Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here today. Thank you for the audit.

As you may know, I represent an area of New Brunswick, and forestry is a huge part of our daily lives in Miramichi. New Brunswick is the most heavily forested Canadian province. The forestry sector remains New Brunswick's largest industry, contributing more than $1.5 billion to the economy annually and making up 5% of the total provincial economy. The forestry industry supports more than 24,000 full-time jobs and many seasonal ones. My mother was a tree-planter, probably from the time I was 12 until I was maybe 17 or 18. It was a very difficult job. She used to always talk about it. My dad is a logger and my mother's father was a contractor for what was one of the largest paper mills in Canada, a former Repap location.

The province's prioritization of biodiversity and achievement of gains through the nature legacy initiative have resulted in the legal protection of 10% of the province's land and fresh water. New Brunswick is in a unique position, as half of the forest is owned by the public as Crown land and the other half is privately owned. The management system on Crown land relies on thousands of people each year from government, Crown timber licensees, first nations, contractors, truckers, many small businesses and the public.

On average, the productive Crown forest of three million hectares is estimated to grow at approximately 3.1 cubic metres each year. This means that every 10 years, almost one tractor-trailer load of wood grows on every hectare. Over 900,000 hectares of Crown forest land across New Brunswick are conserved and protected. That's equivalent to over 1.5 million football fields.

Over the last 10 years, an average of 13,000 hectares have been planted each year on Crown land. The total accumulated area of plantations on Crown land today is about 16% of the Crown forest. The annual tree-planting program is an investment for the future of the working forest in New Brunswick. The number of hectares planted each year is prescribed by the long-term forest management plan, which considers the balance of tree species in the forest, the required habitat for animals and the interest in maintaining the long-term sustainable wood supply.

Here is an important stat: 210 million seedlings are committed to be planted in New Brunswick by 2030. On forest fires, there's another interesting statistic. Incredibly, 97.6% of wildfires in 2022 in New Brunswick were caused by human beings—people and not climate change.

The reason I provided all that background on the forestry industry in New Brunswick is to show you we are a true leader in forest management, including tree planting.

You somewhat answered my question earlier in your deliberations. This question would be for Natural Resources Canada, but if there's somebody who's better suited to answer it, I'm okay with that.

I noticed it has taken you until now, in the third year of your program, to develop nine relationships in principle with the provinces and territories, eight of them signed. There's a reason this program is failing in many respects. Two billion trees is not a modest target, but I for one think, based on the fact that my own province could do a quarter of it, it's achievable. The problem and why you've failed, I believe, is that you have tried to recreate the wheel. The provinces are already doing this the right way. That's where your relationship needed to be.

Can you explain why that relationship wasn't the first one you built and whether or not you currently have one with the Province of New Brunswick?

[Monique Frison]

We talk very often with New Brunswick and took a lot of interest in the forest strategy that the province recently put out. I think a lot of the goals that New Brunswick has align very well with what we're trying to achieve with two billion trees, including trying to adapt the species mix in the province for climate change to maintain all of the different values you mentioned.

We rely on the provinces to tell us what they want to do in a way that suits the jurisdiction, the land, the species and the things they need to achieve. Every one is different. There are different ecosystems and different requirements all across the country.

We do rely on the provinces. As the commissioner said, those relationships are very important to us—

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I'm sorry, but I have to cut you off. I appreciate your answer, but I'm trying to figure out why it has taken so long and why signing those agreements right at the get-go wasn't the top priority.

Regardless of what the provinces are currently doing, New Brunswick, as an example, could easily have been very beneficial to your program. I'm asking why it has taken so long. Why has it taken three years?

[Monique Frison]

Agreements with the provinces and territories have been a priority for us all along. In some cases, the provinces are going to take some time because they have their own decision-making processes to go through and have planning they want to do. We are very far advanced with New Brunswick in figuring out what they want—

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Then you haven't signed an agreement with New Brunswick—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is the time, Mr. Stewart. I appreciate your round of questioning. It's my home province as well.

Mr. Chen, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to begin by thanking all the witnesses here today. I also want to thank the Auditor General for this important report.

This conversation today really reminds me of my previous work as a local school trustee, during which I started an annual tree-planting in what is now Rouge National Urban Park. I recall that the children were so enthusiastic to get their hands dirty, to go there and plant the trees for the day. Not only was it a rewarding experience for them, but it was good for the environment. We were strengthening our local biodiversity and supporting an ecological corridor. It was truly a worthwhile initiative that I was able to help lead for the time that I was on the school board.

To connect that to this tremendous undertaking of Natural Resources Canada, which is leading the two billion trees program, I will say that this is incredibly ambitious. The program is happening across the country. It's one that requires working together with provinces and territories with a cross-government approach.

Acknowledging the mandate the environment minister has in supporting the planting of two billion trees, can Natural Resources Canada please speak about how other departments and programs, like Parks Canada and the low carbon economy fund, have contributed to our progress in achieving two billion trees?

[Michael Vandergrift]

I'll invite one of my colleagues in the room to jump in on that one.

[Monique Frison]

We have five types of partners. One type is federal departments, because federal departments, as you say, do planting, like Parks Canada and Veterans Affairs. We have partnerships with several departments under the program to plant incremental trees. Those have to be beyond business as usual. For example, the Department of National Defence does some maintenance on its land base, but that wouldn't necessarily count for us because the trees are not additional to what it would normally plant.

For the low carbon economy fund, the trees that were planted by the provinces and territories under that fund were incremental to business as usual, and the reporting that was provided by the provinces and territories enabled us to know how many trees were planted. There was therefore some clarity in the reporting that allowed us to include those trees in the numbers we're looking at to fulfill the government's commitment to plant two billion.

The plan for the two billion trees program at the beginning was to ensure that other government department programs could contribute to the commitment of two billion. Where the trees are incremental and where there's sufficient reporting to know that this activity happened, we would include it as well.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

My colleagues have talked about some of the natural disasters that are happening, including forest fires caused by climate change. Outside of the two billion trees, Natural Resources Canada is also tasked with supporting the forest sector in fighting against forest-killing pests and wildfires and ensuring sustainable practices. Can you talk a bit more about what the department is doing to provide these supports?

[Monique Frison]

Absolutely.

I would first mention the announcement in budget 2023 for an additional $370-some million to support forest sector programming aimed at innovation, at decarbonization, at looking at new products and new ways of doing things and at improving the data that would go into the carbon estimates that some of our colleagues on the panel have been talking about.

We at NRCan also have programs and interventions, and have had them in the past, for pest outbreaks—whether that's the spruce budworm in the east or the mountain pine beetle in the west—as well as the investments that my colleague Mr. Hargrove mentioned on wildland fire management.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll turn to the commissioner.

Through this report from the AG, we've seen that no program is perfect. There are always challenges in reaching the goals that are set out.

Do you believe that this is a valuable program? Should the government continue to work to achieve this ambitious goal of two billion trees? Is this worthwhile?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

It is nice to see a program that has such a long-term horizon, because sometimes in government we tend to focus too much on “short-termism”. This is a theme in lesson number 8 of our climate lessons learned report of 2021, which we were here before this committee for about two years ago.

I don't want to discourage departments from taking on long-term projects, even if it takes a while to see the fruits of their labour. That's why we put in exhibit 1.4, which says don't look just at 2030 and see that it's a carbon source; look all the way out to 2040, 2050 or 2060 to see the fruits of the labour accruing in that period.

It is worthwhile to do. It should be an incremental tree program that isn't counting trees that are going to be planted anyway, as we've just heard. There's some question as to whether that includes the low carbon economy fund trees or not. The department has chosen to include those now, as of this summer. We didn't have an indication about that when we issued the report. There will obviously be fewer benefits if it's not entirely a tree-planting program but a tree-planting and tree-counting program. We can talk about that more later.

Definitely it is worthwhile to invest in the long term by planting trees.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, it's back to you again, for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you.

I have a rather blunt question for you, Commissioner: Do you know who came up with the two billion trees number? Where does that come from? Do you know?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

It comes from the 2019 throne speech, which was following through on a political promise.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

So it was a political promise imposed upon public officials. Okay.

You are very clear in the report about the fact that if things continued at this pace, the goals would never be reached. Do you think now that this goal is achievable?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Is what achievable?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I'm talking about planting two billion trees.

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

Yes, and that's why we finished this audit so early in the program. It's because we want improvements to be made and for the program to be successful. There's enough time left to catch up and achieve the 2030 target. But quite a few partnerships will have to be established and an emphasis placed not only on trees, but also forests and biodiversity.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

It's not so much a focus on quantity that we are building, but also on habitat quality. On this topic, my colleague spoke about forest fires. Many of my colleagues in the Bloc had forest fires in their ridings, including in northern Quebec. It was a horrifying sight all summer long.

As someone mentioned, in terms of resilience and biodiversity, monoculture, from various standpoints, is not an appropriate tree planting solution. Do you think the focus right now should be on meeting a numerical target rather than achieving the overall environmental objective?

[Jerry V. DeMarco]

It's important to remember that it's not just a two billion tree target, but three objectives. In addition to carbon sequestration, there is biodiversity and also human welfare. If we focus on monoculture, that would achieve only one of the three.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

The current focus is mainly on—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sorry, Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, but your speaking time is up.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to return to the question I left off on in regard to barriers. One barrier of diversifying was just mentioned earlier, I believe, by Natural Resources Canada. That was the fact that it's too expensive to be making diversified forests or having diversified tree planting. This is a pretty large concern and a red flag for the program, one that has immense vulnerability considering many of the targets for a healthy forest.

Sure, you can make a big monoculture forest, but it's going to die. It's not going to have the ability to sustain itself. It's actually going to add carbon, ultimately, if it fails. I think diversity is a requirement for a successful forest that is a very good carbon sink. I think that's an important piece of the discussion.

To Natural Resources Canada, what cost is going to ensure you have the ability to do the amount of tree planting you've committed to, in addition to ensuring that it is diversified? What is the deficit number?