THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 15, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 9 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada.
Senator Robert Black (Chair) in the chair.
The Chair: Good morning, everyone. It’s good to see you here this morning. I would like to begin by welcoming members of the committee and our witnesses, as well as those watching on the World Wide Web. My name is Robert Black, Senator from Ontario and I am the chair of this committee.
Today, this committee is meeting on its study to examine and report on the status of soil health in Canada. Before we hear from the witnesses in the first panel, I would like to start by asking the senators to introduce themselves.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, Alberta, Treaty 6 territory.
Senator Burey: Sharon Burey, Ontario.
Senator Cotter: Brent Cotter, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis.
Senator Klyne: Marty Klyne, Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory.
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator C. Deacon: Colin Deacon, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you. Should any of us have technical challenges, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal your concerns to the chair or the clerk and we will work to resolve the issue, and if we have to suspend, we will.
On our first panel, we welcome from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Jerry V. DeMarco, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development; and Marie-Pierre Grondin, Director. As an individual via video conference, we have Nathan Basiliko, Professor of Forest Soils, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University.
You’ll each have five minutes for your opening remarks. I will signal at the end of four minutes that you have one minute left, and when two hands go up, it’s time to start to wrap up quickly.
[Translation]
Jerry V. DeMarco, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are happy to appear before your committee as part of its study on the status of soil health in Canada. I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe people.
With me today is Marie-Pierre Grondin, who is responsible for our report on forests and climate change, which we will be discussing this morning. I would like to note that we have also recently begun work on an audit on agriculture and climate change. It will examine climate change mitigation and agriculture, and likely be of interest for your committee.
Our April 2023 audit, entitled Forests and Climate Change, focused on the design and implementation of the 2 Billion Trees Program and on how Canada tracks greenhouse gas emissions from forests.
The federal government launched the 2 Billion Trees Program to counter climate change, enhance biodiversity and support human well-being. Through the program, trees will be planted across Canada, including on Crown lands, Indigenous lands, in municipalities and on private lands, such as farms. The majority of tree planting activities are cost shared with partners. However, certain groups, such as Indigenous partners, will also be supported with grants focused on capacity building, often with no cost-sharing required.
Although Natural Resources Canada nearly met its goal to plant 30 million trees in 2021, it fell well short of its 2022 goal of 60 million trees. The department had not yet signed any long-term project agreements with provinces or territories, which were expected to receive nearly 70% of all program funds. Delays in signing agreements with planting partners not only significantly challenged the department’s ability to plant the number of trees it planned for in 2022, it also affects subsequent years, which have much more ambitious goals.
Given early tree planting results and issues with establishing partnerships, it is unlikely that the 2 Billion Trees Program will meet its objectives unless significant changes are made.
[English]
Since the end of our audit period, we understand that some progress has been made in signing additional agreements, but work remains to get the program on track to reach 2 billion trees planted by 2031. Even if that goal is achieved, the program’s initial targets for carbon sequestration by 2030 and 2050 will not be met.
In addition, the program missed opportunities to enhance biodiversity and habitat-related benefits over the long term by not designing the program with specific funding considerations for habitat restoration for all funding streams. For example, in the 2021 planting season, Natural Resources Canada, also known as NRCan, funded more than 270 monoculture sites, accounting for 14.4% of the total trees planted. Monoculture plantings do sequester carbon and may be appropriate in certain habitats; however, in the vast majority of circumstances they do not support biodiversity and other benefits related to environmental and human well-being as much as more diverse plantings do.
Beyond the 2 Billion Trees program, Natural Resources Canada, working with Environment and Climate Change Canada, did not provide a clear and complete picture of the role of Canada’s forests in greenhouse gas emissions. For example, emission estimates varied significantly in reports over the years because of recalculations prompted by data updates. This changed whether forests were reported as a net source of emissions rather than capturing emissions.
We also found a lack of transparency about the effects of human activities and natural disturbances on forest emissions, specifically the departments’ reporting on how changes in forest management affected emissions was incomplete. In addition, Canada’s forests are becoming a net source of emissions because of forest fires and disturbances caused by insect outbreaks. In 2018, emissions from forest fires and disturbances caused by insect outbreaks added an additional 26% to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, but they were not required to be included in the reported totals. This lack of transparency and accurate reporting makes it very difficult for decision makers to make informed decisions and for Canadians to hold the government to account.
This concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
The Chair: Thank you.
Nathan Basiliko, Professor of Forest Soils, Faculty of Natural Resources Management, Lakehead University, as an individual: I am excited to join this Senate committee as a witness and would like to commend the committee on the work you have been doing toward understanding soil health in Canada.
I am the forest soils faculty member in natural resources management at Lakehead University here in Thunder Bay on Robinson-Superior Treaty territory. At its inception, we were called the Faculty of Forestry, and we still offer the only accredited bachelor’s degree in Ontario for training registered professional foresters. I grew up on a small family farm and woodlot, and for the last 26 years have studied soils and climate change, including working on carbon and greenhouse gas storage and emissions in forest soils and forests, both in silviculture and in forestation or land reclamation contexts.
I generally see myself as a well-rounded soil scientist and educator, and I am well connected to the soil science community in Canada. I am a former president of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, and I have been very excited to see so many of my national colleagues and friends from the society have already given testimony to this important committee. You heard from my Lakehead colleague and the current CSSS president, Dr. Amanda Diochon. This past week, Dr. Diochon and I had the opportunity to be filmed in the TVOKids’ episode specifically on forest soils as part of a 26-episode series called, “Secrets of the Forest,” and it was hosted by a 10-year-old girl from Toronto, which is really cool. I say this to note that the soil science community in Canada is as committed and passionate about soil education and awareness as we are about our research.
To move on to specifically introducing some aspects of forest soils and climate change that I was asked here for today, it is perhaps a depressing landmark year globally, where the amount of carbon in the atmosphere that sustains the global greenhouse effect is now equal to all of the carbon stored in forests globally. The largest pool of this carbon is stored in soils; not in the living biomass. This is more accentuated in boreal and north temperate forests, which dominate in Canada, whereas tropical forests tend to have more of their carbon in the trees. It is important to think about forest soils and climate change from multiple angles. Climate change alters how our forests function, and this includes how they store carbon and the underlying processes by the microbes in the soils and the trees. Luckily, over the past five decades or so, at global scales forest soils have been acting as net current sinks under global warming. However, there is increasingly strong evidence that this will not persist and forest soils will start losing more carbon than they gain under more extreme climates. In Canada, this will be through associated more intense fire disturbances. It is also important to think of how forest management can help combat climate change. This can be through new carbon storage and ecosystems in land afforestation and land reclamation contexts but also through the provision of bioenergy feedstocks in well-managed silviculture systems, if we can get them to approach carbon neutrality over their full harvest rotations.
Our research group has looked at aspects of both these issues. A large project that I led, which just ended, characterized carbon storage through active land reclamation across the vast metal-smelter-impacted areas in Sudbury, Ontario.
For context, I think the Sudbury regreening program is the largest afforestation project in Canada if not by area, then by years running. Last summer, the 10 millionth tree was planted after 44 years of active work by the city and many partners. Here, we also explored biodiversity and ecosystem services along with carbon storage as one ecosystem service. On the other hand, Canada’s forestry sector is, currently, by far the largest industrial producer, and user of bioenergy nationally. We explored the benefits and potential tradeoffs of intensifying forest biomass removal in silvicultural forestry systems to supply more bioenergy feedstocks. Further, we looked at the potential for biogas production from organic waste streams and pulp mills that are currently sent to land fill.
These two research areas have converged in an exciting way. In the past 12 years, a key focus has also been on how to wisely use waste, forestry pulp and saw mill residuals as soil amendments to help facilitate soil rebuilding and carbon storage and to maintain soil nutrition in silvicultural systems to help regeneration and to get them closer to carbon neutrality over full harvest rotations. We have projects with forestry companies and government partners and also in land reclamation in Sudbury, and we’ve recently focused afforestation challenges in legacy aggregate mine pits, so sand and gravel pits.
I do feel this is an important industrial ecology paradigm that needs to be operationalized at large scales to help meet goals of more sustainable forest management but also as we move into active carbon management. I will stop here. I hope this has been a useful introduction.
The Chair: Thank you, Professor Basiliko. Before we move to questions from senators, I want to remind witnesses in the room and senators to refrain leaning too close to the microphone to avoid sound feedback that will negatively impact the staff behind us.
As has been our practice, I will remind senators and witnesses that each senator has five minutes, for questions and answers, and we will go into multiple rounds if we have to do so. Again, with one minute left, I’ll put my hand up and when two hands are up, it’s time to wrap up. With that, we will start with Senator Simons, our deputy chair.
Senator Simons: Mr. DeMarco, I want to start with you and thank you for your perseverance in coming to see us. I know we had to cancel on you at least once, maybe twice, so I am glad you are here with us today.
Your testimony underlines the problem of making a big promise that sounds exciting and then you have to actually follow through with it. I want to talk to you about something that you said that was arresting, namely, about the fact that we are not including the carbon emissions from wildfires in Canada’s calculus of our carbon emissions. Since this report, we’ve had one of the most extraordinary fire season starts we’ve ever seen with fires across the country, from British Columbia to Nova Scotia.
Is either the Auditor General or anyone else making attempt to calculate the impact of the carbon released in those wildfires in terms of Canada’s overall carbon reduction targets?
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you, Senator Simons. Yes, better late than never in terms of the hearing being cancelled a couple of times. We’re always happy to appear before either this committee or other committees of Parliament, so no problem at all with rescheduling.
In my opening statement, I mentioned that the data we have regarding 2018 in terms of the 26% additional emissions related to fires and insect outbreaks indicates that it’s early in the fire season this year, but we might see a fairly large number again in 2023.
Regarding accounting for it, it’s a difference between what’s permissible in terms of international standards. Canada’s approach to accounting for forestry and the related areas of land use and land use change, which have the somewhat lengthy acronym of LULUCF, Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry. What the Canadian government does is permissible in terms of their accounting method. But we found it is not very illuminating or clear for decision makers. For example, what changes should be recommended in terms of forestry practices, or fire suppression, or all of these things? If we have clearer data regarding each component of forest management, as well as forest disturbances such as forest fires and insect outbreaks, it will be more useful for decision makers to determine which changes should be made either through practices or regulations, and so on. We’re asking for a more transparent approach with more details as to the components of forest management in terms of emissions, sinks and disturbances. With that clearer and more complete picture, decision makers such as parliamentarians, government officials and those working in the industry will have a better handle on what they can do to help contribute to Canada’s overall effort to reduce net emissions.
Senator Simons: Professor Basiliko, you’ve mentioned that because of the nature of the Canadian boreal forest, more carbon is sequestered in the soil than in the trees versus in other ecosystems. Why is that? What does that mean in terms of our forestry management practices? In a way, wildfires are natural and it is my understanding that, as devastating as they can be, they have the power to enrich the soil afterwards. What do we need to do to make sure we are managing our forests to be the most effective carbon sinks they can be?
Mr. Basiliko: That’s a good question and thank you. I guess the short answer our climate is cold or cool, so the trees grow relatively slowly compared to the tropics. In Canada, we have more climate — that is, more moisture and temperature limits on how quickly trees can grow. Those same factors also slow down how quickly the organic matter, dead detritus and litter decomposes. We get more build up and storage of organic matter in the soils and on the forest floor than in the trees whereas in a productive equatorial forest, the climate is perfect. There are plenty of moisture and temperature year round and the soil nutrients limit the productivity. The trees take up everything they can to produce the maximum amount of biomass and you see a lot more of the carbon in the system stored in the living trees than in the soils. I think that means our forests are probably more resilient to deforestation in a lot of ways or to management and harvesting because of those longer term, larger nutrient reserves.
In terms of how to manage forests to think of preserving or enhancing soil carbon sequestration, I think we have a lot to learn. Tying into more biodiverse systems hedges bets in terms of keeping systems that are going to put carbon into soils in different ways. Different tree species and hard woods versus softwoods do this differently. We have a lot to learn, but that would be one way forward.
Senator Simons: Does it make sense for us to plant 3 billion trees, pat ourselves on the back and think we have solved something?
Mr. Basiliko: There is rarely a bad reason to plant trees. Regarding the total net carbon gains — that is, taking extra carbon out of the atmosphere that wasn’t there — globally, I think we have been too optimistic with those numbers. There is some potential for carbon sequestration through afforestation; that is, foresting areas that have not had forests for some period of time. However, forests do a lot of important things and they are susceptible to disturbance naturally. When those other factors come in, it’s hard to say no. Of course, be cautious about how much climate change mitigation we’re expecting from this.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to our witnesses. This is a great meeting for us to be having. Thank you for persevering.
I am from Nova Scotia. The Northern Pulp corporation was shut down three years ago. It was the only buyer of wood waste in our province. There was an issue associated with the First Nation next to it not wanting to receive their wastewater anymore. I am proud of our province for dealing with that. It has created a significant problem because we had one buyer of wood waste.
We have a huge amount of windfall waste in our province because our soil is thin. The storms that come through have created a lot of fuel for fires. The wood waste from lumber mills sits and is now decomposing. We’re in a tough situation in the province.
Acceptable but not illuminating accounting methods; that’s quite a statement. I can’t imagine in my life, as a former CEO, ever having accepted an acceptable but not illuminating accounting method around a key priority. What do we do in our province to start to get ahead of this? I have to believe our forests are not nearly the powerful tool they could be in sequestering carbon and perhaps are taking us in the other direction?
Do you want to start, Mr. Basiliko?
Mr. Basiliko: Sure. A great question, comment and perspective too. The flipside of relying on forests as standing carbon sinks, and trying to enhance that through afforestation at a national level, is that we do manage a reasonably large area of our forests. I would like to think we do it moderately well — not perfectly, but moderately well. There are improvements to be made.
As you mentioned, the large volumes of lower value woody biomass that is sitting, rotting and not going to be used, looking at ways to incentivize bioenergy production; it can be challenging with other energy sources. I am thinking of natural gas.
Ontario did convert a medium-sized thermal plant to burn woody biomass, the Atikokan Generating Station, to balance the market fluctuations, relying on pulp mills to produce this energy, having municipal scale or municipal Crown corporations that produce energy in thermal plants, considering converting to biomass to provide another market for some of these waste residual streams could be a way of offsetting fossil fuel carbon emissions in the forestry sector without relying on ecosystem scale of carbon sequestration.
Then we want to continue to manage our forests as, hopefully, something toward carbon neutral, not necessarily carbon sinks.
Mr. DeMarco: Professor Basiliko covered that area well, so nothing to add myself.
Senator C. Deacon: We’ve just had the biggest wildfire in our province’s history. Unless we are finding a way to manage the forest fire risk in some way, in my mind, in dealing with the wood waste that’s the fuel — carefully, selectively harvesting and starting to get rid of the risk — we’re going to be fighting a real battle with tree planting delivering any benefit. At this point, that’s not what you have looked at in your work. It’s the net benefit I’m trying to get to.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. We are touching on that in a few of our audits, including our upcoming one on climate adaptation. I can comment a little bit about that.
I draw your attention to the first paragraph of our report, even though it was written two months ago; we put in the first paragraph that the effects of climate change will increase risks and negative effects for Canadians because, for example, of the number of heatwaves and forest fires. That’s certainly proving to be true, more quickly than we imagined with the early fire season.
The theme that I would get at in response to your question, Senator Deacon, is a fuller cost accounting and updating previous assumptions and models based on the fact that we do have a harsher climate now in terms of increased frequency and severity of disturbances such as forest fires and hurricanes.
Now, we have to revisit some of the assumptions we have had in forest and land management because of the failure globally to properly mitigate climate change from when we all agreed to do this back in 1992.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Klyne: My first question is for Mr. DeMarco.
Being from Regina, I have an appreciation for trees and tree planting. When Regina, Oskana, was settled, it was treeless grass plains. Today our urban forest is comprised of 500,000 hand-planted trees.
On the Prairies, around farm yards particularly, trees are a nature-based solution and play a critical role in soil erosion and supporting biodiversity, which is important, as you indicated in your opening remarks.
If you drive around in the rural areas, we have a grid system there from the 1930s. We built roads from a lack of anything else to do to keep people employed. Today, it stands to benefit us. If you drive around and look at farmyards and intersections, you will see frees are used. Evergreens on the north, deciduous on the south and west which helps us through the seasonal climates.
I was disappointed to see your letter. I hadn’t been monitoring the 2 Billion Trees program. When it was created, were there prescriptions of recommendations as to where trees should be planted strategically to serve as nature-based solutions and supporting biodiversity, but also these things I’ve referenced that we used them for on the Prairies?
Mr. DeMarco: The program was designed to not just sequester carbon; it wasn’t meant to be a math program in terms of two billion trees multiplied by the average amount of carbon each tree could store, then that would reach the objective. It had two other objectives: One around biodiversity, the other around human well-being. For human well-being, for certain forests, that could be for recreation; in an urban setting, it could be to help mitigate the urban heat island effect, provide shade and green space.
On the biodiversity side, reforestation for different areas that had been degraded, if done well with diverse plantings that are suitable to the site, can have that benefit. The program did have those objectives.
We were disappointed to see that the only aspect of a recommendation that was not agreed to by Natural Resources Canada was part of our recommendation 47 where Natural Resources Canada disagreed with providing additional incentives regarding habitat restoration. I believe that’s shortsighted, especially in light of Canada’s new commitment under the Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December to restore lands.
We shouldn’t look at this as just a tree-planting program. We should look at it as a great opportunity to help achieve those co-benefits around human well-being, biodiversity and meet other targets that are related, such as the new 30% target for habitat restoration under the Montreal agreement.
I am hopeful that Natural Resources Canada, working with Environment and Climate Change Canada, may reconsider that response and make efforts to dovetail habitat restoration and tree-planting initiatives.
Senator Klyne: I agree. There is always the climate change effort as well at the same time following some of those other things. That is great.
Mr. DeMarco: This illustrates what I have mentioned a few times this year, the intersection between the climate and biodiversity crisis. There are many solutions, including the nature-based solutions that you just mentioned, that are a win-win for both addressing one crisis, then the other.
Senator Klyne: Maybe they need a little nudge. We will see what we can do.
Professor Basiliko, based on your opening remarks, I assume you are familiar with our study and the testimony we have heard. From your perspective, do you have any recommendations for the federal government to act upon to support provinces’ and territories’ efforts in soil health?
Mr. Basiliko: The short answer is I am fully supportive of it. Most of the public or Crown land is managed at the provincial level and I think an integration of what this Senate standing committee is doing to promote soil health studies is needed. I think the next step is to integrate with provincial-scale partners, whether that’s Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, also known as OMAFRA and MNRF in Ontario or other provincial counterparts across the country. I don’t know exactly how to do it, but I think that’s absolutely key.
Senator Oh: Thank you, Mr. DeMarco. I just want to follow up on what Senator Klyne was asking you just now.
What are your recommendations for a federal national strategy to improve soil health? What data management tools would you propose to support this initiative? Normally, when I see a documentary film about forests, trees and cutting them down, how long before they start replanting after the trees were completely cut?
Mr. DeMarco: Thank you for the question, Senator Oh. Because our audit was not about soil health specifically, I don’t have detailed recommendations about that issue, but several of our findings and recommendations are pertinent to your question, and I will speak to those.
First of all, there are really two parts to our report. One is about the 2 Billion Trees program, and the other is the approach to cut forest carbon accounting, which is the second half of our report. A much better system of forest accounting, and for that matter land use and land use change accounting, would help inform decisions about, for example, better supporting soil health initiatives if we had a better way of measuring forest management practices, for example, or even agricultural practices, in terms of how much bang for the buck we can get in terms of stored carbon in the soil. We’d be able to make better decisions about that. Because Canada’s accounting method for land use, land use change and forestry is not very transparent and also subject to, as indicated in our exhibit 1.8, to a lot of uncertainty. The recalculation shows forests as a source and then a sink for the same year depending on the recalculation. If we can settle on a much more accurate, clear and complete system for accounting for land use, land use change and forestry, including stored carbon in soil, that will go a long way toward making more informed decisions on what types of initiatives to support at the federal level.
Senator Oh: Thank you.
Senator Cotter: Thanks to both of you for being here and enlightening us on these important topics. I understand the format of a committee meeting is for senators to ask questions, and I’m going to say something that I’ll try to turn into a question if I can, but I can’t promise that.
I have a preliminary observation, following on Senator Klyne. I grew up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. It’s a pretty flat part of southern Saskatchewan. I had a friend who trained at the military base south of Moose Jaw. He wasn’t from Saskatchewan, and he used to say the pilots were instructed when they were returning to the base to look for the tree and turn right. I guess there have been developments, as Senator Klyne described. My friend was from Nova Scotia.
I think most of my observation, which will hopefully lead to a question, is for you, Mr. DeMarco, and your colleagues. My understanding is that among the various goals of the 2 Billion Trees program to be planted is a significant effect with respect to carbon. I don’t know how much that is. It sounds to me like the accounting raises questions about how much that is, but it seems like a lot. Two billion trees are a lot of trees. There has to be a lot of saving there.
Now I come to my irritation, actually. You provide the information for it, which is that, as the Government of Canada, we are holding all kinds of people accountable to make progress on climate change and carbon sequestration is a big part of it. The Government of Canada is looking around at all kinds of people in the private sector saying, do more, and if you don’t, you will pay for it out of your pocket. We’re going to hear some discussions about that when this other bill comes our way shortly.
My question is, why isn’t the Government of Canada saying that you are producing a massive failure on your part? I feel like I’m channelling Senator Plett here, and I apologize for that, but why are we not holding our own government accountable for the part of its task on this project while we go around reprimanding everybody else and holding them financially accountable? Can you help me with that a little bit?
You are part of the project of accountability, but we hear the report and then we get to talking to farmers or energy producers and say they’re not doing a good enough job. By the way, we’re doing a crappy job ourselves, but that’s yesterday’s story or we don’t want to hear more about that. That’s a question, I think.
Mr. DeMarco: I’ll do my best, and maybe I’ll include a question in my response so things will balance out in terms of the accounting so we’re at net zero by the end of my response.
There’s a lot there in your question and comment, Senator Cotter. We’re in the business of enhancing accountability, but so are committees like this. I think we can both work toward a common goal of assessing government performance and where we see gaps in that performance from what they’re attempting to do and make recommendations to help close that gap.
Canada’s history in terms of mitigating climate change is not a good one. You may be familiar with our 2021 report, which shows the trajectory of our emissions from 1990 to now, with Canada being the only G7 country that has an upward trajectory. It’s gone down a little bit since COVID, but it’s still higher than the baseline since 1990 in terms of Canada’s emissions.
What’s interesting in this report is we do talk about the need to take a longer-term view. Even if there’s not much benefit from the 2 Billion Trees program in the near term, the department should be commended for even undertaking a project that does have that long return on investment. Usually governments do focus on short-term initiatives. This program, as shown in exhibit 1.4 of our forest and climate change program, will have significant benefits in future decades. Not much of an impact on 2030; in fact, almost nothing in terms of that target. A little bit of an impact by 2050. But as you go further and the trees get larger, then you’re storing much more carbon.
The fact that Canada does have some long-term programs on climate change is a good thing. With respect to this, I would agree with Professor Basiliko, though, that this is still a relatively modest contribution to the overall net-zero calculation. We can’t get away from the fact that the vast majority of climate change is driven by the wholesale transfer of fossil carbon from underground into the atmosphere. Until we get a handle only that, then whatever changes we make in terms of biogenic carbon in soils, trees, biomass and so on, it will be dwarfed by the fact that we will continue to have a large flux of carbon from stored to in the atmosphere.
Senator Cotter: Can you say percentage-wise what the shortfall is compared to what was expected at this stage or by 2030 of this initiative on carbon?
Mr. DeMarco: Absolutely. We have in our report that the initial projections were that 2 billion trees, they were going to get 2 megatons of benefits in terms of sequestration by 2030, and their initial projection was 11 to 12 megatons by 2050. In our report, we say that rather than 2 and 11 should be 0.1 and 4.3, so quite a lot less sequestration than they had originally promoted at the beginning. They will get that sequestration, but a couple of decades later.
Senator Cotter: Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you to our witnesses for coming. It’s a real pleasure to be on this committee. My first question is to the auditor on their report, and all the witnesses could comment on this.
Regarding the 2 Billion Tree Program and your analysis of how well Canada is able to achieve the stated goals of carbon capture, enhancing biodiversity and supporting well-being, one of the barriers that you mentioned was the partnerships and implementation of those partnerships.
Could you comment more fully on the types of partnerships that were formed? Any data on who got the funding? What was the application process like to be able to be one of the partners? That is something that we have come across a lot in this committee, namely that there are programs, but nobody knows about the programs. The partnerships are not well implemented.
Would you have any recommendations on that barrier in particular?
Mr. DeMarco: We identified the slow pace of partnerships in the form of agreements and long-term agreements as one of the main causes of them being well behind in 2022. They were close to being on target in 2021, but they fell well behind in 2022. That was mostly due to the lack of partnership agreements and a decision by the department to change course and to create what they call agreements in principle, which is what they’re working on and have now signed several since the end of our audit.
Essentially, what we have here is a federal program with a catchy name like the 2 Billion Trees program, but recognition that most land in Canada is not owned or directly managed by the federal government. They’re an obligate partner in order to have this program succeed. Most Crown land is managed by the provinces and territories in Canada. When they launched this, they knew that they could deliver only a fraction of that on federal lands and lands that are managed federally. Essentially, they need to have the provinces probably for two thirds, or at least 70%, of this program. They need a willing dance partner with the provinces and territories. Until they have the key provinces and territories in terms of the amount of forestable land onside with long-term agreements, it’s hard for the private sector to justify adding significant capacity to the nurseries beyond what they already produce for regular reforestation after forestry operations. They also need that long-term certainty to make those investments. The partnerships and the investments in seedlings are key to the long-term success of this program.
Senator Burey: Professor Basiliko, do you have any comments on that?
Mr. Basiliko: Thank you, senator. Mr. DeMarco said that quite eloquently. I would like to reiterate the kind of long-term nature of an investment or proposition like planting 2 billion trees. In our Sudbury afforestation study, the Sudbury Regreening program had been going on for about 40 years, so four decades after air emissions have been secure enough to carry out large-scale afforestation. It’s been happening at a municipal scale but with important input from community partners too.
We would see large gains in carbon storage over four-decade scales in the trees but surprisingly undetectable changes in the soil carbon. It’s not because they’re not there. It’s because they’re slow, highly variable and will take many decades to build up.
I want to reiterate Mr. DeMarco’s comment about the long game on that, particularly as it applies to building up soil carbon stocks where they haven’t been for a long time. The trade off is they’re probably more resilient to logging and wildfire disturbances than the trees themselves. Thank you.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you for being here. As you know, I arrived late. You may have covered this, so I’m sorry. First, I want to compliment Senator Cotter for what he said. I’m a farmer so it’s more difficult for me to say what he said because I may not get away with it. So thank you. I influenced him a lot to ask that question. It does feel like we’re expected to do more and more without support from both governments.
I come from British Columbia. Sadly, we’ve become used to fires and floods. It just doesn’t stop. You’ve had more time to work on your audits because we’ve had that experience for quite a while, unlike my friends. Do you have a different picture for B.C.? I know you said you wrote and audit two months ago.
Mr. DeMarco: There have been increased effects from climate change across Canada in terms of heating. The North is heating faster than the rest of the country, but the country as a whole is heating faster than many other countries around the world. Canada is feeling a lot of the ill effects of climate change.
British Columbia, in particular, in the last few years we’ve seen the forest fires, the flooding in the Fraser Valley, heatwaves and human morbidity and mortality associated with heatwaves and also biodiversity-related impacts in terms of drying up streams.
Senator Jaffer: Plus avian flu.
Mr. DeMarco: Yes. You and your colleagues in B.C. are on the receiving end of what was predicted three decades ago could happen with significant climate change. It’s a shame that we didn’t, as a country or as a global effort, meet the challenge that we had set out for ourselves in 1992 with the climate convention and stabilize emissions to safe levels. We’re now paying the price for not having done so. It used to be a more academic or abstract conversation about what would happen if we had a global rise in temperature of a degree or 2 degrees. Now we see what’s happening.
Senator Jaffer: I had a question for you, professor. What happens to soil in this extreme weather with droughts and floods? It goes on and on in my province, at least in the Fraser Valley. What’s the impact on soil? The blueberry farm owners around me are very upset with what’s happening. We are too but we don’t deal with soils so much. I was wondering what you had to say about that.
Mr. Basiliko: Thank you, senator. That’s a good question. It’s important to remember that, at least in vast areas of the boreal forest region of Canada, fire disturbance and regular pest infestations are kind of natural and have been going on for as long as these forests have been there. But we’re pushing beyond that. We’re seeing, for example, fewer wildfires under the warmer climate but very severe, large-scale fires.
In The Washington Post last week, they had graphs about the amount of carbon coming out of the wildfires in Canada this year. We’re already at 90 megatons. Typically the long-term average, the natural loss, is about 70 megatons. We’re already there as of early June.
What these severe fires do to forest soils is inevitably different than what would happen under smaller, but patchier fires. I’m not a fire expert. I do have colleagues who are, so I don’t want to overextend my specialty or area of expertise here.
We don’t know exactly. We don’t know how much carbon is lost or how it changes regeneration. As things continue to change, we’re kind of pushing outside of our regular understanding. That understanding has kind of been the foundation of how forests in Canada are managed to emulate natural disturbance such as a pretty common paradigm that’s used. We have work to do.
Senator Jaffer: Thank you.
The Chair: I have a couple of questions. Dr. Basiliko, during a recent fact-finding mission in which the committee participated in Guelph, we often heard about the demand for better networking for soil health practices beyond research and connecting farmers to show how the research can be adopted. As a former president of the Canadian Society of Soil Science and an active scientist, how do you see this coming to fruition? How can we make this happen?
Mr. Basiliko: I wish I had the perfect answer to that, but that’s the right question to be asking.
I think some of my colleagues who have spoken to this committee before have mentioned that the state of soil mapping in Canada was always incomplete. It was always focused more on agricultural and fine textured “fertile” soils, and a lot of this was done by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 50 or 60 years ago in some cases.
I think a starting point, especially if there were something to be done at the federal level that would be useful at the provincial management level but also at the farm level, would be a broader, updated soil mapping investment. That could also include more forest land and incorporate things like susceptibility to climate change and carbon stocks. That might be a starting point.
We’re seeing in northern Ontario, for example, in areas where there is fine textured soils, at least, land conversion. There is some agricultural expansion in the north as land prices in southern Ontario become quite high. Also, the climate is warming, so you are starting to overcome some of the climate barriers to producing certain crops and livestock, but the soil maps in these areas are pretty scant. That might be a starting point.
I haven’t been on a farm since I was 18, so I don’t want to overextend my credibility there either, but maybe that would be a useful tool for farmers as well and a way to connect.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I have a question for Mr. DeMarco.
We hear a lot about the fact that soil works as a three-legged stool in conjunction and cooperation with air and water. In your recent report, you announced the government would not achieve its 2 billion tree target, and we’ve heard about that.
I look to programs like the one in my own municipality called the Wellington County Green Legacy Programme, which has successfully planted over 3 million trees in the last 20 years. Are those considered partners? Or are the partners you’re saying are few and far between — or have been — provinces, territories, forest management companies, nurseries, are they the partners? How do we get down to maybe where some of the work is getting done?
Mr. DeMarco: I mentioned the key role of provinces and territories in terms of how probably 70% of this program will need to be delivered by them, but there are many other partners. In fact, for the urban tree component of this program, municipal and grassroots organizations can be willing partners as well. Those trees in the urban areas have a more negligible impact on the total in terms of carbon sequestration, but they have very high potential for biodiversity and human well-being benefits for recreation, shade, local wildlife and so on.
Absolutely, the government can work with not just provinces and territories but also Indigenous communities, local communities, the private sector and so on. They’re going to need partners all across the country in many different sectors in order to reach 2 billion trees.
I should add that we didn’t say they won’t meet it. There’s still time to meet it. We said they won’t meet it unless significant changes are made. We don’t want to write off the program. It’s still doable from the 2 billion trees perspective. From a sequestration perspective, they’re not going to meet those targets by the years they wanted to, but they recognize that. It’s worth doing and course correcting so they can achieve the target of 2 billion trees.
The Chair: Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it.
Senator Simons: This is for Professor Basiliko. You spoke in your opening statement about projects to enrich the soil by using wood processing waste. I don’t think anybody has talked to us about the idea of fertilizing or enriching the soil, but I imagine that would be difficult to do at scale. Can you give us some examples of who is doing that kind of work and how plausible it is to expand it to tend our forests?
Mr. Basiliko: That’s a great question. Actually, Natural Resources Canada’s Canadian Forest Service has a network called AshNet. This is looking at using biomass spoiler ash. Think of the bark that has been debarked at sawmills and pulp mills is combusted in biomass boilers, typically. The mineral, the non-volatile elements from soil tends to concentrate in the bark. There is a pretty large national network of researchers, including my own team that’s part of this AshNet group that the Canadian Forest Service leads, who are looking at, first, the kinds of ecosystem needs. There is a lot of calcium, potassium, magnesium and phosphorus in these wood ashes. From a soil and tree physiology stand point, how do we apply these best? I think we’re actually getting close to having that answer in hand.
The next step is exactly what you’ve said. Operationally, how do we do this? How is haulage and harvesting equipment modified to carry wood ash back to the forest? This is something that is legislated in some parts of Fennoscandia, for example. In Sweden, in intensive biomass harvests, something like 8 tons per hectare of wood ash must be replaced to the forest soil. It’s not done operationally in Canada. Part of it is because of the logistical and forest operational challenges, the other might be regulatory. For example, in Ontario Crown forests, we would never fertilize with synthetic fertilizers the way some parts of B.C. do. Part of that is tied to the idea of trying to emulate natural disturbance. How do we change or maybe adjust forest management prescriptions to say that returning wood ash might be emulating something that might happen under a natural wildfire? So for harvesting forest instead of letting them burn, maybe applying wood ash does meet that sort of paradigm.
We’re at that next step, and hopefully we’ll see some movement there.
Senator C. Deacon: I want to build on what Mr. Basiliko just spoke about, which is innovative methods to achieve the same end. I find the Ottawa-out approach to delivering on targets and objectives lacks creativity too often because it comes out of brains and experiences based in Ottawa. Whereas if we get out into communities and look internationally, we can find some pretty creative models.
Let’s assume we have to accelerate the curve here very clearly based and the data you have. What innovative models have you seen that can start to cut through the provincial federal-provincial jurisdiction issues and what seems to public servants to slow things right down because they have to manage those different jurisdiction issues. How do we engage and catalyze more innovative ways of achieving this very important goal? Have you looked at models like those we just heard from Mr. Basiliko?
Mr. DeMarco: We didn’t get into the individual contracts that Canada signed for delivering this, but we should commend the department for not taking a purely top-down approach — I think you called it the Ottawa-out approach — because they are willing to partner with municipalities, community groups, Indigenous communities and so on in delivering this. That’s a good sign. It’s a sign that it’s a whole-of-society problem, climate change and biodiversity loss, and it’s going to require a whole-of-society solution.
I would say that at a very general level, one of our lessons learned in our report from 2021 is about enhancing collaboration among all actors to find climate solutions. We have a couple of examples involving climate solutions in this report from 2021. I would direct you to look at that. Partnerships involving all of those who are both causing problems but also providing solutions, that whole-of-society approach, is better ton a top-down approach, I agree.
Senator M. Deacon: This is for all of our witnesses. If you have innovative programs saying if this were done we’d make a lot more headway, can you send them to us? They could prove to be a good witness for us to invite to learn more about disruptive, innovative ways of getting results out of this very important objective.
The Chair: Mr. DeMarco, Ms. Grondin and Dr. Basiliko, thank you very much for your testimony today. As you can see, you’ve touched on a chord that’s important to us.
I would ask, Professor Basiliko, that you turn off your camera. You are welcome to stay on and listen, if you wish.
We will now ask our second panel of witnesses to turn their cameras on and join us, please.
Thank you to our witnesses in the room.
Colleagues, for our second panel we welcome, via video conference, from the Royal Bank of Canada, Mohamad Yaghi, Agriculture & Climate Policy Lead, Climate Action Institute; and from the Weston Family Foundation, Lara O’Donnell, Executive Director. Mr. Yaghi, and Ms. O’Donnell, you each have five minutes for your opening remarks. With one minute left, I will put my hand up and when you see two hands up, it is time to wrap it up. With that, the floor is yours Mr. Yaghi.
Mohamad Yaghi, Agriculture & Climate Policy Lead, Climate Action Institute, Royal Bank of Canada: Thank you so much and good morning, honourable senators and distinguished guests. It is an honour to be invited to this hearing today.
As part of the Royal Bank of Canada, also known as RBC, Climate Action Institute, we bring together research insights and industry experts to help clients and communities apply climate solutions. By bringing together economists, policy analysts and business strategists, we want to help research and advance ideas that can contribute to Canada’s economic and climate ambitions. We believe that the agriculture sector is vital to helping Canada achieve its net-zero transition objectives. One way we’re doing this is by studying the role of soil health and how that can make Canada’s farms more environmentally resilient and economically valuable.
The soil under our feet in Canada has the potential to store and sequester carbon, acting as a carbon sink. According to our estimates, that means Canada’s agricultural land can sequester between 35 and 38 megatons of annual greenhouse gas emission, cutting about 25% of potential 2050 emissions.
The world and RBC recognize the incredible potential of soil as a tool to fight against climate change, but key barriers to unlocking this potential stand in our way. Chief among them is the cost to adopt more climate-smart practices to producers. Already dealing with challenging economic conditions, farmers must also bear the cost of expensive equipment, potential yield loss from new practices and other risks. Simply put, we cannot keep asking our farmers to bear the financial risk of this transition, especially without the support that their peers in the U.S. or the EU get.
To initiate this change, RBC partnered with Loblaw, Maple Leaf Foods, Nutrien and the Boston Consulting Group Centre for Canada’s Future, with the support of the Smart Prosperity Institute, The Natural Step Canada and the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, to launch the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food, called CANZA.
At a high level, CANZA is about bringing the right people together across the food value chain, partnering sectors to significantly scale up investment and drive innovation at a national level while being reflective of regional realities. Canada will use the power of the entire agricultural supply chain to spur change.
The aim of this alliance is to cut emissions by 50 megatons by 2030 and 150 megatons by 2050. To make changes fast and effective as possible, two work streams have been established. The Carbon Farming Initiative and the National Biodigester Network Initiative. These will address the largest emission sources in the agri-food supply chain with the goal of reducing by 50 megatons by 2030.
If you think about it, that’s only six growing seasons after this year. It’s not scary.
The carbon farming initiative aims to develop a low-cost, scalable and nationally relevant measurement reporting verification system and create a carbon credit platform to help producers develop and monetize high quality carbon assets. We also want to de-risk technology for producers and test innovations to let them know what might work best in their operations. A first demonstration project in Saskatchewan will lay the foundation for additional pilots across the country that will cater to all farms.
The second initiative of the Natural Biodigester Network Initiative seeks to develop a road map and model for scaling a waste-to-value digestion network in high emission areas across Canada. By creating policy and market incentives for agriculture digestive development, the work stream will provide stable feedstocks and new economic opportunities.
We welcome the mission of this committee and believe one of its greatest impacts can be to help inform policy-makers on how best to create the standardized guidance for a measurement reporting verification, or MRV, framework for carbon sequestration and soil. Detailed, standardized guidance on MRV will provide clarity for how offsets can be brought to market. In addition, the creation of a national soil database can help producers understand what climate practices work with specific soil classes.
With the right approach, we can unlock a golden opportunity to reward producers not only from what they can produce but also from what they conserve.
Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you. We will now move to Ms. O’Donnell, please.
Lara O’Donnell, Executive Director, Weston Family Foundation: On behalf of the Weston Family Foundation, thank you for the invitation to appear here today and address the importance of an opportunity to improve soil health across Canadian agricultural lands. In advance of speaking to you, we polled our grantees and have three points to make that reflect their voices and our own learnings: First, the importance of soil health to biodiversity; second, that Canadian producers are critical stewards and champions of soil health; and they deserve to be included in the conversation and design of future soil health strategies; and, third, that now is the time to help move the agricultural sector toward improved soil health practices.
Throughout the 60-year history of the Weston Family Foundation, our aim has been to improve the well-being of Canadians. We take a collaborative approach to philanthropy and work with dynamic partners to create lasting impacts in Canada. To date, we have provided over $200 million in funding toward efforts that protect and restore Canada’s biodiversity within rural, urban and wild landscapes, from coast to coast to coast.
In pursuit of this goal, we found that the most valuable areas of biodiversity in Canada are often those acres dedicated to agriculture and the most biodiverse part of those acres, as I am sure you know, is the soil. As a result, part of our conservation strategy focuses on sustainable and ecologically based agricultural practices.
The agricultural sector holds great promise for both conservation and biodiversity resilience. To this end we have invested in the growth and expansion of ALUS Canada, an organization which provides expertise and resources to build nature-based solutions on agricultural lands; and we are working in the Canadian Prairie grasslands, supporting best management practices for livestock producers.
Scientific research demonstrates that supporting soil health in Canada’s agricultural lands offers an immediate solution to improve Canada’s biodiversity and help mitigate the adverse effects of climate change. Healthy soil organic matter helps to improve water retention, supports carbon sequestration and makes agro-ecosystems more resilient and better able to recover and adapt to environmental stresses such as drought and floods.
Our research revealed that despite the importance of soil health and the opportunity that agricultural lands provide, many Canadian farms are not managed in ways that optimize soil health. For example, soil organic matter is decreasing on 82% of farmlands here, in Ontario, and growing evidence suggests this trend is happening across Canada. Soil is at risk of erosion, crop rotations are becoming less diverse and there is an ongoing shift away from perennial forages to annual crops.
Through supporting the sustainable agriculture sector over the year, we know that the vast majority of producers are conservation-minded and have an acute awareness of the importance of soil health. Though many farmers want to improve soil health practices on their lands, many legitimate barriers prevent them from doing so. While these barriers vary, primary reasons, as already just mentioned, include the associated upfront costs and the lack of technical or implementation knowledge of how these practices work within their farming context. As such, there is a prime opportunity to address the gap and find the right regionally relevant approaches to increase adoption and support farmers in their goals of economic and environmental viability.
Our foundation launched the Weston Family Soil Health Initiative in the spring of 2022 which seeks to promote widespread adoption of practical, scientifically proven best management practices to increase soil organic matter on Canadian agricultural lands.
We committed $10 million in funding over five years to eight organizations promoting soil health using various synergistic approaches. These approaches include: Financially incentivizing stewardship, supporting outreach and education and supporting market-based approaches toward adoption.
While it’s early days, we’ve heard from our grantees, many of whom are farmers themselves, that to be truly successful, we can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach. Some soil health practices will work well in certain areas of the country and some won’t, or at least until other conditions are met. Any shift toward improved soil health must not come at the expense of productivity and the economic realities of running a farm. Producers require a menu of options, and access points for support to help this shift occur at a meaningful scale.
In conclusion, thank you for your willingness to support soil health. We encourage you to continue to listen and learn from a variety of producers. It will take their engagement to create the shift needed to move toward a more soil-centred agricultural sector and the commitment of the Canadian government to ensure measures are in place to protect our biodiversity. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much to our witnesses. We will start with questions. I will take the chair’s prerogative and ask the first question.
Dr. O’Donnell, you talked about the $10 million you committed to this soil program. Whom did you coordinate with for the implementation? Was it provincial groups? How did you determine which practices were most necessary for best management practices, and which researchers did you consult, if any? How did you come up with that?
Ms. O’Donnell: We did an almost year-long consultation practice with a huge number of researchers. I don’t have the list, but they were national. I’m happy to share that at an appropriate time or in a different way.
In terms of how we launched the program, we did an open call and asked organizations whom we could provide funding to come to us with ideas. We have a wide range of different organizations of different sizes across the country that applied and some of those were funded.
In terms of the initiative we’re doing, there are two parts to it. The real experimentation of what we’re exploring is the incentives and the approaches that will help farmers take that first step forward or help them take the second step forward. That’s what we are testing right now. I don’t have the answers to what those will be. We focused on three best management practices, cover cropping, crop rotation and 4R nutrient management. The reason we focused on this and asked applicants to include those in their approaches was because we found they had the most scientific evidence behind them. Through that consultation, the farming community already understood those practices, generally had a good sense of them and were trying to adopt them. Third, it was that socialization and understanding really were already there. We didn’t limit our applicants for grants to only stick to those, but we wanted those to be at least included in what they proposed for their solutions.
The Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you for your work on this.
Senator Simons: I want to start with Mr. Yaghi. I am very interested in the idea of setting up carbon markets that really work and have meaningful, consistent economic value. But I worry. We’ve talked to a number of people who are experimenting with different models and none of them link up coherently.
How do we establish the carbon market for this country that is functional and where we’re not just exchanging good conduct ribbons but actually having something that is a marker of value?
Mr. Yaghi: That’s a great question, thank you very much. First, when we look at the measurement reporting verification framework, the measurement component has to be fundamental when we are looking at this, because we want to increase the confidence of anyone who does purchase such products. Measurement will be a fundamental way to look at this, because if we can increase the confidence that we have in the measurement of carbon sequestration, that will unlock a golden opportunity for us. What we see as a viable step forward is, first, perfection as the enemy of execution. We have to try different programs and see what will be the most effective not only for people who purchase credits on the open market, but also for producers themselves, because at the moment we do see administrative costs of insurance being a huge bulk of the price of credits at the moment.
We have to enable these programs in a way that it is scalable and affordable for producers so they can benefit as much as possible. By enabling policy-makers and Ottawa to put out a standardized guideline for measurement, that will help push the ball forward on this because then that confidence for consumers who purchase such products will increase as well.
Senator Simons: I will ask my second question to Professor O’Donnell. I am interested to know more about your Prairie grasslands work. There are parts of southern Alberta this year that have already reported that they will have no crop because of drought. There are many parts of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan that were designed by God and nature to be grazed by large animals and not to have plantings. How do we encourage more people who are in those areas to either be growing perennial forage or not to rip up grassland to plant a cash crop where maybe the only cash value is in the insurance?
Ms. O’Donnell: That’s an excellent question. Our efforts in the Prairie grasslands we deliberately kept separate from our efforts around soil health. The Weston Family Soil Health Initiative is separate from our work in the grasslands. The large approach we are taking is that we’re trying to give as much choice to producers, especially those in the Prairie grasslands who don’t want to convert their grasslands to crops. How do we help them make that choice and sustain the grasslands? That is a whole different suite of tools that we have been using and working with a number of different partners to help incentivize. Things like helping them have more affordable access to grazing land, having friendly animal fencing and improvements to their land, so financially supporting them. I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all answer, but we are trying to give optionality to all of the producers so they can make the best choices that they want in terms of stewarding their land.
Senator Simons: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Klyne: My first question is for Mr. Yaghi. A report that the RBC authored entitled 92 to Zero: How economic reconciliation can power Canada’s climate goals stated that Canada’s road to net zero will rely heavily on vital sources of capital held by Indigenous nations. Much of the soil we need to protect is found on lands that are held by Indigenous nations and these lands are nature-based solutions toward climate progress. Can you tell this committee how RBC’s Climate Action Institute has been consulting with Indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge? Are there any lessons or ideas in that regard that you can share with us to add value to our study?
Mr. Yaghi: Thank you so much for your question. First, Indigenous communities across Canada have historically practised climate-smart practices for millennia. As well, it’s about learning what Indigenous agriculture has done over the centuries. There is a strong recognition of that.
I know I’m getting outside of our lands for one moment, but when we look at our oceans, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. A lot of Indigenous communities along the coastlines keep intact eelgrass and salt marshes that sequester massive amounts of carbon, which also presents a great opportunity.
Indigenous communities are going to be vital for this net-zero transition. Learning from them not only the practices they have conducted over the centuries, but also about what they are reinvigorating in their own communities with their agricultural prowess. We can see in Saskatchewan there are a few communities that are taking to the land again in practising such climate-smart initiatives. This is also a fundamental part of our research when we’re looking at what such communities are doing, because Canada can learn a lot from these communities as well.
Senator Klyne: Hopefully RBC comes up with a report, maybe through Mr. Stackhouse.
I have a question for Ms. O’Donnell. I’m impressed that Mr. Yaghi was referencing the prowess of the Indigenous agriculture areas. Many Canadians are not aware the vast amount of arable lands and pasture lands held by Indigenous nations, not to mention the ecologically valuable nature of the rich ecosystems that Indigenous nations protect vigilantly.
With respect to the Weston Family Soil Health Initiative and the Weston Family Prairie Grasslands Initiative, can you share with the committee how those initiatives have proactively reached out to Indigenous nations to assist in their efforts to not only promote more adaptive and resilient agricultural lands but also to protect and restore Canada’s most ecologically valued and threatened ecosystems that are held by Indigenous nations and presided over vigilantly?
Ms. O’Donnell: Thank you. It is an excellent question.
There are a few things I can touch upon. In our exploration and consultation process, we do reach out to a wide variety of different individuals and organizations, many of whom can represent exactly what you’re describing. That’s in the early inception phase.
In terms of our approach, then, for most of our competitions, we do try to have an open competition. This allows many groups, representatives and representative organizations to put their ideas forward, access and speak about their communities.
In terms of our soil health program one of the organizations that we have provided funding to is the University of Saskatchewan. Their project is specifically Indigenous soil health learning circles. The goal of that project, specifically, is to establish soil health learning circles that will share knowledge from both an Indigenous perspective as well as a Western science perspective. The people they are targeting and working with are Indigenous farmers or non-Indigenous farmers who are farming and managing Indigenous land.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you to our witnesses.
Dr. O’Donnell, I will start with a comment. I think the number of initiatives your organization is involved with is great. I got to learn a lot about wild bees Nova Scotia last year thanks to a program that you fund. There are 120 different kinds of wild bees in Nova Scotia, colleagues, and some of them pollinate everything we grow in Nova Scotia. There are options to the traditional honeybee. “Come visit us. We’ll sting you to death.”
The one thing we struggled with the most is trying to find where we can encourage more coordinated efforts at a federal level between AAFC, ECCC, ISED because of the number of innovative approaches and technologies needed and NRCan. There doesn’t seem to be much horizontality cutting across these departments and different responsibilities to make sure we get action on the ground. As you said, Mr. Yaghi, perfection limits progress in every case, and perfection is what we strive for in Ottawa; we don’t move until we find that elusive perfection. It’s a problem.
You are both working on important initiatives. What is the one thing you would like us to focus on trying to get a public policy effort that puts wind at your back on what you’re doing?
Ms. O’Donnell: It’s a good question, but it’s a hard one to answer.
In terms of soil health, specifically, what we have heard from our grantees is to keep it as simple for the farming community as possible. There will be complexities in every organization, and I can understand and appreciate the complexities you have as a government, but we don’t want those complexities to translate to the producers. As we have heard, they already have so much stress. They are carrying this burden of producing food, trying to keep our earth healthy, and they have economic and generational stresses they are dealing with on their farms.
We really need to do as much as we can to make entry into any program or policy as easy for them as possible and as streamlined.
I would also say that in terms of soil health we have heard directly from our grantees, many of whom are producers that one size does not fit all. A menu of options — having a selection of tools — they can trial and access is critical. That way, depending upon where they are regionally in the country, they have options at their disposal. The benefit of that is also that you can engage and put your arms around as many producers as possible, no matter where they are in the continuum of exposure to different soil health practices.
I will stop there to allow Mr. Yaghi to speak.
Senator C. Deacon: Those are great suggestions.
Mr. Yaghi: Let’s start with the thematic thing, which is de-risking this transition for a lot of our producers out there. Sixty-five per cent of Canadian farmers have already adopted one form of climate-smart practice, whether it’s no tillage or cover crops. It’s about helping that transition by de-risking it financially for them.
One way we see that happening is through the development of a measurement reporting verification framework. If Ottawa can provide more guidance about the establishment of such a framework, this will help a lot of the carbon off-market to develop in its own way. Whether through carbon offsets or insets, it will be incredibly helpful and more lucrative for producers out there to benefit from these programs. At the moment, they’re not as profitable as they should be.
Last, and this is a personal request — and unfortunately, we only have five minutes per senator, but I could take five hours on this — I love copying other jurisdictional policies. When you look at Australia, they have a National Soil Archive. They are either establishing it now or it has been established. One of the benefits of that National Soil Archive is that it helps inform farms across the country of what practices are taking place according to soil and subsoil classes to help them understand better what practices are less risky for them. By enabling them to see that information — it is a tool at their disposal to better plan for the future.
Ultimately, when we look at other countries, like the U.S. and the EU, pumping billions into programs like the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities in the U.S., which is $20 billion, Canada is providing some funding, but it’s not the only policy we should have on the menu. It’s not a silver bullet. We should have a series of options for farmers to help them extract as must have value from this transition as possible, too. Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you both very much. Those are great suggestions.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Mr. Yaghi, just so you know, we do have the Australian soils advocate, Penny Wilks, as an upcoming witness, so we will be hearing more about that opportunity they have put in place.
Mr. Yaghi: Perfect.
Senator Cotter: Thank you.
Mr. Yaghi, I thought you were channelling our chair. We paid a decent amount of attention to what’s happening in Australia, and we have ideas about the ways such could be reflected in our own work.
I have two questions. The first question builds upon the question Senator Klyne asked about Indigenous farmers and farming. Not too long ago, the Governments of Canada and Saskatchewan struck arrangements called treaty land entitlement framework agreements that made available about three quarters of a billion dollars to First Nations that didn’t get the full amount of land they were entitled to under the treaties 100 or more years ago. A significant amount of that money was invested in farmland in, around or near existing First Nations reserves.
I am told a lot of that land, perhaps because of not sufficient farming expertise, has been rented out. We have heard testimony at this committee about the degree to which renters don’t have quite the same long-term commitment to land and, therefore, its careful management and stewardship as owners. But that is in the process of changing.
I am wondering about the degree to which that connects to the banks and other financiers, to see the value of that kind of transition in places where modern farming practices might be informed by traditional Indigenous uses of land. That’s my question for you.
Dr. O’Donnell, regarding these two significant initiatives, do you have what might be called measures of success? At the end of the completion of these projects, how will you have a sense of whether you got what you hoped out of the investment that your foundation made along the various lines?
Mr. Yaghi: Ms. O’Donnell, do you want to go first?
Ms. O’Donnell: Why don’t you go first?
Mr. Yaghi: To your first question, senator, a lot of the practices we see on Indigenous lands today are those same climate-smart practices being promoted worldwide. When we look at 30,000-foot level, they are exciting for a lot of folks out there because of their promise to sequester carbon. The challenge right now is measuring that carbon sequestration. Especially for Indigenous communities — we’ve seen it in a few communities in Saskatchewan — that are building back their agricultural capacity, we would like to see more of that. There is a long history to this as well. The bank is absolutely favourable toward seeing communities re-enter the ag sector. It’s also important to note that with land rental, a lot of landowners today are looking at their land and seeing how best to understand the carbon stock of their land so they can keep their land resilient as well. When we talk about sustainability, it’s also about soil health. Soil health is about how we make our lands more resilient and healthy for our future generations.
The Chair: Thank you.
Dr. O’Donnell, you do have time, so take your time to answer the question.
Ms. O’Donnell: Okay, thank you.
That’s an excellent question. We do our best to set up some form of metrics before any major initiative that we do. That, again, is usually through the consultation process with the advisers and organizations that are helping us shape a program. For example, in our Weston Family Soil Health Initiative, we are hoping that by the end of this initiative, we will have improved approximately 1.5 million acres of agricultural lands by including the best management practices that I mentioned — cover crops. That’s an example of one of the metrics we are hoping to achieve. We’re hoping to engage approximately 20,000 producers nationally through these eight organizations that we’re working with. We’re hoping to train and educate approximately 7,000 producers on new practices.
These are the kinds of things that we set out for ourselves. That evolves right from the ideation and design of the program, and once we have identified our grantees, we continue to refine those.
That being said, we really do view ourselves as being in the philanthropic space of being able to take risks. If we fail those metrics, we learn from them. The hope for our programs and initiatives is that we can share these learnings with the government, banks and whoever is interested in launching programs. We can tell them that this is where we’ve achieved success and this is where we’ve failed. We do see ourselves as having that risk capital to trial some of these things.
Senator Cotter: You are more knowledgeable and sophisticated than me on this by far. One of the advantages you have as well, based on the information and learning that’s achieved through this soil health initiative, is being able to get that message out to the group you identified and more broadly. It seems to me the more you’re able to do that, the more it will catalyze activity by more than just the early movers on a lot of these questions. Maybe instead of doing an ad about bread, Mr. Weston can do an ad about soil health, so we can all watch it on television.
Ms. O’Donnell: I can’t speak on his behalf, but I can say that at the Weston Family Foundation, we are totally invested in doing exactly what you’re saying. Our Prairie Grasslands Initiative is a few years more mature than the Soil Health Initiative. We’re just embarking on an engagement strategy that is not only about engaging those organizations with each other but helping them engage those who are less familiar with and less versed on the opportunities and options there.
We completely agree that dollars matter in terms of helping these organizations roll out their activities, but we know that the platforms, the message and spreading the word are equally as valuable, if not more. So we are now focusing quite a lot on that.
Senator Cotter: Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: I want to focus in on one challenge that has frustrated some of us — probably all of us — in that the way the federal government has been approaching this issue is not to reward early adopters in terms of those who have been utilizing best practices for quite some time — specifically no-till, but others as well. As someone who’s spent my life building innovative businesses, I personally find that troubling. It’s really important to reward early adopters because Canadians tend to be — we’re risk takers, but we don’t necessarily lead the world in some areas of risk. Where we need to — and this is one — I think it’s important that we not have the late folks doing better than the early folks.
Do you have recommendations about how to create a fair incentive system and market system — as you spoke to, Mr. Yaghi — based on measurement verification and frameworks that doesn’t disproportionately reward the latecomers and negatively disincentivize the early adopters?
I’ll start with you, Mr. Yaghi, and then maybe go to Dr. O’Donnell.
Mr. Yaghi: Thank you for the question. It’s an important topic, of course. Early adopters in this transition should absolutely be rewarded.
At the moment, there are a lot of different initiatives happening to seek and find ways to reward these early adopters. The most interesting program I see right now is happening in the United States with the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. Part of that program of $20 billion is being encouraged to early adopters. Now, the results of that program have not been released. I haven’t seen those results, but their emphasis on rewarding early adopters is an interesting one because they will be the primary participants of this program, or they’ll get preferential treatment for any application they submit. When we talk about new mechanisms of funding or programming here in Canada, early adopters should be highlighted as those we should learn from and reward them for those efforts.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you very much.
Ms. O’Donnell: Your questions are excellent, and it’s gotten my mind thinking about that as well.
What I can say is that many of the early adopters are actually now our grantees who are trying to promote these practices to their peers or their communities. Often what we encourage with our grantees is to not have programs that only allow those who have not trialled anything before. I wouldn’t say that they’re specifically parsing out early adopters, but we do try to create our programs so that those who are first to enter or those who have consistently been doing these practices still have opportunities to be rewarded, incentivized and supported. That’s the approach we’ve been taking.
I would imagine that the more risk involved in a practice, the higher the reward should be. I think that’s a fair thing to be asking. They become ambassadors, and you try to give follow-on funding, or you try to encourage them to take that next step. That’s very much an approach we use in our programmatic style and design.
Senator C. Deacon: I would like to just keep diving in on that, because I think it’s a really important concept — the fact that you have early adopters who have been risk takers. How do we keep helping them lean into more and more effective practices and generate the evidence that allows them to share those practices or encourages neighbours and peers to adopt those practices?
This is to both of you. Do you have specific suggestions that you could give us to make sure that we have recommendations that are based on some examples of where this has been successful before? That evidence is going to be important because this isn’t what’s happening right now. I think it’s something we are all troubled by. If you can give us any examples — share those with us via the clerk or quickly speak about any of them right now — we’d be grateful.
Ms. O’Donnell: I can speak to one very quickly. We’ll share all this information on all the projects we’re supporting after this hearing.
The Assiniboine Community College is a grantee that we’re supporting. They are working specifically in the Prairie provinces. What they are doing is building a farmer-led innovative network of regional communities of practice. They’re spending a lot of time curating these hubs of farmer groups so that they can do exactly what you’re describing, senator. They’re matching the right farmers with the right experience and similar types of land constraints or practices or familiarity. What they’re doing is trying to create this momentum among these communities of practice to share and become ambassadors. To connect those hubs with each other, they have a sophisticated means of bringing those learnings and insights together and bringing the hubs together so they don’t remain siloed.
It’s early days for that, but we’ve seen great promise in the reports and discussions we’ve had. Again, that’s a very farmer-led initiative, but there’s a trust, goodwill and a resonance that happens with those kinds of efforts. I’ll stop there.
Senator C. Deacon: Thanks very much.
Mr. Yaghi, it sounds like Australia has some examples of how to share that information more systematically. If you can speak to that and any other thoughts you have.
Mr. Yaghi: Absolutely. I would also highlight their funding for active soil testing as well, to take that cost off of farmers at the moment. When we look at the different ways we can measure soil carbon sequestration, you have soil sampling, remote censoring and modelling as well. Taking the burden off of producers will be extremely helpful for this transition.
In regard to early adopters, I would highlight again the Climate-Smart Commodities program in the U.S. where they’re going to give the early adopters that preferential treatment. If we can do something similar here, that would be motivating for a lot of folks.
In addition, if they win, we all win. Demonstrating that early adopters can get that paycheque for not only what they produce but what they conserve is going to be vital, because they are going to demonstrate to everyone else that this is a new revenue stream that producers can take advantage of. If we get it right with early producers, it’s going to have a domino effect across the sector, I believe.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you both very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Deacon. Mr. Yaghi and Dr. O’Donnell, upfront I’d like to apologize that we’ve had to cancel on you before, so thank you for persisting with us.
On behalf of my colleagues, thank you for your participation today. As you can note, you’ve raised the interest of many of us around the table, and your assistance with this study is very much appreciated.
We’re going to go in camera now, folks. Before we do, I want to thank my colleagues for your participation and also thank the folks who support us in our offices and behind us to make sure that these witness hearings are available for others to see and for us to look at afterwards. Thanks to everyone involved.
With that, I would move that we go in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)