Proceedings of the Subcommittee on the
Boreal Forest
Issue 12 - Evidence - Afternoon sitting
MIRAMICHI, Wednesday, November 4, 1998
The Subcommittee on Boreal Forest of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 1:00 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: Our first witness this afternoon is Mr. Prebble, who is the Woodlands Manager of Repap Inc. Mr. Prebble, I notice you brought two of your assistants along to help you out.
Mr. Doug Prebble, Woodlands Manager, Repap Inc.: I noticed last evening that some of the questions were quite probing, so in order to ensure that we could answer your questions, I thought I would call on some colleagues.
First of all, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you. I am impressed that you have chosen to include the Miramichi in your study of the boreal forest across Canada. I have just recently become the woods manager for the Repap mill and complexes here in Newcastle. My predecessor is still an employee and on the job, but he has taken on special assignments; he is sort of like a senator, if you like. It is ironic that he is spending his time in Ottawa this week. He is upset that he could not be here for this meeting.
I would like to say a couple of words about my own background before we get into the presentation. I have been an industrial forester for about 30 years, working in the boreal forest that whole time, from Newfoundland to Quebec and Ontario, a stint in B.C. in a different forest, and then back this way. I am proud of the work that the woodlands group at Repap carries out on the licensed lands that we manage.
My remarks will be made in conjunction with a slide presentation. Repap New Brunswick is one of North America's largest producers of lightweight coated-paper. We supply publishers like Time and Reader's Digest. Eighty per cent of our product is shipped to the United States. Over 3,200 people are directly dependent upon Repap operations for employment: 1,400 at our mills and offices, 800 on our Crown land forest operations, and approximately 1,200 private woodlot owners, who supply 30 per cent of our annual requirement. Repap is one of Canada's highest value-added pulp and paper operations, creating a very high ratio of jobs per cubic metre of wood harvested.
As an aside, honourable senators, you have a good grasp of the situation in New Brunswick. The questions that were asked last evening would indicate that you obviously have come well prepared. I commend you on that.
New Brunswick is 88 per cent forest. Forty per cent of our economy is based upon the forest industry. Our history and way of life is closely related to the forest.
Recreation is as important as employment to the people of New Brunswick. Repap manages nearly 25 per cent of all the Crown land in New Brunswick, as shown on the map. The Crown Lands and Forests Act governs all public and industrial activity in our Crown forests. We consider it the best legislation of its kind for public lands in North America. It is based upon consultation with the people and multiple use of the forest. The key point is multiple use of the forest.
In fact, as another aside, I have been in and out of the New Brunswick scene for a number of years. It is generally thought that all the real wisdom comes from Ontario and Central Canada, but that is categorically not so in forestry. A great deal of the innovation and management that is used all across this country and in other countries was spawned in New Brunswick. It is not only because I am a native of New Brunswick I say that; I think many would agree with that statement.
New forestry in New Brunswick is about sustainable forests, ecosystems, and certification of forest management systems and practices. My predecessor has much to say when he talks about new forestry and old forestry. To him, old forestry was logging, fire, river drives, and so on. The new forestry is so much more complex.
Protection of all public values is the objective of forest management in New Brunswick, from ground vegetation to wildlife, to work, birds, and recreation. Repap maintains 700 kilometres of road access to Crown licences. The public is welcome and encouraged to share these well-maintained highways. Repap crews construct our roads using their own equipment. In the slide that you are looking at, what you see exposed is a secondary road. This is as an example of their work, work that makes us proud.
We talked about the values that need protection. We believe that no country in the world can match the protection of water quality and fish habitat that is required on New Brunswick Crown operations. This slide indicates the workmanship of our road construction crews. Of course, as you all know, the Miramichi River is world-renowned for salmon fishing. In order to maintain the stocks, habitat is very critical. We work as closely as possible with many interest groups whose main interest is the salmon.
The secret in our operations is to keep sand and silt away from spawning beds of salmon, trout, and other aquatic life. Planning is the strong point of New Brunswick forestry. We have very detailed information on our forests, for trees, timber, and also wildlife habitat. This slide attempts to depict the provincial forest. We have artistically broken it down. Let us say there are a million stands in the forest. For our purposes here, an individual stand is the one depicted as lifted out on the slide. Some people may think that there is not much rhyme or reason to the harvesting activities that take place, but that is far from the case all across the boreal forest.
Here are some of the other values that are very high on the list of things to be protected -- deer wintering areas, for example. I think the subject came up earlier in your meeting.
Repap harvests about 1.5 per cent of its forest area each year. We have clear-cut in patches of even-aged mature softwood. To prevent blow-down, that is the only choice for such old forests. Clear-cutting is not a passing phase; it will be here in the future. However, we try to clear-cut only mature and overly mature stands. Of course, clear-cutting is what happens if you do not get at that.
We use non-clear-cut or selective cut on stable, healthy softwood and hardwood forests. In this slide, you will see a very healthy buffer on a major river. Uncut strips of trees are left on both sides of every stream, to protect streams and to provide travel corridors for wildlife. On the right-hand side of the slide, you will see an area that is slightly lighter, in green. That area was probably a clear-cut harvest of about ten years ago.
Small processors are our most common harvesting tool. The committee had an opportunity to see one of those yesterday, in our field tour. The particular model we looked at yesterday may have been even smaller than that, in the sense that it was in a shelter wood cut. It was small by design.
What you are looking at now is a bigger processor, one that is suitable for big trees. We did not see this next machine in our tour yesterday. It goes along the same path in the forest as the processing machine, picks up the wood and puts it on its back, and then carries it to the roadside. In fact, in most of our operations, it loads the wood directly on trucks so that the wood does not sit on the side of the road. In this way, the wood does not age or get dirty; instead, it goes directly to the mill.
On the machine you are now looking at, you will see an extraordinarily long boom. It is designed to be able to do selective harvesting in the forest and to minimize damage.
The next slide shows a fairly typical example of the forest after we have done a shelter wood job, which is similar to what you witnessed yesterday. The plan would be to leave the remaining trees in that forest for possibly 15 to 20 years, at which time they would be prime saw logs. You will see that most of the residual trees are spruce or long-lived species. We are trying to solve two problems: first, to get higher-value wood for the various mills; and second, to hold wood. This is to get us, as one of our foresters explained yesterday, through the eye of the needle, through the short period of time when we are going to be tight for volume.
At Repap, we believe that no industrialized country in the world has the natural diversity of species comparable to New Brunswick. The origin of 90 per cent of our forests is the result of natural events: fire, insects, disease and wind. After 200 years of extensive use, our forest is over 90 per cent regrowth of natural species. No industrialized country in the world can boast of this natural diversity of over 31,000 species.
Even after clear-cut and non-clear-cut harvest, over 85 per cent of the forest is natural regrowth. Very few areas require planting after harvest.
The slide you are now looking at depicts the situation immediately after a cut -- which, to some, may appear offensive.
What you are looking at now is possibly three years after harvest. You will see a lot of regeneration poking up.
This slide was taken seven years after harvest.
The scene you are now looking at is approximately twelve years after harvest. It is what we saw in the forest yesterday, where it is determined to be prime time to space it and get what we think will be the final crop trees established.
I think the foresters use about a six-by-six spacing as ideal. Remember, the operators were expected to get seven to nine, seven to ten trees per plot, and they check themselves on that front.
This slide is an example of suppression and non-suppression. You can see that the two bigger disks are taken from trees that have not been suppressed. The other two, the small disks, are taken from trees that were of the same age but were suppressed. Given what you see, if you were managing some land or a woodlot, you would certainly have little difficulty deciding what you would like to end up with. These are basic principles.
Planting is not a big part of our silvicultural activities, because we are blessed with tremendous natural regrowth, but we plant about 1 million seedlings per year. I think our forester alluded to it yesterday.
Mr. Steve Jones, Chief Forester, Repap Inc.: We plant 1.5 million seedlings a year.
Mr. Prebble: In some cases, the whole acreage is planted. In other cases, we do what I call fill planting. Little gaps occur in nature and, to rectify that, we go in and put what is needed in those small places, in order to complete the field, so to speak. Anyone here who is from the west and is agriculturally inclined will know what I am speaking about.
This slide shows a couple of our workers -- who at the time were involved in planting, I think, but I am not positive about that. Some of them have moved up to be great support in our office. This slide depicts a plantation. If not the one we visited yesterday, it would be very similar to it, where jackpine was planted about 15 years ago.
You had an opportunity to visit our Sheephouse location. To see what is depicted in this slide, we would have had to go further down the road. It would have taken longer to get to it.
Loggers and forest workers are as environmentally conscious as any other segment of society. We are proud of that.
We value the fact that rivers are kept pristine. This slide shows what they look like. To ensure that the rivers stay that way, we cooperate with many other users.
Unfortunately, you put off your trip to New Brunswick by about a month in order to see what this next slide is depicting -- which I must admit is a particularly nice view of New Brunswick in the fall. For those of us who live here, we often see a view like that through late September and October.
Spruce budworm is always a threat to New Brunswick softwoods. That little critter has been a real problem in New Brunswick in the past. The people in forest entomology tell me that the vigil is never-ending. We must keep in mind that that insect will probably come back.
Also, with the softwood forest, we are vulnerable to forest fires. However, from my own experience in Northern Ontario, I can say we are blessed by having much better access and much smaller situations to deal with. Usually, our burning conditions are not are severe as on the east side of the Prairies.
Just on a historic note, the Miramichi fire happened in the fall of 1825. It crossed the river down here, I think, not very far and took 200 lives. Hopefully that could never happen again.
Ultimately, DNRE is accountable for the system here in New Brunswick. Because we have so few lakes here, the typical water bomber does not work very well, because it is dependent on big water bodies to reload itself. In New Brunswick we have land-based aircraft, which carry a pretty hefty load of water. The water is mixed with retardant. A smaller volume of water can be just as effective because of the chemical and the mud that is in it. The record speaks for itself that it has been an effective system.
The bombers you are looking at are stationed so that they can be anywhere in Repap's licence in 20 minutes. Again, early detection and early initial attack is the key to successful fire suppression.
We spoke earlier about public participation. The purpose of showing you this slide is to show you that public consultation is a routine for New Brunswick forest operations on public land. Public tours are another way we try to help the public get a handle on what we are doing. Those tours have attracted over 6,000 people to Repap forests in the past seven to eight years. Teachers and students are regular visitors to operations. We take those opportunities to teach young people about ecosystems and protection of our forest.
In our environment, logging equipment belongs to the operators and the contractors on our forests. They make a huge commitment to take on a career working in the forest with our company.
This view depicts the balance between forest logging and wood production and recreation.
I think it is important that our crews understand their impact on other dwellers of the forest. For the last seven or eight years, we have taken on the rearing of salmon fingerlings. At one of our camps, the fellows feed and nurture these fish through the summer. They were released about two or three weeks ago, I think. We start with 10,000 every spring, and it is a very natural opportunity. We have a nice cool water brook, and the water goes in via gravity and out via gravity. It is our way to better understand the life cycle of another of our forest dwellers, if you like, the Atlantic salmon.
We are far from the only group that does that kind of thing. I think the Salmon association has a number of cooperators doing that kind of thing now, from fish camps to other forest dwellers.
In the slide you see now, we identify each salmon before it is released. By way of information, we clip a little fin on the back of each salmon prior to its release. In that way, if a researcher comes in contact a fish of that description, he or she will know whether the salmon was a reared fish as opposed to a natural one. Unfortunately, the success rate of this program is not very high. Probably less than 1 per cent of the fish that are released actually get back to the river. It makes it a bit discouraging. Perhaps getting through that herd of seals out there is the problem. I am not sure. We know for sure that the habitat on the Miramichi River is not the problem.
Senator Robichaud: No, it is the seals.
Mr. Prebble: We are involved in another research project of great interest to us, which is to study the impact of logging and road construction practices on fish habitat and water quality over a long period. That project is designed to last for 15 years. We will deliberately intervene in the areas. The small red blocks you are looking at on the slide before you indicate areas that we will actually harvest at agreed-to times, following which scientists will study the impact of temperature and water quality.
This is another shot of some of the scientific work to record the movement of fish in the streams.
Over 70 per cent of all softwood harvested in New Brunswick goes to sawmills. This is a typical load of saw logs. The balance goes to pulpwood, and this would be a typical load of pulpwood. I think we saw such a device on our tour yesterday. What you are looking at here is a load aligner. Trucks pass through that aligner in order to have the sides of their loads resemble a wall. Safety is a big concern.
Our company is in the lightweight coated-paper business. This is one of two machines that are our pride and joy. It is amongst the most modern, fast and best run machines in all of North America.
I would like to make a couple of comments relative to problems that we anticipate down the road. Many of the groups that come before the Senate committee have specific axes to grind. I am not here with that in mind. I wanted to convey that we are very proud of what we do. We do not think it is terribly out of balance, and you need to understand that. We concur with the group last night that spoke about overharvesting. You could hear frustration in their voices. I think those four people represented the woodlot owners at various levels up to the Canadian Federation of Woodlot Owners. You could hear frustration in their voices when they explained what they were dealing with. There needs to be a better way to get a handle on that. As landowners ourselves, we are not advocating that the solution is government regulation. However, work needs to be done on that front. Any ideas you have on that front would be welcome.
We share also those people's concerns with the level of silviculture that happens on much private land. We think it needs to improve. Our company was one of the first in New Brunswick to introduce to the woodlot owners association a bonus on a per unit volume basis which they would in turn distribute to their members who develop a management plan or do extraordinary silviculture on their woodlots. We are strong proponents of the private woodlot programs. We feel there are some problems that need to be addressed there.
I would like to also clarify one other point. A presenter last night indicated that he was unaware of any native participation in harvesting and operations on our licensed area. It may very well be that he is unaware of that. You need to understand that we do in fact have a silviculture crew, all native workers. It is tentative but it is working quite well. We are working the best we know how with native people on the logging scene as well. We believe that there is a future in those things and we try hard.
I would like to thank you very much for your attention. We would be pleased to answer any questions you might have for us.
Senator Stratton: It was such an issue last night with Mr. Steven Ginnish of the Eel Ground First Nation that he was not aware of any natives employed by Repap. The logical follow-up question is: Are you aware of how many native people Repap employs, either directly or through contracting?
Mr. Prebble: We would employ at the peak approximately 250 to 300 workers in silviculture. A crew is normally made up of 12 to 14 workers, two of whom you saw yesterday. The native crew that began this summer began as a six-person crew. Our intention is to go to a 14-person crew in 1999. It was important to us for the contractor to select candidates for that work who would have a high chance of success. The intention is to go to 14 next year.
On the logging side, senator, I cannot give you numbers, but I would have to think that there are probably at least 50 native workers involved in logging at this point.
The Chairman: Mr. Ginnish referred to an agreement by Repap's forerunner that 4 per cent of their labour force was to be aboriginal. Are you aware of that agreement?
Mr. Prebble: I heard the same comment. Perhaps Mr. Jones could comment on that.
Mr. Jones: I am certainly not aware of that commitment.
The Chairman: What would 4 per cent turn out to be? You have 3,000 employees.
Mr. Prebble: In the mill site alone, there are about 1,400, so 4 per cent would be about 60 people.
Senator Stratton: This is very bothersome. Why has this not happened earlier? If it has happened, it has been a failure, I would assume. That would be the first question I would like answered.
If you go from a 6-person crew to a 14-person crew, and if that is successful, do you intend to continue and develop other crews?
Mr. Jones: We have a problem with total expansion of an Aboriginal crew working for us in the area of silviculture. First of all, it is important to realize that we do a finite amount of work each year in the area of silviculture. Over the last 10, 15 years, we have developed, from the local communities, a very dependable workforce. These crews have seniority, running from 8 to 12 years. We do not want to displace them. We have to protect their jobs. They have been doing excellent work for us. We will try to integrate the aboriginal workforce, but I do not anticipate that we will expand greatly beyond one full crew next year, possibly two. That is probably what we could do next year.
Senator Stratton: How many silviculture crews do you have out there, of the type we saw yesterday?
Mr. Jones: There are approximately 263 workers now who do silviculture work for us. Divide that by 12 or 14, and that will give you a good idea of the number of crews.
Senator Stratton: Twenty.
Mr. Prebble: I think it is fair to say that our philosophy is to continue to expand the work possibilities from the native community, as workers became available. It is like any other segment of society. There are loggers and farmers and miners and lawyers and doctors in every segment of society. Only so many people native people aspire to work in the forest.
Senator Stratton: I appreciate that.
Mr. Prebble: We hope to be able to go forward at a pace that will help those people.
Senator Stratton: This might be a tough question, but I must ask it. You were previously stationed in Kenora, Ontario. Is what you are doing typical of the industry? There is a fair aboriginal or native population in the Kenora area. Is it the case across the entire forestry sector that companies are trying to integrate aboriginals into their workforce? What everybody has to be concerned about ultimately is that that is not the case you may be told to do it. Which would you rather have?
Mr. Prebble: You raise a very interesting question. My Kenora experience had many of the same issues. In the licensed lands of the mills that I was associated with there, there were 23 native communities. Many of those communities are remote, unlike the Miramichi situation. Therefore, in Kenora, one of their few opportunities for the kind of employment we offered was in the forest. In New Brunswick, the communities are not as remote, and therefore the native people have more options for employment.
To answer your question, yes, we employed aboriginals in Kenora, in the area of silviculture, tree improvement work, trapping of nuisance beavers, to name a few.
Again, it depends at what rate they can go forward. In terms of whether I would rather work aggressively or be forced, there is no doubt of my answer. That is a simple answer; you know it. It is important for the whole community to take this effort seriously. It is an easy fix for a member of the provincial legislature to say that the situation will be solved with forestry work. It is not that simple.
While I was out travelling the other day, I stopped at a Tim Horton's. Three employees were behind the counter. One of them was a native person. She did an absolutely first-class job. It seems to me that the rest of the community has not quite bitten the bullet and said they are going to work hard at this.
Senator Stratton: Winnipeg has a very large problem in that area. A lot of people are shaking their heads as to how to resolve this. There is a lot of concern. Thank you, Mr. Prebble.
Senator Robichaud: If I may pursue that for a moment. Somebody has to lead the way as well in the aboriginal community, as in the forestry industry, insofar as opportunity is given to those who know how to do the job. It is question of gaining experience. You are not hired because you do not have experience, but if you do not get a job, then you will never have experience. It is a vicious circle.
I was very pleased to hear about Repap's native crew, which you indicated your intention to add to, and that if and when you have more possibilities of employment you would be considering a second crew. I would be very happy if that were to work out. At least that would be a step in the right direction. I do not think it is enough, but you can only put your plan in motion as employment becomes available. We heard last night that there were some workers who were trained and ready to go. They need the opportunity. I think you would be in a very good position to provide them with that opportunity.
I want to thank you for the field trip that you organized yesterday, Mr. Jones. We saw many things that were happening at different levels of production, from the little trees all the way to harvesting. We heard some people today and yesterday saying that what we are doing is not enough. They said that we are not doing enough to provide for habitat for the biodiversity out there in the forest, that not enough effort is being made. How has the position of your company changed in the last ten years vis-à-vis biodiversity? Are you more conscious of what you have to do as a company for the environment?
Mr. Ian Prior, Forest Planner, Repap Inc.: I am relatively new to the company, but on the whole everybody is still grappling with the concept of biodiversity and how we can actually implement strategies on our landscape to preserve or enhance that biodiversity. We are making those changes and it is happening in small steps. The management process in New Brunswick is adapting. We are making changes every five-year cycle to accommodate more detail with respect to biodiversity. It is a continual process of improvement. The situation will improve as the research gets a better grasp on how forest managers like us can cope with issues such as biodiversity.
Senator Robichaud: How much research does your company do?
Mr. Prior: Currently, we fund one graduate student at UNB. I am not 100 per cent sure of other programs.
Mr. Prebble: We have been involved, as well, in a cooperative effort under Wildlife Habitat Canada. We are one of six forest companies in six regions of the country to focus on that subject. Its office is non-government, although based in Ottawa, and it has quite a bit of expertise in terms of biologists and so on. That is an ongoing effort. We are one of six test sites, if you want to call it that, in Canada.
Mr. Jones: The question of plantation and monoculture was discussed in great detail with some of the speakers this morning. If you looked at the slide that Mr. Spinney showed you this morning, currently in New Brunswick on Crown land only 4,000 hectares per year are actually planted fully. In other words, it is a monoculture of one species that is planted. The rest of the 45,000 hectares are a fill plant, which is filling up the voids with the planted tree, managing the natural trees that are still there, and then spacing the natural stands. We are changing past practices. Ten or twelve years ago, about 70 per cent was full planting on Crown land and only 25 or 30 per cent was spacing natural stands. There has been quite a swing in what we are doing on a silviculture basis on the ground. In our practices of silviculture, I would think we are practising some biodiversity by keeping the natural trees there and growing them fully to their rotation age. That is just an example.
The Chairman: Who pays for the water bombing? Does that come out of the general expenses of the government, or do they do it and then charge you for it?
Mr. Jones: Basically, the protection of the forest from fire and all the systems that are needed to provide that protection, including the aircraft fleet, is a provincial expense.
The Chairman: It is not charged back to you.
Mr. Jones: There is no actual chargeback to us, no.
The Chairman: The other question I have refers back to subcontractors. You are compelled by law to supply the small mills in your area. Is that number growing, remaining the same, or decreasing?
Mr. Jones: Provincially, I think it is probably the same. Some mills have dropped out, but there some new mills have been included. I do not think the actual number of sub-licensees has really changed dramatically in the last ten years in the province. I could follow up on that and give you some exact numbers.
Mr. Prebble: The volume so affected has increased.
Mr. Jones: That is correct; the volume has increased to sub-licensees versus what it was 10 or 12 years ago. In other words, the licensees are getting less and the sub-licensees are getting more.
The Chairman: Could it be, if you extend the curve, that in ten years all you would have is your name up there and you would be cutting for everybody else?
Mr. Jones: We are trying to protect our status in that.
The Chairman: Do you negotiate every year or every five years?
Mr. Prebble: I gather it is every five. Our company also has a sawmill sector. That sector would be an equivalent to sub- licensees. We believe there is value in staying in that sector and growing in that sector. In my text, I believe I said that some 70 per cent of Crown wood now goes to the sawmill first and the residual goes to paper mills. That is probably a flip-flop from 10 years ago, or at least from 12 or 14 years ago. It is value-added. There is probably good value in lumber, at least at some times of the year, for some years.
The Chairman: In some areas of Canada, there is quite a strong complaint by the small operators that they are being squeezed out by licensees. You seem to have a very interesting system here. I think this is the only province we have run into where licensees are compelled to supply the small mills. Maybe we should have included the small mills on the agenda, to see if they are as happy as you indicate they are. I am curious about how the system is working or progressing. It seems to me that the system is set up so they would want more and more and that you would get into a bit of a problem.
Mr. Prebble: It is a problem for us and a problem for the political masters. You have hit on a bit of an issue there.
Senator Stratton: It was interesting last night when we heard about the marketing board. The fundamental concept that I understand about marketing boards does not seem to hold true. As you heard last night, they complained that they had no control over any kind of negotiation with you about price. In essence, they said that they walked in, sat down, and you told them the price. Do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Prebble: I wish it were so. I checked on the price of pulpwood from 1990 to today. The accusation was that we have not returned to where we were when this reduction occurred. I want to tell you that that is not true. There was a reasonable increase over that period of time. You heard Allan Clark, of the New Brunswick federation, say that he was even willing to give up the clout or the hammer that a licensee would have to negotiate with the board prior to working on the Crown. His position on that point is public, and I appreciate it, but the reality is that our company, and I think most licensees, cannot live without a steady relationship with marketing boards. We have no intention of trying. We want to work with them. We are concerned about overcutting. We are concerned about silviculture practices, and so on. We have a relationship, and I hope it is necessary to both parties.
Senator Stratton: They wanted single-desk selling and were willing to give up that other to get that single desk. That was kind of the compromise. What are your views on single-desk selling?
Mr. Prebble: If I have defined it correctly, our company and the marketing boards are single desk. That is not true with all companies and possibly not with all other marketing boards, but we have accepted that.
Senator Stratton: You have operated with that principle.
Mr. Prebble: Yes.
Senator Stratton: Thank you very much.
Senator Robichaud: All the wood that is coming from private woodlots to your company is through the marketing board.
Mr. Prebble: That is correct. I think there are some contract relationships, but that is still through the marketing board in the case of our company and those contractors.
Senator Robichaud: Did you want to add something, Mr. Jones?
Mr. Jones: What Mr. Prebble said is correct. We have what we call sub-agreements with two of the marketing boards we deal with, where we have five or six contractors who deal directly with us. There is a common understanding. It is considered acceptable by the two marketing boards. They know exactly what we are doing. This has been going on for the last 15 years. We deal directly with the marketing boards in all our purchases of private woodlot wood. There are five we deal with.
Senator Robichaud: If there is an effort to be made with mill operators or big operators, that would not be the case because you do all the your dealings through the marketing board. The amount of wood that is being cut that is not going through marketing boards from private woodlots could be ascertained.
Mr. Prebble: I think a very important key to solve the problem of overcutting is to know what is being cut.
Senator Robichaud: That information is known, but no effort is being made to put it together.
Senator Stratton: My sense is that it is not known. There is no way of knowing.
Senator Robichaud: Not in their case, but other operators buy from them. That wood does not vanish into thin air. If it is cut, it has to be processed.
Mr. Jones: The real problem is the wood that is going out of the province. It is a significant amount and it is the most difficult to trace.
Senator Robichaud: What do you mean by a significant amount?
Mr. Jones: Probably 300,000, 400,000, 500,000 cubic metres per annum.
Senator Robichaud: Would that be just along the border, or would it be trucked from a long distance? There would not be any wood from this area.
Mr. Jones: I believe some wood has gone from this area to a States-side mill, however I do not know how much though.
Senator Robichaud: I never thought it was that much.
Senator Stratton: That is what happens in Alberta. It just goes across the border into B.C.
The Chairman: That is what I was trying to argue last night regarding the marketing board function, whether you can go around them by going out of the province. It is a problem.
I would like to return to the topic of forest fires. Many people say that fire does wonderful things in terms of renewing forests. I suppose some places try to use fire to that end. Do you ever let fire go anywhere on your lands or is there always an effort made to suppress it?
Mr. Jones: No, it is always put out.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for coming.
The next presentation will be given by Mr. Kevin Augustine from the Big Cove First Nation. Where is the Big Cove, Mr. Augustine?
Mr. Kevin Augustine, Forestry Advisor, Big Cove First Nation: On the Richibucto.
The Chairman: That is in Senator Robichaud's area, south of here. Please proceed.
Mr. Augustine: I am a member of the Council of Big Cove and I am on the board of directors of the Mawiw District Council, which represents the largest number of native people in New Brunswick. I am also one of the co-founders of the Micmac- Maliseet Forestry Association of New Brunswick, and I am on the board of directors of the Native Aboriginal Forestry Association.
I come from a community that has approximately 90 per cent unemployment. We also have the highest suicide rate of any community, or any group of people in Canada for that matter. When the Peter Paul case came down last winter, it was a godsend because many of our young people are getting off welfare and going to work in the woods. The people enjoyed one of the best Christmases they have had in many years.
However, like in any community, there are people who do not believe in any rules or regulations. With the Micmac-Maliseet Forestry Association, we were trying to develop management plans for all of our native communities. We figured, along with Steve Ginnish at that time, the native people of New Brunswick would eventually get title to their traditional lands in New Brunswick. We started with the premise that with any inherent right comes the inherent responsibility, so we approached the Grand Council of the Micmac and the Grand Council of the Maliseet to ask them for permission to start developing these management plans for our people.
Basically, what the Grand Chiefs of both nations told us was that, as long as it does not jeopardize future generations of our people and future generations of wildlife, they would grant us their permission or their blessing to go on.
We then proceeded to develop management plans for our communities within the communities. Steve started developing a plan for Eel Ground and I started developing one for Big Cove. When the Peter Paul decision was announced, everything broke loose and, since then, we have been trying to maintain some form of sanity in all this chaos. Half of our problem has been how to motivate people to work but, after the decision, the general morale of the people was lifted, and people started to work in the woods. As a matter of fact, we went as far as starting to train them in silvicultural operations and in logging operations in general.
When the decision was reversed, most of the native bands in the Atlantic region, not just New Brunswick, were disappointed but they had also tasted a better life than what they had been experiencing on the reserves. Tobique, which is also part of the Mawiw District Council, was one of the first to sign with the province because basically, what they were saying was that this is an agreement on access to resources, not title to the land.
However, Big Cove is one of the communities that contends that it will not sign with the province because the province has no authority over the Micmac people of the province. It was Big Cove that was involved in riots with the RCMP, Irving and Repap.
A group of people started negotiating not only with the province but also with industry because we realized that the population of the province in general was not growing. As a matter of fact, it was decreasing. However, the native population in New Brunswick will double by the year 2003. In another five to six years, it will double again. The federal people have realized that, at that rate of growth of the native population in Atlantic Canada, they will have one big headache in the near future just maintaining basic order in the reserves.
We sat down with some of the technicians from the province and the federal government to try to come up with a plan to get our people working and thereby reduce the dependency on social assistance and other hand-outs. One of the areas we found where we might be able to reverse this trend was in forestry. Another major one was in fishing. Basically, what we told the federal governments at that time was that for approximately $113 million, we might be able to generate about 5,000 jobs for the native people in the region. As part of that, we want to develop a mill for the community of Big Cove as well as one for the Tobique area of Maliseet.
However, the proposal to a mill was not the major consideration in all this. We just wanted to show the people that, if they do get out and work in forestry, the communities could diversify and produce value-added products such as windows, furniture and whatnot. We also proposed establishing a trust fund for the people so that they have the means to access other economic ventures in, say, the fishery, processing, and so on.
The major concern for the non-native industry was the impact we would have on their existing markets. We told them that we might be able to develop something in a package whereby the native people, should they develop their mill, would address their housing backlog and not access the non-native markets. The housing backlog in Big Cove alone is approximately 300 houses. There is also a major shortage of houses on the Tobique reserves, which are also part of Mawiw, specifically, Burnt Church and Tobique. Of those affected by that shortage, approximately 65 per cent are native people. We have a housing backlog of 600 to 700 houses.
We proposed that the cutters from these communities would sell the wood to us, and that the communities themselves would have management plans. We also proposed that other communities start developing value-added products such as windows. As a matter of fact, Big Cove has a defunct furniture company that it is in the process of refitting as we speak.
To date, we are moving ahead as planned. We are still engaged in talks with the provinces and the federal government. After the proposed five-year period, we hope to enter other markets through native avenues. We are part of a pre-Confederation web that encompasses a good part of the eastern seaboard and the eastern United States, for that matter. We have allies in the Mohawks and others. These nations -- that is how we viewed them previously -- have their own housing backlogs, and other problems, so we decided that we should reopen the old trade routes that were declared non-existent by other governments.
We sat down again with the province and told them that we wish to enter into negotiations. Our people do not want to settle for one-fifteenth of 5 per cent of the total forestry operations because it would not meet our needs. We want to be able to create job opportunities for our people and reduce our unemployment rate by another 15 per cent. Our unemployment rate far exceeds the unemployment rate of the non-native people surrounding our communities. We want to be able to generate enough monies to get more people off welfare dependency.
Another part of our plan was to develop a form of native self-government for our people. The two areas where we need to develop self-government for our people are our land base and our economic base. These do not necessarily go hand in hand. In these discussions, governments at all levels used the terms "economic viability and sustainability."
We also had to ensure that we developed allegiances with conservation groups. In fact, we have had a number of meetings with them. Their major concerns relate to unrestricted access and unrestricted cutting of the resources.
We believe that we will be able to cover most of these plans under the existing provincial Crown Lands and Forests Act. However, our people also vehemently stated that they could not live under the current Crown Lands and Forests Act as long as that act gave authority to another government over their own governments. That is the current situation in New Brunswick.
The biggest reserves are saying that they can live under a management plan that may mirror the provincial Crown Lands and Forests Act, or whatever plans the province has, but they want to be the ones who administer these plans for their people.
A number of organizations and people have suggested that we should simply agree with what the governments are saying and just get on with it. On the surface, I could not agree with them more. When we approached the Grand Council and the Grand Chiefs about this they said that, when the native population has an unemployment rate of 14 per cent and when the native population has a suicide rate comparable to that of non-native people, then we will sit down with them and discuss terms and agreements on an equal footing.
We were again asked to come up with another plan that would not only address the economic concerns of our people but that would also address the social concerns of our people. We came back with the same proposal but presented it not only to the governments but also to the constituents of the governments. We are trying to convince people that it would make economic and business sense for them to let us to develop our own fisheries, companies, and mills.
We sat down with the Acadians and organizations such as the Quakers and told them that, if they do not help us get out of social dependence, it will be the taxpayers that will pay for our stay within the province. We told those organizations that, if they helped us develop, we would go along with many of the recommendations that had been made. We assured them that we would be in compliance with many of the agreements that have been signed by Canada under the Rio Biodiversity Convention. We also pointed out that our native population would double in 2003 and then double every five to six years after that.
They started seeing the economic sense of our proposals, especially in New Brunswick where most of the people are on welfare.
We told the Acadians that, if they supported us, we would make sure that their people, the non-natives of the poorest region in Canada, would be able to work, too. As a result, all these resources would not be sent out of the country or to other areas of the country.
We hired many of these non-natives and we have treated them fairly. We offered them as much money as we were making. One of the concerns that they had was that whenever they were dealing with these bigger companies, a lot of this work was under-the-table work. They were being offered less than half of the going rate. Their biggest gripe was that all these resources were being harvested by machines that were doing five, six, ten times the work of one man. Then we had the confrontations with the RCMP and Irving. We had peace bonds from Repap.
We had to make sure that our allies would come back on board again. We started talking with not only the Micmacs of New Brunswick but also the Micmacs in all of the Atlantic region and parts of New England. We started telling these Micmacs that they are a nation and before they can really get out from under the provincial thumb, they would have to start acting as a nation, and they would have to start negotiating not with the technical people of the province but with the politicians of the province, the politicians of the federal governments, the politicians of the regional governments, and with the head people of the industries. That is where we are today.
I could go on but again most of my notes were left with my buddy who was supposed to be here today with me.
The Chairman: Perhaps your buddy is giving a speech somewhere else and using those notes.
Senator Stratton: I come from Manitoba. The population of the province is 1 million people, and the city of Winnipeg has 650,000 people -- a significant number. The reserves in the province, for the most part, are quite remote. The unemployment rates in the reserves, as is the case in your region, are very high. There is no economic base. If they try to develop an economic base, they have to worry about shipping the produce. They tried that with fishing and it just cost too much to ship the fish.
People in these remote reserves are moving to Winnipeg because they consider that to be a wonderful place because there they can have access to satellite TV and all the amenities of a big city. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who move to the city do not have high school education. The business people in the city, the social agencies, and the citizens are very aware of this acute problem which is growing.
The native population growth in Manitoba is quite large. I still view it as critically important for people to be educated. When I was a kid, especially after Sputnik landed, it was imprinted on my brain that I must go to school. I had no choice, I had to go to school, and God help me if I did not. The rule in our house was, if you did not go to school, you are out the door. You are on your own and you work.
What are you doing to ensure that your people have a high school education so that they can take advantage of job opportunities? I think that is a stigma that hangs over you, and forgive me if I am being too pointed on this. Businesses want to help but they cannot because the fundamental skills of high school education are not there. My brothers and I own a small charter airline and we ran into this problem.
What are you doing and what are the people in your community doing to ensure that your young people have a high school education?
Mr. Augustine: As I said, I am one of the councillors of Big Cove, and I am lucky because my parents are both well educated, as are all of my family, for that matter. My dad has been a councillor in Big Cove for over 20 and he has worked towards better education for our people.
As recently as a month ago, we sat down with the technical people of Big Cove and told them of the vision that we have. We want to achieve a self-sustaining economic base for Big Cove. We want our people to be educated in these sectors.
We have had a high incidence of "problem" children. That will be dealt with in a paper that will come out shortly from the federal government. Native communities as a whole have a high incidence of problem children as a result, for example, of fetal alcohol syndrome and whatever. Many people who had grown up uneducated had to be brought up to speed. Our focus had to be on the up-and-coming children who are being molded.
Senator Stratton: Those are the ones I worry about.
Mr. Augustine: There is a lack of funding, and we have no economic base. To date, Big Cover has racked up approximately $5 million of a deficit. This is not really too much from a technical point of view, because Big Cove operates at approximately $20 million to $21 million. That deficit has been used to invest in our future.
We have hired one of our people who had been working with the government to help us coordinate other technical people. This is in an effort to ensure that our people are preparing for the future. At the same time, we have not forgotten those who will not be able to take advantage of any opportunities in the future. We are trying to ensure that they will have a comfortable life.
Senator Stratton: I worry most about the young kids because they will decide what will happen tomorrow. If they do not have a future, then the problem becomes self-perpetuating.
Mr. Augustine: We identified a timeline, so to speak, for our community. A group on that timeline had, approximately, a grade three education. The next group would be their children who had, approximately, a grade eight education. The next batch were in high school but had dropped out. The current batch will graduate from high school and enter post-secondary education.
Senator Stratton: You are the first person who has actually given me a time-frame and a definition of how and what progress is being made in education, and I thank you for that. It is wonderful to hear that progress is being made. If there is progress in education, there is real hope.
Senator Robichaud: Thank you for being here, Kevin. You are facing quite a "log jam," if I may use that term.
Mr. Augustine: As a matter of fact, I have a few heroes that I look to whenever things get a little difficult. One of them is Nelson Mandela, who spent so much time in jail that almost anyone else would have given up. I also look to Martin Luther King Jr., who spent so much of his life fighting for equality. I keep telling my technicians that there are people out there who have devoted their whole lives to helping, supporting, and bringing hope to their people. We can only expect at least half of that from our technicians.
Senator Robichaud: I can attest to the fact that valiant efforts have been made in Big Cove, and are still being made. There is a high rate of unemployment and the non-existence in some cases of opportunities for the workers and the young people. I would think this might be a factor that contributes to the very high rate of suicide. It is not too bad now, but it was catastrophic a few years ago.
Coming to your role in the forest and in the cutting of a certain amount of trees or acres, you have not signed an agreement with the province. Do you see yourselves coming to an agreement in the near future, whereby at least some people, probably very few, could have the opportunity to be employed, to get up in the morning to do something they want to do and they are quite proud to do? Do you anticipate something breaking, coming to a head?
Mr. Augustine: As a matter of fact, it is always so close that I can almost reach it every morning. We are looking at this, and the history is the 5 per cent stumbling block that everybody is talking about. The people I am talking to in the provincial and federal governments are saying that this 5 per cent should not be the stumbling block, but rather the base for us to start from.
Again, the low-level bureaucrats in the federal and provincial governments are telling me that this is the policy that we have to live with. When I talk to the more senior officials, they tell me that policies are just written on paper, that they can be amended to meet the needs of the people, rather than trying to bend the people to meet the needs of the policies. What I am saying is, yes, maybe in the near future we can sit down with all governments and begin to work together. It would also be an opportunity for the governments, where it concerns native people, to begin to settle some of the outstanding land ownership issues and issues of who has the right to these resources.
The first step would be for everybody to sit down and to realize that this is not the stumbling block that it appears to be. I am pointing fingers not only at the federal or the provincial government, but also at us, in that we are culprits by not wanting to sit down with the provincial government. A relationship of trust must be brought back to the table.
Senator Robichaud: There were some transfer of licences and some opportunities in the fisheries, were there not, for the people of Big Cove?
Mr. Augustine: Exactly. As a matter of fact, we have just had a measly transfer of six licences this year, temporary licences in fishing. The number of confrontations has declined almost to zero because there is hope among the people that they can fish, provided they fish in accordance with the rules. They realize that fish, like any other resource, is exhaustible.
Senator Robichaud: That is right. I admire you for trying to come up with solutions. It is not going to be easy, but you have the right frame of mind to solve these issues one at a time. If we wait for a miracle to end all the problems, we will have to wait for a long time.
Mr. Augustine: Yes. We have a good team of technicians, who work on this full-time. My hat goes off to them; they are overworked and underpaid. I have them here 24 hours a day, except at times like this when one of them could not come in. I had a briefing today from one in Fredericton, who was also specializing in fishing, Leon Sock from Deep Cove.
The Chairman: You mention the 5 per cent you turned down. I gather that was an offer made to all aboriginal peoples in New Brunswick. How many took it and how many did not?
Mr. Augustine: Actually, I do not know. It was 5 per cent to be divided among 15 communities. I have been talking with the chief of Tobique, where they have easily surpassed their one-fifteenth of 5 per cent, and I guess they were not too happy about it. However, just the fact that they signed it, they are able to go back to the negotiation table at a later date for further discussion.
The Chairman: If you do not take your share of the 5 per cent, is it possible to give it to another group? In other words, are you allowed to transfer amongst yourselves? You say some people can use 10 per cent.
Mr. Augustine: Again, because it is all new ground, the lower-level bureaucrats are saying that they are not transferable but the higher-ups are saying that they may be transferable.
The Chairman: Are you waiting for Judge Nicholas and Mr. Justice La Forest's report? Have you made presentations to those two judges, who are making that report?
Mr. Augustine: I had all of my technicians make presentations to them. No, we are not waiting for them to come down with the recommendations. From our point of view, regardless of the recommendations, it is still going to have to come back to the people around the table. They are still going to have to sit down and talk. I guess that goes back to the Delgamuukw decision, where they are being told that they have to sit down and talk.
The Chairman: This 5 per cent represented 5 per cent of the cut. It would be presumed then that the First Nations people were going to go out there to do the cut and the processing. I am not sure just how it would work. Would the timber be cut by First Nations people or would it be cut by other contractors? I guess you would have the right to put the contracts out if you wanted to, or do it yourself, whatever way you wanted to do it.
Mr. Augustine: Again, we are working on developing rules of engagement, I guess I would call them. My legal advisors have told me that if I do come up with rules and regulations those rules and regulations would supersede provincial laws. However, if I were to do that, it would be irresponsible because the floodgate argument that the government has been putting forward every time we have a new initiative would come up. To date, I have been convincing our people that, regardless of the decisions, there will always have to be rules and regulations governing access to resources or whatnot.
The Chairman: In northern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan, the government has mandated on a couple of licences. It is not everywhere; it is similar to the 5 per cent. The aboriginal people can use horse logging or whatever they want to log selectively. They are doing selective logging and horse logging in some areas. This, of course, is not as remunerative as using big fancy machines, but it does employ more people. It gets Aboriginal people who did not have a prior chance at contracts started training in the woods. This does not preclude them from entering into more efficient means later on. As you mentioned, there is a lot of unemployment. Therefore, an older or more inefficient system of logging may not yield the same profit but it yields the jobs.
Mr. Augustine: Exactly.
The Chairman: Is there any thinking or working along that line that you hear of?
Mr. Augustine: As a matter of fact, that is the basis of what our people have been proposing all along, rather than logging full mechanically. I will be the first to admit that there are a number of our people who want to go full mechanical, the businessman types, the type who will not actually dirty their hands. However, the crux of our push is for the people who are going to be out there to dirty their hands and come back tomorrow tired but wanting to work again.
The Chairman: It is a very difficult problem. We have heard many solutions. Thank you for coming out, Mr. Augustine.
The committee adjourned.