THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 3, 2022
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9:01 a.m. [ET] to study Bill S-222, An Act to amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood).
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, before we begin, I would like to remind senators and witnesses to keep their microphone muted at all times, unless recognized by the chair. Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk and we will work to resolve the issue. If you experience other technical challenges, please contact the ISD service desk at the technical assistance number that has been provided.
The use of online platforms does not guarantee speech privacy or that eavesdropping won’t be conducted. As such, while conducting committee meetings, all participants should be aware of such limitations and restrict the possible disclosure of sensitive, private or privileged Senate information. Senators should participate in a private area and be mindful of their surroundings so that they do not inadvertently share any personal information or information that could be used to identify their location.
With that said, good morning, everyone. I’d like to begin by welcoming members of the committee, our witnesses and those watching this meeting on the web.
My name is Rob Black, a senator from Ontario, and it’s my privilege to chair this committee. I would like to introduce the members of the committee who are participating in this meeting, either here in the room or virtually. We have with us virtually our deputy chair, Senator Simons; Senator Deacon; Senator Griffin and Senator Klyne. In the room, we have Senator Marwah, Senator Mercer, Senator Oh, Senator Plett, Senator Ringuette and Senator Wetston.
The committee is continuing its study of 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.
We have two panels today. For our first panel, we have, from the National Research Council Canada, Jean‑François Houle, Vice President, Engineering; Trevor Nightingale, Director General, Construction Research Centre; and Thomas Ferguson, Director, Built Environment Regulations and Specifications. From Public Services and Procurement Canada, we have Stéphan Déry, Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property Services. Thank you for joining us.
We’ll begin with opening remarks from Mr. Houle on behalf of the National Research Council Canada, who will be followed by Mr. Déry from Public Services and Procurement Canada.
Jean-François Houle, Vice President, Engineering, National Research Council Canada: Thank you, chair and senators. I am the acting Vice President of the Engineering Division at the National Research Council, NRC. I am joined today by my colleagues Trevor Nightingale and Thomas Ferguson, both of whom were kindly introduced by the chair.
I would like to begin by acknowledging that the National Research Council’s facilities are located on the traditional, unceded territories of many First Nations, Inuit and Métis people.
The work of the NRC covers a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines, the outcomes of which have changed the lives of Canadians and people around the globe. With over 4,000 highly skilled and innovative researchers and staff, NRC is Canada’s largest federal R&D organization. Our 14 research centres operate out of 22 locations across the country.
Through the Industrial Research Assistance Program, IRAP, we provide technical advice to 8,000 small- and medium-size companies and collaborate with many universities, colleges, research hospitals, federal departments and international partners.
Relevant for our discussion today on Bill S-222 is NRC’s role in ensuring that the technical and safety research requirements are undertaken and applied to building codes. The NRC is the coordinator and custodian of Canada’s national model codes, including the model building code, model fire code and model energy code. We provide administrative and research support to the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes, CCBFC, in developing consensus-based codes. The process engages all sectors of the construction community and the public on a five‑year cycle.
Our research outputs also support the development of standards, best practice guides and tools for the construction industry. Targeted research supports industry to develop technical solutions, which we validate in pilot projects and techno-economic assessments. In doing so, we facilitate uptake in the marketplace of the model codes and new technologies that support the code.
Through collaborative engagement, we ensure that the best available knowledge drives meaningful change. As building codes evolve along with new technologies and materials, this knowledge helps establish a benchmark that gives construction professionals the confidence to innovate safely and reduces risks while considering compliance costs.
We work closely with the CCBFC and its technical committees to meet the commitments outlined in the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Given the legislation under review, I should add that this process includes increasing the use of wood in construction. As you know, there is increased interest in multi-storey wood buildings. These buildings are often designed to reduce the total carbon footprint while providing added economic benefits for Canada’s forest-products industry.
In response to this trend, the NRC, in collaboration with industry, government and other research organizations, developed technical information on tall wood buildings. Working with the CCBFC’s technical committees, the NRC provides support to develop the unbiased knowledge needed to support changes to the building code.
An example of the type of support the NRC provides is the introduction of encapsulated mass timber construction, or EMTC. EMTC is a building material technology that uses traditional lumber arranged to form structural building elements. The next edition of the National Building Code and the National Fire Code of Canada to be published in March 2022 will include encapsulated mass timber buildings up to 12 storeys as an accepted and safe solution. This will permit design options for mass timber buildings using Canadian timber products in the numerous geographic and climate regions of Canada.
As the government strives to reduce the carbon footprint of government buildings, increasing attention is being given not only to the carbon emitted during operation by considering energy efficiency, but also the carbon emissions as a result of manufacturing the building materials. For this reason, we must also be cognizant of the additional carbon that may be required to decommission the building when it reaches its end-of-life cycle. To reduce the total carbon footprint of a building over its life requires forethought, good design and engineering as well as diligent operation.
As indicated in the announcement by Minister Champagne, the NRC is collaborating with the Cement Association of Canada on a roadmap to set net-zero concrete. The roadmap will provide Canadian industries with guidance on technologies, tools and policies needed to reach net-zero carbon concrete by 2050.
Ultimately, wood, low-carbon concrete and other building materials as part of a low-carbon design can play a major and distinct role to achieve the goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Through its convening and collaborative projects with industry, and provincial and territorial partners, the NRC will continue to inform the safe introduction of construction technologies to support the government’s commitment to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
To close, it is the NRC’s breadth of expertise, our unique scientific infrastructure and our national scope all combined that enable us to convene the necessary actors throughout the construction value chain and technologies from across Canada and abroad that should result in our highest chance of innovation success. This will make a difference to Canadians now and in the decades to come.
Thank you for your interest in the NRC. Mr. Chair, my colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any questions at this time.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Before questions, we will hear from Mr. Déry.
[Translation]
Stéphan Déry, Assistant Deputy Minister, Real Property Services, Public Services and Procurement Canada: Good morning. I am pleased to appear before this committee for the first time to discuss the role my organization could play in relation to Bill S-222, An Act to Amend the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act (use of wood).
[English]
I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which I stand today is the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people. The Algonquin people have lived on this land since time immemorial. We are grateful to have the opportunity to be present in this territory.
Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, manages one of the largest and most diverse portfolios of real estate in the country and is the Government of Canada’s real estate expert. PSPC provides safe, healthy and productive working environments for over 260,000 federal employees across Canada, including accommodation for parliamentarians, and a full range of real property services, including the provision of architectural and engineering services.
The spirit and intent of this proposed legislation align with the government’s goals of supporting the Canadian forest industry and of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I would like to highlight the important work undertaken by PSPC in that regard.
The 2020 Greening Government Strategy requires the government to reduce the environmental impact of structural construction materials by disclosing the amount of embodied carbon in the structural materials used for major construction projects. There is also a requirement to reduce the embodied carbon of structural materials of major construction projects by 30% starting in 2025. Implementing tools to support these requirements within PSPC will be a key focus in the years to come.
Before starting construction or rehabilitation projects, Public Services and Procurement Canada considers the entire context to properly analyze the environment, distance, area and general conditions while respecting not only our greening and carbon neutrality commitments but also our commitments to reducing costs, using sustainable materials and collaborating with Indigenous communities.
[Translation]
The Minister of Public Services and Procurement’s latest mandate letter stipulates that PSPC will work with Infrastructure Canada and Natural Resources Canada to introduce a new Buy Clean Strategy to support and prioritize the use of made-in-Canada low-carbon products in Canadian infrastructure projects. As a provider of procurement, sustainability expertise, architecture and engineering services and real property, PSPC is in a unique position to have a direct and significant impact on the greening of government operations.
PSPC is an active participant in a number of initiatives supporting the use of lowered embedded carbon materials in construction projects. Here are some examples: We are working with the National Research Council of Canada, with our colleagues who are here today, to produce a Canadian low-carbon dataset of construction materials to enable informed decision-making through the life cycle assessment initiative, and to incorporate low-carbon requirements in building and infrastructure projects in Canada. The Canadian National Master Construction Specification was updated in 2021 to support specifying encapsulated mass timber construction. We are also working with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s Centre for Greening Government to support the implementation of lower embodied carbon in structural materials by developing mandatory requirements and undertaking pilot projects. Ongoing discussions are occurring with the concrete, steel and wood industry to help set reduction targets. In addition, we are working with the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and National Defence to develop and implement low embodied carbon solutions in construction projects.
[English]
At PSPC, we are always mindful of the materials used for infrastructure, and we continue to encourage green innovation, as was the case recently with the use of a more environmentally friendly cement for our West Memorial Building rehabilitation project in Ottawa.
In conclusion, Public Services and Procurement Canada will continue to lead the way in embedding environmental considerations and, specifically, greenhouse gas emission reductions into its requirements with respect to the construction, modernization, maintenance and repair of federal facilities.
[Translation]
Our practices at PSPC allow for the use of wood and other construction materials in construction projects based on project requirements and in compliance with health and life-safety requirements outlined in building codes.
Thank you. I am happy to take your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen.
We’ll proceed with questions. As has been our previous practice, I would like to remind each of my colleagues that we will give you four minutes for each question, and that includes the answers. To our presenters, please keep your answers tight. If senators wish to ask a question, please raise your hand. We have a number all ready to signal us. If we have time, we’ll go to a second round.
[Translation]
Senator Simons: Thank you very much. I have a question for Mr. Houle.
[English]
I wonder if you could explain to us the process required to turn wood into the kind of encapsulated product you are describing. How safe is it? Why is it a 12-storey maximum that you are recommending for the use of that product?
Mr. Houle: Mr. Chair, as I highlighted in my opening remarks, when we consider these new additions to the national model building codes, there is a significant amount of research and technical assessment that needs to occur in order to assess many aspects of incorporating these types of materials. I might turn to my colleagues Trevor and Thomas to answer the more technical aspects of this question.
Trevor Nightingale, Director General, Construction Research Centre, National Research Council Canada: Thank you very much, senator.
Very simply, mass timber is very much like an extremely thick piece of plywood where you have dimensional lumber that is often either glued, nailed or screwed or used with dowels to create a very thick structural element.
As you know, wood is combustible, so we want to protect that wood in the event of a fire. What that means is that on the exterior, exposed surface of the wood, a material that offers significant fire resistance is typically used to encapsulate the wood and protect it in the event of a fire. A lot of work has been done in the fire research community looking at the fire performance of exposed wood and also the fire performance of encapsulated mass timber.
Why is the building code set to 12 stories? Twelve stories is what the code’s committees felt they were comfortable with at the time. It doesn’t mean to say buildings cannot be built higher than 12 storeys. For example, in British Columbia on the campus of the University of British Columbia, there is the Brock Commons student residence, which is considerably higher than that. There is also a building in Quebec City.
The flexibility of our national building code enables an engineered solution that takes into consideration fire resistance, seismic and other factors. Each design is considered on its own merit, and that enables it to go beyond the 12 storeys. So 12 storeys is essentially what we call a prescriptive path. In other words, if you follow the requirements that are identified in the code, you can build directly to 12 storeys without going through additional activities.
At this point, I think I’ll hand it over to Thomas Ferguson to describe the nuances between the various compliance paths in the code.
The Chair: I will mention that you have just about 50 seconds left.
Thomas Ferguson, Director, Built Environment Regulations and Specifications, National Research Council Canada: All that I will say is that, indeed, the code does provide a prescriptive approach, but other engineered solutions are possible. It is up to the authorities having jurisdiction, the provinces and territories who have constitutional responsibility for enforcing the building codes, to determine whether designs are adequate solutions and can be built. That’s how it is possible to have construction that exceeds the building code, which provides essentially a minimum acceptable solution for construction. Thank you.
Senator Simons: Thank you.
Senator Oh: Thank you, panel. I have a question to follow up. The building code is 12 storeys. I have been to the UBC building that was I believe 18 storeys. Does that mean that all provincial building codes would have separate codes from the federal government recommendation? Any panellist could answer this question.
Mr. Houle: Mr. Chair, the national model building codes are a centralized system from model code development that began in the 1930s. Provinces and territories regulate the design and construction of new houses and buildings and the maintenance and operation and fire safety systems in these existing buildings. The provinces can adopt approved changes without waiting for the publication of the compendium on the national model building codes. The provinces ultimately have jurisdiction for the building codes.
I don’t know if my colleagues, Trevor or Thomas, would like to add to that.
Mr. Ferguson: I could add to that. In general, as Jean‑François was saying, the national model codes are a centralized, rigorous development involving a consensus-based process where the technical committees of the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes develop changes to the code that are then approved. Then the provinces and territories adopt, in whole or in part, the provisions of the codes. Sometimes they make variations. I will just comment that, at the present time, there is an effort to harmonize regulation across the board under Regulatory Cooperation Table agreement under the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, and the desire is to have similar regulations across the board.
To go back to your original question, I would not say that the 18-storey building was as a result of a different code in the jurisdiction. They simply exercised their ability to allow for a design that went over and above what’s prescribed in the code. Thank you.
Senator Oh: Panel, do we have any idea so far of what is the tallest building using this type of construction internationally? Is there any research on that?
Mr. Houle: I think I’ll turn to my colleague Trevor on that. I know there has been some activity in Europe in those areas. If Trevor has any recent information, that would be of use.
Mr. Nightingale: I think we would have to get back to you on that one, senator. I don’t have that answer directly available to me at this point.
Senator Oh: Can someone tell us comparison between the wood construction and concrete material construction? What is the cost difference?
Mr. Nightingale: This is a very challenging question to answer because it very much depends on where the building is built, the seismic velocity zones and the intended purpose of the building — in other words, its height, its shape, its form, its function. I don’t think there is a unique answer that says wood is X % cheaper or more expensive than a comparable concrete construction. It really needs to be done on a case-by-case basis.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
Senator Ringuette: My question is for Mr. Déry. Last night at our Banking Committee, former governor of the Bank of Canada Steven Poloz commented in regard to Procurement Canada that your policy is low-cost, low-risk procurement. Can you tell me how you will revise your procurement criteria in order to facilitate these innovative Canadian products in your procurement?
Mr. Déry: Thank you very much, Senator Ringuette.
Mr. Chair, I would like to say that our goal in procurement is to be fair, open and transparent. I will talk more on the construction project because that’s what I’m responsible for in Public Services and Procurement Canada, but definitely there is a balance between cost, quality of products and longevity.
When we build a building or when we want to construct a new building or renovate it or recapitalize a building, we rely on professional experts to provide us with specifications that will ensure that the building has the best value for Canadians, has the best environmental footprint and also uses the material that is the lowest carbon material available in the Canadian market at the present time.
An example of a Canadian innovation that I would like to add — and I talked about this in my opening remark — is the low-carbon concrete that we poured at the West Memorial Building here in Ottawa in our renovation of the subfloor. It is a Canadian company that produced that concrete, and now it’s going to be included in all of that building renovation. We are focusing on innovation.
We also have to respect all the trade agreements that Canada has signed. That also has to be in the mix of our procurement when we either do large construction, new build or when we recapitalize some of our buildings, which is happening right now with Parliament Hill as an example and all of these other buildings.
Senator Ringuette: I do understand that we have to honour our trade agreements as long as the other partner is also honouring their part of the agreement. My question to you is: In your assessment, I ask again, are you currently or will you review your assessment in order to enhance Canadian innovation, i.e. the current wood products that we are discussing this morning?
Mr. Déry: Thank you, Senator Ringuette.
I would say, Mr. Chair, that there are mandate letters pushing innovation in Canada, and we are part of that. We are working with our colleagues at the National Research Council that are here with us today to ensure that we are promoting innovation, and not only necessarily promoting innovation in wood but in all construction material in Canada. There is the buy clean mandate letter, and we have to buy clean, so we are involved in that. It’s definitely important for us to be part of the lead in buying clean material for our construction.
The Greening Government Strategy that was put in place by Treasury Board Secretariat put a shadow price on carbon at $300 a tonne. When we are estimating our project, instead of using a $50 a tonne shadow price on carbon, we are using a $300 a tonne shadow price of carbon, which already puts you in another bracket in terms of quality, looking at the environmental impact and the GHG reduction of the building operation versus the cost to construct the building.
The Chair: Thank you for that answer, and I will interrupt because we went over time there.
Senator Wetston: I wanted to follow up a bit about these various products that we’re talking about. Senator Oh got into this a bit. We have steel; we have concrete; we have wood. I think Senator Oh was pursuing costs. I’d like to pursue that a bit more because I’m talking about unit cost of each product. I’m not talking about the design of the building and what might be involved. You must have some sense of that, recognizing that you’re looking at low-carbon initiatives.
As a second question, can you describe the competitive dynamics existing in the market for concrete, steel and wood? I recognize all of these areas are competing to gain greater access to low-carbon building. Can any of the members of the panel speak about those matters?
The Chair: I will interrupt and indicate that you have three minutes.
Mr. Houle: The NRC provides research support in order to evaluate the technical specs and the scientific value of these new innovations and how to support these innovations. We look at identifying and developing tools and standards to identify life cycle assessments to assess the total impact on greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s where we focus our research and our evaluations of new materials, whether it be supporting companies that are developing these innovative products or even ultimately testing them for fire safety or doing demonstration projects with our Canadian building materials centre in Ottawa.
Senator Wetston: Anyone else?
Mr. Déry: Public Services and Procurement Canada is hiring experts to tell us what is the best in building a building or what is the best component of that building with the lowest carbon material possible. We are not buying the wood or the steel or the cement ourselves; it’s either a contractor or a construction manager that does it. The architect and engineer are specifying the lowest carbon material we could use in that particular project.
Senator Wetston: I was trying to get at the idea that there is a role for industry here, and what I am missing is industry’s role in this. I recognize that we have provincial, we have municipal and we have the national code, and I’m trying to fit in the dynamics of where industry is and how they are involved. That’s what I am trying to get at. When you’re talking about procurement federally, I recognize your responsibilities, but I’m not seeing the industry side, the building side or where the contractors are. It may not be something the National Research Council can answer but perhaps Public Services and Procurement Canada.
Mr. Déry: Senator, that is a really good question but not an easy question.
One of the greening government strategies that is coming into play in 2025 is a 30% reduction in building components when we’re building new buildings or when we are renovating or recapitalizing buildings. That will have a significant impact on industry.
Right now we’re accumulating data in order to develop EPD for these products to ensure that when they create a product, that we have the real carbon footprint of that product, either steel or concrete, and then they’ll have to reduce by 30%. All our specifications will push industry, and they have a role to play. The current innovators will benefit from that in future years because as soon as we have a project and we say we have to have a 30% reduction in carbon in the material, these industries that have been innovating will benefit from that.
The Chair: We will now go to Senator Griffin, who is the sponsor of the bill.
Senator Griffin: I have a couple of questions. My first is regarding PSPC. In the remarks that we received in advance, there was a comment regarding the possibility of proposing a minor amendment to the bill. I’m not sure if you mentioned it in your remarks. If you did, I missed it and I apologize. You were going to suggest that the wording be changed so that “the minister must consider,” would become “the minister shall consider,” so “must” would become “shall,” and that would have consistency with the rest of your legislation with all provisions with respect to the ministerial duties and the world “shall.” If that amendment occurred, would you be comfortable with the wording in the bill?
Mr. Déry: Definitely, we would be comfortable with the bill, and there is something I would like to tell the committee. Thank you, Senator Griffin and Mr. Chair, for giving me the opportunity to talk on that. We would be comfortable with the “shall,” and I believe it’s from our legal services to make sure there is alignment because the rest of the bill says “shall.”
PSPC, as a common service provider, does a lot of infrastructure projects, so if Bill S-222 modifies the Department of Public Works and Government Services Act, it will have an impact on PSPC and on all our procurement for the projects we manage for ourselves. It will also have an impact on the procurement for projects that we manage on behalf of other departments. We are one of 27 custodians in the federal government, and the act applies to PSPC. I want the committee to be aware of that, that it will not necessarily apply to the other 26 custodians. It will apply to us and to us if we do work on behalf of other departments. We do a tremendous amount of work on behalf of other government departments, but some departments have the authority to do their own work and, as a custodian, can carry out their own projects. I wanted to point that out to the committee.
Senator Griffin: Thank you very much.
Mr. Nightingale, how tall will the new academic tower at the University of Toronto be? They say it’s going to be the tallest in North America. Do you know the proposed height?
Mr. Nightingale: Thank you, senator, for that question. At this point, I’m not aware of the approved height of that building.
Senator Griffin: Okay. Senator Oh mentioned that we were at the Brock Commons. It’s a student residence, so I think that gave a pretty good indication of the confidence in that structure.
Senator Klyne: Welcome to our guests, and thank you for your opening remarks.
The whole design-build business is a complex one, and certainly with the assets you have under your purview and coming up off the drawing board, there are many considerations, as we can expect, everything from the intended use and occupants of the buildings, the regional differences of the building sites, everything from bedrock at 6 feet to 70 feet of clay, to muskeg and increased freeze-thaw cycles, all the considerations that go into that regarding foundation; and, of course, there are extreme weather events that we are experiencing. What was maybe a once-in-a-century event might be recurring annually by 2050.
Certainly, in the job, the carbon footprint is ubiquitous. It’s a consideration in almost everything we do these days, as is resiliency, longevity and value for money. At the top, job number one, is safety. We need to build safety and integrity into these buildings. There are many considerations and lots of moving parts.
As I listen to your protocol, best practices, the things that you built into those considerations — particularly around the carbon footprint, safety and value for money, to name a few — it seems to me it’s a fair assumption that, as Senator Griffin just described, “must” to “shall,” and the way the bill is worded today, it would actually complement and perhaps even highlight your existing protocol and what you do already. So it will be complementary and will not be, I’ll say, an intrusion. Is that a fair assumption?
The Chair: You have about a minute and a half left.
Mr. Déry: Thank you, Senator Klyne. As I said, I think it will be a complement. Thank you for describing our process. We’re already assessing what is the best material for the building, in which location, et cetera, and you described that well. Yesterday I was on a panel on climate resiliency. We almost don’t know what we’re building for because we don’t know what the next year will bring. It is location- and city-specific. I think it would complement our work and ensure that we continue to do the work we’re doing already, looking at the best material available on the market in order to build or renovate a building in a particular area, as you so gracefully pointed out.
Senator Klyne: Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to our witnesses.
I think this panel reinforces a point that Senator Ringuette made, which is the responsibility of government, in so many ways, to encourage and enable industry to innovative. If the standards, regulations, legislation and procurement practices are not changed, Canadian innovation stagnates. I want to underline how important that is and how much effort is demanded of you. You have to invest in order to ensure this happens. You need to help us to help Canadian industry to innovate and get that productivity growth. I think that was an important point.
I want to zero in on one particular thing. This is about wood products, not just engineered wood products; correct? This is the use of wood in broad strokes. We have some witnesses coming up on the next panel, so I want to get a sense — and this will probably come from Mr. Nightingale — of the use of tie plates and mending plates in wood construction. I think we’re talking about the other end of the spectrum from what you have been describing in this big building at Brock Commons.
Concern has been raised by volunteer fire personnel whom I know that those mending plates are often a challenge when it comes to stairs and other parts of structures because fire can affect those joints far more rapidly than the wood framing itself. That can cause stairs to collapse. In many cases, the entry, recovery and rescue portion of their work is restricted because of that.
I wanted to ask about those ancillary products. I’m a huge fan of this bill and this effort, but I think it’s important that we consider all elements. I want to ask you what work you have done outside the wood itself in terms of the elements that enable it to be used.
The Chair: In about a minute and a half.
Mr. Nightingale: Thank you very much for that question, senator. I’ll try to be brief and direct.
The building you’re referring to is a hybrid building, where the core is actually concrete and the structural elements around it are wood. Many of the elevators and I believe the exit stairs are in this concrete core. The interface between the wood and the concrete is a challenge, as you have identified.
Research has been done on this, both for seismic work and also for fire safety. These types of interfaces are considered by the codes development committees, the technical people, and there is cross-committee coordination. In other words, this is looked at from a multi-dimensional perspective by resistance, seismic, egress, et cetera. On these committees we have members of the firefighting and fire safety communities, such as the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, whom you will hear from later today. We look at this in an objective, evidence-based way to come forward with a consensus-based approach in our codes that looks at all of these dimensions. I hope that answered your question.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you. I’m glad to hear it. It is a good consideration.
Senator Mercer: Thank you, gentlemen, for appearing. We appreciate your briefing and the knowledge you are imparting to us.
Mr. Déry, you mentioned the minister’s mandate letter and what it says. What it says is one thing, but what it does may be another. Can you follow the minister’s mandate letter from what it says and tell us exactly what it’s doing?
Mr. Déry: As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the intent is for us to support innovation and to work with our colleagues at NRC, Natural Resources Canada and Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat to support innovation and lower carbon material in buildings. I mentioned that by 2025, all of our projects — and this will be a requirement that we will put to engineers and architects — will need to have 30% less carbon in the material.
As an example, GHG is quite important in terms of our government operations. Buildings represent approximately 40% of GHG emissions — not only the building construction itself but also the operation. By 2025, my department will have reduced our GHG emissions in our Crown-owned buildings by close to 92%.
With data and the right analysis and requirements, I am convinced we will be in a good position to do the same with building materials and we will reduce their carbon footprint. There is a lot of technical knowledge involved in the data-based and evidence-based decision-making by our colleagues at NRC. My colleague could speak more about that. When we have the EDP of material, we will be able to say, “Here is what we’re looking to achieve,” and we will be able to measure the achievement of this reduction in carbon in the material we buy and use in building construction.
Greening government operations includes materials, but it also includes the greening of our operation. I think we’re doing well on greening of operation, and now we have to concentrate on lowering the carbon of the material we use in construction.
Senator Mercer: You mentioned scientific value and you talked about the differences in each department. One of the metrics I never hear from officials is how many jobs will be created. How many jobs are created in harvesting the wood as it goes through the process? That seems to be the big change that’s about to happen. If we implement this, the work in the woods is the toughest part of the job, and it’s also the biggest opportunity we have for employment, I would suggest. Do any of you do this kind of analysis as to how many jobs these changes will create?
Mr. Déry: Like Senator Klyne’s question, this is also a really good question, and for us, since it’s project-by-project as to the material we will use, it’s hard to calculate. We know the impact a project has on the entire industry and on the economy and how many jobs will be created by that investment. Since we’re not buying the product, it’s hard for us to say how many jobs we will be creating in each of the industries that made the products that formed the projects. It’s hard for us to estimate. But we know that if we’re building a billion-dollar building, here is the number of jobs that will be creating.
Senator Mercer: Thank you very much.
Senator Marwah: Good morning everyone, and thank you for being here. Your insights are helpful.
This bill is about the increased use of wood in construction. This question is for any one of you: Could you provide us with your assessment on any unintended consequences that could result if this approach is adopted aggressively? Are there any socio-economic implications? Is there any impact on the forestry sector, positively or negatively? Can all of those be worked out and managed appropriately? Are there any consequences that you think we should be cognizant of? I will ask Mr. Houle first, and then maybe Mr. Déry can give insights. Again, are there any unintended consequences if this is pushed aggressively, especially since it’s in the minister’s mandate letter? That means more attention will be placed on this. Is there anything we should be worried about?
Mr. Houle: Thank you, Senator Marwah, for this question.
The National Research Council’s work is to help spur innovation, so our work is typically trying to work with Canadian companies to make them globally competitive. Our work does not provide us with visibility on these unintended consequences. We work mostly to help companies become more competitive globally.
Senator Marwah: Mr. Déry, what are your thoughts?
Mr. Déry: From our perspective, it’s a balance. Wood is one of the components. If there is more building in wood, there is less other material being used. As I said, for us, it’s on a project-by-project basis, where we rely on experts to tell us what the best material is with the lowest carbon footprint to use in a particular project. It’s about equilibrium in the market that if we’re doing one building, and that building is in wood, there will be less concrete and less steel. If it’s in concrete, there will be less wood and less steel.
That goes well with climate change in that, since we’re doing project-by-project assessments of what kinds of materials should be used in that particular project — I think I have supplied a picture of a building in Quebec, manège militaire Voltigeurs, where we used wood. There is another project in British Columbia where we used wood in an airport. We use wood constantly in all of our buildings, even in Parliament, which we’re renovating right now. We have not measured the impact, and PSPC can’t measure the impact, that it will have on the wood industry. We’re probably not the best place to answer this particular question regarding impacts on the wood industry.
Senator Wetston: You may not have any information about this, Mr. Déry, but in Toronto, and I am a senator from Toronto, we have approximately 225 cranes. That means that, in the near term, those are all high-rise buildings going up in Toronto, which is more than any other North American city. I will confirm that so I don’t mislead any of you or senators. Do you have any information whatsoever as to the extent of wood being used by contractors? I realize it’s not PSPC’s area of responsibility, for obvious reasons, but do you have any information on the extent of low-carbon materials being used by industry in these high-rise buildings in Toronto?
Mr. Déry: Thank you. I couldn’t answer that question. I know that low-carbon material is the trend today in all innovation, and the price of low-carbon material is coming down as innovation in Canadian industry is advancing, but I couldn’t answer your specific question on how much wood is being used in that construction. I’m sorry about that, senator.
Senator Wetston: Thank you.
The Chair: Thanks to my colleagues for those questions, and thank you very much, Mr. Houle, Mr. Déry, Mr. Nightingale and Mr. Ferguson for joining us today, and providing your information and your presentations, which we received. Your assistance with this bill is very much appreciated.
For our second panel, we will hear from John Metras, Associate Vice-President, Facilities, University of British Columbia; and Daniel Tingley, Executive Director, Senior Design Engineer, Wood Research and Development. From the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, we have Keven Lefebvre, Fire Chief, Leduc County, Alberta, CAFC Building Codes Committee Co-Chair; and Tina Saryeddine, Executive Director.
We will have opening statements from Mr. Metras, to be followed by Mr. Tingley and Mr. Lefebvre. The floor is yours.
John Metras, Associate Vice-President, Facilities, University of British Columbia: Good morning and thank you, chair, for the opportunity to attend the session today.
I am joining you from the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people.
I welcome the opportunity to answer questions from the committee on UBC’s experience with the use of mass timber or engineered wood in the Brock Commons Tallwood House and other projects we have undertaken. It was a pleasure to host committee members on a tour of Brock Commons in March 2018, including Senators Black and Griffin. It is nice to see you both again.
Brock Commons Tallwood House is an 18-storey, or 54-metre, student residence on the UBC Vancouver campus. It was completed in June 2017. The building features a hybrid mass timber structure that utilizes cross-laminated timber, or CLT, floor plates and glue-laminated timber structural columns with a concrete elevator and stair cores. It was the tallest hybrid mass timber building in the world at the time of completion, but it has since been surpassed by the Mjösa Tower in Brumunddal, Norway at 85 metres.
By the way, to answer a question that was asked earlier, I believe the University of Toronto Academic Tower is proposed to be 75 metres.
The University of British Columbia was fortunate to receive funding from Natural Resources Canada for the Brock Commons project through the Tall Wood Building Demonstration Initiative program. This funding covered the incremental cost to design and construct with mass timber for the first time at this height. We are grateful for the government’s support and are committed to sharing the lessons learned from this project as well as other projects completed by the university. Over the past 30 years, UBC has constructed 21 buildings using mass timber, so we have a long history with this material and institutional building applications.
Brock Commons is unique in being the first of these projects greater than six storeys in height. Brock Commons successfully demonstrated mass timber as a safe and sustainable structural material in a high-rise application. In addition to reducing the building’s carbon footprint, the use of prefabricated engineered wood components allowed for a highly efficient construction process with an accelerated completion schedule, precise assembly, clean quiet construction and minimal waste.
The project also demonstrated that fire safety and seismic risks could be effectively managed in a high-rise mass timber construction. A local fire department official has commented that Brock Commons is one of the safest buildings in Vancouver, which was very encouraging to hear. Student residents have been very complimentary about the building and enjoy living there.
The design and construction process for Brock Commons has been well documented, with case studies available as a resource for designers and policy-makers. The lessons learned from Brock Commons and other demonstration projects supported by Natural Resources Canada have informed changes to building codes and provided the impetus to a growing number of mass timber building projects across the country.
In summary, mass timber is a proven and necessary building material to help us achieve our GHG reduction goals. Based on our experience at UBC, measures that government can put in place to promote the use of mass timber and other sustainable building materials in public buildings and across the construction sector would certainly be welcome.
Thank you again for the opportunity to participate today. I look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Metras.
Daniel Tingley, Executive Director, Senior Design Engineer, Wood Research and Development: Good morning and thank you for letting me have a chance to speak today. I am Senior Timber Structures Engineer and Wood Technologist at Wood Research and Development. We’re part of a larger group of companies that started in Fredericton and Halifax — I grew up in Albert County just below Moncton — and our group has expanded to grow through many countries in the world. We design structures on all continents now except for Africa. We’re an international accreditation service and an accredited test and third-party agency. We hold memberships in Canada’s Bridge Code S6, part 9, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Committee 7, timber structures; and 10, bridge safety committee; as well as being an ASTM voting member. We have been working in this area for many years, since 1981, starting in Fredericton and Halifax. I’m glad to be able to talk to you today about timber and our experience in it.
I can remember when I started at the University of New Brunswick and graduated in the middle ‘70s as a timber engineer and began my work. I began working in glulam beams, these large, laminated timber beams laminated from smaller solid‑sawn laminations. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked on some pretty large buildings that for decades we didn’t call mass timber. It’s interesting because the longest ClearSpan building in Canada is in Belledune, New Brunswick — 535-foot ClearSpan, 12 storeys high at cold-storage terminal. I helped design it. When we think of it, the fourth, fifth and sixth largest ClearSpan buildings in the world are timber.
We’ve been doing this for decades, but because we have a new tool in our tool bag — cross-laminated timber — today we have started to think about timber in a different way. Instead of building large cold-storage and potash-storage terminals out of timber and thinking nothing of it, we’re now starting to talk about high-rise buildings that people occupy. That takes on a new life because we think of fire access and egress, and that starts us thinking about changes to model building codes and so on so that these buildings can be considered safe for public occupancy, but engineers have been designing big-timber buildings for decades.
For me it’s interesting because, right now, this is the largest single infrastructure growth area in the world. Lendlease considers that by 2030, 30% of downtown cores will be built with timber. Why is that? It’s because timber is sustainable. We plant trees. Every time we cut one, we plant two. It embodies and sequesters carbon. The largest sequestered block of carbon in the world today is in the stick build timber owns in North America. Trees convert CO2 into oxygen, and while they do it, they sequester carbon.
At the turn of the century, 82% of all our bridges in Canada were timber. We began a great mass exodus toward concrete and steel in the 1960s and 1970s. When I started my career, timber bridges were on their way out. Now, they are on their way in. I have a bridge we recently won an award for. It’s the Roger Bacon Bridge built outside of Amherst in Nova Scotia. It’s the longest three-lane timber bridge in the country. When we designed that timber bridge, we were looking to compete with steel. The steel bridge had gone 48 years after it replaced a timber bridge that had been there 70 years. We reused the old timber piles from the old bridge that was under the steel bridge and built a new timber bridge on it with a 100-year design lifetime. Here are some interesting features. The new steel bridge was going to create 2,700 metric tonnes of carbon. The new timber bridge created a minus 970 metric tonnes of carbon, and while it did it, the timber that was used in a big part of it was 280 years old, sequestering carbon. If you think about that, the new timber bridge designed for another hundred years is going to contain sequestered carbon of 380 years. These are important features for us as we look at developing capital infrastructure: sustainability, carbon sequestering and low cost.
In the previous session, one of the senators asked about cost. Traditionally today, we’re on the front line of this because we’re part of a bigger group that has manufacturing plants in three different countries. The plants make timber structures inside the plant, pre-machines and pre-assembles, takes them apart, post treats them and ships them all over the world. We’re in the process of setting up another facility in Moncton. These facilities manufacture timber structures and send them around the world. Traditionally, we’re 30% less in bridges than steel and 50% less than concrete in timber.
Timber brings its economical value and its ton of benefits to that side of the equation as well as its carbon friendliness, sustainability and carbon sequestering, which makes it the optimum product in today’s world where we are looking at structures through a carbon lens. When we look at structures through a carbon lens, of course, timber takes its predominance. We will cycle back —
The Chair: Mr. Tingley, please wrap it up.
Mr. Tingley: One point I’d like to make is that we think that timber structures in the tall form are new. The fact is we have been building tall timber for decades. What’s new is we have a new product called cross-laminated timber that improves our tool bag as timber engineers in the designing of timber structures. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Tingley.
Keven Lefebvre, Fire Chief, Leduc County, Alberta, CAFC Building Codes Committee Co-Chair, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs: Good day and thank you for inviting the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, or CAFC, to speak here today. For the record, my name is Keven Lefebvre. I am the fire chief for Leduc County, Alberta.
I speak to you from the traditional territories of the peoples of Treaty 6, which includes 16 Alberta First Nations as well as the people’s Region 4 of the Métis Nation of Alberta. Right now, my thoughts are also with Ukraine. I am an elected CAFC Board Member and Co-Chair of the CAFC’s Building Codes Committee.
I started my forty-first year in the fire service at the beginning of this month. I am active on Alberta’s Safety Codes Council— on past Fire Technical Council and currently on the Building Technical Council. I am joined here today by the CAFC’s Executive Director, Tina Saryeddine.
CAFC represents the country’s 3,000-plus fire departments through their individual fire chiefs and through a national advisory council of provincial, territorial and national affiliate organizations like the Department of National Defence, DND, one of the largest owners of federal buildings. Fire departments vary from small rural volunteer departments to large metro unionized departments. Despite our diversity, we are united in our calling to protect the lives of Canadians. Aside from Canadian Armed Forces installations, federal buildings receive fire protection from municipal fire services, for the most part.
Bill S-222, in the context of federal properties and public works, would require that the minister consider any potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and any other environmental benefits that may allow the use of wood or any other material, product or sustainable resource that achieves such benefits. This is good, but it also opens the door to a number of issues.
The first pertains specifically to wood, which has special meaning to many of us as Canadians. We use it selectively, and we have used it historically. For example, though, it could be disastrous in parking garages with electrical vehicles and lithium-ion batteries charging, in larger buildings not equipped with a sprinkler system or in wildland-urban interface areas. Well-intentioned environmental efforts like using wood shingles and planting additional trees close to interface homes contribute to wildfire damage. FireSmart principles should be followed and are being considered, especially in the event of a disaster. Federal buildings need to be fully operational post-disaster — part of the solution and operations, not part of the problem.
Second, be careful that if encouraging the use of products through government procurement without fully understanding their end use, you may contradict or duplicate already adopted codes and standards that deal with those developments. Recognize, also, the possibility of additives, treatments and unintended consequences of various products and their interactions that could actually prevent the carbon reductions you anticipate. They could even become toxic in a fire.
Third, remember that in Vancouver, the introduction of tall-wood building innovations were also accompanied by significant resources for public-safety training. Unless you are considering such resources and training elsewhere, everywhere we introduce innovation, we fail in its responsible introduction.
The Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes needs to consider this for all code-change requests related to innovative materials and new uses of existing materials. As such, if you pass this bill, we would suggest that a firefighter safety objective be placed within the regulations under this act and ask that you also support the same in the National Building Code of Canada, as highlighted recently in the recent minister mandate letters.
Related to this is the tenability times for firefighters to work within structures in the event of fire and the need to include floor performance standards within the National Building Code. While the subject of academic debate, on a day-to-day practical level, firefighters can and have fallen through floors during a fire, often with fatal consequences. CAFC is working with the NRC and the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes to ensure that Canadians have the same floor performance assurances as we provide in the U.S. and elsewhere.
If you move forward with this bill, it is crucial that first responders be made aware of and trained to handle construction fires with the materials chosen. This is necessary for appropriate response entry, evacuation and response measures.
Finally, we remind the committee that fire-protection systems, including working smoke alarms, fire sprinklers and fire alarms, are important parts of the fire-safety solution. They are extremely effective when professionally designed, installed, properly maintained and modernized to meet new construction and material needs.
In closing, while the consideration required as per this bill is fine, the advice we offer about federal buildings is the same that we have offered in the housing for temporary foreign workers, buildings in Indigenous communities and for our own communities. The same building code should apply for everyone, everywhere. It should be enforced and enforceable. It should have a firefighter safety objective. Training and equipment in the event of an emergency must be considered. While we appreciate the spirit of the bill, a more generic bill for maximizing safety and environmental considerations might be wiser.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Lefebvre.
We will move now to questions from the senators. We will start with the deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Thank you all for your presentations.
My question is for Chief Lefebvre, and not just because he is from Leduc and I am from Edmonton. I am really still concerned about the safety of these building materials, not just because of the combustibility of the wood but because of the potential combustibility of the glue products that hold the wood together, as well as the potential for toxic fumes to arise in a fire, as you noted, given all the treatment the wood has undergone. I’m wondering, Chief Lefebvre, if you have specific concerns about these encapsulated timber products and if there has been research you know about regarding their combustibility and the safety and air quality when they burn.
Mr. Lefebvre: Absolutely.
Senator Simons, we can all agree that our biggest organ is our skin, and firefighters often see cancer earlier because of their interactions with cancer-causing agents such as products of combustion from all types of products under fire conditions.
Innovative products, from an engineering perspective, work great, but when they are facing their worst day, often under fire, and firefighters have to go in and deal with this, it’s never good. There are heaps of carcinogenic and toxic materials that are elements of fire conditions, and that’s not just limited to wood but to all types of products that we encounter.
Senator Simons: We have heard about the residence tower at UBC, and my friend Senator Griffin suggested that the fact they used this wood construction for a student housing building is evidence of people’s confidence in it. I have to ask this: Would you want your children or grandchildren living in a residence made from wood? Do you think there is a way to make this safe, or do you have your own concerns?
Mr. Lefebvre: There are certainly safety procedures and products that we could use to ensure the safety of the building. I don’t know if there is extensive testing with these higher buildings. However, that could follow. We did some testing here in Leduc last year with some after-application products that slowed the progress of the fire, which seemed promising.
I’m not against wood construction. I just think that innovation is moving very quickly and with more volume than in previous years, and the fire service, which has to deal with these buildings when it all goes bad, is not necessarily keeping pace with innovation with the amount of training and the cost of training. In some cases, in smaller municipalities where we are seeing high buildings, they don’t have the capacity to deal with these things. They are all important considerations as we move forward.
Senator Simons: Thank you very much.
The Chair: We’ll move to Senator Griffin, the sponsor of the bill.
Senator Griffin: Mr. Tingley, you mentioned safety with regard to fire in your presentation. You have now heard a presentation that has expressed concerns. Are these at odds, or is the fact that firefighters have been consulted whenever you are dealing with specific buildings adequate in addressing these issues? Mr. Metras, I would like you to address the same question, please.
Mr. Tingley: Thank you, senator.
Fire has been a consideration with timber buildings since the beginning of time. As we work in larger-occupancy buildings, we have always faced minimum one-hour egress fire-resistance ratings. We have had to clad fire systems with drywall to obtain that. In what we call high-rise timber buildings, these things become an important feature. The time for people to get out of the building is critical. What’s happening in the industry right now is that we are working with things like high-strength fibre to increase the fire-resistance rating in minutes. For example, in our tall timber, through the use of high-strength fibre, we can achieve up to four hours for egress. As to off-gases, the off-gas smoke from wood occurs in many ways less toxic than a lot of the off-gases from plastics and other sorts of materials that get into our buildings.
It is true that our primary consideration is with the ability to get out once a fire begins, but people think of fires in terms of stick-built houses, and that is where the misnomer comes. When you are looking at small-dimension wood, like two-by-fours, two-by-sixes, they tend to burn through quickly. When you are talking about mass timber buildings, large-dimension timber elements char on the outside. That charring shuts down further ignition and limits this impact by fire. There is evidence of many large timber buildings where fires have ravaged the building. The timber elements stay intact and stand up, and they actually clean off the char with walnut shell blasting and reuse the timber elements to rebuild the building. A steel building, even under low-heat fires, expands because its thermal coefficient of expansion is triple that of wood. It blows out the joints and it collapses. I think wood in large-dimension timber that we are talking about is really a much better fireproof system than steel and concrete in many ways because it has this natural durability.
There is a new plant we are certifying that is being built now in Halifax that will produce columns for these big buildings that are a metre square for tall buildings. The Saudis will have a timber building up by 2030 that is 126 storeys tall. These are large buildings that are going up in timber as the world switches to a sustainable material and deals with the issues relating to fire and uses new technology to get there, a sustainable material that has great fire resistance properties. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Metras, I think you were asked the question as well. We have about 45 seconds.
Mr. Metras: Fire safety was our top priority in designing the Brock Commons project. We put a number of measures in place to prevent fire in the building. All of the wood structure is encapsulated in three to four layers of fire-rated gypsum wall board. We have a 20,000-litre backup water tank and emergency generator in the building to supply the fire sprinkler systems in the event of fire. The design was reviewed by an independent panel of building scientists, fire department officials and structural engineers who were very comfortable with the approach that we took. We were quite conservative in the design because it was a student residence, and we were comfortable we were able to manage the fire safety risk very effectively.
Senator Oh: My question is to the panel. What are the expected impacts of using wood as proposed in Bill S-222 on the primary and secondary forest products sectors, as well as on sectors that produce or sell alternative building materials?
The Chair: Who would like to take that? Were you directing it to all of them, Senator Oh?
Senator Oh: Yes, to the panel.
Mr. Tingley: We see the impacts consistently right now in this large growth area in mass timber. As I said earlier, we are in the process of certifying a manufacturer to be set up outside of Halifax for North American sales in both Canada and the United States. I’m a Maritimer. I grew up in the Maritimes. It’s my home. For Maritimers, this is a big impact for us. If we can have a plant in Halifax that is producing significant quantities of material in the range of $100 million a year of product to go to Canada and the United States, this is a big economic impact. I believe that the economic side of this bill change is far-ranging because it really makes a statement about what we are going to do with these secondary wood products, what we call the value-added engineered wood products.
Mr. Metras: I would concur with that assessment. The engineered wood for the Brock Commons project was manufactured by a company called Structurlam located in Penticton, B.C. The quite stringent requirements that we had for the specifications for the Brock Commons project actually provided impetus for Structurlam to make enhancements to their manufacturing process, which I think has ultimately put them on par or above European manufacturers who have been in this area for much longer. There has been a real benefit to the value-added wood product sector with the use of mass timber.
Mr. Lefebvre: I may redirect a little bit on the question. I think the total cost of life cycle ownership to the building may not be significantly different depending on the products chosen. Quite often, cheaper products are chosen or different products are chosen for different reasons. But if you look at the total life cycle of the building, including maintenance and the end date when that building may need to be torn down or extensively renovated, I’m not sure if the total costs are significant as far as into the building cost.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
Senator Mercer: Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
The use of cross-laminated timber is an exciting opportunity. Mr. Tingley has talked about a plant outside of Halifax, which is where I live. This creates some other opportunities, but I do want to talk to the chief here for a moment.
I appreciate your concern, and your members are on the front lines if something goes wrong. We are talking about this cross‑laminated timber, but I don’t think any of us are talking about putting them in buildings that don’t have sprinklers. Isn’t that part of the answer?
Mr. Lefebvre: Senator, yes, I believe any tall building will require additional fire safety features, such as sprinkler systems. However, if the fire gets inside the wall, the sprinkler is ineffective. There are areas of the building that simply will not be properly protected. As we have seen in recent years, we found that we were using flammable sidings on the outside of our buildings. We are dealing with that now. That cost lives to find that out. We need innovation and technology with proven science. We need innovation at the speed that we can have an understanding of how we deal with it on its worst day. I think that is probably enough of an answer.
Senator Mercer: Thank you.
Mr. Tingley, when we talk about the use of any product that someone is going to manufacture — whether it’s cement, whether it’s steel or whether it’s timber — it would seem to me — and I’m asking a question because I don’t have the answer — that the use of cross-laminated timber is more labour intensive. What I mean by that is does that not create more jobs than perhaps steel or concrete?
The Chair: I’ll note there is about a minute and a half left.
Mr. Tingley: A great question, senator.
One of the things that we get caught up in lots of times with mass timber in the infrastructure is the direct comparison between, for example, a cast-in-place, what we call CIP, slip‑form concrete tall building versus a timber building. In this mass timber building today, the growth market is the pre-machining and partial assembly of these elements so that when the wood elements arrive at the building site the amount of time on site is significantly reduced and you are able to control quality better. What this does is it trades plant labour for on-site — what we call lower quality labour, not quality from the men and workmanship capabilities but from the control thereof. In the plant, we are able to control quality a lot better, and then send pre-machined, pre-assembled pieces to the site and lift them into place quickly.
In a sense, we create value added. In your riding, for example, outside of Halifax, MTC will use red and white spruce from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a product that traditionally has been substandard in terms of its commercial strength to Douglas fir and southern yellow pine. We use that product to be able to produce large timber pieces in a plant and ship them out to site for quick erection. That creates lots of jobs in the Halifax area and then produces sustainable carbon-friendly products on site that we have already considered the cost of fire issues and off‑gas issues and health issues.
It is just a proven fact that if you look across many metrics, these mass timber buildings are outperforming steel and concrete. If you look at it and study it, that’s the story right now. That’s what I have to say about that.
Senator Klyne: Welcome, and thank you to our panel witnesses. My first question will be for our guest Mr. Metras, and then I have a question for Mr. Tingley.
Just a little preamble on this: The Brock Commons Tallwood House, completed in June 2017, sounds magnificent. It also sounds brilliant in design build and tenant satisfaction. I can repeat that in addition to reducing the building’s carbon footprint, the use of prefabricated engineered wood components allowed for a highly efficient construction process with accelerated completion schedule, precise assembly, a clean, quiet construction site and minimum waste. Add to that that student residents have been complimentary about the building and enjoy living there, and I think I’m going to go back to school. It sounds like a great place to be.
I want to focus on the lessons learned or limitations from Brock Commons. With that, the first question is for Mr. Metras. What was the overall design objective or key deliverable that drove the design build of Brock Commons Tallwood House, and was it a demonstration project?
Mr. Metras: Yes, it was ultimately a demonstration project, but we were really focused on the practical aspects of this project and the use of wood. We were trying to design a building that was cost-effective and that was replicable. We were trying to use wood in the right applications in the project. You will notice it is a hybrid building. We do use concrete for the elevator and stair cores and for the foundation up to the first level. We were trying to undertake a design that others could potentially replicate in other applications. That was a primary driver for the project, in addition to ensuring that we dealt with all the risks associated with fire safety and seismic risks, which was obviously very critical. The idea was to be practical with this project and design something that was cost-effective.
Senator Klyne: Thank you.
The Chair: Senator Klyne, you have two minutes left.
Senator Klyne: Mr. Tingley, are there limitations with mass timber structures? You think about the increased frequency and intensity of storms, and you think about the regional differences like weather and terrain where you built this compared to the Prairies or north of the 56th parallel or the Maritimes, for instance. When it comes to transportation and specialized labour costs of timber, I think you probably have a good regime on the west side of the Rockies, but when you start thinking about moving further east with this, what are the concerns and considerations of going to the Canadian Shield, northern Ontario, Maritimes or the Prairies?
Mr. Tingley: Senator, those are great questions.
Timber has proven itself over hundreds of years. We didn’t just start building with timber in the last 10 years that mass timber has arrived on the scene.
One of the things we have known for decades is that timber has great freeze-thaw properties. It has great chemical-resistance properties. It has aesthetics. It has the light weight. A tall timber building can be one fifteenth the dead weight of a slip-form concrete building, which means that for stuff in downtown cores, you don’t have the subway issues and underneath issues that are created.
Timber has this natural durability in its natural lightweight strength characteristics. Many people don’t realize this, but timber is the strongest material on a specific basis — that’s weight-to-strength basis — of any material. If people think steel is stronger, yes, in a given section it is, but on a weight basis wood is. Wood has this great environmental aspect and heritage aspect and longevity aspect and sustainability, carbon trading.
When you come to the specifics of the environment, that is where is the building going to be built? Is it in a high-seismic zone? Is it in a big wind zone? Is there a high snow load? When you think of these things, that becomes the engineer’s responsibility to make a site-specific design that in a sense ensures that the building meets its applied loads, not only occupancy loads from people but the environmental loads from wind, snow and rain. These are things that engineers have been trained to do with tall buildings regardless of whether they are timber.
So timber becomes just another tool in the tool bag. It should be an equal partner with concrete and steel. Not a secondary partner, but an equal partner. That’s where it is going to today around the world with this mass timber. Timber is coming back to be an equal partner in large civil infrastructure projects.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Senator Klyne, if you have secondary questions, we’ll put you on second round.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to all of our panellists. The majority of my questions have been answered.
I want to direct this to Mr. Tingley, because what we did hear in the first panel is that this bill is limited to just PSPC and not all federal procurement in all departments. I want to ask you in general terms what other changes or legislation, regulatory or otherwise, are needed in order to make sure that we accelerate this opportunity to use wood safely, effectively and cost efficiently in building and capture global opportunities like those that you described.
Mr. Tingley: Thank you, senator, for the opportunity to answer this question, because it’s something I’m passionate about.
I’m just an average engineer. I grew up in the Maritimes. That is my home. I return like the salmon, and I feel like I’m a Maritimer. When I think of my career, 45 years designing large timber structures, bridges and buildings and towers, and I look at these timber structures, I see this renaissance, this resurgence of timber that is so pleasing to me. Canada is a forestry nation. At the turn of the century, as I said, 82% of our bridges were timber. So it’s our basis.
We are moving to a carbon environment. You can’t buy a plastic straw in many parts of North America. We are looking at putting carbon tax on things. Here comes timber as a carbon-friendly material that we are friends with in Canada. It should be an equal partner. Yet you look across the country, you drive from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Victoria, B.C., you don’t drive under or over a timber bridge.
Senator C. Deacon: I really want to get at the legislative and regulatory changes that are needed to accelerate this.
Mr. Tingley: What we need is legislation that makes timber an equal partner. We need to look at structures through a carbon lens. We need to look at structures and consider timber as an equal partner. Look at legislation right now. In many places, timber can’t even bid a job. We are not allowed to bid a job. New Brunswick and B.C. have a wood first policy provincially. No other province. Federally, we need to have that legislation too. If we are going to spend out 50% funding for our bridges across the country, we need to cause the designers to look at it through a carbon lens. That’s just fair, isn’t it? We’re going to tax people for carbon, and we’re going to limit plastic straws. The average Canadian says, “Listen, we need to have timber as an equal player.” If our legislation doesn’t reflect that, and if it allows the bureaucrats to limit structures to just concrete and steel, where is the fairness in that?
Timber should be allowed in. That’s what our legislation should do: Bring wood to the forefront again and allow it to be an equal partner. All the rest of this stuff is peripheral. Can it go tall? Can it go wide? I have said to you already that, 30 years ago, I worked on a design in Belledune with the tallest ClearSpan timber structure in the country. The fourth, fifth and sixth largest ClearSpan buildings in the world today are timber. So it’s not that timber can’t do it; it’s a design deal.
What really needs to happen is that governments at all levels need to recognize this and, in lockstep with their idea to have a carbon tax and limit plastic straws, say, “Okay, through legislation we will open our markets for our products and the money we spend on stuff, and we will open it up so that timber can compete.” That’s it.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you.
Senator Wetston: I want to ask a question that I think has some relevance to the bill that’s before us, and it’s about the issue of electrification. I will direct this to Mr. Lefebvre and Mr. Tingley, but, of course, Mr. Metras may answer, also. I live in Toronto and am a senator from Ontario, but I am a former Maritimer, although we all understand that there is no such thing as a former Maritimer.
My question is about electrification, and it reminds me of what Mr. Lefebvre was getting at from a fire-protection perspective. We are moving further away from gas as an energy source and moving more toward electricity as an energy source, which involves heat pumps, EV chargers, greater use of storage, et cetera. I would like to know whether you have any views as more municipalities and provinces are moving toward electrification. Does that allow for greater use of wood? Does it mean less use of wood? I understand some of the science that you have described, Mr. Tingley, and your passion for it.
Mr. Lefebvre: I happen to have been a registered master electrician for the past 40 years also, so when you talk about electrification, I’ve seen that side of it too. The innovation with electricity and charging the new battery systems, et cetera, are not without issues. We had issues at first when smaller battery‑operated hand tools were exploding, or you would drop the battery and it would explode. That has mostly been dealt with now, but that caused fires. We’ve seen golf-cart chargers that go bad and burn the building down.
My sons are in the fire service, and the other day, my son went to an electric vehicle in an attached wooden garage. They couldn’t put it out, because the lithium-ion battery is self‑sustaining. They create their own oxygen through the fire. They’re quite bright, and you can’t put it out. The only way to put it out is to bury the car in sand or to have it totally immersed in water for a day or two.
Some of these innovations are tougher to deal with. Certainly, there are safety measures that can be engineered or interacted with to ensure a better level of safety. You hear me say “safety” a lot because my focus is on our first responders’ safety as well as citizens’ safety. I would say first responders’ safety first because if we can’t keep ourselves safe, we can’t be expected to help you.
The Chair: You have about a minute and a half, Mr. Tingley.
Mr. Tingley: As folks probably know, wood has the lowest dielectric constant value of the three materials, steel, concrete and wood. In the old days, they used to hot-stick the lines with long wooden poles. Wood has a natural dielectric constant. It is made up of hemicellulose, air and lignin, and because of that, wood provides great insulation capabilities, not just for fire but also for electricity. From those points of view, wood becomes a great option. For our old transformers, they use wood laminations. It might not have been too well liked, but it was part of that durability side, and they used wood panels — wood laminations and veneers — for that separation. So when we think about electricity and we think about timber buildings, they afford a great dielectric constant.
The Chair: We have come to the end of our first round and will move onto our second. We have just a few minutes remaining.
Senator Klyne: This is to follow up with Mr. Tingley. On the mass timber or the size of these timbers, are they still designed and built on location and then you move them for assembly to the location? Are those added costs still competitive? Do you need specialized labour at the other end?
Mr. Tingley: That is a great question.
First, traditionally, mass timber buildings in their current form are pre-machined in a plant and then, lots of times, pre-partially assembled. For example, in our group of companies, our plants pre-assemble huge bridges — 50-metre clear span — and then we take them apart in bits and pieces, and used fixed-end moment connections to wood-weld the pieces together, because you can’t ship anything longer than 17 metres in a truck and typically 27 metres on a ship, but you have to get it to a dock. So we produce these short-length pieces and use fixed-end moments to wood-weld them together on site. We just designed a bridge outside of Halifax that is 35 metres that was wood-welded.
They are pre-machined. If they are outdoor structures, they are post-treated; if they’re indoor, they’re not. Then they are shipped to site, and then they usually have expertise in terms of the reassembly that works with the local site labour to put them together on site. That’s the traditional mode of operation.
These bigger elements like the columns — you heard me talk about them earlier — they will make metre-square columns out of laminated beams. That’s where our industry is going today. Canada needs to get on that train, because that’s where the world is going. It’s a better-quality system that follows quality right to the site through transport. Then, on site, it has the proper detailing to get it up correctly. Does that answer your question?
Senator Klyne: It does. From the perspective of the carbon footprint, that ticks that box off, and it still remains cost-competitive.
Mr. Tingley: Yes, it’s very cost-competitive. As I said earlier, what we see in these tall timber buildings is enormously reduced dead weight. Lots of times we have six-storey parking garages underneath the ground because of the dead weight of the building. It’s not for storing cars; it’s because we have enormous dead weight. So if we have this one-fifteenth of a dead weight in timber, that’s a huge savings. These are the aspects that come forward for these mass timber buildings. I laugh because I’ve been doing mass timber since I graduated. CLT is another tool in our tool bag to make it more complete. I wish I were 25 again, because it’s an exciting takeoff in careers right now. This is a huge growth market. It’s great for our country.
Senator Simons: I, too, wish I were 25 again. Don’t we all.
I have a question for Mr. Tingley. We’ve been talking about using this technology for large construction projects because we’re talking about this in the context of Public Works and those are big projects. As I listened to you speak, I wondered what this kind of prefab construction could mean for smaller or residential construction, for new subdivisions and new housing. Does it have potential there? My follow-up question is for Mr. Lefebvre about concerns he might have about that.
Mr. Tingley: It actually does. We’re seeing what we call multi-residential low-level buildings being prefabricated and built around the world. This is a big feature. Just to give an inkling, one of the projects going on in the desert in Egypt through the World Bank is the quick construction of 2,200 residential units that come in sets of four. They are one storey high. They go up quickly, within two days, and they are sourcing these products in timber to go into the desert because of their lightweight nature, ease of assembly on site and ease of transportation. They are not heavy. There is this global move right now not only to just tall high-rises but certainly to multi-residential units, and I think it will become single residential units as well.
Senator Simons: This is something that could be used in other arenas. I’m thinking about other things in the federal ambit, everything from housing on reserve to housing for the homeless, quick builds to deal with influxes of refugees. Is that something where you could see this being practical?
Mr. Tingley: Absolutely, and it’s what’s going on right now. What you’re talking about is what is actually happening. They’re putting out the let for European manufacturers in Scandinavia in what we call quick assembly portable housing units for refugees. Why isn’t Canada in on that? We need to be in on that, producing the same thing through our producers. We need to see CLT produced all across the country, like our sawmills are all across the country. It’s another tool in our tool bag, and let’s use it to our advantage.
Government sets the trend. If the federal government says, “We’re going to write policy and legislation that considers wood an equal partner with steel and concrete, not a second-class citizen but an equal partner,” then we’re going to set the trend in our country. We’re going to lead the way. That’s why I used the analogy of plastic straws. If we can’t buy a plastic straw, we need legislation that says we will put our money where our mouth is and wood will be an equal partner with these other materials. Let’s put that in legislation. It’s all we need to do.
The Chair: Mr. Lefebvre, very quickly.
Mr. Lefebvre: Senator Simons, it’s a good opportunity when we talk about wide rises for the addition of sprinkler systems. The more wood you have in an assembly, the more risk there becomes to the outlying areas and to the occupants. I have talked a little bit about additional safety features with wood construction. This is the perfect opportunity for a sprinkler. When they burn, they take out areas outside of themselves too. Construction is a very vulnerable time. It’s hard to ensure that sprinkler systems and other safety systems are working during construction, but we can get there, I’m sure.
The Chair: With that, and apologies to Senator Deacon, we’ll move to wrap up.
Mr. Metras, Mr. Tingley, Mr. Lefebvre and Ms. Saryeddine, thank you very much for joining us today. We do appreciate your assistance as we move forward. Thanks to my colleague committee members for your active participation and very thoughtful questions. Those questions brought out the passion in all our speakers, so thank you very much for that.
Senator Mercer: I can remind Senator Wetston, though, that you can take the boy out of bay but you can’t take the bay out of the boy.
The Chair: Next week we will continue our study of this bill with some final witnesses, and then we anticipate that we may be ready to proceed to clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
Committee members who intend to propose amendments are encouraged to consult the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel to ensure any amendments are drafted in the proper format and in both official languages. The Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel provides confidential advice and legislative drafting services to all senators. Those consultations should begin as soon as possible to allow for sufficient time for amendments to be drafted and translated.
It is also helpful to send your amendments in advance to the clerk of the committee. This allows the clerk to organize and distribute copies for the meeting. Please note that your amendment will be treated in a confidential manner and will not be distributed prior to meeting unless you wish it so.
After clause-by-clause consideration, the committee may wish to append observations to the report. It is recommended that members provide prepared text of any draft observations. The text should be short and must be in both official languages, and the clerk can assist your office in arranging for the translation, if need be.
Before I adjourn, I do want to point out that this is Senator Griffin’s last Agriculture and Forestry Committee meeting. She has been on this committee for a number of years, I think from the beginning of your time here in the Senate, Senator Griffin. We’re going to miss you on this committee, and we appreciate what you have done. I know you will follow this bill going through the remaining time, but please know we will carry it on. With that, congratulations, Senator Griffin. We wish you all the best.
If there is no other business, honourable senators, I declare this meeting adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)