THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 10, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9:04 a.m. [ET] to study Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood); and, in camera, for the consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, before we begin, I’d like to remind senators and witnesses to please keep your microphones muted at all times unless recognized by the chair. Should technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk, and we’ll work to resolve the issue. If you experience other technical challenges, please contact the ISD service desk with the technical assistance number that has been provided.
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With that, good morning, everyone. I’d like to begin by welcoming members of the committee, our witnesses, as well as those watching the meeting on the web.
My name is Robert Black, senator from Ontario, and it’s my privilege to chair this committee.
I would like to introduce the members of the Agriculture and Forestry Committee who are participating. We have Deputy Chair Senator Simons, Senator Cotter, Senator C. Deacon, Senator Griffin, Senator Klyne, Senator Marwah, Senator Mercer, Senator Oh — who is here in the room — Senator Petitclerc, Senator Poirier and Senator Wetston.
The committee is beginning its study on Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood), which was referred to this committee on December 9, 2021. I will introduce our witnesses. I welcome the Honourable Senator Diane F. Griffin, sponsor of the bill, and Mr. Richard Cannings, Member of Parliament for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, British Columbia. I would invite you to make your presentations. I will give you five minutes each.
We’ll begin with Senator Griffin, followed by Mr. Cannings and then questions from the committee afterwards.
Hon. Diane F. Griffin, sponsor of the bill: Well, a lot of you have heard me give a few speeches on this over the last three years or so in the chamber, so I won’t go into a whole lot of detail today, but I do want to bring up just a few key points.
The first is that if we’re really going to make progress towards our climate-related goals, we have to be willing to look at new ways of doing things. Mass timber buildings can store an impressive amount of carbon without significant drawbacks. And wood is a renewable resource, so its use should definitely be considered. And that’s a key word here. We’re not saying mandated, we’re saying considered by the government departments that are doing procurement.
There may be some reasons why, in any given circumstances, engineered wood may not be the best material for a given project. But if we aren’t willing to consider changing the way we do things, we have little chance of reaching our climate goals.
Just two quick reminders. There have been a lot of new people on the committee since the Agriculture and Forestry Committee visited the Brock Commons on the University of British Columbia campus. This is a 17-storey building made of wood. It was really impressive. It’s a student residence, so that tells you how safe that building is considered.
Currently, the University of Toronto is building its new Academic Tower out of engineered wood. With that, I’m very pleased to have as my fellow witness here today the MP who was the originator of this concept a few years ago with a private member’s bill in the house. Thank you, folks.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Griffin. I’ll now turn the floor over to Mr. Richard Cannings, Member of Parliament for South Okanagan—West Kootenay in British Columbia. Mr. Cannings?
Richard Cannings, Member of Parliament for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, British Columbia: Thank you for the invitation to speak here before the committee on Bill S-222, sponsored by my friend and colleague Senator Griffin.
The bill has a bit of a history. The senator had mentioned that I had put it forward as a private member’s bill in a previous Parliament where it passed through the House of Commons and unfortunately died here in the Senate when that Parliament ended.
But it was actually first tabled in a different form by a Bloc MP, Gérard Asselin, in 2009. So it goes back a while. It has morphed somewhat since then, but it’s essentially the same bill.
It’s informally called the “use of wood bill,” but it actually does not force the federal government to use wood in building infrastructure. It simply says that:
. . . the Minister must consider any potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits and may allow the use of wood or any other thing — including a material, product or sustainable resource — that achieves such benefits.
So it’s similar in intent to the British Columbia Wood First Act and the Quebec Wood Charter, both of which have been in place for some years — I think both over a decade. That intent is to give wood a chance to ensure that architects and builders think of wood when designing and constructing infrastructure.
So why do we need this bill? I’ll make three points. We know we need to become a carbon-neutral country by 2050, and buildings offer some of the lowest-hanging fruit for that effort. The construction, maintenance and use of our buildings make up 25% to 40% of our carbon footprint and this bill would ensure that we look particularly at the construction practices to make headway, but it also has implications for maintenance and use.
My second point is that building practices around the world, particularly in Europe, are shifting toward an increased use of engineered wood and mass timber in the construction of large buildings. We’re behind that curve in North America, but change is under way and it’s Canadian companies that lead the way on this continent. We should be supporting those companies and others that wish to join them.
Third, as we all know, the forest industry is going through difficult times in Canada. Illegal tariffs on exports of lumber to the United States combined with a loss of access to timber from catastrophic fires and insect infestations have resulted in mill closures across the country. Developing our domestic market for wood, through the increased use of lumber for mass timber construction, would alleviate some of the pain felt from pressures to export lumber directly to the United States. On top of that, mass timber products can be exported to the United States, tariff-free, so we can use our own lumber and export it that way easily.
What concerns have been raised about the bill? I would say perhaps the main one is the perception that wood buildings are not as safe in fires, but this is simply not true at all for tall buildings made from mass timber. The National Research Council has carried out several large-scale tests that show these buildings are as safe or safer than those made with a framework of steel and concrete. The thick panels and beams simply char slowly. It’s like trying to start a campfire with a match on a log.
Another concern is that singling out wood as a material picks winners and losers in the construction materials sector. Cement and steelmakers have expressed that concern, but this bill, as I said, does not force a preference for wood. And when I’ve spoken with cement makers especially, they think they would do well in these tests of carbon-greenhouse gas footprints. They have exciting new technologies that could incorporate carbon into cement.
Finally, there were concerns that earlier versions of this bill didn’t state a clear preference for wood that were possibly not trade legal, and since that language has changed, that’s become moot.
I’ll just finish by summarizing that Bill S-222 provides a tremendous opportunity to help the federal government in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, it will help the forest sector in its difficulties, develop and maintain continental leadership in the mass timber sector and provide this country with an array of beautiful and safe public buildings and other infrastructure. So I urge you to support this bill. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Griffin and Mr. Cannings. We appreciate your presentations and the timeliness of them.
Regarding questions from the senators, we will limit our questions to four minutes for the question or questions and the answers, and we’ll be pretty tight on that. We’ll begin with our deputy chair, Senator Simons.
Senator Simons: I have a question that I’d like to direct to each of you.
I have to say that in my time as a journalist in Edmonton, I covered far too many stories about wood stick buildings that caught fire and about wood buildings that suffered from rot, to use a non-technical term for it. So I am concerned about the flammability of wood and the longevity of it.
But, Senator Griffin, you used a phrase several times: “engineered wood.” I wondered if you could explain to me what engineered wood is and if it is in some way more durable than the wood stick construction I’m thinking of.
Senator Griffin: Yes, thank you, senator. Engineered wood is wood that’s treated. So it’s not the same as a stick frame building. To use an example, when my friends built an extension onto their basement, they used treated wood rather than concrete or cement to build the basement. This would be 20 years ago. At that point, they were told it was just as durable as cement and would last as long, so that’s one very simple example. But the engineering has come a long way since that, and I’m going to defer to MP Cannings to give you more detail.
Mr. Cannings: Engineered wood and mass timber are very different from stick wood construction. These are not two-by-fours, two-by-sixes or two-by-eights. There are two main components to it that replace what is normally the cement, cement panels and steel beams that are used in construction. Instead of the steel beams, you have glulam beams. These are wood beams that are made of two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, but they are engineered in a factory or plant to be beams that might be one metre square in cross-section and could be 30 metres long. They can be very large.
They are massive; they are like large, beautiful, planed logs. These are massive beams. And the walls are constructed of what’s called cross-laminated timber. These are panels that you can make in different dimensions, but they might be, say, four metres by three metres. You take two-by-fours or two-by-sixes and you lay them down in panels and cross-laminate them so they are strong. It’s like plywood on steroids. The panels themselves are maybe a foot thick or so.
It’s very, very different from wood stick construction. That’s why they are strong enough to build these large buildings, and that’s why they are very non-flammable; they do not burn. As I said, it’s like putting a match to a log. They kind of char slowly. And in terms of getting people out of it, if material inside the building does start to burn, the people have as long or longer to exit the building safely than they would if they were in a standard building.
These tests have been done around the world, but we have done them here with the National Research Council, and the Canadian fire chiefs are behind this. Brock Commons, as Senator Griffin mentioned, was signed off by the Vancouver fire chief.
It’s a very different situation than wood stick construction.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: It is a pleasure for me to take part in our committee meeting this morning.
[English]
My question can be for both of you, if you want to answer it. I’m quite interested in this bill, in part because of this committee. I remember years ago — and maybe you remember, Senator Griffin — that we had someone coming to speak about, I think, a project in Montreal — Griffintown — that I see every day.
When I looked it up a little bit this morning, I realized very quickly that when you look at Germany, Denmark, Norway and many countries, this conversation has already happened when it comes to security, environmental benefit and aesthetics. It seems to me that they are way ahead of us. My question is simple: Are we missing the train? Have we missed the train already on that?
Especially when it comes to urban wood building, how do you think this bill will help us? It’s my impression it will help us catch up, hopefully.
Mr. Cannings: We have almost surely missed the boat in Europe. As you say, Europe is way ahead of us in this. France has pledged to build 30% of its new buildings over the next decades with this wood construction. I have two of the main mills in Canada that produce these products. They get all their equipment from Europe. Structurlam in Penticton gets all their equipment from Germany and has to import German engineers to run it and teach everybody else. Kalesnikoff in Castlegar has a much newer mill that is all Danish equipment and they bring in Danes to help run it. We’ve lost that.
Where we lead is in North America. No American companies are doing this at the scale that we are. By using government procurement to help these companies expand in Canada, this bill would help us maintain that dominance in the North American market.
The Chair: Senator Griffin, do you have anything to add?
Senator Griffin: No, thank you. That was great.
The Chair: Anything further, Senator Petitclerc?
Senator Petitclerc: No, this is the answer I was looking for.
Senator C. Deacon: Nice to see you Senator Griffin, and nice to see you again MP Cannings. You’ve had a very challenging year in the last year in your community, and I thank you for your service.
There’s no debate in my mind when you look at the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower in England that included no wood — 70 people died. A lot of problems need to be managed in buildings, and wood is not one of them. For me, that’s an easy question based on what I’ve read and what I’ve seen.
What I’m more interested in is the importance of having demand for wood in forest management. MP Cannings, you’ve had some very devastating wildfires in your riding — in your province — and forest management is important in order to make sure that we reduce the risks of and the extent of wildfires. What do you have in terms of research and the importance of having demand for wood products in a controlled way that brings benefit to reducing methane emissions from rotting wood or the risk of forest fires?
Mr. Cannings: Thank you, Senator Deacon, for that question. That’s a critical part of this because one of the basic arguments for this bill is that wood is a renewable resource. As trees grow, they are sequestering carbon. We have to make sure that cycle works in our favour when it comes to fighting climate change. We have to ensure that we have a really, truly sustainable supply of wood for this.
Canada has the highest amount of sustainably certified wood in the world. For instance, when big companies like Microsoft are expanding and look to build their new campuses, they turn to — well, for instance, Microsoft turned to Structurlam in Penticton to build their new campus out of mass timber — engineered wood and they demanded that it all be from certified materials. Structurlam had to basically go throughout British Columbia to find that material. It benefited every mill in the province because they were buying up large amounts of two-by-fours and two-by-sixes to make the material to build that Microsoft campus.
Getting back to your question, I think it’s more about the forest practices. There are many things we can improve in forestry. I’ll just mention one and that is the practice of slash burning. Every fall in my province and in my riding, the air is all smokey because all the waste material from the logging is being burned. It’s piled up in piles, gas is poured on it and it’s burned, and it produces as much carbon dioxide as all the cars in British Columbia. That’s something we have to look at and fix. We have to do that at the same time as we are looking for ways to use wood more sustainably so that the wood remains intact in buildings for a century at least. That’s what would give us the advantage in the climate fight.
Senator Mercer: Thank you, chair; it means there were three Nova Scotians in a row here, which is only fair ball.
I would like to remind people that this committee has done another study on the use of wood. We had fire experts as witnesses, and we’ve had people from the insurance industry testify. If people are looking to get some history on it, it’s available right from our own records.
The interesting thing that Mr. Cannings mentioned is the U.S. market potential. The U.S. is way behind us in regulations, I assume, in allowing the use of wood, and we need some demonstrations of its effectiveness.
Are there some American examples of the successful use of manufactured wood?
Mr. Cannings: There are many. Much of the work that the mills in my riding do to make mass timber and engineered wood — those projects are in the United States. In fact, Structurlam — the first company to start doing this in North America, in Penticton — has now opened up a secondary operation in Arkansas because there is a lot of pine down there that they can use, and it gives them quick access to the American market.
I mentioned the Microsoft project, but there are many. Up until now, I would say that most of these projects have been in large civic buildings: art galleries, arenas, sports centres. Mass timber does so well in that kind of environment when you can make these beams very long. The Olympic speed skating oval in Vancouver — in Richmond — was made by Structurlam out of engineered wood.
There are huge opportunities in the United States, and for whatever reason, American companies have failed to fill that gap. There was a big company called Katerra that was started up by investors in Silicon Valley, and they obviously didn’t know what they were doing. They were forced to use materials from the Canadian mills to fill their orders. They eventually went under last year, and it wasn’t for lack of work. It was just because they — I don’t want to go into the details — weren’t being run very well.
There’s a huge market there. As I say, we can supply that market from Canada duty-free because this is a manufactured product that, at least to date, has not had tariffs put on it.
The Chair: Senator Mercer, you have 40 seconds left. Do you have any further questions?
Senator Mercer: No, other than the fact that managed forests are an interesting part of the process. This committee did visit the managed forest in northern New Brunswick years ago and saw the effect of a well-managed forest — an Irving-based company in New Brunswick — so I encourage my colleagues to pay attention to that, as well.
Mr. Cannings: If I could add to that with Irving, I know that Irving is one of the biggest vertically-integrated forest companies on the continent. This is a natural place for them to go. I know they have gone to Europe and have been looking at this technology, so we may see news there.
Senator Mercer: And there are jobs there.
Senator Wetston: Thank you, chair. I hope Senator Mercer is including me in the pack of Nova Scotians.
Senator Mercer: Absolutely.
Senator Wetston: But to remind you, sir, I’m actually a Cape Bretoner.
Thank you to Mr. Cannings and Senator Griffin. I have two quick questions. Before I ask this question, I’m very supportive of this. Why do we need this bill? It appears obvious to me that the government and procurement could easily move down this path and utilize wood more, given its support in many areas of the country. Mr. Cannings, I think the Lower Mainland of B.C. has used wood construction for a very long time. I just wanted to make that comment and would like your responses to that.
My second question is whether you have done a cost-benefit analysis of any sort in which one could look at the cost-benefit associated with wood, steel or concrete construction, just to get a sense? Some of the issues are obvious and you’ve talked about them today, but do you have anything more specific with regard to that?
Mr. Cannings: As far as why we need this bill, yes, the government is moving in that direction. I think what we need is a clear direction that the government, every time it’s building infrastructure — whether it’s a building, a warehouse or a bridge — that it is forced to look at wood and ask if we can use wood. It’s not something that architects and builders do. They’re so used to using concrete and steel, that’s what they go for. It’s one of the barriers to pushing this technology.
In the cost-benefit analysis, I haven’t seen any recent things that might have made it more expensive to do this. Last year, wood was selling at $1,600 and lumber prices were crazy, but they have come down since. Generally, it’s all a matter of getting that volume up, getting the number of plants going so they can monetize or they can pay down the capital costs, then we’ll be very competitive with concrete and steel. This is very long-lasting stuff. You can save money on the construction because while you’re building the building in pieces, you can do all the site prep. The building gets put up very quickly, so you save those costs. They are tremendous costs. Brock Commons went up in nine weeks. This is a 17- or 18-storey building built in nine weeks. There are huge areas where cost savings can be made.
Senator Griffin: No comment. That was great.
Senator Wetston: Thank you very much for that, Mr. Cannings.
Senator Klyne: Thank you to our guests, Mr. Cannings and our own Senator Griffin. I have two questions. The first centres around the trade-offs of increased harvesting of forests and things like that. I’ll preface this by saying I’m a bit of a devil’s advocate. The increased harvesting of forests and further loss of cultural diversity, loss of biodiversity, loss of carbon storage capacity and loss of wildlife habitat, not to mention the increase of silting in rivers and lakes, damaging of immature trees — sometimes even selective cutting can get out of hand — non-wood forest products getting damaged, adding to the cost of farm labour as it competes for people in the forests and disputes and crises over lands and compensation. My question around that is: What alternatives to wood would likely be considered that can or would result in the same environmental benefits?
My second question is that we’ve seen different versions of this bill be introduced before in previous parliaments, however, none of those versions of the bill passed. Why do you think those other versions were defeated, and why do you feel optimistic that this bill will be the one that breaks through?
Mr. Cannings: To answer your last question first, this bill in its present form actually did pass through the House of Commons. It didn’t get a chance to pass through the Senate. I was assured that it was on track to do that, but through other things that are no fault to this bill or anything else, it didn’t get through before the election was called in 2019.
Answering your first question, which is bigger, this bill is not meant to try to increase the demand for forestry. We want to increase the domestic demand for forest products. I don’t envision forestry trying to cut down more trees because of this. It would just give them a new place to sell their products.
Senator Klyne: I’m sorry, Mr. Cannings, the question really was, what other alternatives to wood could be considered that might have the same environmental benefits?
Mr. Cannings: Okay, sorry. I forgot that little bit in there. There are very few materials that can be used in large building construction. We basically have steel, concrete and wood. The cement industry is developing technologies that will sequester carbon dioxide in that concrete. It is at a relatively small scale right now. It would presumably have some of the same benefits as far as carbon sequestration. With steel, we would have to talk about some technologies like hydrogen that would make steel a greener construction material. This is one we have right now that we can move ahead with.
Senator Griffin: I think what’s important here as Mr. Cannings said, we’re not looking for a huge desecration in forests, but what we are looking for here is better value added. If you recall a couple of years ago — maybe three or four, I’m losing track because of COVID — we did a study in this committee on value added in the agriculture and forestry industry. That’s a great objective of this bill, or a great consequence I should say.
Senator Oh: I have a few questions. The committee has visited some of the public and private sector buildings. I want to hear your ideas. Maybe we should start somewhere doing a lot in the public sector because the government has an infrastructure duty to do. The easiest way is for the government to start helping out with university infrastructure, provincial government buildings, a lot of community centres and all kinds of public buildings. Wood has been beautiful, as you say, in Europe. Scandinavian countries have widely used wood. In the private sector, has anyone done studies on the cost factor? Because it comes down to construction costs of wood versus concrete and steel. Can you explain that? Is there any further study on that?
Mr. Cannings: Thank you, Senator Oh. Getting back to the cost — I answered a similar question — I don’t know of any recent cost analysis, but when I first introduced this bill a few years ago, the cost was getting to be very competitive, wood versus other products. One of the reasons for bringing forward this bill is to push that government procurement in the public sector.
I used to sit on the Natural Resources Committee in the House of Commons. There were so many new technologies and things like that coming on that we could use all of our natural resources differently. These companies almost unanimously said, “The best way for the government to support us is through procurement.” Instead of just handing out money, they’d say, “Let us build these technologies; let us build these buildings.” It would give them that added capacity so they could pay for the new infrastructure. It’s very expensive to build a new plant to make these materials. That would help them get started and get that leg up so that then they can really compete, and those costs would naturally come down dramatically after that.
I think the procurement piece is very important. As I say, most of the projects in the private sector have been very successful. I would assume they’re not that much more expensive, if they are more expensive at all. But they look beautiful. They are very attractive buildings that the private sector likes to showcase for their buildings.
Senator Oh: Are you aware of any engineered wood manufacturer that exists here, and how big of a scale they are?
Mr. Cannings: Of the companies that manufacture these products, there are three main ones that I know of in Canada. One is in Quebec, Chantiers Chibougamau; they have been doing this for years. They’ve built everything from bridges across rivers for mining and forestry to buildings in Montreal, et cetera. Then there are two in my riding. Structurlam in Penticton and Kalesnikoff in Castlegar are very big in this, especially Structurlam. So there are three main companies now, but there are huge opportunities for many more.
Senator Poirier: Thank you chair and thank you to both of our witnesses for being here to speak to us on Bill S-222. My first question is what are the expected impacts of using the wood, as proposed in this bill, on the primary and the secondary forest product sectors, as well as on the sectors that would produce or sell alternative building materials?
Mr. Cannings: Regarding the impact on the other sectors that are doing this, right now I think wood has 5% of the market in building large buildings. Concrete and steel have 95%. I’m not envisioning that wood will take over those markets or really have a serious impact on concrete and steel. It’s more just about giving wood that chance. I don’t think we could envision concrete and steel losing much in that regard. It’s more that if we went from 5% to 10%, that’s doubling the market in Canada for wood. That’s what I would say to that. I’m trying to remember the first part of your question.
Senator Poirier: It was just the expected impact of using the wood. I think you kind of addressed it there.
On Bill S-222, the Government of Canada would have to examine the potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefit when choosing between the building materials. On these tests, how does the potential reduction of greenhouse gas emissions derived from the use of wood compare to other commonly used building materials, such as concrete and steel?
Mr. Cannings: Right now, concrete and steel are very intensive industries which produce a lot of greenhouse gases in their manufacture. As I say, concrete is looking at ways of reducing that. Concrete and steel are long-lasting materials. They would argue, I surmise, if they were here, that concrete and steel last a long time, so, yes, there are impacts, but those buildings are around for a long time.
I would say the advantage of mass timber is that it is around for a long time, too, much longer than — as I was saying before — wood stick buildings, two-by-four frame-type buildings. You have the advantage that wood is made from trees, so if you harvest the tree and keep that carbon in the wood in a mass timber construction, which will last for more than a century easily, then in its place there will be trees growing and sequestering more carbon. I think the forest industry has figures on that which are very favourable. I think we should be looking at those as well.
If we do the life-cycle analysis — that’s what cement and steel would ask, that that type of analysis be done — I think wood has a very good chance of winning in those arguments, but concrete and steel have some aspects that they could call on, too.
Senator Cotter: Thank you MP Cannings and Senator Griffin for joining us today. This has been a really insightful conversation for me. But for an experience that I will mention in a moment, I would have no real knowledge nor even the ability to pose intelligent or perhaps semi-intelligent questions. Let me just describe that experience.
A few years ago I was the dean of a law school where we built on a $20-million addition. We were committed to trying to achieve the highest standards possible as awarded by the Canada Green Building Council and the administration of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and we were successful. One part of that was the use of wood.
I should say, Senator Wetston, at least in this one anecdotal experience, the total project aimed at being in this Canada Green Building Council, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design framework cost us 1% more in the total budget of the project. None of that increase was attributable to wood. We ended up using a lot of wood, and it produced quite a spectacular building.
One of the things I learned in that exercise was that the Canada Green Building Council’s standards for leadership in environmental design attribute not just use of wood but use of wood acquired locally. The point here was that the transportation and the climate consequences of significant transportation distances for products for your building could undermine the otherwise beneficial uses of products like wood. As a result, we used a lot of birch from northern Saskatchewan because the geographic territory was close enough that we weren’t burdened in the totality of the project by transportation.
So I’m interested in the question of the degree to which we need to also take into account the movement of the product to markets and, to some extent, the disadvantage that presents for, let’s say, wood grown in British Columbia needing to be transported to — well, who knows where, even Saskatchewan.
I wonder if you might comment on wood and the whole package of the environmental sustainability question. Thanks.
Mr. Cannings: Again, getting back to this bill, we want to promote this industry, this technology, so that we have production facilities across Canada. Certainly, transportation is a big feature in greenhouse gas emissions. I don’t know how many places make steel in Canada, but I’m assuming there are some transportation costs associated with steel; perhaps less so with cement. I don’t know those figures. We need to include all those calculations in these tests. The government has very sophisticated life-cycle analyses already built into which they can put these numbers. This will not put a huge burden on government bureaucracy in doing that. They already have those tools. As I said, the distance from sources is one of them and would be considered.
Senator Cotter: I won’t add anything except to say that I like the concept that this is really a sustainable building amendment as much as it is about wood. Wood is great, but the larger package seems to be an important message.
Senator Marwah: Thank you, chair. This is really more of a request than a question, and it is to Senator Griffin.
Are there any cost-benefit analyses that you could send to us that really look at all the pluses and minuses, and what this implies versus the impact on the cost of building?
There is no question that it is aesthetically far more pleasing to use wood, and there is no question that it reduces carbon footprint. Those are the big pluses. There is a value-added impact on the Canadian business sector, so there is no issue there. But I worry about a cost-benefit analysis. If you could direct us to those, even if they were done years ago, that would be great.
In that vein, as part of a cost-benefit analysis, has there been anything done to look at the impact of excessive logging? Senator Klyne mentioned it, and that is an increase. Even if we go from 5% to 7% increase in wood utilization, that is a 50% increase. What does that do to logging, First Nations and environmentally sensitive areas? I have no sense of what that does.
If you can forward that information to us, that would be helpful.
Senator Griffin: Thank you, Senator Marwah. I’ll do some research into the cost-benefit analysis, but as already indicated by Mr. Cannings, it will be out of date. If I were to build the same house today as compared to when I built it in 2004, the costs would be huge. Even within the last two years, the costs have greatly increased in building. We’ll try to get up-to-date figures. It’s tough.
My husband was a real estate appraiser; he just retired. He said it was a great time to retire because the system had just gotten crazy.
Excessive logging and impacts — I can appreciate that concern, and so can MP Cannings. We have both been on the board of the Nature Conservancy of Canada and Birds Canada. We wouldn’t be coming forward with this if we thought we would cause more harm to the environment.
The big thing here is to better value added in our own country and better use of the materials that we do have. That’s not to say that there won’t be some pressure in certain areas, but I think Senator Mercer talked about good forest management and the example in New Brunswick that our committee had visited prior to my time on the committee.
There are answers to all of this, but it comes down to good land management and the best use of the resource so that we’re not wasting and burning piles of material, as mentioned by MP Cannings, as is happening now. Value added — that’s where we need to be, with what we’ve got.
The Chair: Senator Marwah, you have a minute left.
Mr. Cannings: Can I jump in and make one comment?
The Chair: Please.
Mr. Cannings: I wanted to clarify that the manufactured wood takes two-by-fours and two-by-sixes that are made in standard sawmills across the country. Those sawmills are manufacturing that lumber, and most of it is sold to the United States. This gives those sawmills an extra market to sell that lumber to mass timber-producing plants in Canada, so we get a double benefit, as Senator Griffin said — that value added. It’s not cutting down more trees but giving our forest industry a better market.
The Chair: Thank you.
That ends the first round. We have time for one more question, which will go to our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: I hate to be an anticlimax, but Senator Marwah took my question.
Senator Wetston: I will go very quickly. Much happens in municipalities, as you both know, and municipalities are highly engaged in attempting to implement climate change initiatives. We think about them through building codes, efforts around insulation, electrification, heat pumps, et cetera.
Do you have any views about the role of building codes, provincially and municipally, to encourage the use of wood in the manner that you’re proposing?
Senator Griffin: Can I go first?
The Chair: Yes, Senator Griffin.
Senator Griffin: As a former town councillor, it has always been my theory that the rubber hits the road when it comes to municipalities and what it means for governance in our country. That’s the closest level to people, and they have a lot of control over zoning and building codes.
You’ll find that a lot of municipalities in our country have gone a great way to trying to improve the “greening” of their municipal activities. Speaking for Stratford, Prince Edward Island, we’ve been stellar in making that move, and I hope other municipalities can step up and say the same thing — that they’ve been stellar in terms of their jurisdiction.
Mr. Cannings: Regarding building codes, Canada has national building codes. The present one is being worked upon, and hopefully, it will be out there soon. British Columbia and perhaps Quebec, I’m not sure about — both of them are ahead of Canada and ahead of the curve. By following standard building codes, you can now build a 12-storey building out of engineered wood in British Columbia, as well as in Quebec I think. Canada will be including that in its next building code.
One of the barriers to that is doing these building codes, which were originally written for wood stick construction with two‑by‑fours, et cetera. They had not conceived of using engineered wood when the code was written previously. So the new building code will really greatly help that.
We also have to change the culture of building, architects and construction engineers to make them think of wood, and that’s one of the reasons for putting this bill forward.
The Chair: Thank you very much to our witnesses, Senator Griffin and Mr. Cannings. I want to thank you for your participation today. We have come to the end of the first hour. Your assistance with this bill as we start to move it forward is very much appreciated.
I also want to thank our committee members for your active participation and thoughtful questions. They have helped to move the issue forward.
Senators, is it agreed that we suspend for two minutes to end the public portion of this meeting and proceed in camera for the next portion of our meeting?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(The committee continued in camera.)