Proceedings of the Subcommittee on the
Boreal Forest
Issue 6 - Evidence - Afternoon sitting
TIMMINS, Thursday, October 8, 1998
The Subcommittee on Boreal Forest of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 4:00 p.m. to continue its study on the present state and future of forestry in Canada as it relates to the boreal forest.
Senator Nicholas W. Taylor (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, before introducing our first witness, I would ask members to notice that I am using a gavel made from poplar from the boreal forest. We are not using imported hardwood from the U.S. here.
Mr. Richard Moore is from the Lake Abitibi Model Forest. Without further ado, I would ask him to give a thumbnail sketch of his background and then to proceed with his presentation.
Mr. Richard Moore, Past Chair, Lake Abitibi Model Forest: Honourable senators, I am a retired school teacher. I was born in Schumacher, and it makes me feel good to be here and see one of my heroes.
Senator Whelan: You are talking about me, of course.
Mr. Moore: I must say that the Honourable Senator Whelan enjoys a very great reputation in my home town. He has done some good things for the farming people there, and everybody loves him.
I left Timmins to go to North Bay, and then I taught in Cochrane for 35 years. The forest is an important part of my life because our community depends on the forest. I have a family, all of whom like the outdoors. I hope that my two grandchildren, when they get old enough, will also like the outdoors. That, essentially, is why I am involved in the model forest. It must be there for them.
I would like to introduce the general manager of the Lake Abitibi Model Forest. His name is Eric Turk. Eric is going to assist me with some overheads which you might like to see as I speak. Also, Eric knows a good deal more about the model forest than I do. I have only been involved for three years, and Eric has been our general manager since its inception six years ago.
Six years ago, because of its concerns about sustainable forest management, the federal government sponsored an initiative known as the Model Forest Program. It had three goals. First, it was designed to create a network of working models for sustainable forest management, using a proactive approach to forest management planning; second, it was meant to develop a broad-based partnership that would be involved in creating management alternatives rather than approving or rejecting them, and that is a key element in the model forest; third, it was to conduct research that would be applied on the ground, creating real solutions to forest management challenges.
Our raison d'être was sustainable forest management. We define that in this way: to manage the forest so as to ensure that it continues to provide a flow of benefits to both the present and future generations. One of our model forests in the network has chosen as its theme: "A forest for seven generations." I think that encapsulates exactly what we mean by a flow of benefits.
It was not easy to become a model forest. There were 50 applications throughout the country, and there have been a great deal more since. However, at that time ten were chosen. Just recently one was added so that the Canadian network now has 11 model forests.
These model forests stretch from coast to coast. On the West Coast, the Long Beach Model Forest includes Clayoquot Sound, which I am sure you know is a hot spot. However, we are the only model in the boreal forest that sits on top of the clay belt. That is what makes us unique.
I believe the model forests were chosen partly because of the diversity of conditions that each model forest brings to the network. I should mention, for example, Bas-Saint-Laurent. It was originally called an inhabited forest because a good deal of it is made up of very small, privately owned wood lots that have been inhabited for possibly 200 or 300 years. Their approach to sustainable forest management and forest practices is totally different from ours.
As I said, a key part of the model forest concept is partnerships. Our primary partnership is more like a big brother-little brother partnership. We are the little brother and Natural Resources Canada and their Canadian Forestry Service Branch is the big brother. They provide a little more than half our funding. The rest of it has to come from local sources.
Our second major partner is Abitibi Consolidated, because our forest consists of 1.1 million hectares, the boundaries of which are contiguous to the land that is under licence to Abitibi from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. If we want to achieve anything, we have to make sure we have our major partners on board. Thankfully, I believe that that has been the case for the last six years.
The CFS and Abitibi are only two of our 19 partners. You can see the rest listed on the overhead. Those people bring a very broad range of values to the model forest table. That is why we exist, to make sure that those values are expressed, are considered, and will be taken into account when forest management plans are made and cutting practices are put into place.
Included there, you will, for instance, see the Logger Shake First Nation. We have also approached the New Post First Nation, who live inside or close to the boundaries of the model forest, and the Innu Native Friendship Centre, to join us, too, on projects. We have offered them a seat on our board table. At this point, however, they have not accepted that.
We have a project underway which will bring together Logger Shake, New Post and the Moose Cree Nation who, although not resident in the model forest, have traditional trapping and hunting rights in some part of it.
Our vision is to be a leader in sustainable forest management of clay-belt boreal ecosystems. I do not know if that is self-explanatory; it took us three days of workshop to get to that vision, after arguing about what all of those words really meant. I think we are working hard at achieving that vision. It has taken a lot of time and effort, but to be a leader is difficult.
Arising out of that vision are three goals which we try to live up to and which we use in evaluating our progress each year. Those goals are: First, a forest that continues to provide a flow of benefits to local and regional communities for current and future generations; second, an organization that emphasizes the development of on-the-ground practices to achieve sustainable forest management; third, a public involved in sustainable forest management that respects and understands diverse forest management.
Out of these three goals arise our three program committees. One of those we refer to as FERIS, which stands for forest ecosystem research and information systems. Essentially, that is our science committee, which does a lot of work in harvesting practices and wildlife management. The list of its projects is there, as you can see. Currently, we have projects in place that involve forest fire research and understanding how forest fires impact on the natural diversity of forests.
Our second program committee, known as PAKT, public awareness and knowledge transfer, has a difficult job, because it is sort of two different jobs in one. Not only is it involved in the transfer of science knowledge, but it has to educate the public in terms of our values, in terms of sustainable forest management, and particularly that element of the public which is still in public school.
We have, therefore, developed a curriculum that is used in some of the schools in Northern Ontario; we hope that it will soon be adopted more widely. We take children to the forest on tours. We show them cutting practices and we try to educate them about what should be in the forest and what their part is in maintaining what should be in the forest.
The other side of the PAKT program, as I have indicated, is the transfer of science knowledge. We are finding that that is a difficult and costly process, because scientists are equipped with a whole array of technology that we do not have. We are working on it, though, and with the cooperation of our partners at Abitibi, we are, I am told, developing a reasonably good database called GIS. If you have been anywhere in the ministry or at any model forest, I am sure you have heard that acronym. GIS basically takes all the information you can give it, puts it in and comes up with nice maps. It lets you know where you can and cannot cut.
Our third committee is the socio-economic program committee, or SEPC. We know that model forests, or any forests, for that matter, are not about trees; they are really about people. The concern of SEPC is to make sure that the people's values and the economic impact of the forest on the people are given the importance that they should have.
With respect to our current major project this year, the SEPC project, we are having a hard time getting everybody together on it. That is not unusual, because we do most of our projects now in partnership with other people. Our money is limited so we have to go out and find organizations that have the same aims as ours and convince them that what we want to do is a good thing. Sometimes they come to us and ask us for help.
I think, for example, of our caribou project. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources found that it had some caribou it had been unaware of, and they had to do something about tracking their movements. They initiated a collaring program and asked us to come on board. We did. The two major industries in whose territory those caribou are to be found also came on board, and we formed a partnership. It is costing us a little, but the project is funded by everybody so we can do a good job, we think.
I should also mention that in this past year, as a result of moving into the second phase of the model forest program, we established an advisory committee, which is outside the decision-making processes of the model but brings to us marvellous expertise and technical knowledge. On that committee are people from universities, from tourism, and from environmental groups, who meet once or twice a year face-to-face and, at other times, in telephone conference calls. They evaluate our work, tell us what we should be doing, and what it is we are doing wrong. Sometimes they even tell us what we are doing right. We are very pleased.
I am going to close by giving you a personal point of view, because I think there is worth in it. I have given you a broad overview of the organization. Now I want to give you a microcosm, and I think I am that microcosm. As I told you, I grew up in Northern Ontario. My father worked for a pulp company in Timmins. The bread on our table came from that work, so I knew the value of the forest in that way. When it was time to go to Teacher's College, I worked in the bush two summers to save enough money. When I went to Cochrane, I soon realized that my job as a teacher was dependent on the fact that there was a mill there -- there are two mills now -- and that if those jobs disappeared, mine was likely to disappear. I know the value of the forest. I know what it means.
On the other hand, the forest is my playground. I have hunted and fished, and I have camped with my children; I have picked berries. I still do. All of this has been in the model forest, or at least in the part of the forest that became the model forest. When somebody approached me to become part of the model forest, it was a natural for me, and I immediately said yes. However, you can see that there are two parts to that. One part of me says you have to cut the trees. The other part of me says you have to save the trees.
The model forest has the same problem. It has to bring those two concepts together and find the means of doing it the right way. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Moore. Because you and Dr. Naysmith are speaking along similar lines, we will, if you do not mind, defer our questions until after we have heard from Dr. Naysmith. We will then direct questions and ask for comments from both of you. Incidentally, I hope we are not the occasion of the two of you meeting for the first time?
Mr. Moore: No, Dr. Naysmith and I have worked together a couple of times. He was our evaluator a year ago when we reorganized.
The Chairman: He is the high-paid consultant you bring in, is he?
Mr. Moore: No, at that time it was the federal government. He was the inspector.
The Chairman: Dr. Naysmith, the floor is yours.
Mr. John Naysmith, Chair, Forestry Futures Trust: Honourable senators, I am very pleased to be here and to take a few minutes to talk about Forestry Futures Trust here in Ontario. I have been attached to the forest scene in Ontario for quite a few years. Although I had nothing to do with the genesis of the Forestry Futures Trust, I am part of the authorship of it with respect to the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, and I feel that it is really one of the better things that have occurred in the province of Ontario with respect to forests.
I think it needs to be put into just a tiny bit of historic perspective. I do not intend to go back a long piece, since I have just ten minutes, but I think it will help you to see how the concept of a trust fits in with respect to our forests in Ontario.
The Crown Timber Act, 1952, flows out of something that was established back in 1850. That Crown Timber Act of 1952 had essentially no management component in it whatsoever. Folks were not thinking in terms of forest management per se, and that piece of legislation reflected that at that time. It simply enabled the minister to issue licences for harvesting. That was about as close as it came to the matter of management.
In 1962, the same act was amended slightly to allow the minister to enter into agreements with licensees for the maintenance and productivity of the forest. So you can see that there was just the slight recognition that perhaps something should be done on this management side with that. He could enter into agreements.
In 1980, there was a significant recognition of the importance of forest management. The amendment at that time provided for forest management agreements. Really, the forest management agreements were mechanisms that directed to the licence holder the responsibility for forest management. That was a fairly specific and concrete move. It was welcomed. In my view, it was implemented rather well.
What it required was not just the acceptance of the responsibility by the licence holder to undertake this, but it also required some funding. That funding, according to the way it was set up at that time, was the responsibility of the ministry. That is the way in which it was to operate, and it worked that way for a period of time. Indeed, the Government of Canada was involved in that with respect to federal-provincial arrangements on the funding side.
However, by the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, that funding was becoming erratic. Indeed, it was becoming difficult for the licence holder to meet his responsibilities, because that funding was not there. There was a recognition at that time that, if we were really going to be serious about this, then there needed to be some sort of guarantee that funds were available.
It was also recognized at that point, or perhaps even earlier, that in the next 15 to 20 years there would be a wood supply gap in Ontario that would last for perhaps 20 years, and the kinds of things the industry was doing at that time, such as planting in areas that had just been harvested, would certainly not address the question of the gap. For obvious reasons, if the gap were to occur in 15 to 20 years, the gap problem would not be addressed.
There was also the recognition that something more needed to be done about the natural depletion of forests by birds, insects, and disease damage than was being done at that time. We tended to think then that, because that was a natural phenomenon, we should let the regeneration or the renewal of the forest as a result of that, work itself out. However, it was recognized that there needed to be a dedicated fund if forest management was really going to work in Ontario.
The Crown Forest Sustainability Act of 1995, which took the place of the Crown Timber Act of 1952, did several interesting things. It certainly moved toward a recognition of forest management and away from simply the idea of timber management; but I am sure you will hear witnesses arguing that point. Nevertheless, it was certainly a move in that direction.
The Crown Forest Sustainability Act provided for the establishment of the Forestry Futures Trust Fund; it also provided for the Forest Renewal Fund, but we are speaking of the Forestry Futures Trust here. It was to be an arms-length trust not accessible by the government unless they changed the act. The significance of that became evident a few years ago, when in British Columbia they set up a forest renewal fund without that provision in it, and, as you may recall, when things were difficult in terms of budgets there, one place they tapped into was that forest renewal fund. Because of the way in which Ontario set up the Forestry Futures Trust, that is not possible unless they change the act.
The purpose of the Forestry Futures Trust is really more than three-fold. It is to provide funds in three areas: first, funds for intensive stand management, that is stand improvement work; second, funds for silvicultural expenses where the forest has been damaged or killed by fire or insect; and, third, funds for pest control. Those are the three main purposes. There is a fourth one, and that is to provide silvicultural expenses if a licensee becomes insolvent. The first three are the three salient ones.
What is the source of the funds? Prior to this point, with the Crown Forest Sustainability Act and the establishment of the trust, all the revenues accruing from stumpage, which is pretty significant in the Province of Ontario, went to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Under the forest management agreement structure we were speaking about earlier, under the old Crown Timber Act, 1980, the funds that flowed to the industry to do work had to come through the usual arrangements with government and budgets out of that source of money. In this case, it is quite different.
In Ontario, the amount generated on average on a yearly basis is around $200 million. It is fairly significant. The Forestry Futures Trust will receive about $10 million this year. Last year, it was $9 million. The year before that, it was $8 million. It runs around 4 to 5 per cent of the total moneys that accrue as a result of stumpage values.
One thing that is rather important about the Forestry Futures Trust is that it is not a discrete fund; Company A does not put money into the Forestry Futures Trust for use by Company A. That makes it somewhat different. It goes into the trust and all licence holders contribute their 4 or 5 per cent to the one trust. I will come back to that in a moment.
The Forest Renewal Trust is working on the average of about $40 million a year. It is quite a different arrangement. It is administered by the ministry but Company A puts money into essentially a bank account. The moneys for forest renewal are used for renewal work as a result of harvesting. You can see that that is quite different from the Forestry Futures Trust and the three purposes we spoke about earlier.
That is not related to harvesting at all. It is related to stand improvement work, improving productivity by doing certain things, either in natural forests or in plantation forests. There is remediation work, doing work after burns or insect damage, and there is protection prior to such damage.
How does the process work? It is fairly simple and straightforward, and not terribly bureaucratic at all. The act calls for setting up a five-person independent committee comprised of people from neither the government nor the forest industry. The funds flow from the licence holder into the Royal Trust, into the one account. The committee issues invitations twice a year. We are now just into the fourth year.
Eight rounds of applications have been received and reviewed. We have received, on average, 30 applications with each round. We are up to about 240 applications today.
There is a set of criteria the committee considers. Are partnerships recognized? Mr. Moore spoke about partnerships with respect to the model forest. Are there partnerships in this arrangement? Do the applicants contribute any moneys to the projects they wish to carry out? Indeed, are the purposes going to be met by the work carried out under the project?
Of the approximately 240 applications we have received to date, we have funded 162, which is almost 70 per cent, worth about $35 million over this past three and a half years. Slightly over half of the funds that we have allocated to the three purposes has gone to stand improvement; remediation has been allocated about 40 per cent, and protection about 5 per cent.
On average, the applicants' contribution to the total cost of the project runs around 30 per cent. It was interesting that in the early stages, in rounds one and two, it was not nearly that high; but we encouraged contributions by saying that, if we received two applications equal in every respect but the amount of the contribution, then the applicant with the higher, or significantly higher contribution, would win out every time. There has been a change over the eight rounds in that direction.
Partnerships have been interesting. Several projects involve partnerships with First Nations, for example.
What trends are coming out of this funding and this work? There is stand improvement in the central part of the province, where hardwood stands are being thinned out to improve the quality of hardwoods with respect to meeting the gap in terms of saw logs. In the north-east part of the province, there is stand improvement again, in this case, pre-commercial thinning of plantations, for example, jack pine plantations.
In the north-west, the region that I come from, most of the moneys are going to post-burn coniferous-stand establishment; in other words, very quickly following a forest fire, they go in and establish coniferous plantations.
The five members of the committee receive all these applications. Each receives a copy. We review them independently, apply the criteria to them, and then we come together as a committee and through a consensus-decision-making process reach agreement with respect to each of the applications. There is a secretariat that serves the committee. It comes from the Ministry of Natural Resources and that is the only connection that we have to the government. It is quite fascinating that this provincial government act would set it up in that way. Indeed, they are working to it. It is an arms-length arrangement.
The committee ensures that there is follow-up. Project work reports are required every year on every project. If a project lasts more than one year -- and they can last up to three years -- the next year's funding is contingent upon the committee's receiving and approving the previous year's project work report. When we approve a project, the Royal Trust, which happens to be the mechanism that is actually handling the funds, is notified of that approval, and the schedule of payments and the authorization payment form goes to them.
At the end of year one, if we are not satisfied with the project work report, then in year two we notify the trust and tell them to hold until we are satisfied. There will be no funding for the second or third year until that is taken care of.
One indicator of whether this process is successful or not is the response from the people most affected by it, the applicants from the private sector. Indeed, a couple of years ago, the ministry itself was also an applicant. As I say, 70 per cent of the applications have been approved, and we have never had a criticism or negative feedback with respect to any of our decisions. We try to make constructive suggestions to the applicants for what they might do, if they are even close, in terms of improving an application if they wish to submit again.
Perhaps one of the other benchmarks in terms of the client being satisfied is that, to date, 240 applications and three and-a-half years later, there has not been a letter or a phone call to the Ministry of Natural Resources complaining about it. We look upon that as some form of success in the process.
Honourable senators, that is the end of my presentation, but I will be happy to respond to questions.
Senator Stratton: If I may, I shall direct my questions to both Mr. Moore and Dr. Naysmith. I believe I can ask these questions of both of you. I am interested in what is happening not only in Ontario but across the country. You can respond in turn. Are there other examples of such a forest as the Lake Abitibi Model Forest within Ontario and across the country? In other words, is there potential for a linkage across the country?
Mr. Moore: There is a linkage. The Canadian Model Forest Network sponsors working-group meetings. We have a national strategic committee and a national operations committee. Those committees meet once or twice a year to share results and to organize the work of the year. The forests stretch right across the country, including the Manitoba Model Forest, which is just north of Winnipeg. There is another one in Ontario, the Eastern Ontario Model Forest, which is quite different from ours. They are very concerned about maple bush and black ash, which the Akwesasne people use as a primary source for basket-making and so on. Basket-making is an important minor industry, a cottage industry, but still important to their people.
Senator Stratton: I appreciate that. I knew there was a model forest in Manitoba but I did not know there was a national organization. Do you think you are making progress? We are talking about sustainability.
Mr. Moore: Yes. Let me give you some examples. We did a major cultural project to isolate and identify cultural and historical sites within the Lake Abitibi Forest. The people of that area have lived there for approximately 6,000 years. Their sites then were mapped. The information was recorded. It was taken by the company that is now Abitibi Consolidated and used in their cutting plans so that those areas became protected areas which were not disturbed. That is one good example.
Another good example is something that Abitibi Consolidated has been doing for six years. They are looking at alternative harvesting methods. They think they are on to something pretty good. They call it HARP. It has to do with leaving small trees. It makes common sense. They are doing the research to prove that it is a good way of harvesting. This year they are issuing a manual and a video, which will be distributed to other industries in the hope that they, too, can start cutting this way. So there is some on-the-ground change.
The third one is my favourite. I do not know how much it had to do with the model forest but it happened at the model forest table. Somebody came in and started whining about Abitibi, saying that their dump was spoiling the view. Everybody knows we have to have dumps. I know nobody like dumps. The Abitibi person at the table did not argue. Within days, the dump had been moved and screened and was no longer an eyesore. It was aesthetically pleasing to anybody who passed that way. I like that because it is an example of things happening quickly as a result of people taking their problems to one another. Yes, I believe we are having an effect.
Senator Stratton: Are you having an effect across the country?
Mr. Moore: There is an effect in many different ways, yes. As I said, there is great diversity in the model forest, and I cannot blow their horns for them.
Senator Stratton: I understand that. Are we making progress? My impression from what I have seen today is that there is progress here, but I would like your view as to whether there is equivalent progress across the country.
Mr. Moore: I was just at a meeting of all the chairs of the model forest. I am not a chair, but I represent the chair. There was a sense of optimism and a sense of determination there. We were told that this phase of the model forest program will last five years. We have finished one year. There are four years left. Nobody was thinking about the next four years. Everybody was thinking about the years after that. How are we going to do this? What if the federal government does not have any money for us? Can we continue? The feeling is that we have to continue, that what we are doing is right and good and we must continue. Everybody is talking about Phase 3, whatever form it takes.
Mr. Naysmith: May I add something to that?
Senator Stratton: I would like you to, yes.
Mr. Naysmith: I do not disagree with anything that Richard has said. I was on the evaluation team a couple of years ago. It evaluated all ten models across the country.
Senator Stratton: Is that information published?
Mr. Naysmith: That evaluation is public, yes.
Senator Stratton: We can obtain it?
Mr. Naysmith: Yes. One thing that was common to all at that time, at the end of Phase 1 in 1997, was that they were working hard at setting up the national network that Richard referred to; but that was almost a technical, logistic kind of task. The other thing that was common was that, although within each of the ten model forests there were good things happening, the dissemination of the information was a problem. To disseminate that information just out in the immediate area in the northern part of British Columbia, or in Newfoundland, or even in a province as small as New Brunswick, seemed to be a major challenge. I think it was because it was the first of the five years of the program and they wanted to make sure it was working. In each case there was a recognition that we have to work harder at disseminating this good information to people in the area.
Where we are in north-western Ontario is midway between the Pine Falls Model Forest and Mr. Moore's model. We are right in the middle of the boreal forest. There has not been that much flow of information to date from those. This is not a criticism in any way. It is a very difficult thing to do. First of all, you have to convince the partners of the model forest that this is the sort of thing and then you have to take that to people who are not directly involved in the model forest and say, "This is a good thing; we have proved it." Your question is really very germane. Is this thing getting the information out, because they are only models. Is it reaching the larger audience? I think all of the ten have said they have to work harder on that.
Senator Stratton: I have one specific question, Dr. Naysmith. You said you put funding into remedial work. For example, after a fire, you would go in and immediately do remedial work in the affected area. Why would you do that? Why not just let nature take its course in that area, as happened in the past?
Mr. Naysmith: That is also a very germane question. What happens in many cases is you very quickly end up with 100-per-cent coverage. You cannot keep trees out of an area such as that, but it is not particularly productive. It is overstocked. There is a lot of competition. It may not be the preferred species.
When they bring in applications, companies tell us that they do not want to wait even a year or year and a half. In 1996, you may recall that a lot of boreal forest in Ontario was burning. During the summer fires, company representatives were approaching us saying that, as soon as the fire-fighting was over, they would file an application because they wanted to start site preparation and planting preferred species in the fall.
Senator Stratton: That is done primarily for commercial reasons.
Mr. Naysmith: That is correct, yes. In fact, in most cases, Forestry Futures Trust deals with forestry for commercial purposes.
Senator Whelan: I probably know just enough about forestry to be dangerous. My first job, which I found very exciting and which I enjoyed very much, was as Parliamentary secretary to Jack Davis who was Minister of Fisheries and Forestry. The most exciting aspect of the job then, in 1968 to 1971, was the research aspect.
I read your publication on the Abitibi Model Forest which I found tremendously exciting. Is your headquarters located at Iroquois Falls?
Mr. Moore: Our office is in Iroquois Falls, yes.
Senator Whelan: I have some friends and acquaintances who live in Iroquois Falls and, as a matter of fact, we have had a cottage for 28 years at Marten River near Red Cedar Lake in Northern Ontario. We know a little bit about the north and about the forest because, over the years, we have watched the harvesting and other activities.
Today we have learned even more about forests and the extent of forestry operations.
You talked about the tremendous potential of the clay belt, a subject I have talked a lot about before. It has tremendous potential. It can add 10 million acres to our agricultural areas. Have you been involved in any studies related to the best crops to grow on those lands, taking into consideration, of course, global warming and the new varieties of trees and crops?
A new species of corn is being worked on in the Ottawa area using technology from Peru. The corn has wide leaves for better sun absorption. You do not need heat units to produce a mature grain.
Mr. Moore: We have done no research about an alternative to cutting trees to produce paper. I think, if we did, we would be run out of town. Iroquois Falls is a paper town. Cochrane is primarily a lumber and plywood town. Those are the two major towns in the model forest. We depend on the trees as a resource. Our concern is to use those trees wisely and ensure that they keep growing so that our industries remain and will not be shut down because the people in Ottawa are making paper out of corn plants.
Senator Spivak: They are making it out of straw.
The Chairman: Mr. Moore, one of our Senate committees is hearing evidence related to the growing of hemp. If that is successful, we would be able to make paper and smoke it, too.
Mr. Moore: They tell me not.
Senator Whelan: The chairman is exaggerating a little. If you smoked it, you would get a horrible headache and nothing else.
There is one of the most advanced research forestry stations at Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Before the Prairie provinces were even provinces that station sent scientists out to Mongolia and Siberia, to bring back species of trees because not a tree was to found on the prairies. There was only grass. Indian Head still does tremendous research. Are you aware of that station?
Mr. Moore: No, I am not.
Mr. Naysmith: You asked if research was being done regarding the possibility of new species being introduced. To the extent that any research is being done at all with respect to the issue you are raising, I think the sense is that the species will migrate.
Senator Stratton: It takes 300 years though.
Senator Spivak: They may not migrate fast enough.
Mr. Naysmith: The main concern is this: What will the fire incidence be under such circumstances? What will the insect and disease experience be under those circumstances? To the extent that there are funds available for doing any kind of research in forestry at all -- and there is precious little -- it is being done on these points rather than the introduction of species.
As for hemp, we have hemp growing around Thunder Bay on an experimental farm. I believe there are 35 stations throughout Northern Ontario.
Senator Mahovlich: I believe that a law passed in 1938 prohibited the growing of hemp.
The Chairman: The law has just been changed.
Senator Stratton: We are now growing hemp in Manitoba.
Senator Mahovlich: Is it being used for making baskets?
Senator Spivak: It is used to make cosmetics, clothing, fibre.
Senator Whelan: I believe you mentioned research being conducted on certain species of trees. I understand that the Australians carried out research on poplar trees and, as a result a tree called the "Austral" was developed. That species can be harvested, and within three or four years it can be harvested again. Have you done any work with that?
Mr. Moore: No.
Senator Whelan: Are you aware of that?
Mr. Moore: We are aware of fast-growing poplars and cloning and so on, but they scare us because our livelihood is based on the northern boreal forest and the harvesting of firs and spruce to make good quality paper.
The Chairman: I would suspect that it would be fair to add that the research is on the boreal forest and trying to perpetuate the boreal forest, not to undermine or eliminate its importance.
Senator Whelan: My concern is about planting trees in the clay belt. The Austral is grown in different areas of Saskatchewan on an experimental basis. In some places, it will grow 40 feet high in three, four, or five years. It depends on the soil conditions and the amount of rainfall. Perhaps the clay belt could be a tremendously productive area where great amounts of pulp could be produced. You could compete with hemp.
Mr. Moore: What will happen to the song birds, the moose, the fox, and all the species that live in that partially coniferous and mixed forest when you get rid of it all and plant these fast-growing poplars in which probably nothing lives? That is one of our major concerns.
Senator Mahovlich: There would be a lot of beavers.
Mr. Moore: They do not like poplar.
Senator Whelan: They like the white birch.
The Chairman: Senator Whelan, perhaps you would permit me to ask a supplementary question to that of yours which I think Dr. Naysmith will be able to answer. A great deal of marginal land in the west, which was converted from forest to agriculture, to grain and so on, is not making ends meet. There have been some suggestions that it should be converted back to forest, not necessarily the boreal forest, but to plantation types of forests like the Swedish system or the European system. Does your group consider that prospect at all?
Mr. Naysmith: No, it does not, but not because it is not a viable issue. The terms of reference of the Forestry Futures Trust are such that we apply our efforts to sustainable forest licensed areas or, back a few years ago, to what was a Crown management unit. Our concern is about Crown forest land that has either been damaged in some way or is about to be damaged, or in which stand improvement work is to be carried out. It is limited in that respect.
Your point is well taken. It is an interesting point. Certain countries are successfully doing this. France, for example, has about 15 per cent more forest cover today than it had 50 years ago.
In South America, Chile is a prime example of converting degraded agricultural land into forest. It is worth $4,000 or $5,000 a hectare just to buy that degraded land because they can make so much out of it when they convert to growing Eucalyptus and radiata. They are also growing some of the Australian poplar you mentioned, although their concentration is on eucalyptus and radiata. They can get that into rotation in about three to four years.
It is also being grown in the south-east corner of British Columbia on an experimental basis, and they are bringing it to rotation in about 12 to 14 years. The temperate climate there allows for that.
Senator Whelan: I agree with what you said, Mr. Moore, about the wildlife. We notice a difference even on our little two acres. You are talking about 1,974,000 hectares. I would like to measure that in square miles. How many townships does that include? How big an area is that?
Mr. Moore: I do not know. I have gone metric.
Senator Whelan: I am supposed to go metric, but I am old-fashioned.
The Chairman: In Western Canada, four townships is 100,000 acres. You could convert it. It is four acres a hectare.
Senator Whelan: There are 2.2 acres in a hectare.
Mr. Moore: It is 2,000 to 3,000 square miles, senator.
Senator Whelan: Your book has so much information but, unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to review it until I sat down here.
I find of particular interest the part on forest mushrooms. When I was in the Soviet Union I realized that mushrooms were a huge business there. They were collecting them and exporting them to a researcher, Dr. Tom Anstey. He is now 87 years old. He was with me. He was in charge of all the research for Western Canada for Agriculture Canada. His son, who was in the importing business, imported mushrooms from Russia. Can we grow those kinds of mushrooms in our forests?
Mr. Moore: I think we do. Our project showed us that there were a large number of commercially viable species available in the model forest. However, the conclusion of the project was that it was not commercially viable because it was labour-intensive. It is very difficult to find people who are trained in finding mushrooms. Also, it is unpredictable. If you pick mushrooms growing in the wild improperly, you lose them. You may have the one in your hand, but you will never have another one from that spot.
Senator Mahovlich: There is not much food value in mushrooms.
Mr. Moore: There is not much food value, no.
Senator Spivak: There is commercial value. Some very expensive mushrooms are grown in B.C.
Mr. Moore: Certain mushrooms in our model forest are worth $27 a pound.
Senator Whelan: Eating mushrooms helps your digestive system. We know there is not that much food value but they are very much of a delicacy, and they provide an exotic flavour. They are very expensive. Russians have made good money picking mushrooms. However, they lacked the transportation system they needed to get their mushrooms from the forest to the disembarkation point. I believe they pay several hundred dollars, perhaps it is $300, for five pounds. They may not have much food value, but a lot of expensive food has little nutritional value. For instance, athletes pay a lot of money for steroids and that type of thing. There is no food value in that.
Senator Mahovlich: Not in my day.
Senator Whelan: The Chairman neglected to tell you that he is from Alberta. Senator Stratton is from Manitoba as is Senator Spivak. Senator Mahovlich is from Toronto, although he claims Timmins is his home. I come from one of the most southerly point in Canada, Windsor.
I am aware of the research that is going on in connection with wild rice production and some of the other things that you are doing.
Do you think we spend enough money on research? Today we heard that there are invisible boundaries called provincial borders between us but that the laws are very different in each province. Would it not be better if it was all under a federal system as is the case in the United States of America?
Mr. Moore: I decline to answer the second question on the grounds that it is purely and totally political. We ignore, if you will, provincial boundaries. One of our major partners is the University of Quebec at Témiscamingue where research is being conducted in the clay belt boreal forest in the Province of Quebec. They are on board with us in the sense that we cooperate, share workers and results.
Senator Whelan: The rules of harvesting, et cetera, vary from province to province, but that is not so in the United States of America.
Mr. Naysmith: First, There is not nearly enough research being done in forestry when you consider the value of the forest sector to Canada's economy. Second, what you said is not at all facetious. I think there is a real role. There was in the past and there should be a real role for the federal government in research across the country. That is the mechanism by which we should be doing it. The jurisdiction of management of the forest would have to be provincial, for obvious reasons, but the research component is very well done.
Senator Spivak: Dr. Naysmith, the mandate of the Forestry Futures Trust is simply to consider research as it can apply to the commercial forest industry. You do not have a broader mandate. I am a little taken aback at the idea that you go in right after a fire to consider how you can change the species. Please correct me if I am wrong. What about the other values of the forest? In other words, we are told that in the boreal forest there are all kinds of species that we have not even identified yet, and there are all kinds of other uses for the forest.
If you are considering how to maximize a certain kind of tree simply for the commercial forest industry or even introducing strange, fast-growing species, that is fine, as long as it is done in the context of consideration of the diverse species in the forest, some of which we have not yet identified. I want your reassurance that you are not just very narrowly focussed on commercial forest uses, as important as they are.
Mr. Naysmith: We are not involved in research at all. The Forestry Futures Trust is not a research mechanism, much to the chagrin of researchers. It does not do research. It has three purposes. The first is to improve the productivity of natural stands to address the wood supply gap that we will face in the next 15 or 20 years. That is done through either commercial or pre-commercial thinning operations, so that the residual stand will grow quicker, add volume more quickly.
The second purpose is to remedy the result of some natural phenomenon. The trust is set up to address that one quickly.
The third purpose relates to protection. None of those deals with research, no.
Senator Spivak: I understood that, but I thought that those you gave money to were looking at ways to improve those particular areas. Are they not doing that?
Mr. Naysmith: They are looking at ways to restore them.
Senator Spivak: I misunderstood you. I thought that when you went into an area that had just been burned and considered how to maximize the yield of any certain plant, that was a way of undertaking some research.
Mr. Naysmith: No, not really. What we are doing there is based on current knowledge.
Senator Spivak: It is practical field application.
Mr. Naysmith: Absolutely.
Senator Spivak: You are not considering different ways of doing that.
Mr. Naysmith: It is different in this sense, senator: If an area is burned and you do nothing with it, it will eventually grow in. It might grow in as poplar to begin with and be taken over by balsam one day. It goes through tremendous competition. Maybe in 90 or 100 years, there will be a black spruce stand.
Senator Spivak: I understand.
Mr. Naysmith: All we are doing is accelerating the natural process by moving in and doing some of these things.
Senator Spivak: When you are doing that, you are not looking at what may or may not be the result in terms of species or whatever else. I think I understand that.
Mr. Naysmith: I have another point before you go on to your next question, because this is obviously an important point to you.
Senator Spivak: It is also important to many other people.
Mr. Naysmith: If the forest that burned was a spruce forest, the climax forest, what is done in the Forestry Futures will simply speed up the remedial process, and you arrive at a conclusion perhaps 20 or 30 years sooner than you would otherwise. What was inherent in that spruce forest will continue to be in that spruce forest. We are not introducing eucalyptus or radiatas.
Senator Spivak: I understand that.
You also said that you realized at one point there was going to be a lumber shortfall. On what do you base that? Are you basing it on a certain allowable yield? Are you basing it on global harvesting figures?
Mr. Naysmith: We have not looked at the global figures.
Senator Spivak: By "global" I was referring to Ontario.
Mr. Naysmith: In a way, yes, because it is an accumulative thing.
Senator Spivak: I understand that the Forestry Futures Trust deals only with Ontario.
Mr. Naysmith: For any given licence holder, there is a real possibility that there will be a gap in the wood supply in 15 or 20 years. It is a manifestation of a maldistribution of age class.
Senator Spivak: I understand that point.
Mr. Naysmith: A lot of new planting has happened recently. Over the last 10 or 20 years, we have been working very hard to plant trees. That is good, but that will not affect what will happen in the next 15 or 20 years, because those trees will not be ready for harvesting. Frankly, the reason for the gap is that the forest sector practice 30 or 40 years ago was to exceed limits and over-cut.
Senator Spivak: There was over-cutting.
Mr. Naysmith: It was over-cut, and the maldistribution developed as a result of that.
Senator Spivak: Is there a production figure for Ontario that they want to maintain? It is not increased. It is not decreased. If there is a gap, then there must be an overall figure that is required to be maintained.
The Chairman: The sustainability.
Senator Spivak: That is what I am asking: What is that figure?
Mr. Naysmith: It is about 20 million cubic feet a year.
Senator Spivak: With that, there will be a gap. As I understand it, there will be no provision to increase or decrease that figure in the new legislation. How can you say there will be gap unless you have some figure in mind, or somebody has a figure in mind, to indicate what that gap will be?
Mr. Naysmith: It is based on what is required to support a mill. A mill requires a certain cut on an annual basis.
Senator Spivak: I quite understand that.
Mr. Naysmith: Perhaps I am missing your point.
The Chairman: It is a question of sustainability.
Senator Mahovlich: You mentioned making baskets out of black ash. I believe ash was a wood we used in the production of hockey sticks and baseball bats. Can it be made into baskets? This summer, a lady made a basket for me out of branches from a willow tree.
Mr. Moore: That may be because she could not get black ash, which is the traditional resource used to make baskets.
Senator Mahovlich: This lady is from Italy where they use willow. You say black ash is more common.
Mr. Moore: Black ash is used by the people from Eastern Ontario who live near the model forest.
The Chairman: Willow, in time, will become dry and brittle, whereas black ash will last a lot longer.
Senator Mahovlich: We must be careful with respect to how much willow we allow to grow here. When I went to Beijing in China, I could see that all they had left was willow. It was terrible. It looked like a weed.
Senator Spivak: You are quite right, we do not want that to happen here.
Senator Mahovlich: Perhaps we should export some saplings to China and encourage some of our students to go over there and plant them.
The Chairman: We could not compete, because we could not pay a lesser salary to our people than the Chinese would pay their own employees.
Senator Mahovlich: Perhaps we can make a deal.
I want to mention that when I was a young student I thought that Abitibi was a great company. When we reached a certain grade, the class would visit Abitibi in Iroquois Falls. It was an exciting outing. They would show us through the plant, and demonstrate how they made newspaper. It is a very reputable company and I am certain they are very concerned about our forests.
The Chairman: I have a supplementary to your question, Senator Mahovlich, about hockey sticks. When I visited Barbados a few years ago, there was a plant there that made hockey sticks with wood that they brought from Ontario. They made the sticks and sent them back to Canada. Do you know anything about that?
Mr. Moore: I do not know anything about it, but it frightens me. That happens often. Much of the wood that is produced on the West Coast goes to Japan, is made into whatever, and comes back to Canada.
Senator Mahovlich: Is there any research being conducted by the federal government? You mentioned today that they have stopped conducting research. However, as I understand it, there is some research going on.
Senator Whelan: They have cut it back. Some stations have been closed.
The Chairman: We can ask each other questions when the witnesses leave. We want to concentrate our fire on them now.
Mr. Moore: May I respond to that? A good deal of research, which is funded by the federal government through the Canadian Forest Service, is still going on. Much of the research we are concerned with comes out of the Great Lakes Forestry Centre in Sault Ste. Marie. The Canadian Forest Service has an active partner on our model forest board. We have CFS people who have current and ongoing research plots in our model forest. However, Senator Whelan is right, they have suffered severe cut-backs in the last few years and offices have closed.
Senator Mahovlich: This is my first trip with this committee. I am a very keen gardener. I have a rock garden up in Muskoka. I find that certain trees will not grow in that area because the soil is not suitable. The land here seems suitable for the growth of many different and beautiful mosses that I have not seen in Muskoka. As well, certain trees will grow here in Timmins that will not grow anywhere else. It is because of the soil. I think this is an important area for research.
The Chairman: Dr. Naysmith, how do you respond to the statement that what you are doing is what the lumber companies should do in the first place, in other words, look after fire protection and replant the forest? Is this a method the lumber companies use to shirk their responsibility of replanting for the future? Are they just paying taxes into a fund which slides over to you to administer and to do what they should have done in the first place?
Mr. Naysmith: No. The licence holder is the unit that is carrying out this work. Under the new act, the licence holder is responsible for this renewal work, this regeneration work. The trust is simply that mechanism whereby 4 per cent or 5 per cent of the stumpage values would normally go to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Industry has been telling us for many years that, if we want them to do this, we have to dedicate some money to it. The trust is the way it is done. The government set up an arms-length trust.
The companies you have referred have always been willing to do the work. They have the expertise and the power to do it. Now they have the funds which have been dedicated to the trust to assure them that, when they require it, as long as it is legitimate and meets the criteria, they will be able to carry it out. They are doing the work. The committee does not do any of this. The committee is removed from the ministry, this huge bureaucracy, which set it up with a few people to advance the money.
Senator Whelan: I am very interested in making sure people are aware of what you are doing. You mentioned a video. Do you have a film that can be used for educational purposes?
Mr. Moore: We have a couple of items available. The one I mentioned was more technical and it has to do with the vast regeneration and protection. However, we do have a pretty good series of programs that were prepared by the local TV station. As far as I know, they have been shown all over Ontario in the last couple of years. We would be glad to give those to you, if you would like to see them.
Senator Whelan: I am a strong believer in the power of television. TV could sell a person like me. I became the most popular minister Trudeau had. I never moved from the number one or number two spot. I did not find that out until I was out of politics. I asked the Prime Minister why he took polls. I asked him why he did not tell me that before. He said, "That damn green hat never would have fit me."
That works into your forestry scheme when you are talking about animals because a good felt Stetson hat has beaver in it. I have one that is 20-plus years old. It was given to me in Manitoba. That aligns with the forestry topic.
I am a strong believer in the dissemination of information. I do not think we are getting enough information about what you are doing. This should not be information which is kept exclusively in the north, it should be spread all over Canada. We are concerned, and the Europeans are concerned, about how badly we are managing our forests and that we will denude the forests. There is an avenue of communication and information that we are not tapping into as we should.
Mr. Moore: I am very grateful that you said that because we spent the better part of a morning discussing that exact problem at the meeting I was at last week. Each of us thinks we do a pretty good job in the model forest in terms of reaching our local public, the regional people. We do a lousy job in terms of talking to power brokers, decision-makers, and the national public. If you go into Toronto and ask someone there if they have heard of a model forest, they will say "no." If you ask that question up here, I think everyone will say they had heard of it because it was on TV.
Mr. Naysmith: With respect to the dissemination of the information from model forests, an international model forest secretariat has been established. The secretariat happens to be in Canada. A workshop was held in Tokyo this past March, which I co-chaired. Some 18 countries and four non-government organizations had representatives at that workshop. One of the countries represented, of course, was Canada. The representatives of other countries attended because they are interested in hearing what is happening in the model forest in Canada. They are interested in establishing them in their own countries.
There are now three countries with model forests. There is a potential for 18 of them with the dissemination of this kind of information on a global basis.
Senator Stratton: I would like to go back to Senator Spivak's question, if I could, because I am not sure we caught the intent of your answer. As I understand it, ideally, you harvest the forest between 75 and 85 years. I know it is younger than that in some cases. You have stated that there is a gap. Is that gap a 20-year gap? In other words, after a period of time, are we going to have to start harvesting at 55 to 65 years? Is that what you are saying? If we are, is that going to become the norm because of the gap? I do not see how you overcome that gap in the short term. Is that a correct interpretation or am I all wet?
Mr. Naysmith: No, you are not all wet. It is fairly close. The gap that has been identified will last for about 15 to 20 years because there is a lot of young forest that will come in, in time. It will only begin to manifest itself in maybe 15 to 20 years.
Senator Stratton: In essence, are we going to have to harvest a much younger tree for that 10 or 15 years in order for the industry to survive? That is what I understood from your answer.
Mr. Naysmith: You are heading in the right direction. What would happen is that there would be less volume to be harvested. That is the gap. If today it is 100, 15 years from now it might be 90. It will impinge upon mills. The Forestry Futures Trust is just one mechanism whereby we try to improve practices with respect to natural stands. We can increase productivity on natural stands over the next 15 to 20 years to reduce that gap.
Senator Stratton: One final question. In normal economies there is always growth and demand. When you look at that gap, are you looking at a normal growth and demand as we go along, a historical growth in demand?
Mr. Naysmith: Yes. On a global basis, we are now talking in terms of 1700 million cubic metres a year, globally.
Senator Stratton: How much does Canada supply of that?
Mr. Naysmith: I think it is something like 40 per cent.
Mr. Moore: It is 43 per cent.
Mr. Naysmith: In 2020, which is less than 25 years from now, that is going from 1,700 to 2,700. The demand, on a global basis, will increase by 1,000, and we cannot meet it.
Senator Spivak: Is this sustainable development? It is one thing to say that the demand is here so we have to cut the forest down. I do not think that is the way toward sustainable development.
The Chairman: He did not say that, though.
Senator Spivak: Yes, he did.
Senator Stratton: He told us that when the demand goes from 1,700 to 2,700, it will not be sustained. Is that correct?
Mr. Naysmith: Correct.
Senator Spivak: I apologize. I missed your point. That is good to hear.
Senator Mahovlich: It is just common sense to me that demand keeps increasing.
Senator Stratton: We require more paper as we use more computers.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for coming to assist our committee.
The committee adjourned.