Second Session, 42nd Parliament

(2021) OFFICIAL REPORT

OF DEBATES

(HANSARD)

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

Afternoon Sitting

Issue No. 116

ISSN 1499-2175

The HTML transcript is provided for informational purposes only.

The PDF transcript remains the official digital version.

CONTENTS

Orders of the Day

Second Reading of Bills

Bill 23 — Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2021

Hon. K. Conroy

J. Rustad

S. Furstenau

M. Morris

L. Doerkson

A. Olsen

S. Chant

R. Glumac

Hon. R. Fleming

Bill 25 — Education Statutes Amendment Act, 2021

Hon. J. Whiteside

J. Tegart

Hon. R. Fleming

J. Sims

M. Dykeman

Hon. M. Rankin

E. Ross

A. Olsen

H. Yao

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2021

The House met at 1:33 p.m.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. G. Heyman: I call second reading of Bill 23.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 23 — FORESTS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 2021

Hon. K. Conroy: I move that Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2021, be now read a second time.

Our forests have helped define who we are, and our forests have sustained us in so many

ways. Our government has a vision for how we care for our forests to better

share all the benefits. Our larger vision, as detailed in our intentions paper,

will help secure jobs, support healthier forest ecosystems and deliver higher

value from our forests.

Old forest policies put in place two decades ago have limited our ability to fight climate change, to protect old growth, and to share the benefits with Indigenous and local communities. That’s why we are taking our next steps to prioritize forest health, create new opportunities for shared decision-making, and give more British Columbians a say on forest planning.

[1:35 p.m.]

The bill proposes amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act that will introduce a

new forest landscape plan framework, strengthen the participation of Indigenous

nations in forest planning and decision-making and improve government’s

response to critical forest management issues in both the short and long

terms.

Our government is committed to making the necessary changes to the

provincial forest management framework and taking steps to align our forestry

legislation with the Declaration Act. Amendments strengthen the role of

Indigenous nations in forest planning and decision-making and better enable

government-to-government collaboration in forest management.

We have heard from Indigenous nations, from industry, stakeholders and local communities that changes are needed. They are needed to support reconciliation with B.C.’s Indigenous peoples, to increase opportunities for participation and forest planning by stakeholders and local communities, to realize sustainable timber harvest levels in support of B.C.’s economy and to ensure the continued stewardship of B.C.’s public forest resources now and into the future. This bill responds to these concerns.

We developed this bill in consultation with B.C.’s Indigenous nations and with input from

a broad range of stakeholders and local communities. My Forest and Range

Practices Advisory Council has also been regularly en­gaged in this work

and provided important feedback. It’s a multi-stakeholder advisory team

established for the purposes of improving the FRPA framework.

The council is chaired by an appointee of the First Nations Leadership Council and by

B.C.’s chief forester. Members also include representation from the B.C.

Adventure Tourism Coalition, forest industry companies, Organizing for Change,

B.C. Cattlemen’s Association, B.C. Federation of Woodlot Associations, B.C.

Community Forest Association, the Union of B.C. Municipalities, various

academia including the University of British Columbia, the Western Forestry

Contractors Association and the United Steelworkers.

There was extensive consultation with PAC on the proposed policy approaches to changes to FRPA, and that has been ongoing since 2018. PAC members have provided continuous feedback, both as a council and as representatives of their respective groups, and are largely supportive of our changes to the bill. I want to thank the PAC members for their input, because it’s been very, very helpful.

We also developed this bill in consultation with Indige­nous nations. The proposed

bill will amend the Forest and Range Practices Act to enable the introduction

of a new forest landscape planning framework on public lands across B.C., to

transition from the current forest stewardship planning regime to the new

forest landscape plan framework over time, to provide new opportunities to work

government to government with Indigenous nations on forest planning and

decision-making, to equip land managers with the appropriate tools to establish

resilient forests in the face of increased uncertainty and a changing climate

and land base and to enhance road management to protect public safety and the

environment.

A key part of our vision is to create new opportunities for shared decision-making between

government and First Nations. Amendments will transform forest planning and

management by enabling the introduction of a new forest landscape planning

framework. Through new ten-year forest landscape plans, we’re moving towards

smarter ecosystem-based management of our forests.

These plans will establish clear and measurable objectives for the management of forest resource values over a defined geographic area. Through the development of forest landscape plans, the amendments will create new opportunities for shared decision-making between government and First Nations aligned with government’s commitments to the Declaration Act.

Unlike the forest stewardship planning process, planning under the new framework will be at the landscape level. For example, a forest landscape plan may be established for a timber supply area or a tree farm licence area. Community forests and First Nations woodlot land licences over a certain size are also included. The new framework will enable a consolidated approach to planning and management, where forest resource values are taken into consideration simultaneously.

A forest landscape plan must consider five overarching objectives that support the production and supply of timber; support the protection and conservation of the environment; manage values placed on forest ecosystems by Indigenous peoples; manage the values placed on forest ecosystems by local communities; and prevent, mitigate and adapt to impacts caused by significant disturbances to forests and forest health, including wildfire, insects, disease and drought. All objectives must be considered in the development and establishment of the forest landscape plan.

[1:40 p.m.]

Once the forest landscape plan is in place, forest licen­sees must develop and

submit, for approval, a forest operations plan within the plan area. A forest

operations plan must be consistent with the established forest landscape plan

and be approved by government or decision-makers under a decision-making

agreement prior to authorization of harvesting or roadbuilding

activities.

Amendments in the bill do not specify deadlines for transitioning to the new forest landscape planning framework. This is to allow for a controlled transition to ensure that all parties who collaborate on the plan are ready and that any potential impacts can be directly managed.

Government has already initiated four forest landscape planning pilot projects in various locations across B.C. that are anticipated to be among the first forest landscape plans to be established. Transition provisions are provided to enable these projects to be established as forest landscape plans if the legislation is passed and comes into force through regulation.

In addition to enabling the introduction of the new for­est landscape planning

framework, this bill also addresses other important aspects of the current

forest management framework under the Forest and Range Practices Act.

Amendments will immediately enhance government’s ability to have management

control over forest roads to protect safety and the environment. For example,

government may order the timely deactivation of roads or require that

significant roadwork be authorized. Road use rules will also apply to forest

service roads and forest resource roads to promote safety.

This bill also supports the ability of government to manage and respond to wildfires by

creating a new wildfire objective and the ability to establish mandatory forest

practices within wildland-urban interface areas to help protect human life,

property and reduce the risk of wildfire. Amendments also improve the

minister’s authority to ensure timely and effective post-wildfire reforestation

by enabling the creation of wildfire reforestation plans and introducing

increased flexibility for government to work with Indigenous nations and forest

licensees to respond to damage caused by catastrophic events, including

wildfire.

Additional amendments will provide land managers with new or expanded tools to help ensure forest management practices reflect the public interest. The bill expands regulation-making authorities requiring practice requirements in specific situations or areas. For example, amendments enable the minister to establish a trail-based recreation area and to prescribe forest practices for its management to promote safety and environmental protection.

Amendments also increase opportunities for public input and transparency. Forest landscape plans will be developed by government and First Nations, with additional opportunities for communities’ and public input. Harvesting plans will be posted publicly, and the chief forester will publicly report on planned outcomes every five years.

Finally, additional amendments enhance compliance and enforcement tools by allowing for

the public reporting of fines, convictions or other penalties to serve as a

deter­rent, reduce the occurrence of future violations and

in­crease transparency and confidence in government’s en­forcement

activities. Amendments also introduce 12 new fines and nine increased fines and

address issues with the administrative penalties processes.

The proposed amendments will introduce significant changes to the Forest and Range

Practices Act consistent with our commitments to reassert the public interest

in forest management by introducing new tools to establish resilient

forests.

Amendments reinstitute government as the provincial land manager and a

leader in forest stewardship that will work in consultation and cooperation

with Indigenous nations to establish clear landscape-level direction, mitigate

conflict and facilitate local solutions. The change will demonstrate

government’s long-term vision for stewardship and economic well-being and its

continued commitment to reconciliation and implementing the Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

We owe it to future generations to manage our forests so forest health and the public good are considered first. These long-overdue legislative changes will enhance public trust in the management of our public forests and move us forward toward genuine reconciliation with First Nations.

J. Rustad: To the minister, thank you for those initial words. This will be an interesting discussion on Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

[1:45 p.m.]

Government has laid out a lot of high-level plans and a lot of discussion around our forest industry. There are a lot of nice words around the plan. Like I say, when we get into the committee stage on this, there are a lot of details to go into.

In particular, when I first start off and look at this plan…. The minister talks about

this being a long-term vision, the government’s long-term vision for forestry.

This plan — this act, I should say, to create these plans — appears to be

something that’s going to be implemented over eight years or longer. That’s a

lot of uncertainty in terms of getting these plans actually developed and on

the ground.

I agree with some of the goals and objectives, and we had an opportunity to have a briefing with the chief forester in terms of how this will roll out and the process around it. The minister talked about the engagement that has happened since 2018. The precursor to this was the Premier standing up at COFI and directing companies to engage with First Nations in timber supply areas to come up with these plans, to come up with plans for the landscape and how things would proceed.

Well, that turned out to be a complete flop, unfortunately. There wasn’t a process. There were a couple of those areas where there was some success, but in the majority of the areas, particularly in areas where there were a lot First Nations and a lot of companies, it wasn’t able to achieve the objectives, I think, that the Premier had laid out. So that’s now kind of gone to the wayside. That’s fine. Governments can try things, and sometimes they do fail. It’s being replaced by this.

The process, in my understanding of this, is the chief forester will work in conjunction

with First Nations to develop these plans on the landscape. They’re going to be

broad plans. There are going to be targets in there around how to manage

wildfires and protect communities. There are going to be wildlife

considerations. There’s going to be a whole range of things that are going to

go into here.

The challenge is that you can sit down with two or three or five or ten or 27 First Nations or more that are in supply areas, and you’re not going to get agreements, because each First Nation has different objectives that they want to try to achieve. In some areas, you’re going to get agreement — those are the low-lying fruit — and that’ll be fine. You’ll be able to, hopefully, move those plans forward faster. But in areas where there isn’t agreement, you’ve got real challenges in terms of developing these plans, and it’s going to be a huge challenge.

There are some dispute mechanisms that are in here, in case you don’t have agreement and that process that goes through. But one of the big things….

I’ll speak on this from the perspective of being a former Minister of Aboriginal Relations

and Reconciliation, now called Indigenous Relations.

You might have two First Nations that have similar goals and objectives

on the landscape, but they don’t want to recognize each other’s authority over

areas on the landscape. Doing so recognizes their claim on the territory versus

another First Nations’ claim on the territory, and they don’t want to be able

to strengthen somebody else’s claim in case it ever goes to court at one point

down the road. I ran into this time and time again. So it becomes very, very

challenging to get agreements.

We’re sitting on a process right now on the landscape where we already have a tremendous

amount of uncertainty. Companies are not sure what the fibre supply is going to

look like. We have got these protests going on, whether it’s old growth or

other things going on. Just south of Vanderhoof in my riding, we have got the

Saik’uz First Nation standing up and saying they’re not going to accept anybody

coming in and doing anything on their territory without their

approval.

You’ve got all kinds of these sorts of frictions that are going on, on the landscape that make it very uncertain for companies to be able to invest and for the fibre supply to be able to be assured to be there for mills, for communities and for workers. Yet, in these very areas where we’ve got these frictions, we’re going to be trying to develop this plan that really is going to have to address all of these sorts of frictions first, before you can get to a plan. That’s going to take years. It’s going to take many years to be able to achieve those objectives.

Meanwhile, all this uncertainty and pressure and issues will keep going on, on the landscape, and companies like West Fraser are going to continue to invest south of the border instead of doing the reinvestments that are needed in British Columbia, beyond just doing maintenance work and keeping their mills as up to date as they can.

[1:50 p.m.]

You’re not going to get the boards making those kinds of investments, because this does

not address the core problem we have on the landscape, which is

uncertainty. It will, if it can achieve those goals eight, ten years

from now. But what about the generations of workers that are working

today? What about the fact that British Columbia is the highest-cost

producer of lumber in North America? As soon as there are any

fluctuations or issues in the market, as we saw even this summer, where

mills were curtailing production….

Yes, there are influences from weather and fires and stuff, but the reality is companies

have no problem deciding to stop production here in British Columbia. They’re

making some profits, but they can make better money elsewhere, because we’re

not competitive, and we have tremendous uncertainty.

Like I say, the government has talked, many times, about: “We want to increase value instead of volume. We want to do all these wonderful things for our forest sector.” This does nothing to do that, to make that objective. There’s nothing in here that actually is going to improve companies’ desire to invest in value-added, to reinvest in mills to get to better productivity. This doesn’t do anything for that.

While we’re talking about doing this engagement…. It’s like I say: they’re lofty goals,

and I applaud the goals, the objectives, of getting together with First

Nations, trying to create these plans, dealing with these issues. The reality

on the ground is this is going to be very, very challenging work, and it

doesn’t resolve the other issues, which are very, very critical for our forest

sector today. We’re blessed today because of high lumber prices, which is

masking some of the problems we have on the landscape. But like I say, it’s not

going to help solve any of these things.

The minister talked about old growth and having “protect old growth” as part of this. There isn’t anything that I’ve seen in this bill that actually talks about that. There is this high-level planning and objectives, but it doesn’t particularly speak of that, so I’m going to be very looking forward to going through committee stage to find out just why the minister thinks this will be a good thing for managing the issue of old growth in British Columbia.

One of the things that the minister did not talk about with this bill, which I actually found quite interesting, was the cost associated with it. There are 203 First Nations in the province, and 165 roughly, more or less, that have a real interest on the forestry side. They’re going to need financial support, capacity-building, to be able to sit down and work through these plans with the chief forester.

The chief forester’s office is going to need significant uplift in terms of the money for the people, or they’re going to have to draw on the resources from other ministries to be able to sit down at these tables and go through these negotiations.

Once again, as the former minister responsible, these negotiations are going to be lengthy. There’s going to be a lot of discussion, a lot of back-and-forth, a lot of money that’s going to have to be put on the table. I would submit that it’s probably going to be in the vicinity of $200,000 minimum per nation, maybe more. So you’re talking about an uplift that’s probably going to need to be a $40 million or $50 million a year commitment for the next decade, to the ministry, to be able to achieve these plans.

It’s certainly not in this budget that we’re currently looking at. There’s nothing set aside in the budget for being able to do any of that work, so that means we’re looking at March of 2022 before the work is even going to be able to start and the money is going to be able to flow and the nations are going to be able to gear up and you’ll start this process of going through and doing that work.

I mean, I recognize this isn’t a supply bill, so this doesn’t speak to this. But when you don’t see the matching funding associated with the bill, it makes me wonder: what was the intention of this bill coming forward, and why was there not funding that was put in place to actually get to work and start doing this? It makes me wonder whether or not this bill is more about looking good, since it’s going to take a decade, in all likelihood, to be able to achieve this across the landscape, as opposed to actually achieving objectives. That’s a little on the disturbing side.

When you also look at this…. The minister spent some time talking about wildfire

management. I agree entirely. We’re talking about changing some of the stocking

standards, talking about having more mix in the species that are planted, more

deciduous, dealing with wildfire, potential wildfire, and corridors protecting

communities.

[1:55 p.m.]

Those are great objectives. Those are important pieces that need to be thought about and discussed in terms of implementation on the landscape. There are things that, quite frankly, we do need to go forward, and I do support trying to achieve those kinds of objectives. But the minister also talked about reforestation of places where we have these wildfires and how this will help with reforestation. Well, I’m not quite sure how that works, because this will do nothing except for set objectives at a high level. It won’t actually get to the ground of doing reforestation.

When we’re talking about reforestation, the group that has done the majority of that work in British Columbia on Crown land is called the B.C. Forest Enhancement Society. They’re responsible for getting out there and doing the site prep, cleaning off, trying to capture what value they can from the wood that isn’t under permit, that isn’t going to go to mills, getting the site prepped, getting it planted, doing all that kind of neat stuff on the ground.

It has received zero funding under this government for the last four-plus years. It is out

of money. It will be shut down. There has been no money from this government

put towards that reforestation. It’s great to have a plan, but if you don’t

have the vehicle, and if you don’t have the money committed to actually doing

it, out of the two-million-plus hectares that have been burned over the last

number of years, other than where companies have gone and logged and a very

small amount that the Forest Enhancement Society has been able to deal with,

there’s a lot of stuff out there that has not been reforested.

I asked previous ministers about the Forest Enhancement Society and why they aren’t putting any money towards it. They said, oh, they’re looking at…. You know, they might use that vehicle, or they might create a new vehicle. Once again, in this past budget, there was no money for it. There was nothing that was set aside for being able to do that additional work on the ground. So it’s great, once again, to talk about it and have these plans, but actually delivering on the ground is the critical component that needs to be thought about in terms of these plans.

The minister also talked about measurable outcomes that will happen with regards to this bill and this process. I think that’d be great, because what I’ve seen to date from the various initiatives and the various components, whether it’s the coastal revitalization or the work that was being done up on the Interior revitalization, is there were no performance measures. When I asked the previous minister about it, they thought about it and went, well, you know, maybe this and maybe that.

Performance measures are critical to implementing something that is this large and

potentially changing to the landscape. Performance measures help to judge

whether or not you’re meeting those objectives, whether or not you’re actually

being able to achieve the goals that you’ve worked on with First Nations and

others.

It’s those performance measures that I very much look forward to talking to the minister about in the committee stage to see just how they’re going to be done. Because this plan, as it sits over top of the landscape, underneath it are still the land and resource management plans, LRMPs. Underneath that are still things like old-growth objectives and wildlife recovery areas, whether it’s winter habitat or these types of things for ungulates, whether it’s caribou…. All of these other plans are underneath this, but you know what? There haven’t been any performance measures of those plans.

We’re looking at all of these things that have gone into place to be able to help wildlife

and to be able to achieve these goals, yet we’ve seen a continual declining of

wildlife on the landscape. Are these plans working that are underneath? No one

knows, because no one has done the performance measures on those other

plans.

So here we are now. We’re going to develop this plan that’s over above

it, that’s going to take many years to implement, that’s going to rely on all

this other information that’s underneath it that has built up, but nobody is

measuring whether it’s successful.

What are we actually doing? How are we actually achieving the goals and the objectives

that are being talked about here, the goals of putting the environment and

people first? How are those objectives measured as part of this, and how does

it measure and stack up compared to all the other layers of work and

restrictions or other types of objectives that are underneath it?

With regards to those objectives and with regards to those performance measures, I also have the question with regards to First Nations. You’re going to be working hand in hand with First Nations to develop these plans. These plans will be developed, and then it will go out for input and consultation with communities and with people.

[2:00 p.m.]

Well, we’ve seen this show before. It was called the caribou recovery plan in northeast

B.C., where the plan was done between the government and the First Nations.

Then they went out to the community, and there was an uproar. So 35,000 people

signed a petition saying: “Hold on. We want to have input. We want to be part

of this.” At the end of the day, there were no changes. So it’s a little bit

disingenuous to say that people are coming first with this, when people are

down the road after the agreement is already arranged, and maybe there will be

a little bit of adjustment. That is not putting people first.

I’m going to be enjoying talking to the minister about just how that will be achieved on the ground for communities and for the workers and the people who are engaged once these plans are developed government to government. It’s not that plans shouldn’t be developed at that level, but the mechanism for bringing people along and being part of it is what is concerning me.

When I look through this…. Like I say, I think the goal, the vision, the idea of trying to

create a process of permitting that will be able to flow faster, which will

help in terms of some of that uncertainty…. That is the potential of what this

could do. But once again, the devil will be in the detail.

With regards to permitting — and it’s one of the objectives of this…. If you’ve got these high-level plans and it’s all signed off on, you should be able to have the permitting flow quite easily because the First Nations have already signed off on the activities and various components that are on the landscape. The unfortunate

part is that governments change. First Nations governments change, and the goals and objectives of First Nations may change.

That isn’t a window for being able to change these ten-year plans. That still means that when it comes down to the permitting level, there’s still going to be that full engagement, that full process. So I wonder if there really will be savings when it comes time to the actual time for permitting.

Another piece of this, of course, when I’m talking about the permitting and about how this is all going to go together…. Yes, the companies, once this high-level plan has been developed, are going to then create the next-level plan, which are these forest operational plans, which are basically the old development plans that used to be around back in the ‘90s. I remember. I was involved with actually creating these development plans and working on them.

I think those are good processes for the planning, for the process, going forward. But one

thing I would love to see from the ministry…. I’m hoping that when we get into

committee stage, I’ll get some answers on this. Has there been any analysis

done on what the potential costs or savings are for companies? Since we’re

already a high-cost producer here in British Columbia, it’s important to know

if we’re doing things that are going to actually increase costs or increase

time or whether they’re going to decrease costs or decrease time.

Once again, what are the performance measures we’re going to be able to put up to this?

How can we change things if they are not achieving those performance measures,

those objectives, that are being laid out? As we go through once again in terms

of committee and look through this….

The minister talked a lot about forest roads, and in the bill, there is a tremendous

amount of commentary about forest roads. I think the minister’s words, if I’ve

got them right, were that the oversight would be immediate, with the goal of

looking at deactivation of roads and the process for going through there. I

think that’s good.

We have got probably hundreds of thousands of kilome­tres of road.

I don’t even know what the number is that is out there. Many of these roads are

abandoned, and they’re not being used. Some are important to be used. Some, of

course, are critical in terms of accessing the land base for fighting wildfires

and these components.

A lot of these roads are very important for mineral ex­ploration. A lot of these

roads are important for tourism, for hunting, for hiking, for accessing the

back country.

As we go through the process and look at deactivation, the goal of

trying to reduce the number of roads on the landscape…. How are we doing that?

What kind of input is being done on each of those roads, on each of those

components, for making sure that there is potential mineralization in the area

that companies may be interested in, or there are maybe guide-outfitters or

hunting access, fishing access, recreational access in certain areas. Where do

we start drawing the line for that in terms of those roads?

[2:05 p.m.]

This act doesn’t talk about that, but it’s really a broad plan that is needed on these roads for that access. It has to be done, of course, at the community level. There has been a lot of work that has been done on that in the past, but since this talks specifically about these high-level plans and these plans for deactivation…. For most people, they won’t necessarily be following into that, but for the people who need that access, that are using that access, it’s critical. They are going to want to be able to have input and make sure that the ministry knows about their interests in those areas.

I can tell you that one of the first issues that I ran across when I was first elected as an MLA was access to the back country. There was an area where there was a gate. Some people had keys to go through that gate, way, way in the back country, and some people didn’t. The people that didn’t were absolutely furious that they didn’t have access, but somebody else did. Part of deactivation is limiting people going down these roads.

Are things like gates going to be considered to be used to limit access within an area? Are we just going to be digging tank traps? How are we going to be to warning people about those kind of disruptions in our roads, so that when somebody is bombing down a road in an ATV, they’re not going to suddenly go flying into some ditch, which has happened when you don’t have proper signage, particularly when roads start overgrowing and you get thrust in, and somebody’s got a little trail going through there, and you hit one of these things. That can be very dangerous for people that are out recreating in the back country.

I know people in urban areas may not think about those things, but there are lots of

people in the urban areas that do like to go out and access the back country,

and to be able to get out and deal with things. One of the things the minister

talked about is, like I say, more people engaged and involved in this

decision-making and this shared planning. I’m going to be challenging the

minister on that in terms of how that is going to happen versus what we’re

doing today.

It also talks about improving government response. Okay. We’ve got a process that’s in place that the minister and this government have been working on for almost four years. It’s taken almost four years to get to this place to introduce a rather hefty bill. It takes time to write and do this kind of work. I get that. But then, it’s going to take, potentially, another eight years, or eight to ten years, to implement? To borrow a quote from my colleague from down in the Merritt area, the Fraser-Nicola riding: “If that is the speed of government working, God help us.”

If it’s going to take ten to 12 years to be able to implement these kinds of changes in terms of the work to get to this point and the work to implement it down the road, I’m pretty concerned if that’s what’s considered to be improving government response time on the landscape. There will be lots of questions around how that will work as it goes through that area.

I want to come back to something I touched on before, which was these layers of plans that are underneath this broad plan, in particular, the LRMPs, or the land resource management plans. Government set out a new path to actually update these plans. There are some pilots that are working on some various components, and I do wonder about how these will work hand-in-hand.

I was involved in LRMP work back in the ‘90s, and these plans were very specific, very laid out, had some great objectives, some great components as part of it, and then, of course, the pine beetle came along. All those objectives got wiped out, because the landscape changed. Are we still going to be going forward with this process of updating the LRMPs? Can this high-level plan that is being implemented replace the LRMPs?

[2:10 p.m.]

The LRMP process that went through back in the ‘90s and early 2000s really involved people from all around, whether it was guide-outfitters; whether it was farmers; whether it was recreation groups and environmentalists; and, of course, industry. All these groups came together to create this plan. It was very difficult, because there were so many competing interests.

If these plans are now being updated, which they are, and it’s just going to be a plan between government and First Nations, where did all those other interests disappear to, in terms of that land planning? How is that going to fit in within this process?

The other thing I find interesting, as well, is…. I think the minister talked about the

idea of these forest landscape plans, maybe on smaller areas, not just a supply

area — something, for example, like a TFL. A tree farm licence, of course, is

an area-based tenure where a company has a responsibility for managing that

land effectively and sustainably over a rotation, and they have that right to

that area to be able to do that.

Suddenly, now there’s going to be plan that comes in over top of that company’s rights and

responsibility, asserting control and asserting objectives? I’m not sure how

that’s going to work in terms of the objectives and the licence that has been

given to an entity, a First Nation or even a company that has a tree farm

licence. So that made me kind of stand up and go: “I wonder exactly how this

will work and how much thinking has gone through in terms of what sort of

implementation for a plan like this would be.”

When you have a tree farm licence and it’s got the objectives and it’s got the volume and

it’s set aside for forestry and forestry activities, there are other high-level

objectives that go in as part of that. But if this comes in and significantly

changes that, that could be a huge game-changer for a company that very much

depends on the volume coming off of a tree farm licence for the day-to-day

operations. At a time when we have declining annual allowable cuts due to pine

beetles and other issues, that’s going to be an important piece to spend some

time on and talk about.

The minister also touched on compliance and enforcement and the components that are going

to be in this bill for that. It does make me wonder. The minister talked a

number of times about basically making sure that there isn’t any wrongdoing or

other things. I’m going to be looking forward to having a conversation with the

minister about what sorts of things are not being caught today. What sort of

compliance and enforcement are not being dealt with today that needed

enhancement?

It very well may be that there are things going on, which is good. If there needs to be additional enforcement to make sure that rules are being followed, that’s good. But it makes me wonder: is there a report? Is there some sort of analysis that shows that there hasn’t been compliance? And are there additional tools and stuff that are needed around this? So it will be an interesting conversation as we go through the committee stage.

I’ve just got a few more things I want to be able to touch on, so I will let you know that

I’m the designated speaker for this bill. Although I don’t plan to go two hours

with this — although I could tell lots of stories about forestry and forest

activity — there are a few things that I thought we should hit on.

As this bill is going to be implemented, there is some transition time that is talked about in this bill, between existing plans and this new plan. It makes me wonder: if we’ve got this high-level plan that is now being put in place between government and First Nations, this forest landscape plan, will there be a need to do things like, for example, archeological overview assessments? If that is already being taken into consideration in terms of First Nations interests, is there a need to be able to do that work? If there isn’t, that would be a huge saving in time, money and effort that are needed on the landscape.

How are the permitting and the process on the landscape changed by these plans? Right now if you want to go do any kind of activity on the land base, the first thing you have to do is an archeological overview assessment and look at whatever value is in there. If there is something in there that identifies that there could be a high or a moderate level, then you have to go into the next level of archeological assessment within that area before you can actually start doing stuff.

[2:15 p.m.]

That can take months of time to get a permit just to go out and do that work. Then once you go out and do that work, you can come in. Then you can go and you can start doing the work about planning and applying for other permits, which can also take months. So right now, with the way that the ministry is operating, it can take years to be able to actually get through and get a block prepared.

I have got this documented, in terms of my conflict of interest. I’m a woodlot licence

owner. My family, my dad and I, co-own a woodlot licence. For me to get

prepared to be able to have another cut on the woodlot, it’s going to take

three years — three years of work, of engaging, of doing the plans and the

process and everything that is put in place for a woodlot licence. Three years

is a tremendous amount of time and work that is needed.

Now, when you start talking about companies that are accessing huge areas of the land base and how much time and cost it takes them to go through to be able to do this planning, is this going to reduce that, or is it going to add to what needs to be done on the landscape, and the process and the time to go and put it in place?

In terms of managing the landscape, I think we, most British Columbians — and I think there is some agreement between the opposition and government — want to see high-level planning put in place, making sure that there’s biodiversity that is being looked at; that there are values on the landscape that are protected; that there is volume available for a healthy, sustainable forest industry; that we take measures to be able to try to improve wildlife and wildlife conditions.

I think there are a lot of things we can agree to that we’d like to see on the landscape.

I think we can agree that we’d like to see more secondary manufacturing,

utilize more of the fibre. I think there is an agreement that we’d like to see

these sorts of things on the landscape, but I’m not sure this achieves that. So

I’m very interested in seeing what other legislation will be coming forward

from this government on forestry, because this doesn’t touch on a lot of the

things that the government has been talking about over time.

I want to come back just to talk for a minute about old growth, because there is a lot of friction right now out on the landscape. I can tell you, as somebody who has actually gone out to Fairy Creek and gone in and talked to the protesters and sat down and talked with the Pacheedaht, there is a huge problem there. It’s not going away anytime soon. This is not going to be able to help achieve the resolution of that particular problem on the landscape.

It’s a much bigger issue because there is so much misinformation out there in the public.

People are talking about protecting the last hectare of old growth. There is

3.3 million hectares of old growth that are currently available for potential

harvesting that are in what is called the timber-harvesting land base. There is

about 11½ million hectares of old growth in B.C.

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation that is out there. Even the old-growth

report that is out there talked about there being this repository of accurate

and reliable information that needs to be created, this one source, so that we

don’t end up with all this misinformation that’s going around.

I’m raising that, in particular, because there is a huge component, particularly for the

coastal forest industry, where that particular area is very critical for

supporting a forest sector. The forest sector, of course, is producing all

these products, from an environmental perspective, that are the best and

highest use that we could want to use within our society.

As we go through and look at all this, there needs to be this engagement of people for the information that is actually out there. It’s not about a tree that’s older or a tree that’s younger. It’s about having a working forest land base that can be operated on, that can support sustainable, long-term forestry that can help to meet our objectives.

[2:20 p.m.]

For example, if we aren’t going to be using two-by-fours, what would we build a house from? Are we going to do bricks? Are we going to do concrete and steel? If we’re not going to be using paper, what is the replacement for paper? Maybe you can start looking at hemp or something else for creating that. There’s a synergy of products that are healthy and good for the environment — even during the pandemic — that are critical and coming from our forest sector. Having a healthy forest sector and a renewable, well-managed, sustained forest sector is going to be critical.

British Columbia, quite frankly, around the world is recognized as being one of the leaders in good, sustainable, forest management practices. There are lots of changes, lots of things I think we could be doing to improve what we’re doing there. I’m certainly open to having those conversations. I do wonder, when I look at this, how much of those kinds of things will actually be in these plans?

Like I say, if you sit down and talk to the Pacheedaht about what their objectives are…. If you look at what their plans are, it varies quite differently from what, say, the environmentalists might consider or, for example, what the United Steelworkers might want to do on the landscape. There are going to be some big challenges.

The bill talks about — we touched on this when the government brought in UNDRIP, and we had this conversation — these Indigenous governing bodies and these abilities to be able to enter into these agreements. Well, in the case, for example, of the Pacheedaht, you’ve got the elected chief and council that are on the ground and that are making decisions about management — that, I’m assuming, you’re going to engage.

You’ve got an individual claiming to be…. I don’t know whether he is a Hereditary Chief or

not. I don’t know the heritage within that nation. I haven’t had the

opportunity to learn that. He has invited protesters on the ground, in conflict

with what the elected chief and council want to do. Who is the governing body

for that nation? How are you going to reconcile those challenges and issues as

you develop a plan on the landscape? We’ve seen that in many areas around the

province.

These are all big, big issues that are not addressed in this bill, which was, at a very high level, setting these objectives, with a band playing and flowers and a nice rosy picture. Like I say, it’s good. Those are good objectives, but when you get down to it on the ground, how exactly is that going to work? How exactly are you going to be able to develop that?

More importantly, as nations change, as governments change, their objectives change. How

is that able to be implemented and held to for a ten-year period? Is a band

council resolution what’s going to be required? Under the Indian Act, I suppose

that gives authority for the agreement to be entered into. But if the governing

body is not the elected chief and council, how does that work? What happens if

there are changes? What happens if there’s suddenly disagreement?

There are dispute mechanisms, in the creation of the agreement, and there is some

provision for being able to make some changes. But when you’re talking about an

agreement that takes that long to create and to go through in these areas where

you’ve got the friction and disagreement, the question is whether or not these

can be implemented over that period of time with the changing landscape that we

have today, where the struggles are within First Nations as they struggle for

economic and real reconciliation.

As I go through once again, looking at the bill, I think we’re going to need a lot of time to go through the committee stage and try to work through some of these components. My hope in having this discussion was really to be able to sort of give notice that there are lots of issues that we’ll need to work through on this plan.

One of the last things I want to touch on…. There was a discussion, when I got a briefing from the chief forester, that there will be expanded authority to change fees related to the use or occupation of public lands. That was a little bit of a “what?” What exactly is the objective here? What are we trying to do as part of this?

[2:25 p.m.]

As I mentioned earlier in my response to this bill, there are already going to be significant costs associated with doing this. Is there an objective to raise fees to pay for this? Is that how this is going to work? I hope not, because there’s a tremendous cost that’s going to come going through this process and that, quite frankly, I don’t think government has really thought about and worked through yet. There is going to be a tremendous cost associated with this. The question will be: where’s that revenue going to come from?

Is it going to be increased stumpage? Is it going to be in­creased fees or access to

the landscape? It is going to be all of the above? We already know that the

minister is talking about significantly changing the tabular rates for things

like community forests, woodlots and these types of structures, which, of

course, isn’t being talked about in this bill. It’s all part and parcel to how

we’re working on the landscape and how our forest industry is going to be able

to be successful in competing in a global environment.

There are big challenges to our landscape in British Columbia. It is truly a beautiful

province. There are so many great values that are out there. There are so many

things we as a society enjoy — everything from being able to have a working

living from the landscape to being able to walk through groves of enormous

trees and to be able to appreciate nature and the gravity of what has been

there for 1,000 years.

There are lots of things we value in this landscape: wildlife values, fresh water,

watersheds to be able to make sure that we can have clean and fresh drinking

water that comes from that, all the tourism objectives on the landscape,

hunting. All these values we have tried to manage over time and juggle how

these work.

It’s probably worth noting, at this point, that we have more land in parks in British Columbia than any other jurisdiction in the world. We’re leading by a long way. We’ve got over 15 percent of our province already protected in parks, far more than any other jurisdiction and far more, quite frankly, than the United Nations has set as a target for nations. It’s something we should be proud of. We’ve got to make sure that they’re being managed. We’ve got lots of issues around that that need to be dealt with, but it’s something to be proud of.

With that, and with all the other objectives on the landscape and all the other constraints and stuff on the landscape, I don’t think it’s too much to ask, as well, that we need to have a sustainable, healthy forest sector as a value, as a society.

Forestry has fed families in this province and helped to build this province for 100 years. The first tenures that were put out in the province were actually, I think, before the province was even a province in Canada. I think it was in the 1840s. After it did become one there and we entered, we brought in stumpage. We started collecting revenue from this, and the forest sector has developed and grown dramatically over that period of time. Technology and innovation have significantly decreased the workforce associated with forestry over the decades, but it’s still vital for our society.

At one point, I think, 10 percent of the people that worked in the province were directly

involved with for­estry. It’s now probably 3 or 4 percent. It has

decreased over time. As our economy has expanded, forestry has stabilized. That

forest sector that we have as a province is also having a real problem right

now: attracting young people and new people into the industry. People look at

it and say: “What’s the future?” We don’t have a government today that is

championing our forest sector. That’s a problem.

If you don’t have a champion in the forest sector, how are you getting the message out there about the good values and sustainability of our forest sector that people would want to come and invest their future in, in long-term employment, in creating a career and in being able to have pride in the value that you’re giving back to our society? It’s a real problem in our forest sector. I think, quite frankly, it should be one of the objectives.

[2:30 p.m.]

Managing on the landscape is one piece of that. But understanding how…. The interaction

between communities, the interaction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous

people, the interaction and perceptions we have around the world and those

values that we provide to the environment, to our society, need to be

recognized and need to be championed.

My hope is that as we go through this bill, I’ll start to hear the minister talking about being a champion for our forest sector and fighting for those values that have helped to build this province over many, many, many decades.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I’ll end my comments. Like I say, I very much look forward to going into the committee stage on this bill. I hope that I’ll be able to get some of the answers that I know I’m certainly looking for and I know many people in this province are. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill.

S. Furstenau: I rise today to speak to Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act.

I just finished reading the novel Greenwood , by Michael Christie. Give yourself a

gift. Read this beautiful, extra­ordinary book. I’m ready to start

reading it again immediately, so rich is the prose, so extraordinary is the

story. It’s a novel that entwines family and forests, humans and trees. I’d

like to read a passage.

“‘What if a family isn’t a tree at all?’ Jake thinks as they walk in silence. What if it’s more like a forest? A collection of individuals pooling their resources through intertwined roots, sheltering one another from wind and weather and drought, just like Greenwood Island’s trees have done for centuries…. All of our ancestors are all with her, embedded in her cellular structure, if not a part of her family tree, then part of her family forest. And no one knows better than a dendrologist that it’s the forests that matter.”

[S. Chandra Herbert in the chair.]

This passage, this whole book, resonated so deeply for me. I moved here to Vancouver Island from Edmonton 31 years ago, after spending every summer growing up either at my grandmother’s house in Campbell River or my Aunt Nöel’s amazing herb farm, Ravenhill, in Saanich. My mother was born in Comox. My grandmother, the youngest daughter of settlers from England, was born on Saturna Island in 1902. My father emigrated here from Germany in 1956, completing his secondary schooling in Sidney.

My parents met in Victoria and were married in St. Matthias Church on Richardson Street. B.C. always felt more like home to me than the flat landscape of Edmonton ever did. I always felt most content near the ocean, with the mountains nearby. But it was only once I started spending time in ancient forests, Carmanah and Walbran, that I realized the pull that giant cedars and ancient Douglas firs have on me.

So much research has taken place on the benefits of be­ing in a forest. A 2017 study

published in Environmental Health and Preventative Medicine reviewed

six randomized controlled trials that reported time in nature is

associ­ated with improved health outcomes. It concluded that these

studies support the positive impacts of forest therapy on hypertension, cardiac

and pulmonary function, im­mune function, inflammation, oxidative stress,

stress, stress hormone, anxiety, depression and emotional response.

I think at the end of every four days we spend in here, we should all go be in a forest.

The study recommends more robust trials are warranted to establish clinical

guide­lines beyond such advice as I just gave. However, I think we can

agree that these benefits make a walk in the woods seem like a rather good

idea. But not all forests are the same.

[2:35 p.m.]

Walking in an old-growth forest, with the many species of trees that are hundreds of years old and an understorey that’s been building for millennia, is a very different experience than walking in a single-species plantation. You can actually feel the ground beneath you give way with every step you take, almost like walking on a trampoline, because that forest floor has been created for literally thousands of years.

I recently heard Dr. Suzanne Simard speak about the difference between an old-growth

forest and a single-species plantation. In an old-growth forest, the ground

be­neath you — packed with fungal mycelium, bacteria, nematodes, mites —

adds up to nearly a metre of nitrogen-rich humus that puts to shame any

carbon-capturing technologies that humans might ever invent.

Fairy Creek, at 1,200 hectares, absorbs 1,300 kilograms of carbon per

hectare per year. That is more carbon absorption than tropical rainforests in

the Amazon. While we have announcements of all types of emission reduction

policies as part of a climate plan, consider this: seven Fairy Creeks would

absorb all of Victoria’s emissions every year — seven Fairy Creeks.

It’s interesting to note that one of the ten actions from over 240

signatories to a letter to the Premier a month ago, including diverse

environmental, Indigenous, labour, health, business, local government,

academic, youth and faith communities…. In that letter, they called on the B.C.

government to respond to climate change like an emergency. There were ten

recommendations.

The sixth one is: “Protect and restore nature. Protect 30 percent of

terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030; support and invest in Indigenous-led

conservation initiatives; restore natural ecosystems to enhance ecosystem

functions and services, preserve biodiversity, increase carbon sequestration

and improve human and ecosystem resilience to climate impacts.” And finally:

“Impose an immediate moratorium on the industrial logging of all old-growth

forests, which are critical carbon sinks.”

Let’s consider what, according to Dr. Simard, the implications of logging old growth are when it comes to climate. When you log old growth, you lose 70 to 80 percent of carbon sequestration. Microbial communities go from 100 species to six. This significantly decreases the ability for trees to take up nutrients, which in turn reduces the ability of trees to grow and absorb carbon. Logging an old-growth forest and replanting trees are not equal. The loss of carbon sequestration is not replaced by the planting of new trees, particularly of a single species.

What of the forest floor? The nitrogen-rich and carbon-absorbing humus, nearly 100

centimetres thick in an an­cient forest, is only 33 centimetres in a

100-year-old second-growth forest. Old growth, 100 centimetres; sec­ond

growth, a hundred years later, 33 centimetres. Astonishingly, in a third-growth

plantation of high-density Douglas fir, the forest floor is now only 4

centimetres — from 100 to 33 to four.

One of the concerns that has long been raised about the current Forest and Range Practices Act is the list of values that determines the management of forests. As it stands now, the range of values is considered, however, only inasmuch as they do not interfere with timber supply. In a time of increasing impacts from climate change, the wildfires, the droughts, the loss of biodiversity and the growing number of endangered species, it seems to me that we’ve got the orientation entirely wrong.

[2:40 p.m.]

We need to manage forests in a way that ensures that we protect biodiversity, protect

soil, protect watersheds, protect community values, including recreation and

those walks in the woods, and ensures that our forests are climate

change–resistant, drought-resistant, fire-resistant and pest-resistant. We need

to have forestry policy be truly Indigenous-led, driven by the accumulated

knowledge of thousands of years of understanding that comes from a reciprocal

and respectful relationship with trees, forests and nature.

Does this legislation achieve this wholesale shift in forestry management, a paradigm

shift? No. These amendments mean that Indigenous nations must be consulted and

accommodated as much as possible, but the new landscape plans won’t require

agreement. The legislation before us today is overdue. We know that. The

amendments to the Forest Act and the Forest and Range Practices Act were first

floated back in 2019, but it took government two entire years before these

amendments have been brought forward.

There are some aspects that I’m pleased to see — for instance, the shift from

industry-informed forest stewardship plans to forest landscape plans. Like

professional reliance, leaving industry responsible for the public interest is

a faulty system that fails to protect the public or the environment. Shifting

to landscape plans that are informed by First Nations, local communities and

other stakeholders is a good idea. Frankly, it should have been done quite a

long time ago.

That said, the transition to these plans will be implemented over eight to ten years. That’s deeply concerning. We’ve identified that the proponent-informed plans are a problem. Why take so long to fix something that is so clearly broken? Why let the ramifications continue to impact communities, First Nations and the environment? We’re in a climate crisis, and forests have been the canaries in the coal mines. They are burning first. It seems that this government is content to let them burn in favour of sticking to the status quo.

In addition to this, the ten-year transition causes uncertainty, as well, for industry.

Which TFLs will transition first, and which will not? What will the guidance be

in operations on the land base in the decade-long interim? The uncertainty

imperils the economic argument for forest value.

I’d also like to touch on the issue of Indigenous consul­tation, which my colleague

from Saanich North and the Islands will speak to in greater detail. Namely, I’d

like to highlight the fact that the government has patted itself on the back

for including the word “consent” in this legislation. But the full statement in

the legislation simply says that an Indigenous governing body may provide

consent within 60 days. We’ve heard from nations and from the First Nations

Forestry Council that they are strapped for capacity.

Replying to forest landscape plans within 60 days, when there are other ongoing crises and a lack of resources, is a major challenge. It is not consent if Indigenous people do not have the same level of power and autonomy as the provincial government. My

interpretation is this. The government will gladly take ten years to ease into a necessary standard of planning but will only give Indigenous nations 60 days to provide consent to activity on their territory. That does not sound nearly as laudable as it has been made out to be.

This legislation makes other changes that will, hopefully, improve forestry practices.

They include requirements for licensees to develop and submit operations plans

for ministerial approval. They put guidelines on the creation of logging roads,

guidelines that should have long since been put in place. The chief forester

will now be allowed to set stocking standards and target areas for

reforestation to address the need for species diversity, wildland buffers and

fire management.

Broadly speaking, this is good. We do need to ensure that we are replanting logged areas with diverse species. It will reduce the impacts of wildfire and pest outbreaks and produce healthier ecosystems. Fire buffers are good. They will help communities remain resilient as we see the summers being plagued by wildfires more and more.

[2:45 p.m.]

These are changes I’m glad to see. They are changes that ostensibly will produce healthier

forests and communities, but the legislation establishes broad

regulation-making authority throughout the bill. Regulations can be a useful

tool, but when applied to such a critical issue with such wide reach, there’s a

lack of transparency about implementation. There’s a lack of accountability.

That has impacts.

Communities rely on forests. Indigenous people rely on forests. Species and businesses

rely on forests. On the glo­bal level, the world relies on B.C.’s

forests, in particular, as a unique carbon sink and, in some parts of the

province, globally rare ecosystems. The forests have such immense value for

social, cultural, environmental and economic reasons. Leaving their management

up to regulation with no detail or specifics on implementation is more than

poor management. It’s becoming a theme. It’s undemocratic.

I began my remarks by speaking about my own connection to forests and their meaning to me

as an individual and a member of a community. That might feel disconnected from

the technical piece of legislation before us today, but it’s not. Public policy

impacts the public. It impacts all of us as individuals.

I have concerns about the impacts of this legislation, concerns that

I’ve heard from experts and stakeholders, and concerns for the future of our

communities and for­ests. These changes, in my opinion, are overdue, but

they also aren’t enough. British Columbia deserves more proactive, bold,

progressive forestry management.

I come back to Greenwood , this novel. It begins in 2038, and as the novel proceeds, it goes back to the early 1900s through the stages of a family and then comes back to 2038. In 2038, in this novel, the world has gone through the great withering in which all trees have died. It connects it to the historical experience of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, when vegetation disappeared from so much of the landscape in North America. That loss of vegetation meant that people existed in this dust-filled world.

Greenwood makes us think about the future while reflecting on the past —

something I think we should all be doing our very best to do in here as much as

possible. It makes us ask the question: what is it that we owe to that future?

Will the people in 2038 look back at this time and say in this critical moment,

at this critical time, as we’re hearing about COP26, what is it? Our last best

chance, collectively and globally, to act on climate change — our last best

chance. This is where we’re at.

This isn’t a small historical moment. This, arguably, is one of the most important historical moments for humankind, because we are deciding if we want to take that last best chance. Is it too hard? Is it too much to let go of the status quo at a time when scientists are telling us that if we stick with the status quo, what we will deliver to the future is something harrowing and distressing, along the lines of what Michael Christie describes in his book: a kind of great withering.

We make legislation here in British Columbia, and we think: “Oh well, we are so small,

just one province in one country, one big part of this massive global puzzle.”

Yet we are in this moment of our last best chance.

[2:50 p.m.]

I would think we would want to do the most ambitious things we could possibly dream of in

this moment. We would want to look to 2038 and say: “What’s the best we can do

for them and for 2058 and for 2098?” When we speak of the last remaining old

growth in British Columbia and we start to debate the numbers and how much is

there really and what is old growth and how old are those trees and what does

it mean…?

Let’s start with the soil. Let’s start there. Let’s consider the difference between an

intact forest and that soil and that miraculous community of those trees and

the forest and the understorey and the amazing things that are happening there.

Let’s ask ourselves: do we bequeath that to the future? Or is it the second

growth or third growth with four centimetres and 6 percent of the life that

used to exist there?

These are big questions for us to be asking ourselves. Maybe people think: “Oh well. It’s just one piece of legislation.” But isn’t that what got us here, to this moment of our last best chance on climate? It was just one piece of legislation, one bit of policy, one decision here that kept moving us further away from a future that doesn’t look like the great withering.

One thing that I’m interested in…. I think back to those early experiences in the Carmanah

and Walbran when I first spent time hiking and building boardwalks and camping

in those extraordinary forests.

At the time, of course, early 1990s, British Columbia was engaged in

this very significant conversation, the war of the woods, the whole battle over

Clayoquot Sound. So much of that focused on clearcutting and this notion of:

“We’re clearcutting these forests.” It’s fascinating to me that 30 years later,

we’re not even really talking about clearcutting. It’s like it’s a given in our

forestry policy and our forestry management.

When we think about the relationship between the volume of trees and timber that’s

extracted from forest lands and the number of jobs attached to that activity,

what we have is a graph in which the volume goes up, and the number of jobs

goes down.

If we were really serious about ensuring that there’s long-term sustainable jobs for

forestry communities in this province, we would start by looking at

clearcutting. The mechanized removal of trees can be done with very few people,

whereas selective logging, which maintains that forest floor, which maintains

that biodiversity has been shown in many places…. I’ll point to Sweden as an

example. You can actually, over time, have the same volume of timber, but you

don’t take out entire forests. You use more people to do that work, because

it’s not one big machine going in and doing it.

The conversation…. If we want to really be talking about balancing sustainable jobs in

forestry communities and sustainable forestry, let’s talk about how that

forestry happens. That relationship between the volume of timber going up and

the number of jobs going down — that should be a concern to every single one of

us, because that doesn’t seem like an equation that’s working for

anybody.

[2:55 p.m.]

What’s interesting to me is that we are talking about this legislation. We’re talking about these reforms. We’re not talking about reforming the fundamental approach to forestry that has dominated the landscape. Any of us flying back to our communities or spending time on the Finance Committee criss-crossing this province by air can see beyond a sliver of a doubt that clearcutting is the dominant form of forestry in this province.

There are so many things that we could be leaning into right now. We could be achieving a paradigm shift. We could be bequeathing not just forests but forestry management to the future that achieves that sustainability. But what we’ve done here in this legislation, these amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act, is just sort of adjusting around the edges, largely. Yeah, addressing some bigger problems but not a true shift in any way.

I worry about this being an increasingly consistent trend — that while the world is recognizing we’re in our last best chance, here in this building, in the work we’re doing, we’re staying so locked in to a status quo that has gotten us here, unwilling to have a vision for something significantly different.

I will remain optimistic and hopeful. We have to. I look forward to committee stage and asking questions on this bill. But I think it’s incumbent on all of us to really see — and I apologize, Mr. Speaker — the forest for the trees.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, Member. I thought that was coming.

M. Morris: I’ve lived most of my life in the interior of our great province and,

most of the time, within the Prince George timber supply area, the largest

timber supply area in the province.

In roughly a year and a half, I will be 70. For most of the last 50

years, I’ve trapped, hunted, fished, camped and hiked throughout the interior

of the province. Over these 50 years, I’ve witnessed the slow and gradual

transformation of our natural forests into what industry terms working forests,

or monoconifer plantations. I’ve witnessed the cumulative effects of

clearcutting and the impacts of the disappearance of wildlife

populations.

I’ve looked at the proposed changes Bill 23 outlines, and I see this as

tinkering with forest policy that is outdated and no longer meets the needs of

British Columbians. We are quite simply out of harvestable trees unless we

don’t care about habitat for wildlife, salmon and genuine biodiversity

management.

Biodiversity management has been an interest of mine for decades, but my

passion was ignited after Christy Clark appointed me Parliamentary Secretary

for Forests and Lands in 2014 to examine wildlife habitat in British Columbia.

I was shocked to see the extent of habitat degradation across the province. For

the past five years, I’ve been researching how we got to this point. Where did

it start?

I began by reading every royal commission report on forestry, commencing

with the first royal commission in 1910. I’ve read many of the supporting

documents considered by the commissioners. I’ve reviewed numerous scientific

papers on forestry, ecology, hydrology and wildlife management. I’ve spoken to

ecologists, registered professional foresters, wildlife biologists,

hydrologists and industry representatives.

I’ve also taken advantage of a tool accessible to everyone in this House

and around the world — Google Earth En­gine Timelapse. It’s a series of

land satellite images of British Columbia starting in 1984 through to

[3:00 p.m.]

In addition, I put more than 10,000 kilometres on my pickup in recent

years travelling into the far reaches of the three largest timber supply areas

in the province, trying to find the millions of cubic metres of trees

supposedly available for harvest.

The question motivating my research was: what gave successive

governments the right to transform our pri­mary forests into monoconifer

stands? I can sum up my research very succinctly. The slow and often obfuscated

transformation to working forests was initiated by adopting an incomplete

strategy back in 1945, which subsequently morphed into an ideology taught in

our colleges and university forestry programs.

Let me explain. British Columbia was entrusted with the stewardship of

our forests when Canada vested ownership to B.C. of all forested lands when we

entered Confederation. With few exceptions, up to around 1900, all successive

governments deliberately retained Crown ownership by issuing licences and

leases over Crown lands to authorize timber extraction.

As British Columbia entered the 20th century, logging activity increase

exponentially. Around 1904, licences is­sued to harvest timber rose at an

alarming rate from 1,500 to over 15,000, resulting in government appointing the

first royal commission into forest policy. The Fulton report, 1910, resulted in

the first Forest Act in 1912, the beginning of the provincial forest service

and a focus on forest management and protection.

In 1943, the second royal commission on forestry commenced, resulting in

the Sloan report, The Forest Resources of British Columbia , 1945. The

impetus for this commission was the irregular increase of timber production on

private land that had been granted in aid of railway construction on Vancouver

Island and a myriad of leases and licences issued prior to 1907 on the south

coast. Timber harvesting was largely unplanned, leading to industry concerns

for future continuity.

A major concern for industry at the time was that the licensing and

lease arrangements were inadequate in pro­viding a dependable source of

logs needed to secure investment. For the first half of the 20th century,

logging and forestry activities were primarily confined to Vancouver Island and

the south coast, with limited logging taking place along transportation

corridors into the Interior.

The takeaway from this commission was the origin of the sustainable

yield policy. Justice Sloan states, at page 127 in his report:

“A sustained yield policy has, as one objective, the maintenance of forest

cover and growth, thus ensuring a perpetual supply of raw materials for forest

industries with consequent stability of industrial communities and assurance of

permanent payrolls.

“A no less important objective is the perpetuation of the forest cover to

assure the continuance of many direct and indirect benefits which flow

therefrom, in addition to the mere growing of wood. In my view, however,” he

goes on to say, “none of these factors is a necessary or essential ingredient

of the definition to be applied to the term ‘sustainable yield.’”

I want to highlight this — that in the finding of sustainable yield, the

commission determined the other values on the land were inconsequential to

growing and harvesting trees. Thus my earlier reference to an incomplete

strategy.

Until the 1960s, forest companies were focused on intermediate

utilization, only taking trees considered suitable for making lumber. It was

often referred to as select logging, and any tree smaller than a 12-inch

diameter at breast height was left standing. The length of time determined to

regrow forests after logging during the first half of the 20th century was 120

years in the Interior and 80 years on Vancouver Island and the south

coast.

With the expansion of the pulp industry in the mid ’60s, forest

companies were required to adopt the close utilization standard to log all the

trees on the block, including, for the first time, pine and hemlock, which up

until then were regarded more as weed trees. Trees unsuitable for sawlogs were

chipped and sent to the nine pulp mills that appeared during this period. As a

result of the change, the close utilization existing volume-based licences

increased by 30 percent in the Interior and doubled on the coast and Vancouver

Island.

[3:05 p.m.]

It wasn’t until the Royal Commission on Forestry in 1975 before values

other than trees were mentioned in any meaningful way. Commissioner Pearse

wrote, on page 5 of that report: “In short, while forest managers have by no

means completed the task begun three decades ago of designing methods of

managing the province’s forest for continuous timber yields, the most pressing

challenge today is to develop effective means of reconciling industrial

forestry with other forest uses and social objectives to realize the full range

of potential values.”

What followed, over the next 20 years, was a series of legislative and

policy changes that can best be described as voluntary guidelines to support

multiple forest use practices.

The public became more and more disenchanted with the impacts to the

environment, and the war in the woods escalated. Attempts were made to mesh

land use planning with the annual allowable cut determination, but the process

became bogged down, and very few determinations were made.

The first timber supply review in B.C. took place in 1992, well over a

hundred years after timber harvesting began in the province. Until this took

place, protected areas, biodiversity, riparian areas and wildlife habitats were

never considered in determining how much forest was harvested, until well into

the late 1990s. By this time, ap­proximately 17 million hectares of

forest had been harvested with little or no consideration to wildlife, riparian

areas or any other values on the land.

As we entered the 1990s, increased environmental concerns over logging

practices resulted in the implementation of strict legislation under the forest

practices code. While the focus was still on the incomplete strategy of

sustainable yield, it now became known as sustainable forest management. The

forest practices code was described as the epitome as command-and-control

legislation by some critics and was widely criticized for being overly

prescriptive, stifling to innovation and exacting high transactional costs on

industry.

It was a relatively short-lived legislation, being replaced by the

Forest and Range Practices Act, or FRPA, in 2004. Continuing with the

sustainable forest management policy direction, from 1990 until 2015, another

six million hectares of clearcut logging took place, bringing the total

hectares logged in British Columbia over the past 100 years to approximately 20

million hectares.

The total does not include hectares logged under tree farm licences,

woodlot licences, community forests or private woodlots. It also does not

factor in the four million hectares disturbed by forest fires since 1980 or any

of the 700,000 kilometres of resource roads, rights-of-way constructed across

the province or the thousands of hectares consumed by several large hydro

reservoirs developed throughout the 20th century, or railway rights-of-way or a

number of other rights-of-way that we have across of the province.

The timber supply review that commenced in the late 1990s determined the

timber harvesting land base in B.C. to be 22 million hectares. Excluding any of

the timber harvest land base in remote locations in the northeast and the

northwest parts of the province, one can reasonably conclude that most of the

timber harvest land base in the rest of the province has been harvested at

least once.

I encourage anyone interested to utilize Google Earth Engine Timelapse

to see the extent of clearcut logging in British Columbia from 1984 until 2020,

simply by typing a B.C. location in at the query box in the top left corner of

the Google Earth Engine Timelapse website.

A significant factor overlooked for well over a century was the

hydrological changes resulting from forest cover removal. The interception of

rain and snow and the evaporation rates and absorption rates of mature timber

were never taken into consideration — hundreds of thousands of litres of water

absorbed by a mature forest on a daily basis. In 1992, British Columbia adopted

a calculation referred to as the equivalent clearcut area, or ECA, to determine

the hydrological impacts of clearcut logging practices.

They issued a directive, the B.C. Forests and Lands Extension Note 118,

dated January 27, 2017, that stated in a reference to the B.C. Minister of

Forests submitted back in 1992 that set ECA thresholds of 20 percent in

community watersheds, 25 percent in fishery-sensitive watersheds and 30 percent

in all other watersheds. This directive indicates that the equivalent clearcut

area of a watershed cannot exceed these amounts without jeopardizing the

hydrological integrity of the land base.

[3:10 p.m.]

The Chilako River is just over 100 kilometres long. The watershed, much

of it in my riding, has an ECA that was determined in 2011 that exceeded 80

percent. Harvesting still continued.

Chinook salmon counts in that river, as an example, dropped from being

in the thousands to single-digit numbers in recent years. Spring freshets have

contributed to millions of dollars of damage to property. The Anzac River,

another watershed in my riding, is a fishery-sensitive watershed where active

logging is continuing while ECA levels have far exceeded 25 percent.

There are numerous watersheds across the province where ECA values have

exceeded 50 percent and greater, leading to rapid snow melting and downstream

flooding. The lack of forest cover has also decreased transpiration values and

increased temperatures on the land, accompanied by the inability of the land,

in many cases, to retain moisture. Science indicates that it takes a minimum of

85 years after planting for a forest canopy to start providing a similar level

of protection from sun radiation, increased transpiration values and moisture

retention on the ground.

Although some reforestation began in the 1930s, British Columbia relied

mostly upon natural regeneration until the rapid rise in harvest in the 1950s

and ‘60s. By the 1970s, despite ongoing replanting efforts, significant

portions of the province were designated as not sufficiently restocked. Federal

and provincial programs initiated an aggressive replanting program, planting

millions of trees.

Lodgepole pine was a species of choice to plant, because it was a

faster-growing tree, reaching a harvestable size only after 60 years. To

enhance growth and yield, the pro­vince increased the density of new

forests by planting 1,000 to 2,500 trees per hectare, far greater than the

average mature forest of between 100 and 300 trees per hectare.

With the primary focus on growth and yield, major changes to

biodiversity have taken place at the landscape level. The following paragraph

is quoted from a compendium of environmental resource information on the Royal

B.C. Museum website. It says:

“It is important to recognize that terms such as ‘reforestation’ and

‘forest renewal’ do not equate to the restoration of a natural forest, with all

of their structural and biological attributes. Replanting selected species and

harvesting at rotations of 60 years for lodgepole pine and 80 years for other

coniferous forests cannot allow the renewal of habitats required by

old-growth-dependent species. Nor is it enough time for more slowly dispersing

species, such as some plants and fungi and insects, to recolonize a harvested

area.

“Once timber has been harvested by clear-cutting, the land replanted and

harvested again in currently planned rotations, the natural forest and some of

its non-timber values are lost forever. For this reason, modern industrial

forestry cannot be considered ‘sustainable’ in the sense of maintaining all the

options for future generations, even though timber harvest, per se, is

sustainable.”

Commencing in the late 1990s, the most recent mountain pine beetle

infestation affected over 18 million hectares, an area five times the size of

Vancouver Island, and killed over 50 percent of the volume of harvestable

lodgepole pine in the province. Although the pine beetles were initially

attracted to mature growth, once these trees were killed, they attacked younger

stands, killing thousands of hectares of immature stands planted in the ‘70s

and ‘80s. The central Interior areas of the province saw significant increases

in the harvest levels to process the dead pine before it

deteriorated.

Over the past century, there were also many incidents of spruce beetle

outbreaks. One of the most significant in the 1970s occurred in the Bowron

River area, near Prince George, affecting over 175,000 hectares — that’s over

two-thirds the size of Metro Vancouver — and killing 60 percent of the mature

spruce trees in that area. Over five million cubic metres of timber were

harvested.

Currently the Omineca region in the central Interior of the province,

most or a lot in my riding, has seen nearly a million hectares — that’s four

times of size of Metro Vancouver — of mature spruce killed by the spruce beetle

since 2015. Over four million hectares of B.C. forests have been consumed by

wildfires since the 1990s, many of these fires destroying young plantations.

The densities of forest plantations have contributed to the intensity of these

fires in many respects.

[3:15 p.m.]

In examining other jurisdictions outside of Canada experiencing

increased incidents of wildfires, many identified the increased forest

densities as a major contributing factor. San Bernardino County is one such

area, taking aggressive steps to thin forests that have increased over time

because of forestry practices and lack of controlled burning.

They are also re-establishing Indigenous deciduous growth, broad-leaf

trees that may have no commercial value as sawlogs but are invaluable in the

mitigation in the spread of wildfire. With the coming into force of FRPA in

2004, forest companies were required to submit forest stewardship plans that

addressed specific objectives set by government.

These objectives, contained in the regulations, were to address soils,

visual quality, timber, forage, water, fish, wildlife, biodiversity, resource

features and cultural heritage resources. The problem, however, was that the

regulations also provided an off-ramp whereby the objectives were subordinated

by the clause “without unduly reducing the supply of timber from British

Columbia’s forests.”

Government made the decision in the 1990s that only 1 percent retention

of wildlife habitat and 2.3 percent of old-growth forests was necessary for

maintenance and preservation of biodiversity — 1 percent. This determination

was also recognized in 2013 by the B.C. Auditor General in his

report.

Attached to that audit, he states:

“Under the Forest and Range Practices Act, the minister can list

endangered, threatened or vulnerable vertebrate and invertebrate species and

endangered or threatened plants and plant communities that might be negatively

affected by forest or range management on Crown land.

“To date, 85 species and plant communities have been identified.

Government’s objective for these species is ‘to conserve sufficient wildlife

habitat’ but ‘without unduly reducing the supply of timber from British

Columbia’s forests.’ For an example, government limits the amount of area that

can be designated as wildlife habitat to 1 percent impact on the provincial

land base for forest and range activities. We found no scientific rationale for

this policy.”

The year-end status report for 2018, published by the Forest Products

Association of British Columbia, claims that forest companies in British

Columbia have over 50 million hectares of forest certified as sustainably

managed. B.C. has 54 million hectares total of forest cover right across the

province. This is an interesting number, considering that B.C. has only 22

million hectares in the timber-harvest land base.

This certification is administered by three certification bodies: the

Canadian Standards Association, the Forest Stewardship Council and the

sustainable forestry initiative. These reports indicate that SFI alone has

certified nearly 30 million hectares. The common thread amongst all three

programs is to ensure forest companies are in compliance with all applicable

federal, provincial, regional or municipal laws.

One very significant area of law that appears to have been purposefully

overlooked or avoided is the disturbance of nests or eggs. Under Canada’s

Migratory Birds Convention Act and the applicable regulations, it’s an offence

to disturb or destroy a nest or eggs, which specifically in British Columbia is

the period between May and August.

There are also similar provisions under the B.C. Wildlife Act. These

sections are strictly enforced in the development of mining, oil and gas,

hydro, pipeline and associated right-of-way and other construction projects in

and around the province but are entirely overlooked in all aspects of forest

harvesting.

The paper, published in 2013, entitled An Estimate of Nest Loss in

Canada Due to Industrial Forestry Operations , examined the impact on

birds from industrial forest harvesting across Canada. The researchers found

that data available in British Columbia was extensive and examined B.C.

separately from the rest of Canada.

Using the B.C. harvest billing system, they were able to extrapolate the

volume harvested during the bird breeding season, and conclusions based on

their model determined that over 400,000 nests are lost to logging in B.C. on

an annual basis, preventing hundreds of thousands of birds from entering the

adult population each year.

During the time birds are nesting and breeding, mammals from mice to

moose are also giving birth and raising their young. Nesting and denning sites

are lined with grasses, leaves and other plant matter. There are over 65

species of wildlife in B.C. that use tree cavities for denning and nesting

purposes. Considering that most tree cavities don’t start developing until a

tree is 75 to 100 years old, rotations under this age will eliminate those

species from British Columbia forests forever.

[3:20 p.m.]

Forest silviculture practices began spraying glyphosate herbicide in the

early 1980s and have sprayed hundreds of thousands of hectares across the

province, with nearly a third of that applied in the Prince George timber

supply area, eliminating the grasses, leaves, berries and seeds so many mammals

depend on for survival. Recent research near Prince George indicates that the

moose are starving to death because of a lack of protein in their food supply.

Reduced plant protein in the plant species preferred for browsing is believed

to be caused by overexposure to sunlight stemming from large

clearcuts.

This recent research follows a recent moose collaring project to

determine the cause of moose mortality in three locations in the Interior where

starvation was found to be a major factor. Ungulate populations — moose, mule

deer, caribou, etc. — fur-bearers, birds and fish populations, steelhead and

salmon have decreased significantly across the province over the past 20

years.

As noted above, ungulate starvation is a major contributing factor, as

are predators, but the overarching factor behind all species decline is the

loss of habitat. According to the chief forester, many factors are considered

in determining provincial timber harvest levels. Economic considerations and

other values on the land supposedly play a significant role. However, the

valuation of the other values on the land has never been undertaken.

There was an interesting case where the province was attempting to claim

damages to biodiversity from a forest fire, which went to the Supreme Court of

Canada in 2004. The province, in its factum to the court, presented some areas

for consideration for evaluating biodiversity. They included the nature of the

wildlife plants and other organisms protected by the environment in question;

the uniqueness of the ecosystem from a biological perspective; the

environmental services provided by the resource, such as water quality and

erosion control; the recreational opportunities afforded by the resource; and

the subjective or emotional attachment of the public to the damaged or

destroyed areas.

Since this court decision, there has been no progress on evaluating

these considerations, which, quite frankly, represent but a fraction of the

true value of biodiversity. If one were to consider the protein value of all

the ungulates, the fish and fowl on the land and the fact that this protein is

renewable every year, the extrinsic value of fruits, mushrooms and other edible

plants on the landscape — again, with new production on an annual basis — as

well as the intrinsic considerations presented to the court, a different vision

of our landscape would surely emerge.

I return to the Pearse report from the 1975 Royal Commission on Forest

Resources, where Commissioner Pearse stated: “The old-growth timber on which

our industry has been built was often of exceptionally high quality, capable of

manufacture into products that command premium prices in world markets. As this

stock is depleted — and it is appropriate to refer to it as stock, since it is

not reproduceable within any meaningful planning horizon — much of the special

advantage this province’s timber has enjoyed will be lost.” Perhaps we reached

that point several decades ago, where we lost our competitive advantage because

we depleted our stock of high-quality old-growth timber.

Did the royal commission in 1945 envision the sustainable yield policy

as transforming 22 million hectares of forest into managed forests — or

referred to as working forests by industry — focused on yield and growth only,

with no considerations for the other values on the land? Did they envision an

automated forest industry employing a fraction of the population that it once

did?

British Columbia is different than other jurisdictions, geographically,

bioclimatically, ecologically and demographically. Another major difference

that separates us from most jurisdictions around the world is B.C. has retained

Crown ownership of 92 percent of the land base. Had justice Sloan determined in

1945 that the perpetuation of forest cover to ensure the continuance of the

many direct and indirect benefits which flow therefrom, in addition to the mere

growing of wood, was an essential ingredient in the definition of “sustained

yield,” would we be facing the dire consequences that we’re facing

today?

Are wall-to-wall manicured tree farms what the Sloan commission had in

mind in 1945 or what the successive governments envisioned when implementing

and supporting the sustained yield policy? If they did, it’s now clear that

this policy no longer fits the biodiversity, watershed, wildlife, fire

protection and climate change priorities for the 21st century.

[3:25 p.m.]

Such a policy certainly doesn’t match the marketing brand of “Super,

natural British Columbia.” This policy has placed British Columbia in a

precarious position where we have limited time left to act to maintain what we

have left of some of the most unique biodiversity in North America.

A bold new strategy recognizing the value of an entire forest, not just

the trees, is required to sustain our province into the future. Bill 23 doesn’t

even come close to addressing these issues.

L. Doerkson: I’ve got brief comments with respect to Bill 23, the Forests Statutes Amendment Act, 2021. I really thank the member prior for the volumes of information. I have a number of concerns. While I support the bill in many areas, I do have a number of concerns that I wanted to highlight.

In my mind, the best building material that we have is wood. It can be renewable if it’s managed properly. I’ve seen this with my own eyes. I’ve seen second growth that has been harvested recently, and I’ve seen it being planted for a third time.

The bill has many suggestions. It certainly makes a number of noble sentiments. However,

the important question to me is: how exactly is this going to play out for the

people on the ground?

The bill does significantly amend the Forest Act and Forest and Range Practices Act. I

want to talk a little bit about some of that history, because the forest policy

in this province has moved from the perspective of the forest practices code of

the 1990s to the results-based changes our government brought in, in the 2000s

to the bill that we have in front of us today, which, in my mind, is layer upon

layer of more regulation. That, to me, is concerning.

One of the most important things that I am concerned about is community involvement. In my

riding, we had an opportunity to have many people speak to the caribou recovery

program years ago — one time. That was allowed in the Gibraltar Room in

Williams Lake. I remember a full, packed house of people who took this resource

very seriously and wanted to have comment on it. After that meeting, there were

no more. Somehow that process went behind closed doors. I’m very, very afraid

that our communities need to have a say in this resource, particularly the ones

that are surrounded by it.

I give kudos to the minister for including First Nations earlier in the process. I think

that that should have hap­pened a long time ago, but our communities have

to have equal say. No question about that.

Also, the bill refers…. I guess this is the thing that I’m most passionate about right now

and the things that have been talked about a lot in this chamber: wildfires and

old growth. Honestly, the bill doesn’t speak to either of those in a very

significant way. Now, it does talk about prior to wildfire and it talks about

after wildfire. I can assure you that those things are extremely

important.

I mean, I certainly don’t have the experience that some of the members have that have

spoken to this bill. I am an outdoorsman, and I’ve watched the

Cariboo-Chilcotin change over the last number of years.

I can tell you that pre-wildfire, there are pine trees that are lying

like matchsticks in our backwoods, in our backcountry, that have not been

addressed for a very long time. I can tell you that after wildfire, there are

areas in the Cariboo-Chilcotin I’ve seen with my own eyes where, for as far as

the eye can see, there are noxious and invasive weeds. Again, we haven’t

managed our resource. We haven’t looked after any of that, before or

after.

With respect to wildfire, I live — and I’m not sure if anybody else, at this moment, does

— in a region in this province where in the middle of June, you start packing

your photos and your belongings that are near and dear to you. You have a bag

of clothes at the back door filled with necessities, because you might have to

leave with no notice and, certainly, at any time.

[3:30 p.m.]

For many people in the Interior, that has become the norm. To me, it is frightening — or certainly alarming — that there’s not more with respect to wildfire in this bill. Certainly, during the committee stage, I, along with others, I’m sure, will have questions about that.

[N. Letnick in the chair.]

I also just wanted to mention…. There’s a

section of the bill that refers to establishing

an offence if a road permit holder fails to deactivate a road, making the

person liable to a fine of up to $500,000 or imprisonment up to two years. It

would appear they’re taking that one quite seriously.

I have a number of concerns about this. It’s not just about access. The

way that these roads are deactivated can oftentimes be dangerous. I definitely

want to highlight that. They use — and it may not be familiar to many in this

room — something called a tank trap. If it’s not marked…. If there is not an

appropriate warning to this, it could honestly end in loss of life. So I want

to definitely understand that a little bit further.

Then, of course, there are a few things going back to wildfires and pre-wildfire,

post-wildfire. There are some new

definitions. I hope this will clear that up,

but we do have new

definitions like an “area of catastrophic damage,” “forest

landscape area,” “forest landscape plan” and “forest operations area.” So all

of that is certainly of interest to me.

Finally, I’m curious about stumpage in the bill. Obviously, we’ve had one sort of stumpage system, but I have discussed or asked questions in estimates and in other processes about perhaps considering other types of stumpage. What I mean by that is we have people that use wood for heating purposes. That wood, rather than coming from green trees in this province, could be coming from piles that we routinely burn that is waste wood. In my mind, if that wood is going to go up in smoke, it should be going up in smoke in a wood stove. I think that we could introduce different stumpage rates for that kind of wood.

I do have many questions, and I do look forward to the committee stage. I really had hoped

for more with respect, certainly, to wildfires, and I certainly had hoped to

see a little bit more about old-growth forests.

I do appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly to this bill

today.

A. Olsen: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Forests Statutes Amendment Act. I have a number of comments on this bill.

I want to start my comments today with raising my hands in gratitude and acknowledgment of the speaker two speakers back, the member for Prince George–Mackenzie. Those that were paying attention will know a lot more about the history of forestry in this province. For those that were not, I encourage you to go call the video. I think that it would be a great teaching tool for kids and for adults alike in learning how we got to where we’re at today. A very honest and open approach to informing us in this House and, I think, for all British Columbians. So I thank the member for Prince George–Mackenzie.

Anybody who has been paying attention to the dialogue here in this House would know that I and my colleague, the member for Cowichan Valley, have been talking a lot about forestry and forestry practices in this province. So it has been with anticipation that we see, finally, the amendments to the forest statutes.

It was, I think, two years ago, or maybe even three years ago now, that many of these changes were put in front of us but never brought forward in legislation. So it’s not like many of these changes that we’re seeing in the legislation in front of us right now are new. They were things that the government was considering and then for some reason or another decided to hold off until now to bring these changes.

[3:35 p.m.]

Certainly, the changes around road-building and the regulations and rules around where

roads can be built and how they can be built was something that was being

considered quite a while ago.

As has been mentioned by the previous speaker, this act replaces forest stewardship plans

with ten-year forest landscape plans. It requires the government and the chief

forester to engage with and consult with Indigenous nations. It requires

industry-developed site-level plans to detail specific harvesting and building

activities. They must align with the forest landscape plans that have been put

in place. It allows the chief forester to set stocking standards and focus

reforestation in high-priority areas. It provides broad regulation-making

authority regarding all aspects of the legislation. And for much of what’s in

this legislation, it is welcomed. The changes are welcomed.

However, I think, to the points that have been made by previous speakers, the question is: does this legislation go far enough fast enough? As has been mentioned by my colleague and by other members, the fact that this transition that’s being proposed here is going to happen over the next eight to ten years is really an indication of the type of urgency that this government is putting behind this — certainly not to the level that I think British Columbians want and certainly not to the level of urgency that I think is necessary in order to protect these really incredible and important biodiverse forests that are more than just a resource for us to extract.

They are home to many, many — countless — species that British Columbians hold dear. I think one of the comments that I saw made when the government was announcing this was that this was about putting people at the centre of forestry policy. I think that actually what we need is to put the forest at the centre of forestry policy. For so long, people and the values that people extract from forests have been at the centre of the decision-making.

That’s part of the reason why we have got to where we’re at, the bleak picture that the

member for Prince George–​Mackenzie painted with respect to basically an

unregulated industry that has clearcut most of the timber value off the

landscape and replaced very little of it. Unfortunately, that is what the

result of having people at the centre of forestry policy is about. What we

actually need is a government that is going to put those values of the forest,

the biodiversity, at the centre of the decision-making.

I think one of the things that was mentioned in the comments earlier was the clause “without unduly reducing the supply of timber” as being one of the main policies that I think has the decision-makers deciding that entire forests will be clearcut. I take a look at this piece of legislation and note…. I think it’s in

section 2.22. We’ll get into that in the committee stage, but it’s that in preparing a forest landscape plan, the chief forester “must consider the following objectives: (

a) supporting the production and supply of timber in the forest landscape area.”

As much as has been made about the monumental changes that this government is making in the approach to forests, “without unduly reducing the supply of timber” and “supporting the production and supply of timber in the forest landscape area” is very, very similar language, still having the value of the dead tree at the centre of our decision-making.

I think that it means that as much as is being made of this and the monumental changes that this is going to have eight to ten years from now, the reality at the centre of it is the supply of timber, dead trees. That’s what British Columbia has valued most in the history of this province. It’s dead stuff. Dead fish. Dead trees.

[3:40 p.m.]

I think that what we need to put at the centre of this is living things. You know, one of

the things that I’ve talked about often is the

W̱SÁNEĆ fishing method,

SX̱OLE , the reef net fishery.

It’s really based around the number of fish that escape and make it back to

their creeks to spawn. Our ancestors knew the value of the renewable resource —

those fish that come back.

Our SX̱OLE , our reef nets, were built,

manufactured with holes in them. The culture was built around leaving those

fish, the first fish at the return of the salmon season, to head upstream ten,

15 days before we would start fishing, meaning a whole pile of life is

preserved as it heads back up, so our relatives up the streams could harvest

those fish.

One of the biggest changes in world view here in British Columbia 160 years ago was where

we placed our value. This government places the value in dead stuff. I think we

have seen in the history of our province that a far more renewable and a far

better balanced relationship with nature was when we valued living things. I

think we can do that, and it wasn’t that the Indigenous nation, my ancestors,

didn’t develop resources. We were incredible resource developers. We just had

our value set and our world view different than the one that’s here now, a far

more resilient and renewable resource when you shift that world

view.

I do want to talk about the Indigenous consultation piece to this. I heard the minister earlier talking about Indigenous consultation and how one of the, I think, hallmarks of this piece of legislation is that we’re changing…. The minister is proposing to change the rules that the chief forester must follow in consulting and developing a consultation plan in cooperation with Indigenous peoples.

My colleague the member for Cowichan Valley mentioned this earlier — that while the

government is giving themselves eight to ten years to transition from the

current situation that we have in our forests to the future of forests in this

province…. The same minister that is celebrating this is giving Indigenous

nations exactly 60 days to res­pond to requests from the chief

forester.

On the one hand, the government is taking eight to ten years, and on the other hand,

they’re giving Indigenous nations just a mere two months. Each 60-day period

isn’t created equally, of course. For those of us who grew up in Indigenous

communities and understand Indigenous communities across the province, we know

if that consultation happens in the summertime, as an example, it is a much

different time to consult with Indigenous nations than if the consultation was

to happen in the fall or the winter or even early spring.

Indeed, if you were to be paying attention to the work of the First Nations Forestry Council, one of the things they said in a letter that they wrote to the Premier back in September, admonishing this government for its flawed engagement process…. The engagement process that was being undertaken by this ministry, this ministry that’s claiming success in Indigenous consultation, was being expedited “during a time of crisis due to wildfires.”

Right in the middle of summer, this government was rushing consultation on the

implementation of the intention paper for modernizing forest policy in B.C.,

rolling out Indigenous consultation right in the busiest time of year — and not

only the busiest time of year traditionally but also the busiest time of year

due to the fact that many Indigenous nations’ entire territories were on

fire.

At the same time, they were expected to engage with this government on modernizing forestry, a process which, I should point out, has been really frustrating, considering the fact that the intention paper and the consultation that this government has been undertaking “does not mention or reflect many actions and priority areas of work outlined in the B.C. First Nations forest strategy. The ministry has ignored the input First Nations provided for over a decade regarding changes needed to inform and guide the implementation of the Declaration Act to reflect our rights, legislate joint decision-making, including the current forest revenue-sharing model.”

[3:45 p.m.]

September 8 this letter was sent in. On October 26, we have the minister standing in this

House, claiming success in consultation and that this legislation was drafted

in cooperation and consultation with Indigenous nations and Indigenous

leadership groups. So, quite clearly, the definition of engagement and

consultation for this government is different than the expectations with

Indigenous leadership. The groups that have been given the job of negotiating

on behalf and working on behalf of Indigenous nations…. This letter was signed

by 22 or 25, or something, Indigenous nations that have forestry interests in

this province.

As I mentioned, this legislation is going to give 60 days for Indigenous nations to respond to consultation, a letter of engagement sent by the chief forester. “The chief forester must (

a) offer to meet with an Indigenous governing body that provides notice of its lack of consent…and attempt to achieve consensus….” The chief forester can appoint a facilitator for dispute resolution. The report of the facilitator does not limit the power of the chief forester in respect of…. So even if the facilitator says, “You know what? We land on the side of the Indigenous nation on this one,” the chief forester can still utilize their power to proceed.

In taking a look at the measures that are being put in place, certainly, there are more than are there now. I think that if we were going to celebrate anything, let’s celebrate the fact that there is something there, and there wasn’t anything there previously. I guess incrementalism, an incremental step forward, is better than nothing.

In the news release of October 20, last week, it says: “Through the development of forest

landscape plans, the amendments will create new opportunities for shared

decision-​making between the government and First Nations. This is

aligned with the government commitments to implement the Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act passed in 2019.”

This is not. The model that has been put in this act is not shared decision-making. It’s the same colonial approach. Just now it’s enshrined in law and not something that the government does on its own accord in order to ensure that Fairy Creek doesn’t happen. Even with the process in the past, Fairy Creek did happen.

The reality of it is that this government is trying to pass off, in its news releases and

in all the rhetoric and when the Premier stands up and the minister stands up

and the people celebrate it, that this is shared decision-making. It’s not

shared decision-making. This is a notification from the government.

In fact, the minister is quoted in a Business in Vancouver

article as saying that

the government describes it as a framework for “repositioning government as

land manager.” That, I think, is a remarkably different approach than one which

is a shared decision-making model.

In fact, I think that if I read this to my chief and said, “Look, you know, the government

is moving this shared decision-making model ahead, and it is repositioning

government as land manager,” there would be confusion as to how that can be the

case. How do you have a shared decision-making model where the provincial

government is acting as land manager?

Now, it is true that the process that has been in place up until this legislation is that we basically shopped out the work to industry. So maybe we’re bringing it back into government, but certainly, you can’t stand and say that this is a remarkable step forward in shared decision-making when, if you actually read the clauses in this act, it’s not. There is nothing in this act that talks about revenue-sharing. It’s completely void of that.

Basically, what it says is: “Look, that consultation model, which many Indigenous nations

have complained about for decades…. We’re going to enshrine that into the law.

After passing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, we’re

going to enshrine the thing that we didn’t like into this new law.” It says

here: “It primarily gives Indigenous voices back to managing the forests on

their traditional territory.” It gives Indigenous people and Indigenous

leadership the right to comment early on in a process. I guess that could be

construed as being “voices back to managing their forests.”

[3:50 p.m.]

However, it’s not a collaborative process. Nowhere in this this legislation does it outline where an Indigenous nation can come forward with their own operational landscape plan, how the interests of the nation can be put together in landscape management planning, how that work is going to be resourced or how it is that the provincial government is working with Indigenous nations within their territory.

In fact, the Premier has stood so often recently and talked about Indigenous rights and title, the titleholders, the owners of the land. That’s not what’s reflected in this legislation that the Premier’s Minister of Forests is bringing forward. That’s convenient language that the Premier can use in order to befuddle and confuse the public. That’s not the framework that this legislation is putting forward. In fact, this legislation is, indeed, doing exactly what the minister says: bringing the control back into the provincial government.

Now, perhaps that’s one step closer for Indigenous nations, but it certainly does not reflect the rhetoric of our Premier. He takes cover with that rhetoric, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that a framework that reflects the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act is one that is collaborative — that allows Indigenous people to take leadership at the front end, to approach the chief.

There is nowhere in this that encourages the chief forester to do anything but bring forward the Crown forestry policy to Indigenous nations. It gives them 60 days in order to respond to it. If they don’t, you want to proceed with caution, but it still puts the power right in the hands of the provincial government.

I think it’s in stark contrast to what we passed when we passed the Declaration on the

Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. We often refer to it in this place, but it’s

not very often that we actually refer to the articles of the declaration to

remind the members of government what we passed when we made the commitment to

Indigenous nations.

Article 3, the right to self-determination.

Article 4, exercise “their right to self-determination, have the right to autonomy or

self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs.” This

would give Indigenous nations the ability to generate their own forestry

plans.

Nowhere in this act…. I look forward to talking to the minister about how the actual Declaration Act comes to life, where life is being breathed into that, in this legislation.

Article 8: “States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of and redress

for…(

b) any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their

lands, resources and territories.” Government at the centre of the

decision-making around forests. I’m wondering how that applies.

Article 18: “Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in

matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by

themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and

develop their own Indigenous decision-making institutions.”

What’s being outlined in this is a framework that the government is establishing and not

taking into consider­ation the numerous nations in this province and

their own decision-making process. I recognize that’s challenging, but that’s

the commitment this government made