Swant: That's right. Yes.

Mr. Yvon Godin: That's the part—

A voice: I think what he means is—

A voice: [Inaudible—Editor]...more groups.

The Chair: Mr. Fricot, I gave Mr. Cardin an opportunity. He wanted to make a comment.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: Yes, Mr. Chair.

[English]

The Chair: Go ahead.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Cardin: I too wanted to thank the witnesses for having tabled documents in both official languages. I would like it if the clerk would clearly tell the witnesses that they must come with the documents in both official languages, something that some of the witnesses have not been doing lately. Members who do not receive documents in their mother tongue are disadvantaged and do not have the benefit of the tools that their colleagues have in order to work. What's more, there is often a long wait for translation. So I would ask that from now on all the documents be tabled in both languages and that this rule be respected as often as possible.

The Chair: Thank you.

[English]

Mr. Comuzzi, we have 30 seconds.

Mr. Joe Comuzzi: To follow up on Mr. Cardin's remarks, Mr. Chairman, just as an aside from the presentation that was made, they worked so hard on the French translation on this document that when they sent it to the clerk—it was translated in Thunder Bay—they forgot to include the English translation. The English translation only got here yesterday.

That's all. Thank you.

Mr. Yvon Godin: It will turn out to be billions of dollars.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Mr. Fricot and Mr. Swant, I can tell you that your presentation has been most appreciated. It has been to the point and very helpful, especially in the context of some of the things we heard this morning.

On behalf of all colleagues, I want to thank you, not only for making a presentation in both official languages but for sharing in such a forthright manner the experiences that you wanted to share with us. They will be helpful, I'm sure.

Mr. Yves Fricot: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, members.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.