Good afternoon. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here.
I will be starting, and then Derek will be speaking as well.
Canada’s forest products sector is ready to play a key role in driving economic recovery, especially in rural and northern forestry communities, and at the same time bring health and environmental benefits and greater self-sufficiency to Canada and Canadians.
As mentioned, my name is Kate Lindsay. I am FPAC's senior vice-president, and am joined today by my colleague, FPAC's president and CEO, Derek Nighbor.
Let me begin by talking about the fundamentals upon which Canadian forestry is built.
Canada is blessed with a tremendous natural and renewable resource in our forests. We have the second most forested lands in the world, making up 40% of our land base.
Canada’s managed forest—the area under active management—is primarily under the purview of provincial governments. Of the lands on which FPAC member companies operate, 94% are on Crown lands and are subject to among the most rigorous governance frameworks in the world.
Canada’s forests and our sustainable forest management regimes are dynamic in nature, continuously evolving to respond to the natural, human and societal shifts that require small adjustments, or sometimes more significant adjustments over time.
Forest management planning in Canada happens at the local level and is driven by science and detailed modelling. It considers dozens of values, from wildlife habitat requirements to watershed protection to fire risk mitigation. It receives and reflects input and knowledge from local municipalities, indigenous peoples, regional recreation and outdoors groups, and other area rights holders and stakeholders.
As with any local land development planning, there are often competing values and interests. It is part of our job to work with local communities on solutions that find balance and co-benefits.
Layered on top of provincial rules and local input is another level of accountability and transparency—third party certification.
Just 11% of the world’s forests are third party certified; 35% of those certified forests are here in Canada. It’s another reason why, in a recent Leger study of nearly 200 global wood, pulp, and paper buying customers, Canada ranked number one in the world. International customers cited quality, reliability, sustainability and good forest management as reasons Canada is their number one choice.
This natural Canadian advantage is a huge opportunity for us as we look at post-pandemic recovery opportunities.
I will now turn it over to Derek Nighbor who will speak to some of the solutions and recommendations.
Thanks, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I want to turn to those opportunities, and some of the areas in which we see forestry workers doing even more for both our economy and the environment. The first we brand under safeguarding the future of our forests. Climate change has emerged as one of the most important transformational challenges, placing unprecedented pressure on our forests’ capacity to remain healthy and resilient. We've seen this in worsening pest outbreaks in the east and the west, and in wild land fires. Forests that are actively managed for the long term, together with the wood products harvested from them, are a key tool in the fight to address climate change. Active management will continue to provide those societal benefits, as well as to build more resiliency into Canada's forests for the future.
One of the other areas is bringing more capital investment to Canada. We have worked with FPAC members and non-members in recent months and have identified over 140 shovel-ready capital projects worth over $1.5 billion in value that can sustain and grow jobs across the country, improve our competitiveness and improve our environmental performance. I look forward to talking with you a bit more about those details.
Next is jobs and products for our people. We can sustain and grow family-supporting jobs in communities that desperately need them. By strengthening our sector domestically, we can also ensure that we have a strong supply of lumber and wood products, pulp and paper, wood fibre-based health and hygiene products, and bioproducts made right here in Canada so that we can provide for our people. Doing this provides important opportunities for SMEs, including the over 1,400 indigenous-owned forestry businesses that are a critical part of our sector. I think back to earlier in the spring, when President Trump stopped that shipment of 3M medical masks at the border. They contained northern reinforced pulp from Canadian forests. That was a reminder to us about the importance of and the opportunity for greater self-sufficiency in terms of how we manage the resource and we deal with value-added manufacturing here.
The other solution is to grow export markets. We're really well positioned to be a global leader in sustainably sourced, manufactured renewables and in bringing more quality and innovative products to the world. We have a few comments on how you can help get us there.
The first area is greater clarity between federal and provincial governments and more predictable or certain access to the working land base. As Kate said, 94% of the lands upon which our members operate are governed by provincial governments. We need your support to ensure greater coherence and clarity between federal and provincial jurisdictions and certainty around access to that land base. Wood fibre is important to workers, contractors, and forestry communities. Increasing levels of duplication between federal and provincial governments inhibit our ability to attract the much-needed capital.
On market access and market development, we'd like to see a continued focus on completing trade agreements, diversifying and growing export markets, and modernizing building codes to allow for bigger and more resilient carbon-storing wood buildings that will bring benefits to our people.
The final comment I want to make is about selling Canada’s good-news story to the world. Our pulp and paper mills have reduced GHG emissions by about 70% since the early 1990s. In its most recent report on the state of Canada’s forests, Natural Resources Canada has confirmed that our managed forest is a carbon sink of 14 megatonnes. Canadian forestry has a compelling story that resonates with our global customers. Despite this Canadian advantage, our customers and investors are increasingly being targeted by anti-industry groups and misinformation campaigns to drive business away from Canada. This is putting Canadian jobs at risk in the process. We need our federal and provincial governments to stand with us so we can sustain and grow jobs, keep our northern communities safer from fire, and advance the economic and environmental benefits that Canadian forestry and forest products provide.
I want to thank you for the invitation to be here today. We look forward to getting into a bit of a discussion on these items during the Q and A.
Thanks again.
Part of my presentation is in French and part is in English.
My name is Jean-François Samray. I am the new CEO of QFIC, the Quebec Forest Industry Council. I am really happy to be with you today.
I am not going into the same details as Derek presented. I will just bring you some images and more details of what it looks like in a province like Quebec.
[Translation]
The Quebec Forest Industry Council represents close to 250 members who are active in sawmilling, hardwood, softwood, rotary cutting, pulp and paper, panel manufacturing, and, increasingly, engineered wood, which is used for a new type of construction.
In Quebec, each year, the forest industry provides more than 140,000 well-paid jobs, directly or indirectly. The average annual salary is $66,000. The members of the Forest Industry Council and the jobs they create generate an annual $4.8 billion in taxes paid to the governments of Quebec and Canada.
[English]
That is $4.8 billion paid in income taxes from the industry to government.
[Translation]
This is based on a turnover of $20 billion. This contribution from the industry as a whole represents 4.7% of Quebec's GDP. Nearly 70% of Quebec municipalities have a very close link with the forest and have jobs that depend on the forest sector. The degree varies according to the region, but it is clear that, in Quebec, in approximately one municipality out of five, when the forest goes, everything goes. On the other hand, when these activities slow down, it is a disaster, and the economic vitality of the community as a whole is put at risk. I am sure that the same is true in most other provinces and regions of Canada.
In Quebec, there are 905,000 square kilometres of forest.
[English]
The Quebec forest is more than 900,000 square kilometres—close to a million square acres. Annually we cut, replant and harvest 0.2% of that area.
[Translation]
As Derek Nighbor mentioned, forestry practices are very important in Canada, and they are the most regulated. For example, in Quebec, 0.2% of the total area cut is harvested and processed. In other words, it is done in a very sustainable way.
The Quebec forest sector is suffering the consequences of a fifth wood dispute with the United States. This affects not only Quebec, but the entire Canadian forestry sector.
I would like to remind the members of the committee that the countervailing duties triggered at the U.S. border are something we monitor very closely. Currently, we've gone over $4 billion, and of that amount, $1 billion is coming from Quebec companies. This is money that cannot be used for modernization, the purchase of new equipment or the deployment of new technologies to make the Quebec and Canadian forest industry even more efficient.
It is important to the forest industry that WTO rules be respected and that an agreement be negotiated. This is important to us, but I think it will also be important to remind our neighbours that even the National Association of Home Builders has written to President Trump. In addition, nearly 98 members of the U.S. Congress have written to him asking that a solution be found, because this situation is hurting the American middle class. We would really like the federal government to find a negotiated solution.
As for climate change, as Mr. Nighbor said, it is the forest that grows and sequesters carbon, but it is also the forest that is used for wood construction. Every cubic metre of wood used in construction will store one tonne of carbon over the long term.
It will be important, when considering programs for inclusion in the next budget statement, to highlight Canada's exemplary role in wood construction, and to support this type of construction. This is important because it would kill two birds with one stone: reduce GHG emissions and stimulate the economy. What's more, it would make us proud. After all, prominent on our flag is a maple leaf that comes from a tree. What better way to show it off than to have a built heritage!
The pulp and paper sector is also fundamental. This sector must adjust and pivot. The current regulatory project to replace single-use disposable plastics will only make sense if we can replace these disposable plastics with cellulose products from the forest. In this regard, the government-funded Investments in Forest Industry Transformation, or IFIT, program is very popular with the industry. I know you've already increased the budget envelope, but for every dollar invested in the industry, there are 10 requested. The IFIT program needs to be reviewed to ensure that it meets processing and GHG reduction needs. This is very important for the industry.
The aluminum dispute has been resolved, now it's time to settle the lumber dispute. This will give us a good idea of where we're headed.
The development of public policies and programs for the use of wood in construction should also be accelerated.
Finally, let me reiterate that the pulp and paper sector is important. This is the sector that uses all the sawdust and residues from the sawmills, from the secondary and tertiary processing. The majority of pulp and paper mills are located in Quebec because of the low cost of electricity and the proximity of the fibre. These mills must be allowed to pivot their packaging products and replace single-use products. The creation of accompanying programs would allow the Government of Canada to stimulate the economy while reducing GHG emissions and lowering pollution.
When we do these things right at home, all international market development programs will have a technology showcase to demonstrate that Canada has the best-managed forests in the world and that we are proud to use wood in our economy and to reduce our GHG emissions. That's why we're offering these solutions to the world.
Thank you for your time. I would be pleased to speak with you.
:
I'll speak to that and, Kate, if there's anything I miss, feel free to come in afterwards.
We offered advice to the government on how to launch a successful tree planting program, and I'd be happy to share that through the chair to the full committee.
Our industry plants five to six hundred million seedlings every year across the country. I'm really proud that this year the plant went ahead without any major outbreaks—and that came with a lot of collaboration with governments, northern mayors and councils and northern indigenous communities. We did such a good job that the tree planters were worried about the northern locals in terms of contracting COVID. A lot of great work was done. We do have a lot of experience in this area.
In the advice we shared with the government, there were a couple of things. Number one, seedlings don't just pop up. We need time to build capacity, and it can take up to four years to build that capacity. Given that we plant on average a thousand trees every minute, once the capacity is there, we have the ability to do that planting. It's the capacity crunch we worry about for a couple of reasons. Number one, you want to get value for taxpayer dollars here, because, if you have a surge and there's not enough capacity, the prices are going to go through the roof for both the federal government and our companies, and that's not great.
The other thing we'd want to do is to make sure that experienced people are doing the planting, those who are planting for resiliency, so that those trees don't die. I really hope that as the government goes forward, we're going to tap into existing resources—provincial governments, indigenous communities and nurseries—that have a lot of expertise. It's really not a time to find some newbie to start doing this stuff, because it is very complicated work, and you want to be planting the right trees in the right places. The nursery capacity, I would say, is a really big challenge.
I'd like to see that you also don't want to have this two-billion surge and then just stop planting. If you want to build that business capacity in that nursery sector, I would love to see a longer-term commitment to continue to do this so that the investments would be worthwhile.
The other thing I'll add, in terms of the planting itself, is that we see a huge opportunity for more urban forests, in more urban communities and rural communities, in addition to planting in areas of our working forest that have been hit by pests and fire. As Jean-François said, we replace what we harvest in Canada. We actually replace more than we harvest, but if you have land that's attacked by pests or is burned by fire, there's a bit of a gap there, because on provincial lands it's incumbent on the provincial governments to replace those trees. If they don't have the budget to do that, you're relying on natural regeneration, and in some scorched areas that natural regeneration might not be happening.
This is also why we asked the federal government to please work with the provinces who know this stuff. Please work with indigenous communities who know this stuff as you determine where in the working forests we can also plant trees beyond those in just the urban and rural parts.
I've taken up some time, but I hope that helps to answer your question.
Good afternoon, Ms. Lindsay, Mr. Nighbor and Mr. Samray. I really appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us today.
Of course, COVID has caused all of us to pivot and be quite flexible and adapt to changing circumstances. We're really grateful that you were able to make some time to join our committee on such short notice today.
In my home province of B.C., it's really been a perfect storm that is impacting forestry, as you know, including from COVID-19, the fibre supply and climate change, among others. While there's been a reduction in demand for pulp and paper, we have seen growth in demand for wood as construction projects and home improvements.
The study that we're doing is looking at the economic recovery of the forestry sector. In the first hour we're really going to focus on the state of the industry, and in the second hour, more on innovation.
I really appreciated your comments earlier. You mentioned some of the challenges and opportunities for the forestry sector. I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to what role you see the federal government taking to support value addition within Canada.
I think there are a number of things. Not far from your home community in Vancouver, we saw a recent move by the Vancouver City Council to move their building codes to 12 storeys. They joined 13 other B.C. municipalities, including Richmond and Surrey, that are working in that space.
We have seen the Horgan government commit to a value-added strategy, which we welcome. I think that's great.
One of the things for us, in working with that, is that in order to ramp up that kind of demand, you need to make sure that the supply is sustainable and also that there is certainty on that land base to support that business growth.
We're quite confident that the sustainability factors are there. Our goal is to keep those forests as forests forever. Provincial governments, including the chief forester in B.C., Diane Nicholls, set that allowable cut every year based on what the forest looks like. That is why we've seen a really difficult time in B.C. coming out of the mountain pine beetle and then the 2017-18 fires that, in some communities.... I know that not far from where Mr. Zimmer lives, you've seen some communities lose 20%, 30%, 40% of their allowable cut. That has meant too many mills chasing too few trees and has led to some of the closures.
I think there is a whole host of issues at the provincial level in B.C. around stumpage costs—and that could extend to Quebec and Ontario and different provinces in terms of that cost to operate. But based on the stuff we can control from a federal level, I think that with the value-added strategy around supporting tall wood, building codes, ongoing innovation—I know that Stéphane Renou of FPInnovations is going to talk a bit about that later on—we do see huge opportunity in the value added.
Government procurement is another area. I know that and have been working on some of that. Richard Cannings had a private member's bill as well on that, so I think that government procurement is also an avenue to explore.
:
Thank you for your question.
When you adopt such a criterion, you must be able to quantify it. We are currently developing a tool called a Gestimat calculator. It allows architects and engineers to estimate the amount of greenhouse gases that can be avoided by using wood as a building material. The calculator has been approved by industry and government. Final adjustments are being made and this tool will be available.
In terms of evaluation criteria, just as one can take energy efficiency into account when selecting electrical appliances, one can choose criteria for the carbon footprint of building materials. This would obviously have a stimulating effect on the forest economy, but also on the Canadian economy. There are forests in many communities, and local economies are interconnected, circular.
At the same time, the industry has designed engineered wood that meets the need for prestressed and factory-assembled products, making construction easier and faster. These things are now available. The more they are available, the more the federal government highlights them in its technology showcase, and the easier it will be to sell them internationally because the Canadian government will demonstrate that they are strong, durable, climate change-friendly buildings available to the rest of the world.
:
I'll start, and Kate can add to it if I miss anything.
I think right now it's a bit early to tell, as there is still a lot of detail to be worked out. Our most initial focus, to go back to my original point, has been to avoid unnecessary duplication. We're an industry that's very comfortable with laws and regulation, let me tell you that. We're very heavily regulated. I think especially in an economic downturn, where the tolerance and the patience for that...is when you start seeing duplication that's driving no human health or environmental benefit.
One of the pieces we're working on in the clean fuel standard right now is related to buffer zones. There is currently a requirement that if your biomass is to be included—I can't remember if the buffer's 25 metres—there is a buffer zone around bodies of water that the federal standard, in draft, has specified. Well, every body of water is different. This goes back to local planning and local science. To make a judgment call that 25 metres or 30 metres needs to be the buffer for every body of water across Canada is ridiculous. We've been working with CCC officials and they've been open to that conversation, but those are the kinds of things....
The clean fuel standard can drive a lot of benefit on the bioeconomy side for a number of our pulp mills, getting into that biofuel space, but the regulations need to be drafted in a way that we're not tripping over existing provincial requirements.
:
Derek mentioned in his opening remarks that pulp and paper mills have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions by 66% since 1990 and that has been done largely through a transition away from coal and more and more away from fossil fuels as well.
Pulp and paper companies have taken the initiative to do green transformation and to build what's called cogeneration components in their facilities, so they are using the wood waste that's provided through the sawmilling process. That wood waste is used in a large-scale boiler to create electricity that runs the pulp and paper mill.
In many instances in Canada the facilities are now creating excess green electricity, which is going back into the public electricity grid. Currently we estimate that the amount of green electricity would power the city of Calgary, so it's quite significant.
I would say there are instances, just based on where facilities are located, in which there may be fewer options for transitioning away from fossil fuels but it's still very much the intention of the forest sector to provide low-carbon solutions and to have full utilization of that wood product so that there is zero waste.
Then the carbon is being sequestered—
I would like to return to the IFIT program. For the next three years, we're talking about $82.9 million. Just for comparison, which may seem petty, I would point out that for one project, Coastal GasLink, $500 million has been allocated. So, $82 million on one side and $500 million on the other. That gives a pretty clear idea of the inequity that I think exists between these two natural resource sectors of oil and gas and the forestry industry.
I won't ask you to react to that, Mr. Samray.
Earlier, one of my colleagues talked about fossil fuel targets. We're asking for 5% on gasoline and 2% on diesel and heating oil. Knowing that Canada is probably the country with the highest biomass resource per person, do you think that 2% and 5% on clean fuels is enough? Shouldn't we have much more ambitious targets?
:
We'll suspend for a minute, and then come back on with the next panel.
The Chair: Let's jump right back in.
Welcome to our new witnesses.
Mr. Nighbor and Ms. Lindsay, maybe you can fill us in on what's new since the last time you were at the committee.
We have Mr. Renou and Ms. Mathie from FPInnovations. Thank you both for joining us today. We also have Mr. Dallain from SEREX.
Mr. Nighbor and Ms. Lindsay, I'm assuming that you won't be making another presentation. That said, both FPInnovations and SEREX have up to 10 minutes for opening remarks. Then we'll open the floor to questions.
Why don't we start with Mr. Renou.
:
That's okay. We can still go forward. I will talk first.
[Translation]
Good afternoon, everyone.
If there are any questions in French, I'll gladly answer them.
[English]
I'll do the piece in English and then we can move on from there.
First, what is FPInnovations? FPInnovations is a private, not-for-profit organization. It's an applied research centre, so we don't do fundamental research. We are focusing on research that makes things happen in the sawmill directly, for real.
Our key mission is to help the forest industry be more competitive, and also to help it transform, to evolve. That's critical in the situation we are in now. The pandemic, the situation with COVID, has created a place in which we actually have shaken up the markets a bit and shaken up the industry, so it's all about relaunching and pulling forward more quickly so we can take our place in the bioeconomy.
What is that? What is the bioeconomy? To put it simply, it's creating an economy based on biology. For us, in the forest industry, it's about how we use trees, how we use the forest to create a more active economy.
How do we use a sustainable forest? We harvest trees and then we use them to build more with wood. We use fibre from the forest and put it in a multitude of products. So we can create products that help to capture carbon. We can create new products that actually reduce the load of carbon across the economy and we can create products that are biodegradable or that can be recycled more easily.
All that's a great concept, but if you really get down to it, what is it to have a bioeconomy? In the end, practically speaking, it means that, at a certain point in time, you should be able to look around you and see more things built of wood. You should also see—if you're in Prince George, Saguenay, La Tuque or Thunder Bay—biorefineries, bioproduct plants that transform chips of wood, the residue of wood, into bioproducts, the precursor chemistries that will create the new bioplastic. Concretely, that's what success in a bioeconomy means. It's not just a concept; it's creating those mills.
In Canada, we're actually at a tipping point right now. Other countries have moved more quickly than we have. In Europe you can now see biorefineries, complete plants, being built in the Nordic countries. In Germany and even in Brazil there have been some announcements recently.
In Canada we need to accelerate. We need to go faster. We need to create the context in which we can do that at scale. Scale is important. That's what we need to do.
But what's great about the bioeconomy? What is great about the forest industry? Something fundamental that we all need to remember constantly is that the forest industry does three things for all of us when we grow it. Of course it creates more economic impact for the regions; it creates more economic impact per se, and it also helps climate change. It's actually one of the rare sectors that help three things at the same time: the economy, regional growth and the carbon economy. It does all three at the same time, so anytime we grow, we can do this.
We actually put in the federal pre-budget consultations two asks. We tried to make them as clear and crisp as possible. Those are the missing pieces to accelerate the bioeconomy, to accelerate the scale-up of the bioeconomy
The first recommendation was to provide funding in the order of $10 million per year for five years to demonstrate and accelerate those scale-up elements and to help reduce the risk of scaling up. If you want to construct a large biorefinery tomorrow, it won't take an investment of $10 million; it could take as much as half a billion dollars, so we need to help the industry de-risk that path as quickly as possible so we can help their decision-making process.
We also need to really understand where to go. The bioeconomy needs multiple products that come out of the trees in multiple elements that we can form; we need to enter multiple supply chains. From the same wood, I'll have product that goes into asphalt, product that goes into plastic, and product that goes into insulation in construction. These are all different molecules going into all different markets that need to open at the same time, so reducing risk is important. That's the first recommendation.
The second one is to create a public procurement policy. We can pull on those markets, we can prime them, we can start them, and that starts with a public procurement policy.
Select the right market to enter, create the public policy and de-risk the industry capital investment with the right technical activity. That's what we need to accelerate. Is that possible? Is that real, or am I just talking in big terms? I will give you an example that we lived through this summer when we started a project to create masks to respond to the pandemic. We took the challenge with the help of NRCan to ask if it was possible to create a biodegradable mask tomorrow to produce at large scale.
Taking up the challenge, within three months we did a demonstration that this could be industrialized and put on a tissue machine in the order of weeks now, from the work we've done. Why or how could we do that? We could do that because we had the facility to scale up rapidly. I could pass from my chemistry lab, and in the afternoon I was on the pilot machine and I was running the pilot machine, and if it runs on the pilot machine, I can then go into a mill, and within one week I can produce millions of filtration media per day. That's what we need to do, more of those industrially focused activities in R and D to accelerate the scale up of products.
If we do that, then we can dream of the bioeconomy. We can dream of those plants being created in Prince George, in Quesnel, in Thunder Bay and in La Tuque. We can think about the future for an industry that is not under the stress of a rapidly transforming economy.
With this, Mr. Chair, I complete my presentation.
:
At SEREX, we conduct applied research at the college level. We're part of a network of 59 college technology transfer centres affiliated with various colleges and CEGEPs in Quebec. We're affiliated with the Cégep de Rimouski. Our laboratories are located in Amqui, in the Matapedia Valley, which is a highly forested area. Like all college technology transfer centres, we provide applied research, technical assistance and training services. Our specialties are wood processing and sustainable construction. We also have additional expertise in chemistry and biomass energy. We're a small centre compared to FPInnovations. We have 18 full-time employees, wood science researchers—engineers, chemists, technicians. Our team includes CEGEP teachers from different disciplines, such as architecture and engineering, who contribute to our research projects. We also hire students. Over the past year, 11 college and university interns have worked with us.
In the past year, our turnover amounted to just over $2 million. This enabled us to carry out over 80 applied research, technical assistance and training projects for 67 clients. We work extensively with SMEs throughout Quebec.
I said that we're part of the Synchronex network. Since 2019, we've been recognized as a technology access centre by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC. We're part of the Tech-Access Canada network, which includes 60 college-level technology access centres across Canada.
Our two associations, Synchronex and Tech-Access Canada, have partnered with Polytechnics Canada and Colleges and Institutes Canada, which are major players in college research in Canada. Recently, they proposed a strategy to the government for investing in the applied research strength of colleges and institutes across Canada to support Canada's social and economic research and development. I won't go into the details of this request. However, it involves $165 million, divided into two parts and distributed among all the different colleges.
We're also part of a group of eight centres within Synchronex. These centres provide services in several fields related to forestry resources, such as forestry, furniture, pulp and paper, sawmilling and panels. Other research centres also work in forestry research, and we collaborate with these centres on a regular basis. This group of forestry resources consists of 250 experts, including 50 teachers. Each year, with private and public investments of $18 million, we work with over 400 clients on innovation projects. We also help train about 60 college students. Last year, we provided over 11,000 hours of internships. These are hours of student participation in projects.
I'll quickly propose a few measures to support the forestry sector's role in the fight against climate change. I heard that, in the other part of the meeting, you spoke about increasing forest management, reforestation, and so on, in order to store more carbon in the forest. This would be a good thing. I also heard that you spoke about the transition from pulp and paper mills to the production of bioproducts as a substitute for plastics.
While drawing from SEREX's expertise in the construction field, for example, we must encourage biosourced construction, low-carbon construction, not only on a structural level, but also when it comes to insulation and other bioproducts that can be incorporated into construction.
We must also work on developing added value in the sawmill sector, to avoid producing only first-level products and constantly encountering issues with the tariffs imposed by the Americans. We must maximize the use of the forest biomass as a source of bioproducts and renewable energy.
I'll be happy to provide more details when you ask questions.
Thank you for your attention.
:
If I may, Mr. Chair, I would like to add a little bit here.
It is a shared challenge. It is a shared opportunity as well. I agree that it is for mining and for everything up north where broadband is a bit more scarce.
It's also about developing communications solutions, so we're working on other communications solutions that could involve broadband or something different. We need to transfer data. We need to transfer enough data so that we can optimize operations and automate machinery. We can dream of someday having everything automated up north, a certain part of a mining field or a forestry field, but basic access to data so people can optimize operations is something we need today.
Increasing bandwidth and getting to broadband is something we need to strive toward, but getting collaboration in all of these sectors is probably the key to accessing that.
We live on roads every day. We construct roads with the mining sector. We construct roads with the military to optimize the north. Keeping that up is extremely important.
I don't know if that covers what you wanted me to cover.
Today, the election day in the U.S., when we are talking about polarization and emotion, I don't need to talk to a group of MPs about fake news and frustration with messages being distorted. I don't want to be here whining about this, but it is frustrating when you do have such a strong story to tell and there are groups, many of them outside of Canada, trying to influence Canadian land-based decisions and local community decisions.
The one I would highlight would be the Natural Resource Defense Council built out of the U.S., which is working with some Canadian surrogates to try to lobby companies like Procter & Gamble and others to stop sourcing from Canada. It's spreading misinformation.
Once again, I go back to our public land, the work we do with provincial and federal governments, and the data that the Canadian Forest Service has when it comes to carbon information, and how robust our forests are according to the reports that NRCan issues on the state of Canada's forests every year. We're the only country in the world that I'm aware of that does a formal, comprehensive, full report on the state of our forests. We have an active Canadian Council of Forest Ministers at the provincial and territorial level, which has a lot of information. We're going to stand up for ourselves and our workers, but given the public land piece of this as well, we believe there's more that governments, federally and provincially, can do to speak truth to some of this silliness.
In terms of progress we have made to this point, we have found the recipe to make the filtration layer. We, like every Canadian research institution, are struggling with the actual tests and certification, as there is a lot of variation that creates a lot of discussion. But that's all good. That's scientists arguing with one another about this being better than that, but we have solutions out there for the filtration media. Now we're working on the other layers. We have five solutions in the works, and I'm expecting results within the next few weeks, by Christmas, so that I will be able to say that I can make a fully biodegradable mask with those three layers on a tissue or paper machine; that's the key.
From there, here's a lesson learned. A tissue machine could produce anywhere between one million and ten million masks per day. To do that we would need to displace what the tissue machine is doing. The incentive for the companies needs to be there. The collaboration between all the members of the supply chain needs to be there. It's getting the team together into a highly competitive market especially in the tissue world. If there's one place in pulp and paper where all of the companies are competing, it's the tissue market, on which a lot of them depend. We need to get them to respond to a procurement need. The solution will be there if we need it. Now it's a matter of getting all of our ducks in a row to make it happen, across procurement, Health Canada, technical solutions organizations, and pulp and paper companies. It's getting the Canadian solution all together and really focusing on the fact that we need this now.
:
The most important step, as we proposed today for the budget consultations, is to help the industry by funding activities that will enable it to scale up.
This raises the issue of how to reduce the risks associated with capital investments. As I said earlier, I could conduct a small-scale laboratory experiment in a test tube and it will always work. However, the challenge is to conduct the experiment on a large scale. What are the major risks of scaling up? I must do it to find out.
Before starting a chain on their end to see whether it works, the major chemical companies in this world, such as BASF, Michelin, Dow or DuPont, won't ask me for two grams of a substance for analysis purposes. They'll ask for tonnes. We did this in Thunder Bay when we created the organic TMP process. This process creates a tonne of lignin, sugar and sugar streams with different compositions.
This gives us the opportunity to deal with the major companies in this world and to start technical discussions with them. We show them what we can do with the fibre and how much is needed in order to have a technical discussion at the manufacturing level. We must invest in scaling up so that we can deal with the major players in the sector.
:
Absolutely, the case of British Columbia is challenging with regard to the access to fibre and all the natural calamities that didn't help with the amount of fibre that is available.
It's interesting to look today at British Columbia and the efforts of Canfor, which has dabbled a bit with some partners around biofuels and is making some progress there. There is a potential for adding to any paper mill or sawmill you see a unit that creates bioproducts. On the pulp and paper side, the advantage is that you will use a lot of installation in terms of effluent management, in terms of chemical plants in general, especially if it's a kraft mill. You can do a lot of the unit operation using the current equipment. The investment must be worth it in terms of keeping that plant up to date in all its dimensions, but you can add too. There's a value.
In terms of a sawmill, when you think about the different residues, you can also have processes that can be added to a sawmill to create a certain type of bioproduct. That's exactly what we need to think about: adding to those mills an extra step. That said, to get there we need to de-risk. We need to help the pulp and paper industry and the wood industry get into that new wave of bioreactors, of enzymes and bacteria that you need to play with to create those bioproducts, because that's a path that is a bit new for all the industries. That's part of the challenge.
In terms of creating new jobs, yes, it has this potential. It creates new types of jobs. It's actually interesting. I was thinking about Alberta the other day after having some discussions with folks in Alberta. There are so many skills in the petrochem industry that I want to go and grab today to come and help me on the bio side. All those process engineers, all those people who are used to developing large-scale mills and operations, chemistry, reactors, they can be used also in the bioeconomy. It's about making that transformation. It's about making that step, if I have answered your question.
:
Thanks, Mr. Zimmer, for the question.
This is available in “The State of Canada's Forests” report that NRCan produces. There is quite a team of carbon modellers at the Canadian Forest Service. This is in line with the international science that we really need the managed forests to sequester the most carbon moving forward.
The area that's under management is sequestering more carbon than the unmanaged forest, so this 14 megatonnes comes out of the carbon budget model. That's based on the area where we have monitoring set up across Canada and a whole bunch of inputs around growth and yield and the species and what those are capable of storing.
Then, I think, where the evolution is going, which is fantastic, is the carbon sequestered in the harvested wood products, particularly in those long-lived products like the mass timber we were just talking about, so that's calculated in there as well. It's really about maximizing that carbon sequestration potential using forest management into the future.
:
Mr. Zimmer, with your permission, can I just add to that quickly?
Mr. Bob Zimmer: Sure.
Mr. Derek Nighbor: As the government embarks on its conservation agenda—and conservation is very important—we often find ourselves in the middle of a debate. Active forest management, sustainable forest management in Canada, is about conservation. About half of our managed forest is under some kind of a conservation measure.
There's no doubt, as the government pursues that ambitious conservation agenda, that there are some groups out there that want to use that as an opportunity or an excuse to just lock down land, to get industry, whether it's mining or oil and gas or forestry, off the landscape. Our counter to that is that our forestry workers are that first line of defence in detecting pest infestations. We are the first line of defence when forest fires are breaking out. It's our workers who are digging trenches and firebreaks and working with local enforcement.
I challenge some of those people who want to get us off the land base, because if you imagine us off the land base, that carbon alternative, that alternative to addressing fire and pest risks in a changing climate, is a very real one. In my Australian—
I want to ask a question of all three witnesses. I really appreciate the time that everybody has spent to detail some of the respective requests that are in for pre-budget right now, especially on how dedicating financial resources could spur innovation, whether that's shovel-ready projects, research or demonstration projects.
I was hoping to take a bit of a different tack with my first question and just mention that policies such as the clean fuel standard, which require emissions intensity reductions in refineries, at the same time create opportunities and more sustainable energy products. Our plan to ban single-use plastics creates opportunities in the development of biodegradable, recyclable or reusable alternatives.
On this line of thinking, I was hoping that you could speak a bit to the role you see regulations playing in encouraging innovation in the forestry sector and in the bioeconomy. This is a question for each of the three witnesses, please.
:
I'll go back to my comment about provincial and federal policy and regulatory coherence here.
In the development of the clean fuel standard—and as I said, it's still under development and debate and discussion—when we saw this land use biodiversity requirement come out, the B.C. government, which has a very ambitious bioeconomy agenda, was among the first to stand up and say: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We have a plan here in B.C. We're managing the land base, and you're doing something that's getting in the way or overlapping.”
So we've received and welcome that CCC information, and there has been good discussion to go from there, but I think that when it comes to forestry, given that provincial responsibility and that really detailed regulation on biodiversity and land management that we're facing, we would just ask that the feds be mindful of that and work with your counterparts at the provincial level.
Thank you to the witnesses. We do appreciate that you were invited here on short notice and are grateful for the fact you were able to accept the invitation and provide us with such valuable information while you were here. We thank you. These are the early stages of this study, so you got us going on the right foot.
As for our next meeting, I think everybody is aware that we don't have a date yet. The details of the schedule are still being worked out. As soon as I find out, I will let people know, and then we can plan accordingly.
In the meantime, everybody, enjoy the rest of the evening, the rest of the week and next week. I think there are people who are going to be rushing off to their TVs as soon as we hang up here.
All right. Thanks, everybody.