Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 8 - Evidence - Meeting of September 17, 2009
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 9:37 a.m. to consider a draft budget for the study on the current state and future of Canada's forest sector.
Senator Percy Mocker (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. We have gathered to consider a draft budget for the study on the forest sector.
[English]
The Chair: I would like to take the opportunity to thank the clerk and her team for the leadership she is providing to address the next leg of our committee. Senators will remember that we adopted a summary budget in the spring. We had agreed that we would revisit our budget needs this fall. We had discussed travelling across the country to visit communities affected by the crisis or living mainly from the forestry industry.
I met the clerk last week. I received a preliminary copy of our first report and asked that the report be sent for translation. When we have the final copy of the translation, it will be distributed in both French and English to each senator.
Looking at the draft budget before you, the total amount of the draft budget with a small correction is $266,500 — rather than $266,600. The steering the committee met yesterday and has agreed to it.
[Translation]
The budget includes four main activities: one in Western Canada, British Columbia and Alberta.
[English]
Second, in the Maritimes: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The third is in Quebec, and the fourth activity is in Northern Ontario. Please note that these travels will not necessarily be done in this order because of the availability of the people who will be receiving us.
We have budgeted to permit participation of all members of the committee. Also, most travelling will be done by charter, since we are going to remote communities. Some parts will be by commercial airlines.
[Translation]
The activities listed are solely for the purpose of gathering information. The committee will not be holding any public hearings. If we wish to hear from people from these communities, then we can invite them to come to Ottawa to testify.
[English]
With respect to this, the activities will be for fact-finding only. The committee will not be holding public hearings, and if we want to hear witnesses from those parts of the country, we will invite them to Ottawa.
Yesterday, for your information and for the record, I met with the deputy chair, Senator Fairbairn, and Senator Mercer, the other member of the steering committee, to look at the budget. We recommend to you this morning to adopt the budget. If you have any questions, the clerk is here. I imagine the clerk will no doubt be happy to answer questions.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Chair, being a new senator, I want to ask if we are giving a bad impression by spending so much money travelling. I am worried about the optics of senators travelling. Would people question the fact that we have to see it with our own eyes rather than just listening to witnesses?
The Chair: That is a good question. I know that our deputy chair has more experience than I do, and this is a budget that we will ask the Senate to adopt with our recommendations. I will open the floor for any other suggestions. It is a good question, Senator Eaton.
Senator Cordy: I agree that it is a very good question. As senators we should always be cautious about the amounts of money we spend because it is taxpayers' money. On the other hand, I think it is extremely important that Canadians understand the work committees are doing.
When we are here in Ottawa, it is my opinion that we are in a bubble. We can call witnesses from government and business people in to ask them what they are doing, and we have done that for this committee and other committees I am on. However, when you travel to places such as New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and Grand Falls, Newfoundland, it is a big deal for the community to have a Senate committee there. It is a big deal for the people of that community to show the senators the things they are doing, whether in forestry, education or health care. It is a big thing to explain it, and we do not get the same perspective when we hear someone sitting at the end of the table as we do when we are actually on the ground with our running shoes, walking through a forestry area in New Glasgow. That is my feeling.
Having said that, we always need to be very cognizant of the amount of money we spend. If there are ways to save money, we certainly should do that.
I am pleased to see that this includes all 12 senators going. We know that is not likely to happen for all the trips, if, in fact, it will happen for any of the trips. However, I find it frustrating when I see a budget prepared in which only half the senators are included because then you think what if my name is not picked for a trip to a place in Nova Scotia where I would like to be.
It is an excellent question, but it is equally important that we visit Canadians in their own setting.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Cordy. Are there other comments?
Senator Eaton: I remember one of the witnesses telling us about an interesting experiment they are doing — I think it is in New Brunswick — where they are building a wood pellet plant to use for fuel. Are we going to a place like that that is transforming itself as a good model?
The Chair: Yesterday, in our steering committee, I shared information after meeting the treasurer, the executive director and the president of the Canadian Federation of Woodlot Owners. They have been travelling extensively, following a decision from the Government of Quebec, in order to look at innovation projects for the forestry sector because of the state of the forestry. They advised me — and I am sure I can share it this morning after sharing it with the committee — that Finland, Austria and Sweden are supposedly world leaders when it comes to biomass energy and also pellet production.
In New Brunswick, we do have a commercial pellet plant in operation. It has been in operation only in the last four days or the last week. I know that in Atlantic Canada, some other companies will be embarking on pellet production. Therefore, with that said, I would assume that we will have scheduled visits to such facilities during our fact-finding tours in the fall 2009.
I would like to bring to your attention that we have looked at the budget on the basis that we would have all senators participating, as Senator Cordy outlined. If I look at the average cost per senator for such a trip and an important study, according to the figure that I have here, the cost to the government or the taxpayers of Canada would be approximately $22,000. This is for criss-crossing Canada.
I have been informed by our clerk that it is rare that we would have all senators participating. I hope, personally, as chair, that we would all participate. However, due to circumstances, some will not be on certain legs of the tour. That said, I would like to remind everyone that it is not a big budget compared to other Senate committee budgets. I just wanted to share that.
However, we must be mindful — and I think we are all mindful — of the fact that the taxpayers of Canada are permitting us to do that. I am open to other suggestions.
Senator Eaton: As we are going to so many places, and Senator Cordy said she was delighted to see everyone was included, could we accomplish something else if some of us, rather than all of us, volunteered for one trip or another? That way we might cut the budget.
It might be interesting to go on another trip in the spring. I would like to see some university labs. I would like to see where they are doing innovation stuff and the flip side — what the future is.
If we spend all of this money now, can we ask for another budget of this type in the spring to perhaps look at the innovative side of the future of forestry?
The Chair: I will ask the clerk to advise us.
Josée Thérien, Clerk of the Committee: I just have a comment on that. In reality, that is what will happen; only part of the committee will be able to travel on parts of the trip. The money is not lost. It is clawed back by the Senate and then redistributed.
Therefore, if the committee wishes to do something else, then we do another budget application for that. However, the money is not lost, nor do we just keep it for ourselves. Once the trip is over, we give the rest of the money back.
The Chair: Are there any other questions?
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Mr. Chair, I had the same concerns about cost as my colleague. Now then, judging from what I have heard, I can appreciate that we have a responsibility to travel from time to time to gauge the situation in the various regions of the country. However, I see here that both charter and commercial flights are planned. It has been proven that commercial flights are always the less costly option and that they leave us less open to criticism. People tend to be critical of us when we opt for charter flights. I suppose that in this instance, we are doing so for practical reasons, either because certain regions are not accessible by commercial flights or because the flight schedules do not concur with our itinerary. I believe that is the reason for this decision. I do understand as well that we always favour commercial flights over charter flights.
The Chair: Thank you, senator, for your comments. Perhaps the clerk could give us some additional information about charter flights versus commercial flights.
Ms. Thérien: Senator, we rely on charter flights to travel to more remote regions that are not served by commercial flights. From a cost-comparison standpoint, if committee members were to take a commercial flight to an airport and then take a bus, the cost would be the same as a charter. Often, it is cheaper to book a charter. We use the services of a charter broker and the airfare we pay is reasonable. For example, if you travel to the Maritimes, it is cheaper to book a charter than to take a commercial flight and then travel from place to place.
Senator Rivard: I think charters also provide greater flexibility in the event of a delay. A charter will wait for us, unlike a commercial flight.
Ms. Thérien: Without question.
Senator Thérien: Nevertheless, cost remains a concern.
Ms. Thérien: It always is.
[English]
The Chair: Are there any other questions?
Senator Mahovlich: Have we considered having witnesses from Finland, Sweden, Austria and these countries that have great innovation? Could we possibly have them as witnesses?
Senator Cordy: We could do it by teleconference.
The Chair: That is an important comment. The mandate that we had given to the committee was being mindful that we would do Canada, and then possibly in the spring of 2010, we could visit Finland, Austria and Sweden. In the next consideration — and this is a comment from the chair — the Senate committee could look at either teleconference or visiting the stakeholders in Canada on those leading new ideas about maximum use of the forestry biomass products. We will take this under advisement, Senator Mahovlich, if the committee agrees, after completing the Canadian tour.
I would ask each and every one of us, when we go in our provinces or our areas, to be proactive, as we are here, to ensure that we will visit the best so that we can come out of those particular tours with implementation suggestions for the government to consider.
When you see the preliminary report that we will have in the next few weeks, it will certainly ignite discussion and also target some stakeholders that we will be visiting in order to enhance the recommendations that you will have for consideration.
That said, we will take it under advisement, senators, if there is consensus. We will look at the EU countries if, indeed, they are part of the final report of our study.
Is that a sufficient comment?
If you have any recommendations or want to add to this proposal, please let the steering committee or the clerk know.
That said, senators, we would be ready to adopt the budget. I need a mover and a seconder.
It is moved by Senator Eaton, seconded by Senator Fairbairn, that the budget be adopted.
Is it agreed, honourable senators to adopt the motion? Motion carried.
Before I declare the meeting adjourned, do you have any other comments or questions? If not, I declare the meeting adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)