Timber Supply — Issue No. 18 — Thursday, July 5, 2012 (HTML)

Present: John Rustad, MLA (Chair); Norm Macdonald, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Bill Routley, MLA; Ben Stewart, MLA

1. The Chair called the Committee to order at 4:02 p.m. and made opening remarks.

2. The following witnesses appeared before the Committee and answered questions.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
TIMBER SUPPLY


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	467
K. Cook
B. McNaughton
Z. Parker
G. Arnold
F. Robbins
I. Johnson
F. Laceese
M. Baptiste
S. Zirnhelt
B. Macnair
M. Kruus
R. Hood
F. McMechan
R. Saugstad
K. Newsted
J. Perry
M. Calabrese
N. Davis
K. Day

J. Rustad (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. My name is John Rustad. I'm the MLA for Nechako Lakes and Chair of the Special Committee on Timber Supply. I think I'll start with introductions of the members of the committee, starting with Eric on my right.

E. Foster: Good afternoon, and thanks for coming. I'm Eric Foster. I'm the MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

B. Stewart: Good afternoon. My name is Ben Stewart. I'm the MLA for Westside-Kelowna.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon. I'm the MLA for Columbia River–Revelstoke. My name's Norm Macdonald.

J. Rustad (Chair): Also, with our committee we have two special advisers that have been appointed — Larry Pedersen and Jim Snetsinger — both former chief foresters in the province of British Columbia. Sitting up here with me is Susan Sourial, who is our Committee Clerk, and at the back we have Jacqueline Quesnel, who is also with the Clerk's office. For anybody who is doing a presentation today or who wants to register for potential for an open-mike period afterwards, please see Jacqueline at the back.

Also, everything that the committee does is recorded and broadcast live through Hansard Services. So travelling up with us today, with Hansard Services, is Michael Baer and Jean Medland. Believe me, it's amazing the job that those two folks do in terms of teardown and setup through this whole process and through all of what Hansard does in terms of recording.

The Special Committee on Timber Supply was struck in May with the purpose of looking at the mid-term timber supply in the areas that have been impacted by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. The mountain pine beetle epidemic has done some significant damage to our mid-term timber supply. It's estimated that throughout the impacted area, which is roughly the Houston-Smithers area down to 100 Mile House or into the Kamloops-Merritt area along Highway 16…. The eventual falldown effect through that area is about the equivalent of ten million cubic metres of wood. That's about the same as the wood supply that would be required for eight sawmills.

So it's a very significant issue we're looking at. What we've been asked to do is try to see if there are some ways that we could consider mitigating some of that potential impact.

The committee, as I mentioned, was struck in May. We have to have a final report done by August 15, so we're out doing community consultation. Two weeks ago we started community consultation in Smithers, and we went all the way down the Highway 16 corridor out to Valemount, including Fort St. James and Mackenzie.

For this week we did a forestry tour yesterday, going out to look at some of the issues on the land base. Today we started off in 100 Mile House. This afternoon we're here in Williams Lake. Tomorrow we'll be in Quesnel in the morning and then wrapping up in Prince George in the evening. Next week we're doing three days of provincial meetings from the ninth to the 11th and then wrapping up the tour on the 12th in Merritt and Kamloops.

People have an opportunity, also, to provide us with a written submission, which can be sent to the committee by July 20, the cut-off date. The website for information as to how you can give us a presentation is www.leg.bc.ca/timbercommittee.

At this time I'd also like to recognize a couple of other people that are here with us today. Our current chief forester, Dave Peterson, is with us today. Dave has been travelling with us sort of throughout the schedule, taking time off from his work to do this. At the end of the day, I guess, whatever recommendations will be coming forward ultimately are going to end up on his desk, to whatever extent that may be.

Also with us is MLA Bob Simpson, who is attending the meeting here today with us.

The process through this consultation is that we'll start off with a discussion with mayor and council. We will then have an opportunity for discussion with the First Nations. Then we'll open up to the public input component.

At this time I would like to invite our first presenter, the hon. Kerry Cook, to come up and give us her presentation from Williams Lake.

K. Cook: First off, I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of mayor and council to the special panel. This is such an important issue for the city of Williams Lake, the region and, of course, the province. We appreciate you taking the time to meet with everybody today.

So I'd like to introduce…. To my right I've got Al Madrigga, who is the city's manager of economic development, and to my left I've got Brian McNaughton, who is the consultant for the city on this particular issue.
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I'll start off.

My name is Kerry Cook, and I'm the mayor of Williams Lake. On behalf of the city councillors and citizens, welcome to our community. And we've just said that. Thank you for the opportunity to provide input into the mid-term timber supply issue.

The forest industry is important to the city of Williams Lake. It has been, is and must continue to be an economic driver for the city and the entire Cariboo-Chilcotin region. As such, the city supports the development of a mitigation strategy and plan that addresses the forecasted mid-term timber supply shortages in the Williams Lake timber supply area.

However, the city feels that there are some important considerations that a timber mitigation strategy and plan must recognize. First, timber supply and operating circumstances are unique to each TSA. A mitigation plan and strategy needs to be tailored to each timber supply area. A one-size-fits-all approach simply won't work.

Second, mitigating mid-term timber supply isn't just about trees and logs. It involves people, communities and the environment. Mitigation must be done in such a way that it will not adversely affect First Nations or forest users such as mining, ranching, tourism and recreation.

Third, the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability are of paramount consideration. Nothing we do today should mortgage the future and leave a legacy of problems for our children or our children's children to fix.

Fourth, the process to develop a mitigation strategy and plan must be open and transparent. It must be done quickly, and the information must be accurate and factual. Forests are a publicly-owned resource, so the public and stakeholders have a right to know what's going on and to have input.

Businesses, families and communities are going to be impacted. People are going to have to make career choices and decide what's best for their families. Even now people are asking themselves if they have a future in Williams Lake or if they should move away because of a pending timber shortage. We must make sure that these kinds of decisions are based on facts, not rumours, speculation or myths.

Fifth, mitigation plans need to be adequately funded and resourced. The special committee needs to identify where funding will come from and who will be responsible and accountable for achieving a mitigation plan's goals.

The development of a mitigation strategy and plan is a very difficult and complex task that undoubtedly requires specialized knowledge and expertise beyond what the city of Williams Lake possesses. However, based on numerous discussions with ministry, industry and others, the city makes the following observations.

In 1985 the allowable annual cut, or AAC, for the Williams Lake TSA was 2.5 million cubic metres per year. Today it's 5.7 million cubic metres. In other words, over the past 27 years, the mountain pine beetle has caused the AAC to more than double. We have known for a long time that the current AAC wasn't sustainable.

The timber supply report prepared for this committee indicates that a sustainable AAC for the Williams Lake TSA of between 1.9 and 3.1 million cubic metres is possible. The 1.9 represents the status quo or where no mitigation action is planned, while 3.1 requires inclusion of steep slopes, low-volume stands and making some timber available from old-growth management areas.

Both ministry and industry representatives have advised the city that an allowable annual cut of somewhere between 2.8 and 3.1 million cubic metres per year is not only attainable, but it's also sustainable without compromising the objectives of the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan.

As such, the city endorses an AAC of between 2.8 and 3.1 million cubic metres per year as a baseline target for the Williams Lake timber supply area. While this is somewhat less than the average of the 4 million cubic metres per year the industry has been harvesting over the past ten years, it is substantially more than the 2.5 million metres per year from back in 1985.

However, the city also recognizes that we need to protect the mid-term. The volume of timber attributable to steep slopes and low-volume stands must be harvested from those areas. If there are issues around the economics of logging steep slopes and low-volume stands, then we need to do whatever is necessary to make these areas accessible and economical to log — such as looking at different trucking options, eliminating the carbon tax and reducing administration and obligations on timber harvesters.

Please note that I mentioned 2.8 to 3.1 million cubic metres per year as a target. I understand that there are additional opportunities involving forest inventories and incremental silviculture that could help to further increase the timber supply. An improved inventory is likely to identify forests that have more standing timber than originally thought and others that are in need of commercial thinning, while incremental silviculture projects such as spacing and fertilization will significantly improve tree growth and quality.

In both cases, the additional volume could push the allowable annual cut higher than 3.1 million cubic metres per year. The city recommends the special committee pursue improved forest inventories and incremental silviculture as part of the overall mitigation strategy.

While the prospect of looming mid-term timber supply issues is daunting, the city of Williams Lake believes a well-thought-out, properly funded and resourced mitigation plan can and will provide security of future timber supply. Certainty is the key. Families, businesses and communities can plan and adapt, providing they know
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what the sustainable harvest level is going to be.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation and especially the way you laid out things at the beginning — a very impressive, very principled way to lay out the approach.

I have just two questions. You talked about aiming for 2.8 million to 3.1 million, and that included low-volume stands. I guess the question is: are companies presently going into low-volume stands? Do they find them economic such that you can look realistically at low-volume stands as a source of fibre in the future?

K. Cook: Economics is obviously a key issue. I'm just going to turn that question over.

B. McNaughton: The answer is no. I know the industry has looked at those stands. They've been forced into lower-volume stands as a result of the mountain pine beetle, so they are gradually getting there, but it's somewhere outside of their economic reach at this time. There are issues like volume on trucks, cost of harvesting and things like that that would certainly have to be part of the equation in order to push that number up to 3.1 million and access those stands.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Okay. I guess the second question is just with regards to transition. We had a presentation from the local beetle action coalition. Just in terms of the planning that the community is doing, how does that work all fit together with the beetle action committee? Is there something that we need to know about — whether there are resources to turn plans into actions? Or are you comfortable that we're moving in the right direction there? I guess any comment on that work that's been done.

K. Cook: As chair of CCBAC, I am very thankful for the province's support and the funding that we have received to date. We have a very active committee that is looking at…. As you know, representatives of all of the mayors in our region, the CRD, a number of First Nations and conservation, as well as industry, sit at that table.

We are definitely moving forward. We have, as I like to call it, CCBAC 1, which was developing all of the strategies. We went through a transition phase. We're now in the CCBAC 2 phase, where we've received money, we've received three years of funding, and we're moving forward in providing projects that are definitely going to help mitigate and build community and, obviously, offset the economic diversification needed in our region.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): The final one, because of the other question…. In terms of the province's work, you see them doing work, obviously, with finding fibre and then a continuation of the support that has come in through the beetle action committees. Are there other areas that you think that the province needs to be involved in with Williams Lake? Or are those the primary areas that you see involvement?

K. Cook: Well, I think that CCBAC definitely is one piece of solving the situation. The other recommendations outlined in my presentation do also include a number of other recommendations that we see are important to resource moving forward.

E. Foster: Mayor Cook, in your presentation, you talked about the challenges of logging steep slopes and low-volume stands. Then you talked about eliminating costs and reducing administration and obligations on timber harvesters. What did you have in mind there?

E. Foster: Yeah. There's a paragraph that talks about logging steep slopes and low-volume stands and the economic challenges. Then you talked about reducing administration and obligations on timber harvesters. What did you have in mind?

K. Cook: I think the main point is that we need to be open to look at all types of possible scenarios in making this economically viable for us to move forward. Again, I'll turn that over to our consultant to add anything else.

B. McNaughton: Yes, certainly within any administrative framework, particularly a bureaucracy as big as the Ministry of Forests involving things like cutting permits and licence obligations, all of those things could be looked at. We're talking about low-volume stands, which are generally low value. Do we need full-blown waste assessments, for example, on those blocks? Or do we accept that the merchantable volume will come off and that that will be the end of it?

Maybe we can live with regeneration without having to go out and do a bunch of surveys for free-growing if they're low-volume stands. There are a bunch of standards that we created for very high-volume, very valuable sites which should stay there. Perhaps on some of the others we can be a little less bureaucratic and ease up on some of those things.

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. You're in the process of obtaining a community forest. Where is that at?
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K. Cook: That's a good question. We've been working hard with our partner. As you know, we are in partnership with the Williams Lake Indian Band. We have another meeting scheduled at the end of July with our partnership, and we hope to have an application moving forward sometime in August.

D. Barnett: Great. And a question maybe, if I could, for your consultant here? You talk about these areas. When you're talking about increasing 2.8 million to 3.1 million cubic metres a year as a target, are you looking at OGMAs and mule deer range and riparian areas? What areas are you actually talking about that could increase the volume?

B. McNaughton: My understanding is that the 2.8-million-to-3.1-million range could be attained by accessing steep slopes, low-volume stands, with some adjustments to OGMAs.

How much room there is to move within OGMAs is obviously a more in-depth analysis than what we did for this presentation. Our understanding, talking to the ministry folks in particular, is that there have been some concessions made around OGMAs and access to them because of the beetles, which then puts added emphasis on retaining the other OGMAs. So there's obviously some work to be done there, but that number does include some relaxation and some wood coming from old-growth management areas, yes.

D. Barnett: One more question, if I may. I know that you've got a lot of experience in this. What is your opinion on area-based tenure?

B. McNaughton: Well, I have another client. I'll be making a presentation next week to you on area-based tenures.

Basically, the sense in this particular area from the companies is that there's a pretty strong operating area, so we don't end up with the overlaps. But I think, generally speaking, my own personal view is that area-based tenures offer an awful lot in terms of the quality of management, the ability to invest in the forest, increase growth and recoup the benefits of that investment. So I definitely believe they have a place in the mitigation strategies, moving forward.

I could add comments on my preference of tenure, but I'll leave that till next week.

B. Routley: Really, two questions. One is about the land use plan. Of the recommendations that you're making, one of the common themes that I, at least, think I heard throughout communities was that if we're going to ponder any changes in areas such as visual quality or, actually, old growth…. That seems to be a very hot-button issue, I would suggest. But the land use plans that were put in place….

What we've heard is that communities want to make those decisions themselves. They would like to be involved and to make sure that the land use planning group is either brought in to update or to review any ideas or suggestions. I wondered if you had turned your mind to that issue.

While you're thinking about that, the second question is about certification. We've had the war of the woods, and of course, those land use plans were part of resolving the war of the woods. Throughout British Columbia we have a lot of those land use plans in place that are…. Well, we've heard a lot from people about the land use planning issue.

I know that we're now…. The forest industry is relying on forest certification in many cases. Forest certification, of course, requires ensuring that you're following the provincial rules. That would include the land use plan.

I wondered if you had any comments. Do you feel that there could be any potential risk to the certification — and look at that kind of thing? Obviously, part of certification is based on sustainability, the notion of community sustainability, so I wondered how you'd kind of balance that out or come to a conclusion that that's possible.

K. Cook: I think that we could've been clear that we don't want to open up the land use plan in its entirety. There's been a lot of work with regards to that.

Going back to your other question with regards to community input…. Is that what your other question was?

B. Routley: About certification of forest products. Most forest companies these days have some kind of forest certification.

B. McNaughton: Our understanding, meeting with the industry in preparing the presentation, is that the 2.8-to-3.1 level wouldn't threaten any of their certifications at all. They would still be able to meet the land use plan objectives and the rules and regulations of the province full bore. There wouldn't be any decline in that that would affect certification, Bill.

I just wanted to ask, first of all, about the economics. First of all, Williams Lake has the Northwest Energy biomass facility, which is something that not every community has. Certainly, many wish that they had access to that.

I guess one of the things that we're talking about is
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these low-volume stands in terms of the actual productivity and the waste that's left out in the forest. We hear this in many of the communities that would like to see that resolved — how getting that fibre economically to a facility like Northwest has is part of the problem.

Now, one of the other things. In this particular area it's my understanding that the low-volume cutoff is quite low compared to many other TSAs. So I guess I'm just wondering….

You are already operating in an environment of low-volume cutoff, at less than a half or a third of some other TSAs. I don't know what the future looks like for getting that other fibre that may be sitting out there if we go into lower-volume stands, which is what I think you suggested. So tell me: how do we use all the fibre, and how much lower can we go?

B. McNaughton: That's probably a question better answered by the actual industry that has analyzed it and can tell you the numbers. Based on our discussions, it wasn't insurmountable in terms of their operations.

There needs to be some reconfiguration. There needs to be some restructuring of costs and the way that we do it. We've got to move more wood in one turn, one transportation, than we can right now in order to make that work.

As long as the wood has value and it makes money and it saves you a cost at the end of the day, people are going to put it into the enterprise. It will go in to Northwest Energy if it is even break-even. If it's going to cost you money to go out and send somebody to burn it and put smoke up into the air and get permits and do all that kind of stuff…. For sure, that's one thing the Cariboo's been very good at. We don't waste things. And that goes right into the ranchers and everyone else. They use it all.

I think that's the challenge. I think you've identified a very important question. I can't sit here and give you all the answers, but I think we have groups like CCBAC and industry committees that can sit down. If they know that's their future and can get them to 3.1, they will figure it out. I think that's the challenge.

I don't think the city is in a position to actually comment specifically on the economics or a hard recommendation as to how to make that happen, but it's an excellent question. I think we have the people in the right committees and the right places to figure it out.

K. Cook: I think it also speaks to the first bullet — that a one-size-fits-all approach isn't going to work. Each TSA is unique, and we need to deal with it in that fashion.

J. Rustad (Chair): Good. Well, thank you very much for the presentation and for the time.

Brian, don't go anywhere. I was just going to invite you to do…. You're scheduled for 6 p.m., and if my committee will allow it, I was going to invite you to do your presentation now, if you'd like. Put on a different hat.

B. McNaughton: Oh, sure. I have 15 presentations to hand out. Thanks, John, for the opportunity to make this presentation now. That's great.

I'm still Brian McNaughton. I'm wearing a different hat. I'm now the vice-president of forestry for a company called Aspenware Inc.

Aspenware is a privately owned company located in Vernon, as MLA Foster knows because it resides in his riding. As you can see from my handout, we actually produce disposable wooden cutlery.

I know that you are probably familiar with our product, but I'd actually like to draw your attention to the spoon. That is one of the first runs off of our new production line, which represents a $3 million investment down in Vernon. It's indicative of the quality of product that we are now able to make. So if you want to just fondle the spoon versus the knife and fork, you can see the kinds of improvements that are being made all the time.

You may ask yourselves why a company from Vernon is sitting here in Williams Lake making a presentation. There are a number of reasons. One is that the wood that you're holding in your hands came from Likely, B.C., which is an hour and 15 minutes from here. You also may be aware that we've been approached by Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake, Fort St. James, Quesnel, 100 Mile and McBride to either set up a veneering plant or a company in those communities.

Most recently we were asked to go into Burns Lake and have a look and see if we couldn't put a plant in to help alleviate some of the difficulties that were caused by the mill explosion up there. Actually, we did go up, and we did spend a couple of days. We were actually looking at it, and there are some potentially positive things.

One of the things that we are going to do, though, is not produce cutlery but actually produce plates and bowls. We have a partner that's asked us to produce 30 million of those a year. That's based on a capped market right now. It's probably closer to 60 million a year.

That is the very first plate that we tried — okay? That's made out of aspen. I can hand it around — it's the only one I've got — if you actually want to have a look at it.

Basically, Aspenware is a small company that has developed new technology to manufacture innovative, new products using hardwoods. With our new line, we'll be capable of producing about 120 million pieces a year. It sounds like a lot, but it fits into a market of about 100 billion pieces of disposable cutlery in North America that are used every year. If you want to broaden it globally, it's about 160 billion pieces.

We do make more from less. We get approximately a million pieces of cutlery from one logging truck load of birch or aspen. So what we're talking about is 6,000 cubic metres a year to run that entire Vernon plant on a
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one-shift basis.

As for jobs, we create about five jobs per thousand cubic metres, which is about five times the industry average. It's about one job per thousand.

From Aspenware's perspective…. I'm not going to go through a whole diatribe about growth of a small company in B.C. I'm going to try and stay focused on the mid-term timber supply issue.

There are basically two things that we'd like the committee to consider. First off, there is a potential to utilize hardwoods. They're abundant. They're fast-growing but seriously underutilized. They can fill a void. Secondly, there are opportunities out there for new products and new businesses, and they're not all megaprojects and thousands of jobs. They're a lot of small businesses, medium-sized businesses that can get started and grow.

I hope you take from my comment that we can produce 120 million in, probably, a couple of months. That's a drop in the bucket compared to 100 billion that the market can sustain. We don't plan on taking over the entire market, although we might like to.

But there are challenges, and we have some firsthand experience as a company that we're happy to share and have more detailed discussions about. I'm not going to go through all the woes.

First off, around the challenges, is simply access to hardwoods. Now, keeping in mind that this is wood no one else really wants, quite frankly, you just can't get a licence in this province — very difficult. Hardwoods are not something that the ministry currently gives much credibility to. It's considered a weed species. It's more important to cut it down or spray it with herbicides so conifers become free-growing.

Quite honestly, the fact for us is that we're going to get at least half our wood for the Vernon plant from northern Ontario. It's cheaper and more effective for us to truck veneer across Canada to Vernon, B.C., than get it out of our own home province, when it's sitting here and nobody wants it.

Second point. A challenge is basically a general lack of support for new businesses and small businesses. In B.C., particularly in forestry, we're always talking about wanting innovation, new products, new environmentally friendly products, new technology, new small businesses, making more from less and even utilizing underutilized species. But that's what we've done, and we've done it virtually with no support from the province.

We've had the Premier stand up, hold up our cutlery. We certainly had good support from the local district office. They've probably pushed us more 50-cubic-metre cash sales than they should. If somebody ever audits them, the district manager is probably in trouble. We have a 500-cubic-metre research licence to learn to spin veneer, which we've been doing for ten years.

We really do appreciate the local office's efforts, but you can't build a sustainable business without a reliable wood supply. So at some point the province needs to actually take a step back and ask itself whether it really does want new businesses and if that is in fact part of mitigating timber supply issues in the future.

When I asked one of our top guys on our board of directors what basic message he would like me to deliver to the panel, he said: "Business always goes where the opportunity and support are. Hence, our sourcing of wood from Ontario makes it the most probable location for the next Aspenware facility, due to the lack of support in B.C."

I think that's a pretty damning indictment for a province that's sitting on a bunch of wood — built this technology in its own home province. We actually as a company find ourselves having to go elsewhere.

In summary, basically, hardwoods and new products both represent opportunities to help mitigate mid-term timber supply issues, but neither will happen unless the government of the day decides to address the obstacles and challenges that are currently there.

D. Barnett: Thank you very much, Brian. How long has your company been in operation with this product?

D. Barnett: If I remember correctly…. I was involved with Community Futures at one point in Williams Lake, and they were involved in this product.

B. McNaughton: Actually, one of their heads had it as a contract. They were helping with the administrative and organizational structure of this company back in the day, yes. That person is currently our chairman of the board.

D. Barnett: That was my question. I wanted to know how long you'd been here, because I was sure that back in my days with Community Futures we were dealing with this.

B. McNaughton: It took us almost four years to find an investor for the new line.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): A very interesting product. It's nice to see the spoon now. The collection is becoming more and more complete.
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In a succinct way…. I'm sure this is ongoing. You've had these discussions for a long time. But can you just lay out: what exactly is the barrier?

It seems to me that it should be fairly straightforward. When we're in Burns Lake, we're looking at a fibre source and other places where you want to find product and find a use for it. It seems like it should be fairly straightforward, so can you tell us: what's the barrier?

B. McNaughton: A barrier for a small business like ours is always finding capital and money. But that isn't within the purview of this committee.

On the timber side of things, personally, I believe it's the mentality within the ministry and government right now. I don't think it's that hard to apply our tenure system to hardwoods. I don't think it's that hard to convert our systems over to hardwoods.

We can go out and salvage fir trees all over a landscape unit and meet the rules. Why can't we go out and salvage live green aspen trees and birch trees that nobody else wants and not affect the environment? But when we walk in, it's just not worth enough money. We're not enough volume. It doesn't register. It doesn't hit the radar.

I think a lot of small businesses find that. I've sat in the ministry office and told them how much wood I need, and they said: "Brian, we don't do things that small." Our little plant down there is 35 jobs, one line.

I think the biggest obstacle is the mentality. I think there has to be a culture shift within the ministry and within this province. Get away from our neanderthal attitude towards hardwoods.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Would a harvester be in after something else and as a by-product bring this out? Are you looking at going to harvest for yourself, or a combination of the two?

B. McNaughton: You have to be able to go and harvest for yourself because, given what we're looking for, it just doesn't always come off of a cutblock. For example, we've been running through beetle-killed areas. They don't have much aspen and birch. It tends to be more in the wetter areas and things like that.

By all means, you buy it from private land owners. You buy it from miners that are carrying land. You buy it from the ranchers. You buy it from a whole bunch of different sources. But at the end of the day, if all of those dry up and things get difficult, you've got to be able to go out and log it somewhere, and that's on Crown land.

I actually see the licence to be something like a pulpwood agreement, where you'd only activate it when your other potential sources are unavailable.

B. Routley: You said that you use very small volumes. Have you identified areas where this would be possible, where you've actually, maybe, tested some of the wood for making this kind of product right here in B.C.?

B. McNaughton: Yeah, I've had wood all the way down from Hazelton, Burns Lake. I've had it from Vancouver Island. I've had it from McBride, Valemount — all over. Quite honestly, if we meet the quality of log, we can make it out of basically any of the hardwoods I've seen in B.C.

Some of it gets some black stain in the centre. If it gets a little more towards the rot, then it becomes difficult in our process. But that's not the norm. No disrespect to Norm.

B. Stewart: Brian, I was just going to ask. You mentioned that you were bringing in veneer from Ontario. Not knowing where the species are in terms of aspen and the closest proximity…. Where does it likely have to be further processed for you to be able to use that? Or does further capital investment have to come in to British Columbia to be able to create the veneer that you're looking for?

B. McNaughton: A veneer station, a veneer plant running full bore, would be somewhere around $150,000 capital investment, including the dryers to put in. We've been bringing wood out of Likely green, drying it in Kamloops and then reloading it and putting it into Vernon.

We'd certainly like to not have to do a pit stop in Kamloops. That would do a lot to reduce our costs. But we've been taking it on a six-hour tour of the province and been able to make it work.

Once you get that amount of volume on a truck…. If you think about a million pieces off a logging truck, turning that into veneer and how much dry veneer goes on a semi down to the plant, we're talking multi-millions of pieces of cutlery. So the economic model works pretty well. Did that answer your question?

B. Stewart: I was wondering. So you have the veneer plant already in operation in Vernon?

B. McNaughton: We actually had one in Vernon. We've also operated out of Clearwater and Likely. Currently we have one that's being set up in northern Ontario, and we have another group that's interested down on the Sunshine Coast.

B. McNaughton: Yeah. We bring green veneer out of
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Likely. That's five jobs in Likely and 1,200 cubic metres a year, which I think I was told made it the second-largest business in Likely the day it started. While we talk five jobs, which may sound small, the point I want to make, because that wasn't a joke, is that in Likely five jobs is mega-employment. That is a huge deal.

J. Rustad (Chair): I hope discussions in the Burns Lake area go well in terms of that. I want to thank you for the presentation and taking some time with us here today.

The committee will take a brief recess while we set up for our next presentation.

J. Rustad (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. If I could ask people to take their seats.

At this time, actually, I just want to quickly recognize Scott Fraser, the MLA for Alberni–Pacific Rim, who has also joined us today.

For our next presenters, I would like to introduce Chief Zach Parker to introduce the people that'll be presenting to us.

Sechanalyagh to the Secwepemc people north from Williams Lake Indian Band, Soda Creek and Esk'etemc for inviting us onto their shared territory to be here today and to discuss timber.

I will go about by introducing myself — Zach Parker, Ulkatcho First Nation. To the left we have Irvine Johnson, who's with Esk'etemc First Nation; Chief Fred Robbins; my most senior technician in forestry, Gary Arnold; a chief from Toosey, Francis Laceese; and there, of course, the representative for Tsilhqot'in National Government, Sam Zirnhelt.

Thank you, guys and ladies, for having us here today to discuss our concerns regarding the mid-term timber supply review.

I'm going to basically recite off my paper here. I believe all the MLAs have got a copy there. After paragraph 2 I'm going to let my technician take over to explain the finer points here.

Hello, committee members, respected MLAs and witnesses of these proceedings. The Ulkatcho peoples recognize the impacts that the mountain pine beetle has had and currently has on the provincial landscape and respective indigenous peoples' territories for the best part of a decade.

We have also felt this impact for so many years, and today we feel those impacts on our economy and the downturn and reduced values of timber products on the world stage. It is in these times that we have grown as a nation and as a community at large.

Working together, our corporation, Yun Ka Whu'ten, YKW for short, other corporations and the government of British Columbia, through a forest consultation and revenue-sharing agreement, which in short is called FCRSA, we have embarked on solutions that see benefits to the Ulkatcho peoples, community, region and the government of British Columbia and its taxpayers and the forest sector.

Currently the FCRSA confirms the government-to-government relationship that is between Ulkatcho First Peoples and the Crown. From there I'll allow my technician to take over.

G. Arnold: In reviewing what the Chief has just reiterated, the Ulkatcho Nation states for the record that we consider these proceedings of the committee to be on a with-prejudice basis. Based on the terms of reference and mandate, the impact on our title and rights is currently occurring at an unprecedented scale.

Z. Parker: So to state this for the record again. I'll say this next, again, from the Chief's voice. The Ulkatcho First Nation states for the record that we consider this proceeding of the committee to be on a with-prejudice basis, based on these terms of reference and mandate. Impacts to our title and rights are currently occurring at an unprecedented scale — for the record.

G. Arnold: Under council's leadership, we have reaffirmed our interest as sole proponent of the Anahim community power grid and partnered with Nation Energy to support two 2.4 megawatts of cogeneration fuelled by wood waste.

We've established international lumber markets through our agreement with Conifex lumber products. YKW tenures of 140,000 cubic metres to 2019, with an addition from the FTOA signed in association with the FCRSA for another 93,000 cubic metres of wood…. That's to 2032, which also supports the power purchase agreement of 20 years.

This combined volume of 130,000 cubic metres of First Nations woodland tenures and AAC has been a long time in accumulating. The establishment of the joint venture and industry partner, Ledcor, that holds timber and energy tenures that date back a decade is an additional relationship that looks at 200,000 cubic metres a year.

Under these relationships and others, our community mill will impact the whole Highway 20 corridor, ending with the start of construction of phase 1, chips, at the Bella Coola port development. They're driving the final pilings as we speak.

We reflect these opportunities that we have right
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now and that we're building right now, but the focus of this new tenure and that unprecedented impact that we were referring to earlier, is industry looking at the West Chilcotin as the final frontier of green wood supply. There is no possible way that the West Chilcotin and Anahim timber supply can support all the allowed impact that currently is there. By removing the partition, we've opened up the western supply blocks to be impacted by Williams Lake licence holders.

We also, at the north, have Canfor and others. There is no way that our community, our West Chilcotin and Anahim timber supply can support the interest that's already there — no possible way. Every tree has three ribbons on it. We're sitting here, and we know that the impact on our title and rights is currently occurring on an unprecedented scale. There's no doubt of it.

Based on the terms of reference of this committee, we consider that this is the first stage in consultation. We submit that the cumulative effects to our territory is unknown. We don't have any idea what the cumulative effects are going to be.

We further submit that the outdated timber inventories…. The Crown cannot even provide us with information we require to make meaningful and deep consultation — no way. The cumulative effects under the forest stewardship plans of major industry do not have to give an indication of how much interest is going to be applied in the West Chilcotin and Anahim in any time frame. They don't have to say.

You can assume, but we don't know. We can target 70 percent beetle-killed wood for our bioenergy, but then others can come after the green wood we leave behind, under their AACs. If we target AACs in our own cut, then we get criticized because we didn't take full utilization of the standing deadwood. We're in a no-win position. Having those parameters, how do we defend ourselves? How do we actually have meaningful consultation take place with an unknown?

We further submit that with these outdated inventories, the Crown cannot provide us with information we require for meaningful and deep consultation. As agents of the Crown, we consider this committee to also be responsible for upholding the honour of the Crown. It is a government-to-government agreement that we have in place. These tenures are not just a non-replaceable forest tenure. They're the First Nations woodlands tenures. They're the start of a new relationship.

J. Rustad (Chair): Just one quick comment. We actually didn't consider this as being part of consultation. This is more of a discussion in the approach that we try to take with this. Obviously, if there was anything that would come out of this, there would be a different process that would be undertaken. I just thought I should try to make that clear.

Before we do go to questions and answers, I want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity to give us presentations, if that's okay with you.

I look at what's been removed from our territories, the history. I understand that this is not consultation. I'd like to quote you on that, because many times we've met with government officials, and they've considered these meetings as consultation.

I'm not going to say I'm going to speak on behalf of the Tsilhqot'in or the Carrier, but I'm going to speak on behalf of the Esk'etemc as an independent community. I was hoping to see a representative of NStQ here as well, the Northern Shuswap te Qelmucw. I do believe they would have something to say as well.

I look at the past history, the past 145 years that we've worked together, and it's not working for the First Nations people. We're still living lives of desperation, survival. It's getting even harder today.

Some of the history that's been brought forward from our elders, from generations past…. We have to live on this little lot of land that was given to us by Canada and by the province. This little lot of land, on our maps, that were dated in 1943, 1944, has right across the centre of the map: "Poor, worthless land." Rocky terrain. Useless timber.

I say this because even today, with all the benefits that the Esk'etemc have going for itself, the First Nations of B.C. and across Canada need to have recognized that the economy was built on the resources within our territories. That economy, whether it be forestry, mining, gardening, agriculture or you name it, the First Nations…. I'm not going to try and offend anybody here, but the taxpayers' dollars aren't enough.

A lot of people say: "Well, I'm paying taxes for your education. I'm paying taxes for your housing. I'm paying taxes for this." But at the same time, you look at the First Nations bands. They're living in poverty. Your taxes aren't enough. We need to share those resources.

I think that's what we're all looking at, as a group of First Nations people. But on Esk'etemc's behalf, our elders sit on the porch and, for the past 40 or 50 years, have been watching truckloads upon truckloads of timber leave our territory, and they're still living in poverty.

The rights that we have we need to protect. To protect those rights, we need adequate consultation, and we need a resource that's going to be sustainable. We have a community forest out at Esk'etemc, one of the first in the
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province of B.C. We have a 22,000-metre cut, AAC, on that community forest, but we have no pine left. We've harvested it all. All we have left is green wood. Now we're looking at a possible expansion? Where are we going to expand to? There's no more fibre out there.

Off the start, I said "moose." There are no more here. Deer — there are no more where we used to hunt. These are some of the impacts that are going to be happening to the First Nations peoples, their natural resources.

To have something that's going to be sustainable long term, you need to eliminate this 15-year free-growing crap. If they're going to come in and clearcut an area, why is it they have to wait 15 years before they can say: "Well, we're done with it"?

I was always told that if you're going to take something from the land, you put something back. Fifteen years to put something back? That's not right. Two years minimum. If you're going to clearcut, you've got a year to clean it up and then a year to replant it.

Old-growth management areas. You have a lot of the region underneath that's all snow-pressed. You've got to find a way to start cleaning that up. These old-growth management areas…. We can't go in before bark beetle comes in and annihilates the old-growth management. Then what happens? We have Tweedsmuir all over again.

You've got to start looking at some of those stands where we can be a bit flexible. If they'd nipped Tweedsmuir in the bud as soon as it began, we probably wouldn't be here today discussing the timber supply. It might be ten, 15 years down the road. Eventually the bugs would come in. But what I'm saying is we need to start looking at protection now.

You've got the mule deer winter ranges. We can't even go in those, but still, some of the deer can't even get in those. You've got dead trees falling everywhere. You've got snow press. We’ve got to start looking at changing that legislation to the mule deer winter range, to the old-growth management areas.

We did sign off on an FRA and an FRO. The FRO…. There's not really too much left to cut here in the Williams Lake TSA. Most of it's out west, and most of it's out east. I can see why a lot of the truckers are having to close down. They're only doing one trip a day — round trip, eight hours. Some of these things need to be discussed and need to be looked at with an open mind.

But when we address some of these concerns, you have to remember that the First Nations people are always going to be here. We're not going to pack up and go move to Europe. We're going to be here for time immemorial.

For a good government-to-government relationship to work, it begins with recognizing the rights — recognizing those rights and having to address those rights. I've been discussing this for a number of years, and it's getting to a point where: who's actually hearing? Who's actually listening now?

I understand the economy's gone kaput, but welcome to being a First Nations person. We've lived on minimum economy for the past 150 years, and now our resources are depleting. We've got predators out there. We've got wolves. The grizzly bears are certain to come down the mountains because there's nothing left up there to eat, and they're starting to invade some of our areas.

I was always told to speak on behalf of those who can't speak for themselves, and that's the deer, the fish, the moose, the moon, the stars, the trees and the next generation. That's something that we need to think about. We can talk about the economy today, but what's going to happen ten, 15 years down the road for the next generation?

I just hope that there's going to come a day where I won't be living on a small patch of land. I want to move back to where my ancestors came from. But I'm not allowed to do that. I live on government funds.

I'm an INAC representative, but I speak on behalf of the next generation. I do think we need some meaningful consultation and accommodation so that First Nations can have the same opportunities that Canadians and British Columbians had 150 years ago. Where does that begin? It begins with the resource.

I believe I've taken a lot of time here. I apologize. I think where we go from here…. I'm sure I'm going to be getting letters. I'm sure I'm going to be getting comments from Ulkatcho, comments from TNG, from NStQ as well as the province and Canada.

I look forward to that because that means you're actually going to follow through with consultation for a change and not just: "Oh, the First Nations. We spoke to them. Okay, let's start moving forward." To me, that's a real injustice — that a government would do that to another government. That's borderline genocide. I think that's something that we need to take into consideration.

Hopefully, you've heard my words. Like I said, I'm not here to offend anybody. I just want equal rights, and right now us living on reserve lands isn't equal rights. [Secwepemctsin was spoken.]

I. Johnson: Thank you for the chance to say something. I could summarize just two or three ideas because I didn't want to steal somebody else's words, but I really thank you for an opportunity to speak to you here. You're going to probably get a lot of submissions from other people, so I'm only going to devote my time to two or three items.

I'm not generally disposed to writing my thoughts for other people's consumption. However, the importance of this particular topic makes me want to push my opinions onto somebody else. The fact that this group will be looking at relaxing logging restrictions on scenic areas in old-growth stands, logging lower-yield stands or cutting into the future timber supply — timber reserves — and other ways of looking at awarding logging contracts to encour-
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age companies to harvest more intensively…. Those were the words that got me started on writing down my ideas.

I really think that in order to look into the future, you have to look into the past. You look at some of the logging practices of the past. Some of those have created other problems that we didn't count on. One of the practices is logging some of the mountainsides. I really believe that that's contributed to silting of a lot of the spawning beds for the salmon. It's warmed the water, so it's made it a lot more difficult for the salmon.

I think the mountains being treated the same as some of the flatlands and whatnot also creates a problem because clearcut logging on some of the mountains is really leading to some of the streams being really silted up. I didn't want to talk about the salmon, but it's the logging practices that have caused some of these problems here. I think we have to change the idea of waiting two or three years to see what natural regen is going to happen before you start working on the mountain, because it's the trees that are holding the mountain up there.

The prescription treatment for the mountainside should be different, like I say, just to prevent slides and other siltation and loss of some of the streams.

But the other thing…. You look at the cull piles that are out there alongside a lot of the roads. You'll find a lot of material there that could be used for a lot of other value-added items, and it's not being used. I know. I tried to develop a project regarding fence posts and rails for ranchers and things like that, but because they were going to charge me stumpage for something that they were going to burn up, it just made it really difficult to make a buck in that whole idea.

Forests are much more than just wood. It's much more than just a home for moose and deer and whatnot and the odd bear. The whole ecology around all of that is much more than we can actually see.

Then the second-to-last idea, I guess, that I want to present is…. We're talking about lands where native people are trying to resolve their land claims. Land claims are there because an inadequate amount of land was given in the first place. As Chief Robbins alluded to, all of the land that we got was categorized as poor, useless lands.

So we're going to be making claims on forested lands just for our own economy, because in our particular reserve we have almost 850 people that we sort of have to deal with. It's important that the fact that native people are pressing for land claims not be forgotten in this thing here. We don't want to be finally settling, with the province's glacial pace that they're moving at with land claims — that eventually all of our settlement lands are something we have to wait 60 to 70 years for because it has already been logged.

My closing remark is that I really believe it's important to include the native people — genuinely including them — in this annual allowable cut. We're a lot more than just a referral process. We have a stake out there. If we were treated properly in the beginning, we wouldn't be making claims. We would actually have some economy on our reserves.

I really believe that it's very important to change the normal way things are done, just to prevent the problems of the past — you know? — to accept us as more than a referral process where we react to whatever is being developed. We want genuine consultation on this thing here. I think that it would be done in good-faith discussions, because I think that the province has been less than forthright when it's come to dealing with the native people and some of their land claims.

If you want an example, just in closing, we had been in treaty negotiations with the province for 18 years now — or 19 years — and they didn't ask us a thing when they awarded Taseko Mines the transmission line right through the heart of our territory. They never said: "Are you interested?" or "Do you even know that we're doing this thing here?" No, they just went ahead and did it without asking, without saying a word.

We want some good-faith negotiations, discussions. It would be less of a problem in the long run. I thank you again for listening.

F. Robbins: Chair, MLA representatives, I see this as a chance for the government of Canada and the province to ensure that not just any development can occur in Canada and the province of B.C., but only development which is sustainable and which respects the environment and the lives of First Nations peoples, who live upon and rely on the survival of our culture, traditional lifestyles for our children and our lands. Kukwstsétsemc. Thank you.

F. Laceese: Thank you for giving me the time here. Francis Laceese, one of the Tsilhqot'in chiefs, Chief of Toosey. I'm just going to make a few comments here. We have another chief that's out here, Marilyn Baptiste. I'd like to acknowledge her also. She might want to say a few words later. I'm not too sure here, but Sam's going to be commenting too.

Some of the issues that have been discussed here already regarding…. I've been around for awhile — about 20 years now — in this role regarding politics, land claims. Forestry has been a big issue for us out in our backyard.

The bug kill. I blame the industry and the governments in creating the bug-kill situation. There are foresters that will back me up on that.

They spread the bug kill around so they can get access to greenwood. Now they're telling the natives: "You go ahead. You take the deadwood. We're going to keep taking the greenwood." You know, they've been playing that
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game for a long time. You spread your bug kill around just like you spread smallpox around back in the 1800s. That's what's going on. You tried to annihilate us. That's your same government that did that intentionally. I'm not scared to say that.

That's the history. If you don't know your history, that's where you should start. There's a guy by the name of Tom Swanky. He's got a book written. Make sure you all read that book. It tells the history of what went on, how you assume your government…. You think you have jurisdiction. You don't have jurisdiction. Just like in the William case, Judge Vickers said you do not have jurisdiction over forestry tenure in the Tsilhqot'in territory. That's our rights that you're jeopardizing.

You've mismanaged the forestry, so that's what it is today — having all the big fires. You've overlogged, overharvested in our territory. And you still want to come back, and you want to harvest some more? That's very shameful, what you're trying to do. What's happened already is having a big impact on us, our rights.

I have a report here: Cariboo regional moose allocation. That's from your Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. That's your own government here in Williams Lake telling us there's no more moose left. We've been saying that for a long time. There's no more moose left because of the mismanagement of the forests that has been taking place. Your own governments are saying they don't know what is out there. So it's a serious situation.

One of the big areas that we're concerned about is Big Creek, Churn Creek and Hungry Valley. It may be referred to as South Chilcotin. There's very drastic overharvesting in that area that's affected the Tsilhqot'in. It's affecting the wildlife out there, all the wildlife. Ranchers have a big concern over that. I think you're going to be hearing them too.

There are basically three nations involved in that whole area that utilize that area for whatever reason. So I make a recommendation to put a moratorium on that whole area until all these further studies are done. If you don't do that, we'll put a moratorium on it ourselves. It's that serious of an issue for us. It's impacting our aboriginal title and rights.

I'll just leave it at that. I'm just saying that it's a serious concern for us, and it's affecting our way of life. You know, that's not acceptable. I think you as a government — or the citizens, the ones that call themselves Canadians — should be ashamed of what's going on. You've got a United Nations declaration on the aboriginal peoples. You should be looking at some of those. You know, I think some of these things have to be discussed at the Human Rights Tribunal — what's happened in the past.

So I advise you to step lightly and make a right decision, an honourable decision, for once.

M. Baptiste: Good evening. I didn't expect that I would have an opportunity to speak here. My name is Marilyn Baptiste, Chief of the Xeni Gwet'in, one of the six Tsilhqot'in communities in the Interior here. I thank Chief Francis for giving me this opportunity to speak. I just became aware of this process here not all that long ago, so I'm very disappointed to be coming in at a late stage.

One of the biggest concerns that we have, from my community, as well as from others, is…. Your form of consultation here is a little bit concerning, especially, as you've heard other leaders here say, as this impacts our way of life.

This impacts our aboriginal rights. This impacts our lands. You need to have a proper consultation process for our communities. Our people out there in our communities are not aware of this actually going on, so it would be nice to hear about what further steps will be taken, beyond this very evening, in this process in regards to your consultation.

Of course, you're all very well aware of the fact that the Xeni Gwet'in have been taking many measures for many, many decades to protect the land and the ecology that Councillor Irvine was talking about. Those things provide for our people and our way of life. We demand to be a part of these processes, if you want to continue working in our territories.

Councillor Roger and I have met with some of the people that have interests in our territory, just the other day. One of the notices that I have put out there — and I've said it more than once at our tribal level — is that if we are not properly and adequately consulted, we will be kicking people out of our territory.

I cannot control my people back home. They are getting very upset, very angry with these processes and the continued truckloads of logs and whatnot that are coming out of our territories and the continued provincial and federal processes that are being imposed and changed for your own purposes and disregarding our rights and our title.

Unfortunately, I did not come here prepared, other than the fact that we, as Xeni Gwet'in, do not look to extract and clearcut. That was stated in our declaration of 1989. Our community, our elders, directed our people in the roadblock of 1992. Our people roadblocked clearcut logging, because licensees would not work with us on a plan in our way. We tried, we tried, and we tried. It didn't work.

Of course, that led to the William case. We just went through the appeal process, which is going to the next level. And of course, as Chief Francis also noted, it'll be going even beyond that.

That's because, as you see, Canada and B.C. continue to change legislation and change acts and what have you whenever you need those things changed for your pur-
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poses, for the extraction and the continued theft of our territories and our land.

I hope that this could possibly come to something a little more than just coming here, listening to some people speak and going away and saying: "We have consulted." It will not stop there for us. We will not allow that to happen in our territories. It's been happening on the outskirts of our territory long enough.

S. Zirnhelt: Just to echo one of the…. There have been a lot of comments about process, and I understand the level at which you're looking at this, but the complexity…. There are opportunities, but I think the solutions are complex, and it will require a deeper process and a pulling together and not losing a lot of the good work that has been done in these areas.

You can't convey in this forum in any meaningful way what First Nations communities have been working on in trying to engage in the forest economy over the last five to ten years that I've been intimately involved in that, nor the work that's been done by various sectors within the region through initiatives like CCBAC.

There are massive amounts of energy and thought that are still sitting on paper, and there's kind of this inertia. It seems just a struggle to move that off the paper and into the field and into practice. I have ideas about how you might do that, but I'll keep my comments at a kind of an overview level.

One comment is that simply relaxing constraints won't do much for the value of the tenures that First Nations hold. These are FRO agreements or First Nations woodland licences or mountain pine beetle uplift licences.

In the case of the Tsilhqot'in we've had the opportunity, as negotiated agreements with the province for the last four years, to harvest about 840,000 metres a year. Of that, there's approximately 3.2 million metres…. I wish I could say that that 3.2 million metres is still standing. We don't know that. Somebody has moved it.

We've got a real challenge with the operating areas. Those licences didn't come out with any operating areas, and they haven't had value. There hasn't been a log market to move that timber — remembering that those licences were provided as an accommodation for forestry-related impacts on aboriginal rights and their titles. The community's frustration comes from the fact that they've only realized about 5 or 10 percent of the intended accommodation. So there are some structural economic issues that are kind of binding that inertia.

I was glad to hear some of the presentations talking about the need for tenure innovation and diversifying the tenure system to the point where there is an active log market. I think it's really high time we looked at a broader range of area-based tenures.

There's still room for the volume-based tenures, no doubt. It can be an advantage to everybody to have more mobile licences where people can operate, as conditions change, at the macro, at the landscape, levels. But in that 10,000 to 15,000 or 20,000 cubic metre area-based tenure range, there's really very little.

The woodlot programs have expanded very slowly. Community forests have been slow. It's been a real struggle to get First Nations woodland licences on the ground for a variety of reasons. I think that that is a…. I don't know how it's possible, and I think you could get into long discussions with a lot of folks in this room about how to do that. Ultimately, I think it would certainly be in our best interests. As a region, as a province, as a society, it's time to take a serious look at that. Simply relaxing the constraints won't put more value to those First Nations licences, because they're not able, at this point, to sell or to process the volumes that they already have.

Without going into old-growth management areas…. I did a sawlog-liberation model associated with a bioenergy proposal that we had. You know, they're rough numbers, and it's not peer-reviewed, although I bounced it off a few folks. But roughly, if you were to say that by cost-sharing we were able to access additional stands that were under 50 percent sawlog, that would liberate enough sawlogs if processed, even at today's lumber prices, to have about a $20-million-plus annual impact to the GDP in the Williams Lake region, without relaxing OGMAs.

We're talking about OGMAs, and we haven't even figured out how to move that yet. That's a problem. It's about infrastructure, and it's about long-term vision. These guys have been working on stuff to try and get an economic pipeline along the corridor — leave the pipeline out of that; an economic corridor — yeah, a pipeline to Bella Coola? — to create an economic corridor.

We have spent a lot of money and a lot of time looking at every potential non-salmon-bearing river, wind, solar, every type of synthetic biodiesel, community heating systems. Everything that we can possibly think of and have scrounged up the money to study, we have studied. There are three things, I think, that are stopping that from moving forward in a meaningful way, to a point where it's exasperating. It's almost frustrating.

I'm on my third…. Bioenergy phase 3 is my new filing cabinet. Phase 1 was the B.C. Hydro call and phase 2, B.C. Hydro call. We had engineered proposals in both of those. What was missing is the electrical infrastructure, the transmission line. B.C. Hydro was great. They did a study with us and identified that the line west of Williams Lake, where a huge amount of the resources — forest resources, ranching resources, fisheries resources, mining and tourism — is out there. That is one of the weakest lines in B.C.

When they turn the irrigation pumps on at C1 Ranch…. I'm not picking on anybody. I don't begrudge anybody for watering there, putting up their crop, but when you do that you start getting burnout of light bulbs and so on at Anahim, and you have River West sawmill at the
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top of the hill running on diesel fuel. Getting that mill, for example, off…. You talk about…. I know Brian made a comment about five people being really important in Likely. He's right. Five jobs in Likely are really important, and 36 jobs at Hanceville in the mill, plus the related jobs, are hugely important.

All we need to do to get the ball rolling there is to insert one megawatt of electricity into that existing 25-kV line. That tips the balance. It takes the mill off diesel. It's $25,000 of diesel per shift per month on that mill. That's all the difference in margin for a business of that size. Plus putting it back into the grid. In our discussions with Hydro, it hasn't gone very far.

It's all a matter of definitions. Every program we try there's a definition problem. It's like how hard it is for Aspenware to get 5,000 cubic metres. It should not be that hard.

That one megawatt requires very little fibre. That's just going off hog fuel, which has zero value at this point. But we are not considered a remote community.

Our point is that for the Tsilhqot'in community as a whole, our six communities, that enterprise, as an anchor business, is critical to their futures. Once you have that, you can branch out into many other things. Just getting that going is so close — where you're able to sell logs over the last few years to build up your resources for the little trial-and-error that you're going to need to start a business there. That hasn't been an option.

Because we're not classified as a remote community…. Sorry, that's where I was going. Our argument is that that mill is part of the communities, and several of the communities out there are off-grid. That's a key piece of it. It helps bolster the line out to where these folks live. So that caps the price.

We've looked at the economic impact assessment, not a purely financial calculation for an internal rate of return at B.C. Hydro's price. But when you step back and realize that that one megawatt turns the tables on 60 jobs — 36 in the mill, plus the logging and silviculture — the value to the province…. That's all taxable income. It's all taxable — off-reserve site employees. All of that goes in. The return to the taxpayer is huge for that one megawatt. We're apart by three cents. Three cents is the barrier.

Access to capital is critical. We do live in a world where if you have money, it's easier to make money. If you don't have that initial amount that you need to get started, it's really, really tough to start. I think there are some things that can change. I think there is a huge opportunity there, but it is exceptionally frustrating to try and push those from a community level through to the corridors of B.C. Hydro and others.

Even though there are plenty of folks within those organizations that want to do something, they're constrained. Every time you go down one program or the other, whether it's a feed-in tariff, there's always something else that just doesn't quite fit, even though everybody around the room is saying: "This is a great idea, and it should work."

I wanted to also comment on the non-economic side. I'm personally frustrated by the lack of planning and resource stewardship capacities that we have, both within the First Nation communities and within the B.C. government. There are a lot of folks that we work with on a daily basis through the Tsilhqot'in framework agreement. Their hearts are in the right place. They're at the table with us. They want to work on the South Chilcotin project. It's not just a First Nations issue. It's the ranchers. It's anybody who lives in the area. So often these issues are…. There's a First Nation issue. It's just which community happens to be in the area of the impact, First Nation or not, in many instances.

In the Chilcotin — this report that Chief Francis was pointing to — we've seen roughly a 64 percent drop in cow-calf populations in the last five years. Now, four or five years ago it was at the point where there were roadblocks. There were people saying: "They are not there." All the ranchers who fly their planes around are saying: "They are not there in the same numbers." There is a problem. But by the time you get the study, not taking that local knowledge into account, we're so far reactive that I don't think…. We're trying to figure out as a group, and we are working with the government representatives to figure out how you can turn this main food source around.

At the same time, the areas within that zone that have had the largest impacts on cow-calf populations are those next slated for harvesting. What the Tsilhqot'in have asked for is a temporary reprieve from harvesting pressure on some of the upper key watersheds that are not yet harvested — a fraction of the planning area. It's 2 to 5 percent of the actual South Chilcotin planning area.

Government doesn't have the power to do that. That's what they say. But it is in the Forest and Range Practices Act, and the power is there to address those cutting permits if it can't be addressed on a voluntary basis.

The licensees are willing to work with us on that, but it's hard for them under the pressures that they're at. So there's a real rub that kind of winds up pitting First Nations, who are themselves licence holders but don't get to move their volume — they're not a beneficiary of their licence; they're just a licence holder — and the other licence holders who are operating and running facilities in this town, as well as government. Between the three, the lack of…. I think it's the lack of a provincial mandate to empower the local folks who are trying to address these issues and see if there can be a turnaround.

Those upper watersheds only represent, you know, another winter or two winters of logging. But it could be decades, then, to just turn around the wildlife populations. There needs to be a very serious planning process
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on this. We haven't had any planning to speak of since the land use plan was put in place, and the First Nations that I'm working with were not involved in that process at that time.

It is time that through these agreements, through these strategic engagement agreements or whatever, we work together on those. Those agreements can be well-intended and well written, but remember when you're in Victoria: they need a mandate, and you're the folks that can give those local people a mandate to do that.

In closing, the issues are extremely complicated. We're not planning well enough to deal with the environmental impacts of the harvesting we're already doing, and we don't have the economic designs, infrastructure or strategies in place to make the best use of the tenures and opportunities that lay before us.

There's time and opportunity for strategic investment in infrastructure and tenure change as well as in the way in which we approach land use planning in a post-beetle world.

Z. Parker: I just had one more comment. Everything the Chief has said Ulkatcho agrees with 110 percent. But more importantly, I come with solutions, real-world solutions, actually based on diversity in the wood market, in the wood sector. That's where the future of the wood is. I spent quite a few days over in Austria to see what's possible. They met the Kyoto accord — right? — at 2011.

The point is this: all these challenges come down to resources and a lack of them. Of course, there are more sacred words in our language for what we call a tree or a resource.

That said, the forefathers for British Columbia and Canada left you guys with a legacy, and our ancestors left us with a legacy as well. How are we going to meaningfully change this legacy for the next generation and the next seven yet to come, and build economies based on a seven-generation thought process, not one?

When we have that, we build a long-term business, and that creates a strong investment climate for people globally, provincially and across Canada. When we build economies like that, when the chips are down, people are going to invest in strong areas.

But when we have a reactive type of strategy-planning based on forest values, or any other value for that matter, it's: "Well, I'm just going to ride this horse because if we're around for this term, that's great." That's fine for five years until the next election. That's not smart planning.

As aboriginal people, our governance and thought process are not going to change regardless of who's elected or not. It's about this generation and the next seven yet to come. Planning that way and building businesses with that thought process — that's strength. Sechanalyagh.

The review of what we presented, or at least with the Ulkatcho Nation, is that we're sitting there with our own tenure. We have an agreement of government-to-government with the Crown, and we are somewhat lucky, because we still have a chance, given that we can look at our own resources without a multitude of contracts or other third-party interests. Government-to-government, we have a plan. We just need to implement that plan.

We're sitting here, and right now we're faced with the first referral coming in on the 15th and, not 30 days later, another referral of in excess of one million cubic metres of impact. We're being asked…. Here we go. We're going to apply those licences out into the western supply blocks from Williams Lake at an impact of a million cubic metres, first toss.

We're talking about wiping out an area that's already been impacted by post-harvesting, taking out First Nations — Mr. Dorsey, who runs a business and has run a business for three generations — for tourism…. That's going to totally wipe out the watershed. It's being done. The application is in. We're faced with those referrals right now.

We said to government: "These shape file ribbons — we don't support them." We came to the MLAs. We came to the minister February 22. These shape file ribbons are not a part of the forest practices code. Therefore, it's not consultation and referral as required.

They went out there and hung ribbons all over the country. They didn't have to refer. They didn't have to consult. But what they did do is took those shape file ribbons and turned them into a massive presentation. Impact — there you go.

Well, that's not even in good faith, for crying out loud, but that's the way they can do it. We're faced with a million-cubic-metre impact now, yet we went to the government. We're in an agreement with the government-to-government, yet third-party interests think they can do this.

What's more important — third-party interest or a government-to-government relationship? This panel has the opportunity to do what's right and make the right recommendations. Shame on you if you don't.

J. Rustad (Chair): Well, I want to thank you very much for taking some time to have a discussion with us. I think the input has been great. I really appreciate the perspective that you've been able to bring to our committee, and I look forward to opportunities to be able to discuss this and other things in the future. Thank you once again.

J. Rustad (Chair): Good evening, everyone. The next presenter is Bob Macnair with the United Steelworkers.

B. Macnair: Thanks, John. My name is Bob Macnair. I'm the financial secretary with Local 1-425, which represents steelworkers in Williams Lake and 100 Mile House.

The Steelworkers aren't opposed to logging but are very concerned about the land use, which we were heavily involved with years ago. We have a Tolko Creekside mill that's been down for the last three years. We of the union have repeatedly tried to get from the Ministry of Forests an actual breakdown on the inventories that are in our TSA, to no avail. We were never given any information on what is or isn't out there, and to this day we still don't know what the inventories are.

We are very concerned about the longevity of the mills in this local, now and in the long term. Our members are coming in daily with questions and concerns. Some are leaving the industry to move into mining and other jobs. We don't want to see a short-term gain for Tolko and West Fraser at the cost of the future of jobs in this community.

We also have value-added. Parallel Wood Products, which uses blocks from the mills, will be directly affected. They use the blocks for finger-jointing. We also have Atlantic Power, which uses hog fuel from the mills, which could be and probably will be affected.

We have a mill at Soda Creek. The last time I talked to the manager there, he stated that they were lucky if they were getting 30 percent out of the logs that came into the mill because of check and dry-out factors. When they mill it and put it through the system it falls apart, breaks up, etc. He didn't know how much longer Soda Creek was going to be running.

The timber supply review is now in the process. Layoffs in the forestry department here I don't think have helped that. Those are the people that were on the ground doing the inventories, making sure that the West Frasers and Tolkos of the world lived up to their commitments.

I know I only have ten minutes, so I'm trying to give you a Reader's Digest version.

Our members are very concerned. The majority of them are coming in…. Every day there are two or three coming in who say: "Can you tell us how much longer the mills are going to operate?" I can't say that. I don't know.

Tolko, the Creekside mill, like I say, has been down three years. Every time we talk to Tolko, they say: "Well, you know, if the price of lumber goes up, no movement at the mill." In fact, they're cannibalizing it for their other mills. Instead of being direct with the workers, paying them the severance that they should get, that they're owed, they make excuses.

I'm going to go into my questions now. How can a government, which is supposed to be the stewards of public land, make decisions about land base when they don't know what's actually out there as far as inventory?

What is going on with CCBAC and the federal moneys promised? CCBAC stalled out. They did an interim report. They did a lot of good work in that interim report.

"Likely impact of the pine beetle epidemic on forest workers: too little is presently known to make more than general references to the likely impact of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. The widespread destruction of the pine inventories and subsequent salvage harvest has brought an increase in the annual allowable cut. In order to return to sustained yield harvest, the AAC increase will be followed by corresponding greater and more prolonged harvest reduction."

You know, CCBAC was promised federal money, I believe. I might be wrong there. It's either federal or provincial money. My members want to know what happened to that money and what's being done with it to ensure that they're going to get the training, re-education and opportunities in other fields when the forest industry crashes.

We as a union have studied the interim report on CCBAC, and it seems stalled. Recommendations are being implemented, in our opinion — economic transition, etc. Phase 2 — we want to know where phase 2 of the program is and what's being done. We know who's on the committee, and when we make phone calls to the individuals that sit on the CCBAC, none of them seem to know what's going on either.

Our union doesn't want false hope. We feel the process should have been done years ago, as we feel we are now under the knife and hope that anything this committee comes up with will not be a recipe for even more job losses in the future. The timber supply review for Williams Lake timber supply area — when will it be done, and why is it taking so long? We've been asking for the last four years, ever since Creekside went down.

We've had four or five meetings over at the forestry department. The last meeting was: "Well, we had a bunch of layoffs, and we're having a hard time getting to the inventory." To us, that's not acceptable.

We're also very concerned about the social, environmental and economic impacts to our community. I have a copy of district 3 steelworkers. They have five bullets on there, and I've made 15 copies for the panel members.

I'd like to thank the panel members for their time and hope that as they travel the province, some good will come out of this. We look forward to working with them.

B. Routley: I'd be interested in, as obviously one of the key stakeholders representing the workers, whether
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you've had much in the way of communication from the various groups dealing with pine beetle mitigation strategies in terms of a plan. You mentioned job transition. I know that successful job transition programs from the coast, where I come from, were only really viable when they included the workers from the outset in the discussions about how to do employment mitigation and deal with them.

I was alarmed by your statement that when you make phone calls to people, they don't seem to know much. And you're not actually directly involved yourself, or the union?

B. Macnair: The union is involved. But like I say, anybody that we've talked to, it's been nothing but lip service. I don't know. Pass the buck, that type of put-off.

D. Barnett: Thank you very much, Bob, for making your presentation. First of all, the training program — is this local here not involved with the local out of Prince George, Terry Tate, with the training program for union workers?

B. Macnair: That's only for people that are presently employed. There's a whole bunch…. There are 200 guys or 160 guys from Creekside that aren't eligible.

D. Barnett: If you're not getting any answers, I will come and see you when I get back next week. I'll go and see you guys and talk about this. They are doing good things, and you should be included. When I was there, you guys were at the table doing great things with us. So I will get back to you.

B. Macnair: My belief is the funding model…. The government has stated that only employed, nervously employed employees, are eligible.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Thank you for coming to present here. The union has been very active on these files. I know you've come to Victoria. I know that you've been there for a week at a time with meetings. As you've said, all of this is predictable. The issues around inventory, the issues around a whole host of….

They're not new. What have you been told in terms of how the transition or these issues are going to be dealt with? What sort of commitments are made to workers, and are you getting a follow-up? Clearly, you don't seem to be getting the follow-up.

B. Macnair: There is no commitment to the workers that are going to be directly involved. There's no commitment to the community. How can there be to the workers?

That's the key. The workers are coming in. They're scared. They're frustrated. They don't know what to do. And I don't know what to tell them because I'm not getting the answers from the forestry department, from our MLA or from the forest companies. So I'm basically…. You know, grin and bear it.

Then when I heard about the standing committee, I thought that this would be a good forum, although I think that, like I say, we're under the knife, and it may be too little, too late.

J. Rustad (Chair): Thanks. Bob, I've just got a couple of comments and a question as well.

You asked how long the mill will stay open. Of course, economics play a big role in that, but if the question is how long the fibre supply is going to stay there, the most recent information that we have as a committee from the ministry says that we are going to be ten to 20 years, in this area, still cutting in the pine beetle wood before there's going to be a drop in the AAC. So that's the situation that we're looking at here.

Now, I suppose things could change in terms of that, but the recommendations that we are going to be looking at or trying to come forward with, assuming we can come forward with some recommendations, will be to try to mitigate some of that potential falldown.

As you probably heard from the mayor's presentation earlier, she believes there are some ways to be able to bring that up, to get that pretty close to where it was pre–pine beetle, and so Williams Lake is in a good situation from that perspective. Obviously, it depends on what comes forward in terms of recommendations and then what the ministry may make some decisions on.

B. Macnair: I don't buy it. I'll tell you why I don't buy it, John. You guys don't even…. You're sitting up there, and you don't even know what's out there as far as inventory. You don't know what's been burned, what silviculture has taken place, what spacing has taken place, what's mature, what's not mature. The forestry department in Williams Lake doesn't even know that because their department got gutted with layoffs a few years back, and nobody's been able to get out there and do the inventories.

J. Rustad (Chair): We have a minute or two, and I'm just thinking that we want to put one of our special advisers on the spot to talk a little bit about the annual allowable cut process and the role that the inventory plays in that, if I could.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Maybe it might be more interesting…. I know that Bob has some points that
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they'd like to make, that I think the Steelworkers have. It might be interesting to put those on record.

J. Rustad (Chair): Oh, yeah, sorry. If you had more to present, that's great. I'd rather spend the time with that.

B. Macnair: I was going to present them as a handout, but I can go through them if you'd like.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Just to put them in Hansard, just to put them on the record. I think you have….

J. Rustad (Chair): Perhaps, then, what I'll suggest, before you go into that, Bob, is that with our two special advisers here, maybe after the presentation you have a quick chat with them. Then they can walk you through the inventory and the inventory state.

One of the biggest challenges you have with inventories is that you don't necessarily want to do an inventory in the middle of an infestation. You kind of wait for the event to be over because there can be so much that's changing on the ground at any particular time. In any case, yes, please enter the information. That would be great.

B. Macnair: In addition to our lobby and other political actions, we've developed a plan that calls for forest policies that create family-supporting jobs, that support value-added manufacturing and that generate economic wealth for our province, not foreign competitors.

Our plan includes (1) enacting an equivalency fee on raw log exports at a rate equal to the difference between domestic and export prices, currently about 50 percent. Along with reducing raw log exports, it would provide B.C. manufacturers such as sawmills, pulp mills and value-added access to B.C. logs at a fair price.

(2) Enact the same policy at the federal level to ensure that the fee applies to raw log exports from federally regulated private lands, the main source of log exports.

(3) Move collection of the province's resource rents to the end of the value chain rather than the stump, a change that would make it easier to buy, sell and add value to logs domestically.

(4) Create a wood-manufacturing investment fund, utilizing B.C.'s share of revenues from the Canada-U.S. softwood lumber agreement to support efforts to rebuild our province's manufacturing base.

(5) Develop a reforestation strategy that ensures proper management, monitoring and reporting of our forests to secure the future of the industry and the provincial economy. This would create jobs today and healthy, sustainable forests for tomorrow.

As you can see, securing a strong future for forestry in British Columbia and ensuring that we see more B.C. jobs from B.C. resources is a major priority of our union.

J. Rustad (Chair): Thank you very much, Bob. And thanks for taking the time to present to the committee.

J. Rustad (Chair): Oh, sorry. We still need the handout — if you could. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Martin Kruus from the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society.

M. Kruus: Hello, hon. members of the committee. I'm very happy that you could make it to the Cariboo-Chilcotin. Welcome. You had a nice, sunny day — if you ever had a pause out there.

Of course, for us, it was one of the first sunny, warm days of the summer. There's been a lot of rain, and it's unseasonable. Some records were broken in the West Kootenays, where I used to do silviculture work. But it's also something that some people have picked out as the coming times — increased precipitation, perhaps because of climate change. The latest studies I've seen predict that sort of thing to happen.

I'm respectful of the opportunity to speak for the Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society. We've been around locally for about 20 years, starting just at the beginning of the CORE process which led to the land use plan. We hope to represent quite a few of the local populace in terms of their concern for the environment.

One of the things that drew me initially about a decade ago to live in this area was the geography, the diversity of the geography, which is true for our timber supply area as well, and how people are grounded to this place. They are concerned about place, and I think you'll probably notice that as you pass through the Cariboo. People care about their land and the land values that are there, including the timber and the non-timber values.

The goals of our conservation society. I just want to read it verbatim so that you can hear how close it is to actually some of the ideas that your special committee is trying to get at.

The goals are to "promote land use and management decisions which enhance the stability, quality of life and economic viability of the community over the long term. We seek to ensure the preservation and maintenance of healthy functioning ecosystems."

I believe, and our conservation society believes, that the healthy functioning of these ecosystems has to focus around resilience. Yes, there's climate change. Yes, there are beetles. Yes, there are insects, disease, forest fires that happen. We can't stop them all. We can do our best, though, to have those ecosystems intact so that the animals, plants, timber, soils, water, air quality can bounce back when given an adequate chance.

Now, the "when given an adequate chance" depends
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on management. Of course, part of the management is up to the Ministry of Forests, and part of the management relies on the users of the woods. I don't just mean the large mills. There are all sorts of small holders and stakeholders out there.

I would like to see less of the four-wheel-drive guys in the backwoods — not throwing their oil bucket overboard and things like that. There are small issues, too, out there that we're concerned with.

In terms of timber supply, I think other people have gone over these points. Trusting your forestry professionals. They are people who work on the ground, in the field, every day. They can give you a good idea of what's out there — what they see; what they don't see.

I guess, as a society, we feel like the balance between the private sector foresters who work directly for industry and some of the public sector foresters who work for the Ministry of Forests…. If there isn't enough balance, I think you're going to put increased pressure on those professionals, foresters and forest technologists, working for industry.

I used to study philosophy, and it's what we call a slippery slope. Little corners may get suggested to be cut here and there, and you'll be under immense pressure at work. That person will not enjoy their work. It'll be stressful, and no matter what decision they make, it'll either be against what the bottom-line money guys at the industry would like, or it will be against what they feel is proper by their professional standards. They'll get torn apart, literally.

We just feel that that balance has to be there. If there's enough of those professionals out there from both industry and the public sector, you'll be able to trust the information you're receiving from them and make good decisions about the forestry management.

I think you've also heard about investing in the long term. That was right in our goal. I realize this is a mid-term supply review committee, but one of our main points is not to sacrifice the mid-term for the long term. Even in terms of how long it takes industry to generate — meaning to set up a mill, to take down a mill, to hire workers, to train workers, to properly build resource roads — if you think in terms of changing the timber supply suddenly just to keep a few jobs for a few years, and I realize those jobs are precious, it doesn't make sense to us as a conservation society with a long-term plan in mind.

We would like to see the community of Williams Lake and the other communities in the Cariboo exist for the long term. For them to exist for the long term and to trust that they will exist for the long term and to build up their social and cultural values, they would like to believe that the trees will be there to harvest and to use right for the long term. I think those other social values — the quality of the communities, the amount people are willing to commit to those communities, including industry — will be more genuine and long term if they know that those forests are being managed properly.

We'd like you to stay flexible. I think you've heard that. Again, even in our timber supply area, it's huge, and it has diverse values. There's a big difference…. And this is partly why I moved to Williams Lake. If I go out past Likely, I'm into cedar-hemlock interior rainforest. If I turn the other way and go to Farwell Canyon, I'm picking cactus out of my feet. I like that diversity. But keep in mind that even for our timber supply area, there won't necessarily be one solution that fits everywhere in terms of mid-term timber supply mitigation.

Another point I think you've heard from other people. We are smaller communities. We at the conservation society think that community-model forestry works. It is such a small player at the moment. We're under 200,000 cubic metres in our timber supply area. I don't think it will ever hurt big industry. There just aren't enough opportunities available, but the ones that are there, we feel you should push.

Try to get First Nations involved. There are some good-news First Nations stories from just south of Mackenzie, in the McLeod Lake area. There are some good-news community forests near McBride. Those are similar communities to us, quite timber-dependent. I don't think you'll be stealing wood from a mill because the numbers are so small. Slowly growing that sector makes sense to almost everybody.

Those people, again, just have more presence on the ground. The decisions being made will still be debated. There still needs to be communication, information exchanged, but it's not the kind of decision that's made from long distance by somebody who hasn't even been to the spot that they're talking about. They haven't seen the forest. We just feel like that's a better, sounder decision to make.

The last one you've heard before is adding value to tree products. That is happening locally to some extent. I think this is a provincewide challenge and has been for decades in B.C. I don't think you should give up. Please keep up the good work with trying to promote value-added products wherever you can. How that works exactly, I'm not in a position to know. I'm just not knowledgable enough locally. But as the conservation society, we'd like to impress that point upon you.

We believe transportation costs will continue to rise as fossil fuels decrease in quantity. That will mean that trucking products long distances before they're processed is going to cost more and more. Even in terms of drying the wood or cutting it to smaller specifications or putting it together before it's moved, it's going to make more and more sense to do that.

We believe that the mid-term and even the long-term future is processing it as close to where it's cut as possible. Is that portable sawmills out in the woods? I don't know. But why don't we think about that? Why don't we
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keep going over those ideas? I realize that's hard work for you guys, and it has been for decades. But don't give up. That's our message.

You had five questions that you wanted us to ponder. Instead of addressing them directly, I'd like to address the three proposals that were made to mitigate the mid-term timber supply, and I hope to cover your five questions as I go. So a slightly different approach, maybe, than other speakers. I'm going to do them in a certain order because we have questions about one of them, and I'll keep that till last.

The first method I'd like to speak about is the steep slopes — that some of those could be included in the timber land base. The largest concern for the conservation society is hydrology. If they were excluded in the first place, they may be technically possible to harvest. I don't know if that's cable logging, helicopter logging or other special methods. But they are steep. Some of them in the steepest areas — I assume that might be the Cariboo Mountains to the east — would have a fairly heavy rainfall, so we're looking at a lot of runoff.

There was a report, 92 pages long, May 20, that came to the Cohen Commission about forestry practices and the effects on salmon-bearing streams that come from sedimentation and runoff.

There's another well-known study. They use the Baker Creek area just southwest of Quesnel as their study area. They were looking specifically at runoff: what it does to the water quality, when the runoff happens, and if it is a higher percent or lower percent than normal. This has to do with the quantity that you're cutting in a certain area. Baker Creek is not quite the same. It's not as steep an area, but my point is that those issues are already out there.

Big Creek is another watershed in our area in the southeast of the Chilcotin where the ranchers have pointed out that there are effects already. Some of them are small effects like lots of wind on their cattle. They have to feed them more hay. They also noticed that that wind, increased because of the cutting for pine beetle, is drying the land out, resulting in less water for their cattle.

To us as a conservation society, cattle is not our first priority. It is a big priority in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. We care about wildlife, animals, everything, but the cattle are certainly representative. They're symbolic. If that animal that's prevalent out there is struggling in a different way than it was before, maybe we need to look at that before we make a big decision to start cutting steep slopes and all of the water draining off the land and, hence, increasing sedimentation in the rivers, potentially adding to flood levels in rivers as well. I hope that makes my point.

Hydrology is our main concern with the steep slopes — perhaps looking at them really carefully. Why was this not included in the timber land base? How might it increase the runoff to this side slope in the mountains and downstream as well?

The second mitigation factor that was talked about was cutting of old-growth management areas. I realize you're speaking about 70 percent of them that were not overlap areas in the land use plan — at least as I understood from the technical working group report. You're not trying to change the 30 percent that were overlapping more than one excluded use for timber.

Our society grew out of the CORE process. We were very involved with the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan, as were many, many other people. It was a long process. It was an involved process. Unless there's really good research, really good numbers, really good evidence that we've made mistakes in that land use plan that are big mistakes — and some of those old-growth management areas are not worth it; they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing — I don't understand why we would overturn that.

I'm trying to speak for the conservation society and many other members in our area. This land use plan is fairly unique in B.C. I think East Kootenay and Cariboo-Chilcotin are the only ones that got to that level of land use plan, if I remember. The uniqueness is important to people in this area. They took a lot of time to put aside at least 70 percent of the land base for timber harvesting.

Those old-growth management areas. If you look on a map and see where they are and what reason they're there for…. They've been allocated for specific reasons. Yes, there were 17 protected areas set aside in exchange for allowing timber harvesting on a big portion. Compromises were made.

We've been involved with the Mitchell River area. Mitchell River drains into the north arm of Quesnel Lake. It's a salmon-bearing stream, especially in the lower part. We've been active in the last couple of years, trying to get some education out there in terms of physical signage and also education to powerboaters and fishermen to please be wary of what they're doing to that lower part of the Mitchell River.

That area was planned or expected to be harvested by West Fraser at the time of the land use plan. They exchanged it in a compromise for the Penfold valley nearby. I think that that kind of unique compromise between industry and environmental groups is really cool, and it needs to stay there. If it's being done and it's working, why would you fiddle with it? I guess that's our main point.

That's an example where that lower Mitchell River…. It's not a very big piece of land, but it's quite important for the salmon. We're still working on educating the public to conserve those salmon spawners in that area. But I think the industry already agreed almost 20 years ago to stay out, and they have.

The third mitigation proposal is a measure…. It's the biggest one, concerning 600,000 cubic metres per year — trying to bump up the annual allowable cut by that
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much. It involves increasing the minimum merchantability harvest. That's the one where we are a little unsure, as a conservation society, what that means. How would you actually get industry to come in to harvest stands that have 65 cubic metres of pine on them? I think 120 cubic metres is the level for the non-pine. We've got question marks there.

Is this an open stand with Douglas fir far apart that are quite limby, low-quality? Does that make any sense to harvest that stand? Can you renew it afterwards? Will it dry out immediately because you've cut the only canopy cover there? Those are questions we have. We're not wiping that off the board.

I'd like to ask the committee if you could explain in more detail how that might work. That's the mitigation proposal. I suppose we are open to it if it makes sense. Is this cutting a younger stand that has a lower volume just to get the wood now, but that stand hasn't reached maturity, hasn't gone through its growing curve properly, and you're just reducing the long-term supply? That's what we'd like to know. I don't know if any member could address that.

J. Rustad (Chair): We are over the time. I can offer you just a quick response, in that we have asked the ministry for some data around the low volume — what it looks like, where it is, the characteristics around it. We don't have the exact information at this point, but we're expecting some information within the next few weeks.

J. Rustad (Chair): I think that if we can, we'll post that on our website and make that available.

M. Kruus: Okay. I thank you for your time today, and I'm open to answer any questions if you've got any.

J. Rustad (Chair): We would love to be able to ask some questions, but unfortunately we're over our time. Thank you very much for your presentation.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Could I just say one thing? This is for Eric Foster as much as anything. Martin and I taught together in Tanzania, so I just want you to know….

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): This guy — everywhere we've gone he has known somebody, so this is my one chance.

J. Rustad (Chair): Our next presenter is Robin Hood with the B.C. Community Forest Association.

R. Hood: No, I'm not allowed to be with them today. I have to be with the Likely Xats'ull Community Forest, because we are presenting in Vancouver as the association. Anyway, thank you for letting me speak today.

My name is Robin Hood. My company is Sherwood Forest Contracting Ltd. I spent the last nine years as president of the B.C. Community Forest Association. I'm involved in two woodlots. I've been involved with the federation and the Cariboo Woodlot Association. I've been a large silviculture contractor in the FRBC days. I'm the self-proclaimed mayor of Likely, British Columbia, so I play a lot with our government grants. I'm here to offer you the word from the trenches, with guys that are right in the workings of it all.

The Working Round Table on Forestry created a vision for a vibrant, sustainable, globally competitive forest industry. This included the key period of supported and previous rural forest economies, with the recommendation that we should expand the community forest tenure program.

In the face of the profound impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, there is a need to support local jobs and diversify the economic base of communities while maintaining ecosystems and forest values for the future. Community forest agreements are a powerful tool that can help make this happen.

This is clearly acknowledged in the province's new forest sector strategy, with its plan to improve access to forest tenure for a range of users, with the following commitment: "New community forest agreement opportunities will be created where suitable areas and fibre supplies exist or where partnerships can be created."

Area-based tenures, community forests such as Likely-Xats'ull, are a diverse small tenure managed by and for rural communities and First Nations. Now, 14 years after this initiative tenure was piloted, community forests are demonstrating their ability to create local jobs and manage local resources to meet community needs, values and priorities.

In the midst of the enormous challenges facing B.C. forestry and forest-dependent communities, community forests are a unique tool to help create and maintain more resilient and self-reliant communities. What better tool is out there to test some of your ideas about accessing presently constrained areas?

Likely-Xats'ull community forest is a 13-year-old partnership between the communities of Likely and Soda Creek Indian Band. We co-manage 20,000 hectares at the west end of Quesnel Lake, surrounding the town of Likely. All work is done by locals, and profits are shared equally between community groups. We'd like to offer the following information.

Land use plans. Our community forest and some
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others are constrained by biodiversity seral stage targets on landscape units that were overcut outside of the community forest boundaries. Since there is a shortfall of mature timber outside of our community forest, we're not allowed to harvest the mature timber within the community forest. This is a result of landscape units overlapping community forest boundaries.

The best solution is that community forests should be their own landscape unit. Our forest grows at about four cubic metres a hectare annually. With the constraints, we are only harvesting 1.2 metres annually. There are 8,348.3 hectares of community forest in the Powell Lake landscape unit. This section inside the community forest exceeds the targets of their seral stage distribution, but the area outside the community forest does not. This means 333,752 cubic metres of community forest timber are available for salvage opportunity only.

We also have a mule deer winter range that the deer don't use and a visual-quality area that is dead. Attention to these areas and sensible management plans for OGMAs are examples of how allowable cut could be found. We by no means want to eliminate higher-level plans, but there are ways to manage them better, and community forests are the place to start.

Undercut carry-forward. Presently undercut is only carried forward in inventory. We have a cut control that we try to balance every five years. If we have an undercut, it stays in our inventory but gets diluted in a 100-year rotation. To realize this volume as a re-inventory, this would have to be done. If we could move our undercut forward from cut control period 3 to cut control period 9, say, at full value, it would help.

We should be able to move undercut forward to a cut control period in the mid-term falldown term or time slot. Example: right now we're 100,000 cubic metres undercut in the last year of our five-year cut control. If we could move this volume forward and harvest it in year 20 or 25, it puts 100,000 metres into a five-year window when we need it.

Old-growth management areas. They're not being managed. We have an OGMA with over 500 standing dead large-diameter Douglas fir. These trees are large-diameter Douglas fir. We agree that snags are a component of old forest, but 500 in a small area is ridiculous, especially when those are the trees the value-added guys are fighting over.

Land-based investment. The intent of land-based investment is to increase the amount of fibre available in the mid-term. But why are they cutting 20 percent in this year's budget and threatening to cut another 50 percent in next year's budget? Re-inventory or some small plots to check accuracy of forest-cover data should be eligible in this program. This could prove that there is much more volume out there.

Why is the management of hardwoods not part of this program? Hardwoods only take 40 years to grow. That gets me on to hardwoods. Presently we count hardwoods in our inventory plots, but they do not count in our AAC calculation. If we harvest them, the volume is charged against our AAC. This is a huge deterrent to the utilizing of hardwoods. It's better to use them as corduroy in a road. A partition cut for hardwoods would allow our community forest to harvest another 8,000 cubic metres annually.

In conclusion, solving the mid-term timber supply falldown problem is not an easy task and has many lenses to consider. But if we look at all kinds of changes — some large, some small, some easy, some complicated — we can have a huge positive effect on the problem in front of us. Community forests like Likely-Xat'sull can be a large part of the solution, yet the provincial community forest program has less volume than West Fraser in Williams Lake uses in a year.

The average com for has an AAC of 20,000 metres. It takes 90,000 cubic metres to keep a four-man logging company working full time to deliver wood to the majors. Maybe more and bigger community forests is a good thing. It sure sounds like it after the round-table report. Putting the fibre in the hands of the people with the examples I have suggested, you could add over 10,000 metres annually to our cut and move 100,000 metres forward in the falldown years. This is just one community forest. There are 50 more out there.

Just after listening to the people before me, especially the union…. I'm really frustrated with see backs and front backs and upside-down backs and all that too. They are just looking for big projects. I'm a little project guy. I've worked with all these guys.

If you come to my community you'll see we've done incredible things, but for the last years we can't make anything happen, because they just want these great big, huge multiregional projects. So we're fairly frustrated with that.

In concluding, I just ask that you move on these recommendations in the short term. Don't just put them in a binder on someone's shelf.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Just the part on the hardwood. I presume that deals with part of the issue that's there for Aspenware. What you've said here is that there's a real disincentive for dealing with hardwoods when there is a use for them.

R. Hood: Yeah. If we're going to have to keep people working in the mid-term, then the development of value-added in hardwoods has got to be one of the pieces of the puzzle.

Right now if I harvest them, I get to harvest that much less white wood to put into that program — right? —
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where it doesn't add to my AAC. Sorry, I'm getting all Italian on you.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): So the idea of a partition cut is one that's worth…?

R. Hood: Yeah, I had one before, and they wouldn't renew it when I did my long-term licence.

I guess the other thing…. I don't know if you would be able to know this, but if you look at expanding community forests…. Essentially, that's one form of the area-based tenure.

With First Nations, what sort of process does one go through that is seen as consultation? I mean, in one of the presentations we've had, there seems to be…. Consultation is needed, but it's unclear to me exactly what that entails. If we're looking at area-based management, what was your experience in terms of setting that up?

R. Hood: Our experience with setting it up is that we invited three First Nations to partner with us. One didn't show. The other one laughed at us because we were a small community and decided they'd partner with the city of Williams Lake.

They said that Soda Creek could work with us. We'd never worked together before. We sat in the room. You could cut the air with a knife, but one of the First Nations persons stood up and said: "We don't know each other, but we all know business, so let's just start ourselves a business."

That's what we did, and relationships were formed out of it. As long as we're honest and equal and considerate to each other, we have had almost zero problems.

But the problem is that we have overlapping traditional territory, so trying to get a cutting permit through is as frustrating as it gets. You have some First Nations that don't have capacity to handle the referrals, so you automatically have 62-day delays. We're having very little luck in getting people to sign off — all four or five bands signing off, depending on which piece of the community forest we're using.

J. Rustad (Chair): Robin, thank you very much for your time and for presenting the information.

Now our next presenter on the list — I'm not sure if he's here — is Douglas Gook.

F. McMechan: Welcome to Williams Lake. Nice to see you here, and thank you for allowing us to give a presentation to your committee. I'm Fred McMechan. I'm the president of the Williams Lake Field Naturalists. To my right is Ordell Steen, the secretary of our club.

To begin with, we want to just let you know about the Williams Lake Field Naturalists. Our club includes biologists, foresters, educators, research scientists and naturalists. They are people who spend a great deal of time outdoors and have a very good knowledge of regional species and ecosystems.

Members have contributed expertise and hundreds of volunteer hours to land use planning, including the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan and regional park planning. Williams Lake Field Naturalists have provided a major service to the community by managing the Scout Island Nature Centre and its many other educational programs for 30 years.

Our presentation will provide responses to the five questions posed by the committee's discussion paper. Just for clarification, if you have our written submission, the black print is what I will bring forward during the oral presentation. The blue print is additional information for the written submission.

No. 1, the first question: what values and principles should guide the evaluation and decision-making regarding potential actions to mitigate timber supply impacts?

Point 1. Long-term forest ecosystem health should not be sacrificed for short-term economic gains. Ecologically sensitive forest harvesting in appropriate conservation reserves benefits all of us, including our long-term ability to market timber products.

Point 2. The Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan must be the primary benchmark setting the balance between timber extraction and forest conservation. This plan is based on a comprehensive multi-stakeholder process and sound scientific information which resulted in stable and balanced resource use decisions.

The plan took many years to develop and was agreed to by all sectors, including the forest industry and environmental groups. The carefully crafted balance between timber and environmental values from this plan must not be changed to provide short-term economic benefits.

Point 3. We strongly urge you to look for innovative ways of mitigating timber supply requirements other than by reducing environmental conservation. Innovation examples include increasing value-added production, assessing presently underutilized timber
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which is available through commercial thinning, and expanding efforts on pre-commercial thinning.

The second question that you brought forward for us is: how should decisions regarding potential actions to mitigate the timber supply impacts be made, and by whom?

Point 1. The Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan is the only benchmark for the allocation of timber and non-timber forest resources in our region that has been agreed to by timber and non-timber stakeholders. The long-term ecosystem health and balanced resource use promoted by the direction contained in this plan must be the main basis for decisions on mid-term timber supply.

Point 2. The environmental impact of any timber mitigation options should be evaluated by local ecosystem specialists and resource managers using the best available science and using precautionary principles. Evaluations of timber mitigation options must be publicly available.

Point 3. The public should be involved in the review of any specific timber mitigation options before decisions are made, and First Nations involvement, we believe, is very important.

The third question: what specific information about your local area would you like the committee to know and consider?

Point 1. The Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan includes the Quesnel, Williams Lake and 100 Mile House timber supply areas. It established balanced land use to maintain a healthy timber industry, healthy forest ecosystems and support for non-timber industries. This balance is critical to the plan and has provided stability, community buy-in and efficient planning.

The plan provides the long-term social licence that has allowed a strong forest industry and peace in the woods. The plan has been adapted through time to deal with bark beetle control and salvage without degrading environmental protection.

Point 2. In most of the region, the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan provides the forest industry access to approximately 80 percent of the timber from the productive forest land base, with the remaining 20 percent going to meet non-timber values. In some special areas, the timber and non-timber split is about 70-30. Changing this balance to provide higher levels of timber access would degrade fish and wildlife habitat and impact other non-timber values.

The third point. The non-timber components of the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan are critical to maintain the social licence to practise industrial forestry on the majority of the land base and for industry to maintain forest stewardship certifications and markets.

The fourth point. While First Nations were not closely involved in the development of the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan, many of the environmental components of the plan address values that First Nations have expressed. This includes habitat protection for fish, grizzly bears, furbearers and ungulates. First Nations consultation on mid-term timber is indeed important.

The fourth of your five questions: what cautions and advice do you have for this committee in considering whether and how to mitigate mid-term timber supply?

Point 1. The forest reserves and special management designations in the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan are critical to maintain species and ecosystems across the region. If any changes to them are proposed, they must be carefully evaluated by ecological and wildlife experts and these evaluations presented to the public before decisions are finalized.

Point 2. Strong consideration must be given to the needs of First Nations and our future generations.

Environmental evaluations of timber mitigation options must include the cumulative effects from all development activities, including mines and mining exploration.

The last page of our presentation. Number 5: how would you as an individual or community want to be engaged in these considerations going forward?

Just the one point. The Williams Lake Field Naturalists would be pleased to comment on specific mitigation options developed through the work of your committee and to work with other groups to maintain a balanced approach to resource management in this region.

I guess, in conclusion, two basic points. The Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan provides a high level of access to timber by the forest industry and has been adapted to facilitate bark beetle suppression and salvage without degrading non-timber values. The measures put in place to meet the needs of wildlife and other non-timber values were critical at the time this plan was developed and are still just as important now. They need to be maintained.

The second conclusion. Mid-term timber supply deliberations must look for innovative solutions to provide employment from the forest that do not degrade the current conservation measures outlined in the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan.

I think you gave us a very good presentation. I want to thank you very much for providing us with information and taking the time to present to our panel.

R. Saugstad: Good evening, hon. Members. My name is Randy Saugstad, and I am a cattle rancher from the community of Big Creek about 100 kilometres south-
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west of here.

For the past six or seven years the Big Creek area has been subject to extreme and intensive logging because of our close proximity to Williams Lake sawmills. Many of the equivalent clearcut areas are in the 60- to 70-percent range. This has been allowed to happen as a result of regulation changes in FRPA and the salvage harvest of pine beetle–killed timber.

The results of this excessive harvest have been devastating for us ranchers who depend on small streams for our water, for our livestock and irrigation needs. We are either flooded out during spring melt and rainstorms or have no water later in the summer and during the winter.

There is a study being done to determine the feasibility of building reservoirs to mitigate the problems, but I am concerned that in some cases these are simply going to be too expensive. In the meantime, while the study is being done and funding looked for, my costs to survive as a rancher continue. Last winter, for the first time ever in my ranch's 100-year history, I had to haul water for my cows, and I have every expectation of having to do it again this year.

In addition to having to haul 1,500 gallons of water a day and chop ice out of five water troughs required to water the cows, I also have to run a diesel generator for my electrical needs as there is no water to run my small hydroelectric generator. The fuel cost for only the generator is $700 a month, while the water licence for my hydro is $250 a year. There is also a lot of wood to cut to keep the shop heated to prevent the water truck from freezing overnight.

Last year 30 percent of my ranch was under water for June, July and August with the resulting loss of hay production. I have severe erosion problems through the middle of the place as a result of high peak flows created by too much logging.

These problems started in '91 and '92 but have been completely ignored by the mill, while their pursuit of cheaper wood takes precedence over all else. Recent logging has greatly compounded my issues. As one mill employee told a neighbouring rancher: "You can get along with us if you want to, but we're going to log it anyway." This is consultation?

Our ranches are good ranches that contribute to the Canadian economy, have done so for many years and will continue to do so for many years to come if we are given a chance. All the issues we have in Big Creek are happening now, before there is a relaxation of the rules to allow even more harvesting. I shudder to think of how much worse it might get.

What about the thousands of miles of roads that are left behind to allow even more access to our back country and its declining moose population? What gives our generation the right to road every square inch of this once-beautiful province? How bad are our water issues going to be allowed to get?

One Forest Service employee expressed to me a concern whether there will be enough water to grow a future crop of trees. And if the plantations fail, I think it is absolutely essential that there be enough natural forests left for nature to have a chance to fix our mistakes. Judging by the little bit that is left in our area already, it certainly is a bleak outlook under an expanded harvest scenario.

Sustainability — nice term. Logging never really started in any great amount west of the Sheep Creek bridge until the late '60s and early '70s. The pine and spruce that are being logged are 100-plus years old, so the first-pass cutting should not have finished until 2070.

But here it is, 2012, and we're running out of wood. Doesn't that mean we've gone twice as fast as we should have? Sure, the beetles and fires get some of the blame, but shouldn't that have been figured into the equation?

Half of the beetle-killed forest is still green and doing very well but getting trampled and destroyed in the rush to supply wood to a few companies that, we understand, have a limited life expectancy anyway. Why should this me-first attitude be allowed to destroy so many other values? Small towns like Anahim Lake or Alexis Creek need their timber in order for their small mills to survive and have a future, but that will be gone if all this wood is hauled to town.

It's really hard to sell tourism — whether it be fishing, hunting, hiking or trail riding — in clearcuts. The Chilcotin does not even resemble what it once was now, and I can't believe that this government would allow what will happen under an expanded harvest. Those of us who live out west will have very little chance of survival. We need these forests too.

The decisions on how much should be logged and in what time frame were all arrived at through extensive consultation and land use planning processes. There was a great deal of professional input, and all that should not be wiped out by a short-term political decision for the benefit of a few and at a very great cost to the rest of us.

I'm not against logging if done in a professional and sustainable manner, but I am absolutely against what's already happening out there and how much worse it might get if this committee comes to the wrong decision. There's a lot more to the Chilcotin than 2-by-4s.

B. Routley: Hi, Randy. Having toured your operation, I know it was bad. I guess it's over a year ago since I've been there. I wondered how…. You talked about hauling water. How did this happen, when we do have an existing land use plan, that so much was harvested in that level? You say the 60- to 70-percent range. I thought it was supposed to be kept to about a third. Is that correct?
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R. Saugstad: No, apparently not. I've had figures of 93 percent from the Forest Service that can be harvested in our area — 93 percent of the land base. And they're doing it. Before FRPA the district manager had the power to not issue a cutting permit if he thought there were going to be problems. That happened in my case. But as soon as FRPA came into effect, the district manager had no more power to do anything. It was up to the licensee, and they just decided to log it. They deemed the risk acceptable to me.

B. Routley: Have there been any follow-up plans to mitigate, to help deal with the situation? I understand there was some work done but…. And what about other ranchers in the region? Are they also dealing with water problems?

R. Saugstad: Yes, other ranchers have water problems. Two weeks ago we got some money from Beetle Action to do a study. Two weeks ago the engineer and Ducks Unlimited were out there for four days, I think, looking at the issues.

Reading between the lines, there is one project that was an old dam from the '40s or '50s that washed out. It can be rebuilt fairly cheaply. It will benefit four ranches. That's probably going to go ahead, maybe even this fall.

In the case of a couple more of us, we're on our individual streams, and our projects are so expensive. There's no money. The funding they are accessing is environmental farm plan money from the feds. That's been all withdrawn. We're first on the list for next year, but there's no promise that there'll be money next year.

There's also a 25 percent producer contribution. Well, if my project is $200,000, how am I going to come up with $50,000 to mitigate a problem I didn't create?

D. Barnett: Thank you very much, Randy, for making your presentation. I was out there, of course, and spent a good day with you and quite a group of people. Of course, I am waiting for the results of that document that is being done by the funding from CCBAC and the industry.

Once we do get that, it will be going to government to see if there is not some other funding there to help mitigate the problem, as we did discuss out there. I know your concern is one of great concern to all of us. One of the big issues, of course, is the Twinflower Creek, which has been eroding since late 1980. Of course, that's going to be a difficult one to mitigate completely, but I do know, in speaking to Ducks Unlimited, they had some very good ideas that could possibly help without a great deal of expense. I'm anxiously awaiting that report, to see if there isn't some way we could get some more help.

R. Saugstad: Yeah, I was hoping to have it by today, but it didn't come, so I can't change that.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): In a more general sense, just to understand on the ground how this is supposed to work, you've had to go public. I mean, you've been involved in a political process and things like that. But surely, that's not the way it's supposed to work. Presumably, if you're saying that it was activity on the land that was done, there would be a pretty clear line of responsibility or some way that you could go to get things corrected.

That system didn't work, so where is the breakdown, from your perspective? Why weren't you involved in some of these plans that might impact you? And why did you not have recourse once you were impacted? Maybe you could explain that a little.

R. Saugstad: Well, I was involved in the LRUP right from the beginning, the Big Creek LRUP, the Cariboo-Chilcotin land use plan — all through that. I had faith in the system. We're supposed to be consulted. We're licensees, just like the mills are.

The Forest Practices Board did a report on this issue two years ago. They recommended that there be a dispute resolution mechanism because one licensee holds too much power over the other one, meaning the mill is over me. They tell us what they're going to do, and that's the consultation. That Forest Practices Board report went to a committee. They wrote back — I got a copy of the letter — and it says that the Forest Practices Board is the dispute resolution mechanism and that it's all working fine.

Well, it's not working fine. The Forest Practices Board put my issue in their annual report, saying this was a farce. Now they've done a second report on my issue. The Forest Practices Board identified four causes of my problem — a cold spell in November, pine beetle, drought and logging.

Well, within one month of that report being issued, my water quit again. That was last winter. We didn't have the cold snap in November, and we had had a very wet summer, so we didn't have drought. Already two of the things in the report were found wrong, so that left logging and pine beetle. We had about five or six years before the logging where it was just pine beetle, and I didn't have the issue. So by process of elimination, what has it come to?

With all the pre-existing conditions, I went and begged and pleaded with them not to log anymore, because I could see that this was going to happen. "No, we gave it careful consideration. We're going to log it." That's the consultation, and I'm left paying the bills. So the system is just completely broken.

And we're just the tip of the iceberg. Like, it's going farther west. As the lumber market comes back, this problem is just going to keep spreading farther west. Big Creek is just the first example, because we're close to town. You can't go and log 60 and 70 percent ECAs in these small
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watersheds and not expect bad things to happen. But it's all legal under FRPA and the land use plan already. So how can you expand it? The results are going to be catastrophic.

J. Rustad (Chair): Thank you very much, Randy, for presenting the information and for coming and letting us know about that situation.

After years in the forest industry, I've developed this simple, flexible business model. This model is designed to develop new revenue streams and profits at every turn, which is a must in today's world. It not only contains personal experience, but it also includes information provided by professionals, and probably the most notable information providers have been friends who work in today's mills.

This business model I propose has many benefits. One of the best benefits of this model is that community, government and corporations will be working together to generate higher profits, produce a healthier forest and have a community lifestyle that is envied.

For instance, TRU would be able to provide patent research and development, including such disciplines as engineering, trades, robotics and studies for our local environment, in a combined effort to promote better forest health and better use of the fibre specific to our area. Since skilled workers generate profits, the future TRU, with this plan, would be tasked with the development of profitable avenues for workers replaced by technology.

This model and its products are so simple. It took me a long time to see the trees for the forest. This new model that I've developed will have huge, positive impacts with a minimum of change.

When the last Forest Act in 1976 was set, we had six independent mills here in Williams Lake. Since 1976 most of all the rules have changed, except tenure. Also, since 1976 there has only been one new product developed in all of B.C. — MSR. MSR was first separated by an eastern lumber reman company, and then Lignum, here in town, was the first mill to make it part of its production line. Nowadays, most mills offer MSR.

One product in this many years is all that has been developed. Something's wrong with the industry. This sounds like Kodak.

I can be more specific on products for manufacture when a non-disclosure agreement is in place.

The adoption of this new business model requires two things: thinking a bit differently and making an investment. The investment required for this model would be paid back to the investor in less than six months, beating current industry standards on equipment purchases.

This model is based on a reduced AAC that will (1) give us a healthy forest with hugely reduced waste and (2) have no job loss, even though one mill would close.

This slipper here represents the lumber we're making today. Pretty simple. But if we were to cut lace holes into it — same boot, but with lace holes — we'd prevent 1.2 billion pounds of wood waste from going to the garbage dump every year — 1.2 billion pounds.

You know what? Revenues would double. It's not a hard equation to figure out. There'll be no job loss. The eyeholes and laces will be made here in Williams Lake, sort of the same relationship that Magna auto parts and the major car makers enjoy. What new company wouldn't want people with experience at the key time of startup?

Williams Lake has a unique setting, as it would allow development of this new model without any lost production time or lost wages. Our First Nation mills and forestry companies, along with other independent lumber producers and contractors, will have no fibre loss — none. Plus, if we work together, they can also enjoy higher fibre recoveries and profits.

To the bush. To help prevent the messy slash piles from happening, this model optimizes the variety of lengths offered by our trees and gives us higher fibre recoveries. Today we make our trees meet ten sizes — ten.

These and other patentable recovery opportunities are not reflected in this model.

Recap. According to the mid-term supply report, if we continue on the same path, our economy will see an average of $280 million per year in lumber sales for the next 20 years, then for 25 years one mill will be operating. At the same time, our local mines are running out of ore. The total revenue generated over 45 years is $7.35 billion and 400 people working.

Alternatively, by implementing this model we can reach sales of $410 million per year, for $18.9 billion in total, and have 1,600 people working.

To get market entry, I copied two of the most successful corporations, Wal-Mart and McDonald's — which, by having the best prices, are market leaders. Our product will have a combined pricing advantage of over $100 million per year, and our customers and our mills will be in line for carbon credits. The total carbon credits, as defined by Pacific Carbon Trust, will exceed 705,000 metric tons per year.

All that is required to investigate and prove the viability of this model is a meeting between myself, government and the existing mills. So far I've received enthusiastic responses from MLAs Barnett and Krueger, First Nation chiefs, labour, TRU and Mayor Cook. Oh, and including the David Suzuki society. But I've not been able to set this meeting up with the two mills. The people needed are the CEOs and their choice of saw and planer mill experts, along with an accountant.

At this meeting, a memorandum of understanding
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could be put in place, due diligence can start, and a new operation could be running in 15 to 18 months — just in time for lumber shortages and higher prices.

My first choice is to work with our current mills. But should this not work, I hope you might see fit to allow others to bid on timber based on forest health, investment, jobs and the environmental impacts.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Well, I still don't get it. What's the business case? Is that something that you have that you're keeping and have only spoken of to a few? It's possible I missed it, but I don't….

K. Newsted: Okay. I've built this business model. It started way back when it was logs-for-lumber training for remanners. We got to this point here. I tried talking to the mills. It stops. It really just stops.

I can give you an example of what has happened here. I have a letter here, the thing that was passed out to you. I told the mills I was going to put it into the newspaper. I got an immediate response. One mill showed up at my store. The other mill…. We looked like we were going to do a sit-down and have a talk, but they wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement because it might interfere with what they're doing. They said that there's not enough information to sign this agreement. I said: "I'll answer the questions." Within an hour of answering that…. It's been almost two weeks now, and I haven't even got a phone call back.

We're not working on a level playing field here. They want information. They don't want to get serious about it. Plain and simple: it's not rocket science. Honest.

Mayor Cook has seen the product. The dean of TRU has seen the product. You have seen the product. It's not rocket science. It's really not. It just really blows me away. For the mills, this is very little change on their part to double their revenue.

I don't understand why they can't even take ten minutes to sit down and see what this is all about. It's plain and simple. With an expert, in ten minutes they'd know exactly what I'm talking about, and attitudes would change.

That's why I'm asking for a meeting with the government and the mills. Hey, if they want to walk out after they see the complete thing, fine and dandy. At least they'll know what they'll be bidding against, if I'm bidding for the logs. It's that simple.

They won't even go that far. What can we do? I've tried working with government. They can't seem to make it work, and I don't understand why. It's a new idea. And yes, I can't expose it and give you a whole bunch of information on the background and on the manufacturing. But jeepers, the experts that I've had help me with this and go through on it…. It was like….

We've been looking for something way more complicated than what it really is. A couple of equipment changes in a sawmill prevent 1.2 billion pounds from hitting the garbage dump — 1.2 billion pounds. They never even asked me how much that would cost them.

No extra labour is required at the sawmill to double your revenue. You know, what's going on with this? That's what I'm here for — to let people know that there are solutions out there. There are manufacturing solutions that require an investment.

Jeepers, the people that had the logs since 1976 have invented one new product. They've tried others, but only one has been invented, and that's the MSR. They didn't even invent that. That was done by a remanner, and the mill saw the opportunity to do it and make the dollar here.

Please open up the bush. If a person can come along…. I know they need the tenure period for banking and financing purposes, but remember, all sawmill equipment is paid off in six months. That's the formula that's used. So all these mills out there…. They say we have stuff invested in them. It's all paid for and paid for a long time ago.

What can we do? How does a person like me get a chance to do something better when it's just dealing with these people all the time? They don't have to change. They haven't demonstrated they wanted a change.

The only thing that they feel is a threat is timber tenure, and you can bet that if you said, "Hey, either do this or you're gone," they would do it, because they've got to be in business. This business model is nothing but profits for the mills. Even the social contract that's part of this program generates profits for the mill. We've got to get going on it.

J. Perry: I'm going to e-mail you my presentation tonight. That way you don't have to read while I'm speaking — okay?

Thank you to Chair Rustad, Deputy Chair Macdonald and all committee members. I appreciate the hard work and long hours you are dedicating to this committee, as well as my opportunity to make a presentation to you tonight.

My name is Jane Perry. I've lived in the Cariboo for 32 years, which means I've experienced two mountain pine beetle epidemics, not just one. I'm a registered professional forester and a past president of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals. I work as a consultant, and my projects have brought me directly to the possible out-
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comes of the mountain pine beetle epidemic and various mitigation efforts, as well as indirectly to the views of a wide range of resource managers and land users.

What I've learned is that within the forestry profession there is strong agreement about the need to protect our forests from further damage and to ensure that the decisions we make today ensure sustainability and a future for our forests and forest resources. While foresters and forest technologists work for government, industry, consulting firms, academia and non-profit organizations, there is a clear and strong trend among them of the necessity to think hard and carefully about what we're doing now for the sake of British Columbia's forests.

That is one of the most important things I can tell you. I believe there's also strong support among the membership of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals for the association's advocacy on this critical topic. My presentation tonight will address the five questions that this special committee is asking British Columbians. Your questions are well stated and important to contemplate, discuss and address.

First, stepping back. I believe that we shouldn't even be having to ask these questions. We've known about this impending timber supply shortfall for at least ten years. Some good work has been done by the beetle action coalitions, along with various silviculture activities such as fertilization to increase the current growing stock in our forests, and there are probably more that I don't know of.

However, what we're really facing is a fundamental change in our forest industry and some local economies, at least for the short term and possibly for longer. The sooner we accept that, the better for everyone so that we can work together to develop solutions.

Last week, past and current staff of the Cariboo region celebrated the Forest Service's 100th anniversary. The banquet was held just down the hill at the curling rink, and it was a very memorable event.

I listened to the presentations and met with many friends, but I privately questioned where British Columbia is headed now after 100 years with the Forest Service. Are we progressing and improving our stewardship and sustainability? Or are we regressing and repeating mistakes made by civilizations over thousands of years in how those societies treated their forests? Sadly, the timing of the Forest Service centenary and the need for this special committee is ironic.

My responses to your questions. The first question is — and you've heard this before, I know, but I'll just repeat them: what values and principles should guide the evaluation and decision-making regarding potential actions to mitigate the timber supply impacts?

The clear answer is sustainability. My definition of sustainability is doing now what is, at minimum, acceptable for the future while also respecting the past. That means that in an age of declining resources and increasing global population, we should be carefully considering how we manage our forests to provide the most opportunity for future generations while respecting our heritage and culture and the achievements of past generations.

Sustainability must be primarily about the environment. Economic and social sustainability are impossible without breathable air, clean water and productive soil.

Sustainability is extremely complex, but the only way to make good decisions now is to listen to British Columbians, as you're doing now. This committee must have as much current and relevant information and as many perspectives as possible. I also request that you look to research findings and what scientists have learned about sustainability and forest management for application.

Your second question is: how should decisions regarding potential actions to mitigate the timber supply impacts be made and by whom? Listen to community input, like you're doing. The Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities initiative has already done a lot of the work for you, based on the input of well over 100 volunteers, with probably, at least, 30 background papers written by scientists and specialists. I also emphasize that you ensure that the information on which your recommendations are based is current and relevant.

Your third question is: what specific information about your local area would you like the committee to know and consider? There will, I hope, always be an ongoing importance of timber but with an increasing importance of other values, as we are already seeing.

For example, water is becoming the primary resource value in some areas of the Cariboo and other parts of B.C., even more important than timber. It won't matter if the local mill is running if residents have no water for their homes. Frankly, if water is that scarce, the mill can't run anyway.

Your fourth question is: what cautions and advice do you have for this committee in considering whether and how to mitigate mid-term timber supply? Ensure that all recommendations acknowledge and address ecological sustainability. Also consider economic and social sustainability, but remember that economic sustainability is more than timber production and keeping mills running.

B.C. has a diversifying economy fortunately. Long-term economic sustainability may include other values such as visual quality and recreation. For example, Williams Lake is developing a globally renowned reputation as a mountain-biking destination. Not only does this bring us economic activity, but it promotes active lifestyles and time spent outdoors for local residents of all ages. This is a fantastic win-win scenario.

Five: how would you as an individual or community want to be engaged in these considerations going forward? Please distribute your report to all of those who submit an article, make a presentation or show interest either by direct e-mail or post.
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As well, instead of separating forest management and investing in our forests as expenses that infringe on the provincial priorities of health and education, let's look to our forests' value in both health and education. For example, forest recreation opportunities, such as local trails for walking and cycling, help to improve people's physical and mental health. Forest ecosystems and management activities provide a wide variety of learning experiences for children, youth and adults, and those are only two of many examples.

We've taken our forests far too much for granted. This is the time to advance our attitude and demonstrate respect for them.

In conclusion, thank you very much to this committee for this opportunity. However, it disheartens me that we even have to face these issues and questions. B.C. considers itself a world leader in forest management, but it is currently headed towards becoming a global embarrassment. The solutions to our critical dilemma lie in balancing political leadership with community input. British Columbians own their forests, and British Columbians are a significant part of your solution.

Thank you for all the work you're doing for us on our behalf. I look forward to reading your report in August.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): Well, I just want to say…. I see you wear the ring proudly, and you're a past president. It's not only with your contribution here, but professional foresters have taken a real lead since this committee has been formed and have taken a leadership role that I think has to, obviously, continue and expand. I think what you've said is that the wider public has taken the forest for granted in a way that we can't go on going forward.

One of the benefits, regardless of the report that comes out of this, is that it's part of an ongoing discussion. The leadership of the profession is going to be very much an important part of that discussion going forward and engaging not only…. I mean, we've got a roomful here. In rural B.C. the passions are there. I think in urban British Columbia it's there, too, but I think we have to build on it and make it something that's thought about as we look at resources.

B. Routley: Thank you for your thoughtful presentation. I wondered, in terms of registered professional foresters, if you've got any comment you could make on the current planning process. It's based on professional reliance — right? I've spoken to professional foresters and asked the question whether they had a vision for B.C., and I was surprised to learn that the association, as I understand it, doesn't actually have a vision for B.C. That's not their role, I guess, to have a vision for B.C. Yet I find it odd that we've got this situation where we have professional reliance.

By the way, I have great respect for professional foresters and for the skills they have, but I wonder if we would be better served if the professionals were actually in their own separate entity, somewhat like they have in England and other places. I find it odd that professional foresters work for major forest companies. I wonder whether a professional forester who works for Canfor or other major companies isn't leaned on a bit to make exceptions or cut corners or that kind of thing. In fact, I have heard of people actually being fired as professional foresters for not doing what they were told.

I don't know if your association gets those kinds of reports. But I just wondered, in terms of the sustainability of our forests and even the main issue that we're here to deal with — and that's timber supply…. Obviously, the province would be well served to have professional foresters who had some independence. You know? We don't go to a doctor and let the doctor consult with Canfor. We would be shocked if such a thing were to happen or even if a forest worker had an accident in a mill and the CEO came down and visited the first-aid man before he decided what he was going to do with the individual. Yet that's exactly what happens, essentially, with forestry.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wandering. I tend to colour outside of the lines once in a while. I am interested in your point of view on whether or not we could be better served by…. Well, I personally think we need the B.C. Forest Service back and to have some independence for forest professionals.

J. Perry: Okay. So vision, professional reliance, B.C. Forest Service. I'll go through them.

The association does not own the forests. British Columbians own them. I was very pleased to hear Norm's response that this committee really wants to engage members of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals. That's great. I think the association members are there to help the public articulate what they want from their forests and provide that leadership.

I have a little story about three foresters who went for an interview. The first forester said: "I can increase your wildlife populations. You'll have wildlife running all over the place." The second one said: "I can maximize your timber production." The third one said: "What do you want from your forests?" We don't really know what we want from our forests in British Columbia.

We're really at a turning point. This committee is a big turning point. They're going to be studying it in really exciting policy classes 20 or 30 years from now. "Yes, back in 2012 the government struck a Special Committee on Timber Supply." So put it in that perspective.

We don't have enough people in the woods. We have
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way too many people indoors trying to run the forests. I was very glad to hear you had a field trip yesterday. That's great. Okay, so that's the vision part.

Professional reliance. I think you've hit on something — that it must be very difficult for any professional. One of the speakers earlier tonight talked about feeling quite confident if there's a balance between industry and government foresters — that if they kind of work on a committee, then the solution must be quite reasonable.

We have a code of ethics, and our employer is not at the top. We have a discipline process, and I'm quite familiar with it. Don't get any worries about how I'm familiar with it. I just know the process. Members are disciplined if they need to be. It's very fair. We start with alternative dispute resolution and go through to a hearing if need be.

And the Forest Service. Yes, it has been cut really hard. It's just a great bunch of people. I used to work there, and I'm always welcome there. It was a great party, but not without a lot of thought.

M. Calabrese: Thanks for having me here. First of all, I'd just like to clarify. I am a member of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, but I am doing the presentation on my own behalf.

I'd just like to start. I think you have a copy of my presentation. I'm here today speaking to you from the perspective of a planning forester and member of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals. I'm also a member of the community of Williams Lake who was born and raised here and then chose to come back to work and raise a family after going off to university. I'm also a registered professional biologist and a member of the College of Applied Biology. I work for West Fraser Mills here in Williams Lake as a planning forester and a biologist.

As a member of the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals, I have professional and ethical responsibilities, as Jane mentioned, to the public, to the profession, to my employer and to other professionals. They're in that order.

I would like to elaborate on a couple of my responsibilities to the public. One is "to advocate and practise good stewardship of forest land based on sound ecological principles to sustain its ability to provide those values that have been assigned by society." I'm also obliged to "seek to balance the health and sustainability of forests, forest lands, resources and ecosystems with the needs of those who derive benefits from, rely on, have ownership of, have rights to and interact with them." That's a direct quote from our code of ethics.

I believe personally that with accurate inventories and the right planning environment, forest professionals are more than capable of fulfilling these responsibilities. It is also my duty to work to improve practices and policies affecting the stewardship of forest land.

That brings me to the reason why I am here today and just to point out how achieving my responsibilities is very difficult under volume-based licensing of timber-harvesting rights. It's my opinion that volume-based licensing does not promote good forest stewardship and hinders my ability as a forest professional to achieve the balancing of forest resources and the demands of forest users. I would like to see a move to area-based tenure for all licensees to help me and other professionals achieve our obligations to help with the mid-term timber supply.

I won't spend a lot of time telling you about how area-based tenures encourage investment in more intensive forest management and the resultant increased yield that will accrue from area-based timber management, as I'm sure by now you're aware of these benefits.

However, moving to area-based tenures can reduce the falldown in annual allowable cut that we are facing. Personally, I would much rather see this done to mitigate mid-term timber supply than harvesting of old-growth management areas and landscapes that have already been heavily salvage-harvested. Instead, I would like to focus on the benefits to forest stewardship, operational costs and accountability that will come from area-based tenures.

Currently in this timber supply area — the Williams Lake timber supply area — and our volume-based licensing, there is no incentive for licensees to do more than meet the minimum requirements that the government has set out. The reason for this is that there are no assurances that you will be the one harvesting any given stand in the future, even one that you have spent money on improving.

Prior to the mountain pine beetle uplift and subsequent increase in licence holders, licensees in the Cariboo region operated within agreed-to operating areas. This worked well at the time, as there was plenty of wood to go around and everybody stayed within their agreed-to operating area. Since the mountain pine beetle uplift and subsequent awarding of non-replaceable forest licences, this has gone out the window, and in my opinion, forest planning has taken a turn for the worse.

Exclusive operating areas have disappeared, and there are multiple licensees in one area in a rush to log mountain pine beetle. This has created a lot of chaos and inefficiencies for all involved. Prioritization for harvesting has taken a turn towards a tragedy-of-the-commons approach or a timber-mining mentality that is very short-term in focus.

One positive out of this is that a lot of mountain pine beetle timber has been salvaged and is being harvested. Unfortunately, most of this has been close to town. Some of this is due to the economic downturn but even before the downturn stands close to town were targeted, because
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if one licensee didn't harvest it, then another one would.

As markets improve, it would make sense to save some of this closer wood for the next downturn in the business cycle. But with no guarantee that someone else won't harvest the closer areas, this will not happen. This fact alone makes me have a negative outlook for what the future holds in what will happen when the next inevitable downturn does occur.

B.C. Timber Sales, community forests, woodlots, First Nations, even a research forest are or have been given specific areas to operate that exclude other licensees. I agree with this, thinking that's a good idea. However, it's long overdue for all licensees to go to area-based tenures.

Besides the benefits of the increased investment in our forest and the resultant increase in forest productivity, the short-term thinking disappears and better forest management can occur. The current system in the TSA leads to inefficiencies for the volume-based licensees, whose operations are spread around too many areas, where we don't get the advantages of economies of scale. We're also literally tripping over each other, so there is increased time and money dealing with overlap issues with other licensees.

I also know in my dealings with other resource rights and tenure holders and resource users such as First Nations, ranchers, guides, trappers and tourist operators that they find it frustrating having to deal with more than one licensee in an area. For example, even if they get an agreement from one forest licensee in a place to defer harvesting for a period of time, there's no guarantee that another licensee won't come in and put a block there and harvest the area.

I know the argument in the past against area-based tenure is that the public is supposedly against giving major licensees more control over an area. I can't believe, if the public knew how things are today, that they would still be of this opinion.

I also think there will be more accountability within an area-based system, as there will be no question as to who is actually managing the area and responsible for what is happening there. There's a lot of talk about cumulative impacts these days, and this issue would be simplified to some degree if there was only one forest licensee in a given area.

I strongly feel the volume-based licensing of timber harvesting does not promote good forest stewardship. A move to area-based tenure for all licensees is required to enable the forest professionals to improve the management of our forests and help with the challenges we're facing with mid-term timber supply.

I know it will not be an easy process to determine the areas for these licences, but it will benefit all involved in the end. The sooner we move towards it, the better the future will be for our community and the forest industry as a whole.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Mauro. That's refreshing to hear somebody come with some solutions. The challenge that we face is, as we know, that we're a volume-based tenure system. If we want to get to area-based tenure, I'm wondering what you would do if you were given that task. How would you implement or deploy that?

M. Calabrese: I guess, first of all, you have to decide who all the players are that are going to have licences. I know there are some new licences being awarded to First Nations and others, so you have to know….

I guess I'd back up first. First of all, you have to determine a sustainable allowable cut. Then you have to determine who you're going to distribute that to.

There already are volume-based licensees and, like I said, newer licences coming on line, so I'm assuming you would do some kind of a proportional distribution of that. You'd have to involve government and licensee First Nation professionals to set up a process to figure out something that was kind of fair and equitable so that these disparities between wood that's closer to town or further away would be balanced out so that everybody had an equal opportunity to be able to make a go in the forest industry.

N. Macdonald (Deputy Chair): I guess anecdotally there's a certain logic. I mean, we talk about this a lot anecdotally. But where is the evidence to the assertion that area-based…? I'm not disagreeing with it, but can you point to documents, studies, things that were done that actually would be definitive rather than anecdotal or just impressions?

M. Calabrese: Well, currently I guess the main area-based tenure, for larger licensees anyway, is the tree farm licence system. In that system, if you can show a benefit of increasing the yield off the forest, you get a corresponding increase in your annual allowable cut. So there is a lot of documentation around different ways of doing commercial thinning which captures the mortality in stands.

As trees grow and get crowded out, a lot of those trees would die and fall to the forest. You can do a commercial thinning treatment to capture those trees, make room for the remaining ones and increase your growth and piece size on your remaining trees. It is well documented that these types of treatments can be done — fertilization, spacing, precommercial spacing, thinning.

I guess the problem right now is that because of the volume-based system, if you don't know that you're going to be able to harvest that stand, there's not a real incentive to go and put in this extra money, even though it's documented that you could increase the yield. So a lot of it has been left up to government programs that have come and gone, which have had varied amounts of success.

I know from the UBC research forest that is in town-
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, they do a really good job of managing their forests. Woodlot owners are the same, and they're more likely to do these more intensive silviculture treatments to get this realized benefit of increased AAC in the end.

D. Barnett: Ben asked my question, but thank you very much for coming. Very refreshing.

B. Routley: You just talked about commercial thinning, and I wondered if you thought that commercial thinning was at all one of the solutions. Maybe a legislated requirement to do more commercial thinning, as they do in Sweden or other countries, could be a solution to timber supply. What do you think about that?

M. Calabrese: Well, I guess there are two different ways of doing it. You could legislate certain requirements. Of course, if it's not economical to do, there's going to be a lot of resistance to do something that's not economical.

I think if there was a guarantee or a certainty that if you did a commercial thinning, you would be the one that would be allowed to come back there in 30 or 40 years — whatever time frame it is that you determine would be the time to come back and take the final harvest off and really get the benefit from it — then maybe a legislative type of approach could work. But there would have to be some certainty tied with it.

If I'm going to go do the commercial thinning and someone else is going to go and maybe log it later, I think it's just better to have the same person responsible to follow through on it.

J. Rustad (Chair): That brings to a close the presenters list. I just want to thank Douglas, who missed his spot earlier but has shown up. I understand you can make it to Quesnel tomorrow. Much appreciated, for that.

We have a little bit of time available now for open mike. I understand that Nathan Davis would like to present to the committee.

Nathan, welcome. The process on the open mike is five minutes, and unfortunately, we likely won't have time for question-and-answer. But we appreciate you presenting.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of things here. One of the things I wanted to share with you guys was a story of a young forester named Aldo Leopold, who wrote a letter to his fellow foresters, sharing his views on his search to find a resource manager standard of success.

To quote him, "We ride….but are we getting anywhere?" he asked. "We are confronted, surrounded and…swamped with problems, policies, ideas, decisions, precedents and details," which is where you're at right now. "We're in a maze of routine." As professionals, we have forms to fill out, things we do every day that make us feel like we're moving forward. But we need to be able to clarify the difference between tasks and objects.

I think all of us are always trying to become more efficient — that's as Leopold spoke to — but what is our object? For resource professionals, he said basically that successive actions are reflected in the forests. He said that about three times in this letter to his fellow professionals. The forest is the final end result. We need to keep this in mind as an overall land use aim. He urged foresters to think out loud and debate critically their practices and monitor the results. This is where we are right now.

I'm trying to paraphrase some of the stuff I wanted to bring up here. I think one of the things that's come to mind for me is the fact that…. How can I say this? We kind of think of these systems as being predictable and linear, but they're not.

What did we learn from the beetle outbreak? Things are always changing and novel. Sustained yield is something that we assume is constant, and all of our models — economic, social and timber supply — are short term and linear. The reality is that nature isn't like that. From a risk management perspective, I would suggest that we need to hedge for that.

Ecosystem science has told us that we can't assume that yesterday is like tomorrow or tomorrow is like yesterday. So in terms of managing risk and consequence, we need to make adjustments to reflect that, rather than assuming that where we were is where we're going. I think that's really critical, especially in terms of climate change. That was one of the major points.

The other point was…. I just think we need to look at our forests from less of a utilitarian focus and view the forest as it contains commodities to be simply extracted. We have to have an ecological, sustainable forest balanced in such a way so it's maintained in perpetuity.

It means that we must have a sustainable forest in order to have a sustainable yield. We must have a sustainable yield in order to have an ecologically sustainable industry. We must have an ecologically sustainable industry in order to have an ecologically sustainable community, and we must have an ecologically sustainable community in order to have an ecologically sustainable society.

We're not there yet, and I'm concerned that we're going to continue to follow this cherished notion of sustained yield into an unknowable future. The only reason we were able to maintain what we had was because of a superabundance of existing timber.

We all were trained as foresters that there was going to be a falldown. You're taking stands…. I'm working in them today. I was in a 240-year-old stand. So we had all that accretion of all that additional volume beyond 80
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years. You scale it up to a landscape, and there isn't going to be as much to go around. This isn't really rocket science. It's one of those first principles.

You can't pretend that we can make that transition and it won't be the same as before. Because of that, we can't claim any credit for what we've had. I think we need to become trustees of our resources. We have to let go of this destructive mentality, because it will collapse. Then someone else will have to deal with it.

We have to also recognize that we're not in control of nature. She's going to throw eight balls at us all the time. So when you're looking at this TSR analysis and looking at these curves, realize that there's a lot more that could potentially happen that we have no control over. I think that's hard for us to admit, but that's just kind of where we're at.

The choice is ours. We can look to the past, at our folly, and think that's going to be the future, or we can try to develop some kind of living trust and have a relationship with these forests so there is something for our children. That's kind of a very short abridgment.

K. Day: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity for an open mike. I'm working on a written presentation. You will get that, but I wanted to make one point out of that presentation before I do that.

Let me begin by introducing myself. I'm a registered professional forester. I manage the UBC Alex Fraser Research Forest in Williams Lake here for the faculty of forestry, one of two research forests.

We make our living primarily as a log seller in the local log market. The university does not have a budget position for the research forest. We have to find our own way financially, and primarily we do that based on selling timber.

My plea to you is that we maintain sufficient manufacturing infrastructure so that we have all of the value prospects available. I want to propose to you that we need to move from our current volume paradigm to a high-volume…. Excuse me. I'm not saying that very well. We currently operate under a high-volume, low-value paradigm, because primarily we are in commodity products. We need to move to the opposite, to a low-value…. Can somebody back there help me with this?

The problem I see, though, is that we can't get to the point where we've driven this industry so hard that it falls out from underneath us. That's because if I have a market for house logs, there are about 350 trees standing in the way of every house log I can get, and the rest of the trees don't make house logs.

I need to have a veneer market, I need to have a commodity sawlog market, I need to have a timber market, I need to have a pulp market, and I'd really love to have an energy market. That way I could sell all of our wood. Right now I've got most of that, but not all. There's no pulp market, and there's no energy market even though we have a generator in town.

My plea to you is that we pull up before we fly into the ground. We have to ease up in time to leave all of those value prospects operable in each of our log markets. That's my plea. I have more in the written submission.

I want to remind everybody that there is an opportunity until July 20 to give us a written submission. Once again, the website available to give us a written submission is www.leg.bc.ca/timbercommittee.

I want to thank everybody for coming out today and tonight for the presentation. We obviously had a lot of great presentations, and I think it's reflective of a community that is certainly attuned to the surrounding forests and the importance of the forest that provides, from all aspects, to the area.

With that, once again I want to thank Hansard and the Clerks and the members. The committee is adjourned.

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1) City of Williams Lake	Mayor Kerry Cook
	Brian McNaughton
	Alan Madrigga
2) Aspenware	Brian McNaughton

3) Esk’etemc Band	Chief Fred Robbins
	Irvine Johnson
Toosey Indian Band	Chief Francis Laceese
Tsilhqot’in National Government	Sam Zirnhelt
Ulkatcho First Nations	Gary Arnold
	Chief Zach Parker
Xeni Gwet'in First Nations Government	Chief Marilyn Baptiste

4) United Steelworkers, Local 1-425	Bob Macnair
5) Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society	Martin Kruus
6) Likely Xats’ull Community Forest	Robin Hood
7) Williams Lake Field Naturalists	Fred McMechan
	Ordell Steen
8) Randy Saugstad
9) Kim Newsted
10) Jane Perry
11) Mauro Calabrese
12) Nathan Davis
13) Ken Day

Chair:	* John Rustad (Nechako Lakes BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Norm Macdonald (Columbia River–Revelstoke NDP)
Members:	Harry Bains (Surrey-Newton NDP)
	* Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	* Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	* Bill Routley (Cowichan Valley NDP)
	* Ben Stewart (Westside-Kelowna BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Other MLAs:	Scott Fraser (Alberni–Pacific Rim NDP)
	Bob Simpson (Cariboo North Ind.)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Larry Pedersen (Technical Advisor)
	Jacqueline Quesnel (Administrative Coordinator)
	Jim Snetsinger (Technical Advisor)
Attending Government Staff:	Dave Peterson (Chief Forester, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations)

Witnesses:	Gary Arnold
	Chief Marilyn Baptiste (Xeni Gwet'in First Nations Government)
	Mauro Calabrese
	Kerry Cook (Mayor, City of Williams Lake)
	Nathan Davis
	Ken Day
	Robin Hood (Likely Xats'ull Community Forest)
	Irvine Johnson (Esk'etemc First Nation)
	Martin Kruus (Cariboo Chilcotin Conservation Society)
	Chief Francis Laceese (Toosey Indian Band)
	Fred McMechan (President, Williams Lake Field Naturalists)
	Bob Macnair (United Steelworkers Local 1-425)
	Brian McNaughton (Aspenware Inc.)
	Alan Madrigga (City of Williams Lake)
	Kim Newsted
	Chief Zach Parker (Ulkatcho First Nations)
	Jane Perry
	Chief Fred Robbins (Esk'etemc First Nation)
	Randy Saugstad
	Ordell Steen (Williams Lake Field Naturalists)
	Sam Zirnhelt (Tsilhqot'in National Government)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON TIMBER SUPPLY

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON
TIMBER SUPPLY