HALIFAX, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1998
STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
Mr. Neil LeBlanc
MR. CHAIRMAN: We have in our midst a witness from the Silviculture Contractors Association, Mr. Ron Grant. He does have some opening remarks that he has asked to make in confidence. As such, I have agreed. I have talked to a few of the members that are here. I have talked to the members on the left and the ones that came later on. I have no problems if he would like to make some comments to the committee as such. The press that are here, just for those comments, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't mind, just stepping outside during those few comments. I am giving him the liberty, if you have any problem with that. Is that agreeable to the committee?
MR. GEORGE ARCHIBALD: Are you closing Hansard off?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, that is right. If we just take a couple of minutes, he has asked us for the privilege of the committee. Excuse us.
[1:06 p.m. to 1:19 p.m. - in camera.]
MR. RON GRANT: The Nova Scotia Silviculture Contractors Association was incorporated in 1990. I have given you some background material. I am so upset about decreases in funding for silviculture that I wrote to the minister and I tried to make it public and I think you all should have gotten a copy. Following that, I had a meeting with the minister, and it went quite well, but in that I had presented a document and I have called it Between A Rock and A Hard Place. It outlines why we feel that they keep chipping away at our potential for a viable enterprise as an employer.
We have in our association a code of ethics which is essential to be a member, you have to treat your other contractors properly, you can't be dishonest to your landowner, your steward and your work has to be of top quality. These are assurances that are only good for businesses and good for our association members.
All our associated members are registered cooperators. Not all registered cooperators are association members. In this province, there are 98 registered cooperators with only 41 association members but most registered cooperators don't do any silviculture. They have given up the ghost. They are waiting for the chance, the money that might be there, and most of them are off harvesting or doing other things. Of all the harvesting that is done in the province, I will bet you 80 per cent of it is done by our members.
Now as a registered cooperator, you get an assistance rate on top of the treatment rate. The treatment rate is 100 per cent. The assistance rate is 34 per cent. Now for 34 per cent, you have to be in good standing with workers' compensation and you have to provide all the safety gear and transportation to the woods. We have taken over what DNR used to do and that is to define the area that needs the treatment, to take the data to ensure that it has the criteria for that treatment and then to make the application which requires confirmation of the boundary line, confirmation of ownership from the landowner and all these things. One time this province had 58 people doing it and now registered cooperators are doing it at a great expense to themselves and no one is paying them for this extra work. We were getting the 34 per cent before it was taken over.
Now it is a cost-effective delivery system. If we are going to be entrepreneurial, it is up to me to see if Charlie has a piece of land that he needs a PCT on. I find the property, I go look him up and I say, look, it fits the criteria, there is money in the budget, how would you like us to do it. If he says yes, then it is up to us to go through all of this and to apply for the treatment. If the money is in place in the budget, they just simply say yes. Now DNR will come back and they are supposed to inspect no less than 10 per cent and no more than 50 per cent of our work.
Losing registered cooperator status means losing 34 per cent on top of the treatment rates. If you are not honest, if you put in for a bigger block than you actually did, you can lose your status, which means you are out of business, you are not going to be there long. So it is a quality assurance and integrity in system being a registered cooperator.
Amendments to the Forestry Act. Is it too little too late? It is never too late. This is a very positive development. For years, they have been asked, what is the annual allowable cut in this province and no one knew for sure because they were only 60 per cent accurate on the figures of what was actually being cut and harvested in the province. This legislation is a good thing. It is going to give us a data collection that we can start to crunch numbers and to see exactly where we are. It also provides for a sustainable development fund that will be putting more money into silviculture and forest renewal. This is positive.
The registry of buyers. If you are a mill and you are buying a lot of wood, then you have to show that the land that that wood came from is sustainably managed. So you have to put a plan together. All these are in a state of flux and there is a bit of confusion because it is evolving yet we know that when the dust settles, there should be more money for silviculture, there should be more accountability for the harvest that was done and we should know better where we are at as far as if we are cutting more than we are growing.
Forest wildlife guidelines. I was wanting regulations two or three years ago. Finally, they are going to give us some regulations. The regulations are not for the honest guy who is going to follow the guidelines, they are for the guy who is going to take the shortcut and he doesn't give a damn. He is going to do what he can to make a dollar, regardless of who is watching, if there is no repercussion. So the regulations are for keeping us all honest. I could say that the wildlife guideline regulations now are going to be good, and there is a lot of good in it.
I have to question some of the things in it and that is that they tell us to leave these little patches or corridors and we can take so much wood from it. We should be talking about what we have to leave in there, you know, the long-live species. The problem with harvesters, and there is a big difference in the mindset between a silviculture worker and a harvester, a harvester sees every tree in that block of land as a dollar sign. He sees what he can sell and so he takes everything that has a sale. Now maybe this tree is only eight inches in diameter and it could be 28 inches in diameter because it is a red spruce and it is healthy and it should be left but today he has a piece of pulp out of it, so he takes it. That is his mindset, that is the way he thinks. We should be looking at these patches and these corridors in terms of leaving the right species.
There used to be all kinds of black ash in this province and it took the First Nations six months to find any in this province, indigenous to this province. They want to reseed it. It is a very valuable species. There used to be all kinds of it, there is no more around, a little patch. They did find some, actually, but it took them six months. So it is not the end. We have to take these guidelines and regulations further and even move toward the forest stewardship council and the environmentalist view of certification.
Protected places. I think there are 31 listed. Another positive happening here. As a silviculture worker, the more they take out of the system, the better, as far as I am concerned. That puts more stress on what is being managed so that it will be managed properly. Now these protected places, I have to question how much they are protected because some of them you allow some harvesting on. Anyway, if it is really protected, is it protected? What do you call harvesting? I think we have to deal with that issue. Is it going to be managed properly or are we just going to let a company say, well, it is okay, go ahead. Is it really protected?
Stewardship agreements. Now there has been a change at DNR offices and we have new staff and new vigour and new changes coming up with the amendments and so on. I believe that we have a positive rapport with the staff there. There are changes that are coming whether we like it or not and they are dealing with it by giving us the stewardship agreements, the amendments, the wildlife and so on. Stewardship agreements, though, were prompted by less money into the silviculture program by the federal government, less money in it by the provincial government, and a decrease in the rates. It was becoming obvious that it was shamefully being neglected. Unless industry put its money up, and they couldn't go too long before they were going to be asked, is this green certified, is this product able to receive the certification?
So we were the ones who were suffering enough that they decided we have to do something so they came up with the stewardship agreements and there are positive things and there are negative things about it. For one, it triples the tax dollar that is put into silviculture. If this government puts in $3 million, it tends to become $9 million. If it is $4 million, it is $12 million. If it is $5 million, it is $15 million. So this is a positive thing. This is what we should be doing all along. The industry and its resource should pay its own way.
Industry calls the shots. If you are providing a product for the international market, creating wealth for this province, you need to have some security. You need to have some handle on where that wood will come from in the future and they have the expertise and they have the background that they can manage this properly. They now have taken ownership of the woodlot that they have harvested on. They can't leave it to the government and say, oh, the government didn't plant it. They have to now say we are responsible for it and be accountable for it. Why wasn't that replanted, if you know what I am saying. So that is a positive thing.
It pains me to talk about the last one here because we are doing treatments. Some treatments are below cost and we are doing it because maybe there is a follow-up treatment on it. Yet, I know in private enterprise you have to be lean and mean and you have to be competitive and it is going to make us just that. You are not going to pay more for silviculture than it is going to cost you. It is a good thing.
The negatives. Industry calls the shots. Landowners would say why has the government given industry all the say in what kind of silviculture will be done. Stora's agreement allows for pre-commercial thinning and reforestation only. Now we could talk about shelter wood cutting and merchantable thinnings and conifer release and select cutting but there are processes out there that would extract more from an acre of forest and give us more health and vigour in the long term outside of these two treatments that Stora will fund.
[1:30 p.m.]
There is a negative side to it, and I think this government should address those treatments that aren't being covered by stewardship agreements. The lowest common denominator, we stepped into the stewardship agreements with cut after cut after cut and costs kept going up. Now we are at a point where we have four or five different agreements and they all seem to be taking chips out of the treatment rates or the silviculture registered cooperator rate and so they are chipping away even more to find out where the lowest common denominator is for this work.
We are going to find that at the end of the year some of these stewardship agreements aren't going to be taken up and some will be. The difference will be, am I going to do it at a loss? No. Am I going to do it at break-even? Maybe. If there is a little money in it, I will do it. They will have to bring their rates up when they see that people aren't taking the money. The only fly in this ointment is how many people are out there desperate for income, and are just trying to make a payment on their rig, and get through a rough time.
The stewardship agreements look at the markets today. If we are going to talk about planning in the forest, we have to talk about the objectives that the people and the province want out of the forest 50 years from now. The life cycle of a forest, a forest stand. Do we plan for the markets today? If so, then we have to be ready to make pulp 50 years from now. We don't know if the Russian forests are going to come onstream and then make all the pulp elsewhere in the world uncompetitive. They are willing to give it away, practically, and they are starting to.
What happens if we don't have pulp in this province? Are we ready for an alternative? Do we have options? We have to plan from the forests, what is there to add value, to create employment, to do more with what we have. It all starts at the stump. I would say 30 per cent to 40 per cent of what is in a stand is merchantable, most of it is unmerchantable firewood and if we cleaned it out, then we could let the rest of it free-grow.
Cumbersome program. Ledwidge wants us to talk to the seller, the producer, the guy who trucks it and buys it and brings it to the mill. He is the guy that has the handle on the money that is being allocated for silviculture. If there isn't enough money in the block to do a replant of this block, then the silviculture contractors expect it to go to another producer and say, well, you have $5,000 over there, can I take it and add it to this $5,000 here so that we can get this work done? It is quite a cumbersome program. Each of them are different; different application forms, different procedures for filing, more cost, more administration cost for us. Ledwidge wood is finding that his offer is not being taken up and I suggest that mostly it is because of the cumbersome program. He hasn't discussed with us how it should work to be most effective in cost delivery.
The last one there was, wait and see. This whole idea of private enterprise saying, well, we will just see what happens. If they take the money, or they don't take the money, well, we will make adjustments next year. I can tell you, in the time it takes for them to wait and see, we are going to lose skilled silviculture workers and contractors.
The small private woodlot owner, 30,000 taxpaying stewards. I can't say enough for these people out there. They feel the government isn't listening to them. They don't feel that they are given the importance they should. Most of these landowners have the land given to them by their father and their father before them and they want to pass it on to their son and his son and so on, and they are looking after it. They are attached to the land, but don't forget there are generations of taxes paid on that. This is the only renewable resource that has a tax paid on it. The government hardly recognizes that, but they pay taxes on it until it is harvested and then it is usually a one-shot deal at 50 per cent tax on that, there is no capital gains. There is no incentive for him to put money back into silviculture. This government is paying 80 per cent of the Reforestation Enhancement Fund to us to do the work on small private landowners.
The 20 per cent is supposed to be taken up by the landowner. He is supposed to pay the other 20 per cent. I don't blame the government for saying, I am not going to pay the whole shot. But it is kind of putting the cart before the horse. There should be incentives and programs and tax credits or whatever in place to assist and enable this landowner to pay his 20 per cent. He is more than glad to do it, if he can withhold it from the federal government and put it into his own property and show his son that he is taking care of it, he will do it. But we have to take care of these people.
Now, at the meeting with the minister, Deputy Minister Dan Graham tells me that they are working with the federal government and there is a program coming down from the federal side that will recognize this problem and provide a solution to it but I don't think the provincial government needs to be complacent about this and say, well, let the federal government take care of it. You have options for tax credits and so on that you can also provide to enhance this man and his property and the work that may go into it.
Forty-seven per cent of the renewable resources are in his hands, the best wood in the province, and it is there because he didn't want to sell it for nothing. He didn't want to let it go for nothing. At one time - and there are figures out there - 51 per cent, 52 per cent of the province's forest land was in the hands of private woodlot owners. Now it is 47 per cent. That is a symptom of big business coming into the province and buying up property. Most of that, I think, was Irving purchases.
This tells me that he deserves your consideration and support though; 47 per cent is quite a big chunk of woodlands. Eighty per cent treatment rates. If he goes through the Reforestation Enhancement Fund, he is only going to get 80 per cent of the rate. Now the group ventures are struggling, group ventures had administration fees paid for quite a while.
They are now trying to get by with 80 per cent treatment rates, if they don't go to a stewardship agreement and it is a real hard time for them. Most contractors are going to look at 80 per cent, and say, I am not going to touch it.
I hope that you can read that note there, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, because if I go out and mark off a block of 100 acres, I get 34 per cent on top of that for my administration costs. If I go out and block off 10 acres and do it 10 times, I still only get 34 per cent of 100 acres to do it, but I had to make 10 more trips, talk to 10 more landowners, I had to make 10 more maps, I had to make 10 more applications. The small landowner is going to have trouble, because contractors just can't do it at a loss, and there is not enough money in it for him to take care of a small block.
We see that with spraying this year. A lot of spraying wasn't done - now this is protection, you know, conifer release or plantation protection - unless it was 100 or 150 acres where it wasn't near anybody and it wasn't going to cost him a whole lot of time to go and talk to everybody in the neighbourhood, or he was going to worry about environmentalists. That is the only ones you would do. The big ones. So there are plantations that aren't being protected, and we may lose them to the competition, which is a waste of investment.
This guy is reeling from the withdrawal of assistance for administration. For years, it was a non-level playing field. Silviculture contractors would go out to a landowner and would do all the silviculture work for him, and all he got was the rate, and he didn't take 5 per cent of the harvest to deal with that, but Group Venture did. Group Venture would take 5 per cent of the harvest and they got assistance to manage a block of land on top of it. Now, it is private enterprise and he is reeling from this withdrawal of cash and he is having a hard time. Some of the Group Venture will not succeed.
No market for low grade. It is a serious problem in this province. We are cutting trees down and leaving them in the woods. We are bucking it off and leaving it there. It is not worth our while to take it out to the roadside. You can't sell it. What a waste of fibre. What a waste of an opportunity to employ people to make something with it. What is the objective of forestry? If it is employment, let's look at that. Let's see if we can't find something to do with that.
The last one is a statement that has been spouted to me for years. That is that if Crown land wasn't as accessible as it is, if Crown fibre wasn't as cheap as it is, that the private landowner wood would bring a better price to him. Now that is an argument that they use, and I am not expert enough to really know what the agreement is on the Crown lands, so I am just throwing that out to you. They tell me that is a problem for them.
This comes from the economic development strategy. I happen to know a little bit about what is going on with that. We are supposed to be able to set the pace for this province in the future. To me, it is obvious, and I am trying to convince you that it is an investment to
put people to work in forests and communities, it comes back to the government. Over 50 per cent of it comes back to the government in taxes.
Is the tax system promoting growth? Speak to the landowner, give him some incentive. Is there a fair balance? I don't know, it seems like the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and there is less money coming back to the guy who has two kids and is having a hard time feeding them. What measures encourage individual self-reliance? You have to remember, these guys in the woods, they are paid a piece rate. They are paid for what they do. If they sit on a stump all day, they don't get paid for anything. It bothers me when people say, oh, they are lazy, they don't want to work. Every cent they earn, they really earn. They don't get paid like a postie for sitting down and working four hours a day.
Community self-reliance. Coastal Communities 2000 have asked the government to come up with a policy that would allow government departments to work closely with the coastal communities to bring their economic development plans alive. Put some policy behind this so that we really know you mean it. We really know you are there. We really know you will assist us to do things.
In Japan, all along the coastal communities, they have intensive silviculture that is done in terms of aesthetics. We should be looking at it here. We should be producing a look-good, feel-good community in a very sensitive way to attract the tourist dollar. Right now, I know tourism is exceeding forestry as a revenue for the province. The enhancement, I think we should look at the $20 million and promote education and training. It is up to you to decide what the government should do to create wealth.
This is the crux of my message, I think that we are losing contractors, we are losing workers, we are losing rural communities, we are not making the most of silviculture by promoting the highest value fibre. It has taken us a while to turn this around. The degradation for forests, we see it every day. We have wire birch and popple and non-merchantable species coming up all over the place. Now, harvesters are the worst even now. They leave something, the public walks by and says, oh look, they didn't take it all, look at what they left. What they left was a non-merchantable species that will reseed that property, and it won't be of any value for years to come.
We, the silviculture workers and contractors, are asked to go back. Now, you have to do something about that, so we have to site-clear it. It costs us money to drop everything and start all over again. The harvesters should be doing it from the start. When they harvest, they should be doing it in a manner that it doesn't create more work for the silviculture contractor.
I got a little fired up here. I appreciate the chance to speak to such distinguished people. It has been my life for 20 years and I see it as a way of life that we are losing, and it is not getting any easier. It is getting harder. We need some understanding, empathy perhaps,
compassion wouldn't hurt. Silviculture is not a cost of exploiting the forest, it is an investment in future income and revenue generated from a healthy forest. You have to look at it that way. A DNR public relations spokesperson is on record as having said: How long are we going to keep dumping money into silviculture? I am sorry, but for every dollar you put into silviculture, and we are getting models now that will show this, and I am told they are between 600 and 700 per cent return, when you harvest it.
What you need to do is see silviculture as a way of promoting community health, employing people and creating an environment in this province, in the woods, that is healthy and vigorous and sustainable.
MR. CHAIRMAN: If you have finished your presentation, perhaps you could let the members have an opportunity to ask you some questions. If we could move to that stage, I will ask the members to raise their hands, and I will try as dutifully as I can as your Chairman to make sure that I don't miss anybody, especially coming in from outside. Mr. Charlie Parker.
MR. CHARLES PARKER: Ron, I had a couple of questions for you. The registry of buyers that is proposed under the Forests Act, is to try to determine the harvest that is being done within an annual allowable cut. But let's say that is done, and we find out that yes, we are over the annual allowable cut. Who determines who is going to be cut back to come back to a level that should be sustained? Say we are over by 50 per cent or whatever, and it is all adding up to an over harvest, who is cut back? Who determines who is cut back? That is a question that has been asked of me and I don't have the answer.
MR. GRANT: That is a good question. Now the sustainable development fund should have an advisory council or committee that would be looking at addressing these issues. It is only the beginning. We have to understand that the amendments and the changes that are being proposed are only going to be a start. We have to revisit them and update them and make them more applicable as we get the data back. Now, I don't know if there is anybody who could tell you who.
DNR have the upper hand now. But we know that industry will take a tree before its age, if it is in the stand. Who is to say you don't take a tree before its time? Scott Paper used to do a lot of pre-commercial thinning. By the way, we have reports now that our growth rate is 40 per cent greater than expected on density control - leaving a tree, free-growing - but when the processors come in, Scott Paper said, oh this is great, no more PCT, we are not going to spend any money on PCT, because it is the same biomass per acre in a stand of trees that are six and eight inches in diameter as it is in a stand of trees that are 20 and 26 inches in diameter.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You said PCT? I know these are all familiar terms . . .
MR. GRANT: Pre-commercial thinning.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
MR. GRANT: Just drop the trees. The ones you leave are free-growing. They wouldn't do any because they said it is the same biomass, so why don't we just go in and take them all? The trees are smaller so it is not going to be so hard on the machine. Well, they did that for a few years, and now they are finding that they are not making any money because there are too many trees, and the fewer trees the processor works with, the more volume and the quicker the time and so on. So they are going back to PCT but they didn't mind taking a tree before its time, if you know what I am coming to.
MR. PARKER: Do you have any recommendations on this annual allowable cut, if we're over, and it is rather obvious we are I think, you know, who should be . . .
MR. GRANT: You have two choices. You do more intensive silviculture. We can create stands of forest that will produce 80 cords to the acre. We have stands out there, degraded stands, that only have 10 to 12 cords. We can create all kinds of fibre through silviculture. You either have to be more intensive with your silviculture, increase the funding, or cut back on your harvesting. You have no choice.
MR. PARKER: I had a second question, Mr. Chairman. Clear-cutting is not very popular in this province among the general public. It has its place at times for sure but what do you see as alternatives to clear-cutting?
MR. GRANT: Select cutting. Select cutting is the ultimate in forest yield over the longer period. This is the long-term thing. Select cutting would give you the best fibre on even-aged stands. It will bring us back to the forests that we had when we came here. What's wrong with having a tree grow, a red or black spruce will grow 80 years, and then it will lay dormant for five and grow for another 80 years? What's wrong with that? Why don't we see some of that? These are the spars that used to be put on our ships but we don't give it a chance anymore.
MR. PARKER: I cannot disagree with you but how do you get the public, or the mills onside even, the industry, to look at this?
MR. GRANT: I think the industry has to be left with what they can deal with on their own property. It is privately owned and Crown property is being managed and monitored. When it comes to private lands, you have to deal with them. These are the people that will produce select cutting processes but it is up to the government to give them the incentive. Shelter wood, for instance, you take out all the dead, dying, diseased and decayed trees and you leave the healthy trees so they become big enough for a veneer log, one log may be worth $2,000. Why should the government pay the whole shot to do this when the landowner gets
the return at point of sale. So perhaps the landowner has to pay 50 per cent of the cost and get a credit for it.
MR. PARKER: Thank you.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. MacDonell.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Yes. I had so many questions but I think I will try to limit them. The whole idea of selective cutting certainly appeals to me. I worked in the woods for three or four years for Earl Tanner, if you know that name.
MR. GRANT: Yes, yes, so you know it is not easy work.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Yes. I know I certainly have put on weight since I stopped doing it. What I wonder about in relation to the 47 per cent that's private, we will say small woodlot owners because I know the mill owners, if they own land, they consider themselves as private woodlot owners as well.
MR. GRANT: Yes.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: But certainly the annual allowable cut would almost have to be done on a stand by stand basis. You can't take the province as the same type of soil or anything else throughout. So what you can cut here is not going to apply to what you could cut, like growth rates, et cetera, would vary but I am just wondering if they were to make some compensation, or some change in the way capital gains would work, there would be some incentive for small woodlot owners to sell some of their wood fibre.
My fear would be that it would just be a slaughter, that without some regulation about clear-cuts, or how that's to go about, that the big mills would buy up large tracts of what's now in that 47 per cent and annihilate basically, but that could also be used as the buffer between what we need to bring along to be a forest and the supply that actually, if we were to somehow determine what our annual cut can be, that we actually may be able to get that from small woodlot owner properties and buy some time to bring our forests back. Does that make any sense?
MR. GRANT: Yes. We know that Sweden went from 4 per cent to 40 per cent wood product to the pulp mills from thinnings, from leaving something, from harvesting with an eye on what you were leaving behind you. There's a difference. So they went from 4 per cent to 40 per cent and it didn't affect the sawmill or the pulp mill at all. It had its fibre but the landowner insisted, the landowner said, no, that tree has another 20 years growth and could put on another two or three inches and is worth so much more if you leave it. Now, I don't want you to take it. I just want you to thin it. When you produce what they call a free- growing position for a tree, it really takes off and adds volume and height and it is much
healthier. We have areas in this province where we have over-mature wood that's blowing down. It is rotten. It is not going anywhere. It is wasted.
How many generations has this forest been rolled over since we came over here. At the same time we have stands that are taken before they're mature. I mean we can't sell dark wood, rotten wood. So everybody was after the white wood. It is worth more money. It is worth more money than second grade. We have to somehow come to understand that we need to take all that old growth first before we get to the, you know, we shouldn't even take anything before it is mature but that's because a lot of species that are in those stands are fir. At one time the tussock moth, for instance, would wipe out fir. It produced a climax forest of noble species like oak, ash, red spruce, black spruce. These species were here when we came over here because of insects like the tussock moth.
We have a lot more fir than we ever thought we would have. It was always considered a weed species. It is only because technology allows us to mill it where we couldn't in the past that we're doing something with it but that stuff has just blown over. It only lives 40 to 50 years and then it rots and dies. We have plenty of landowners here who have woodlands, who had 45 cords to the acre three years ago, and this year it is only 35 cords to the acre because of blowdowns and lost revenue.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I ask you this question, I will ask a quick question on that if I could. I have been talking to some harvesters in my area that are mentioning that a lot of seniors, especially who have land, are reluctant to sell it because of the GIS program, the income supplement, that if they make money, they make it and they lose it. So if they sell the land, the wood, they generate income and the following year they'll lose their supplement. So there is no advantage for them to be selling so they sort of hold onto it, I guess in a sense begrudgingly, and what you're saying is happening is that the property is productive but 10 years from now, if they have held it for that amount of time, it is actually going downhill. Is that a common occurrence throughout Nova Scotia?
MR. GRANT: Sure, sure, and you don't even have to be a senior. If your income is such that adding to your income this year and into your personal income tax forms, is only going to see 50 cents on the dollar, then you may not want that money. You say, well, I don't need it. Sometimes the landowner will say, look, I don't want you to pay me this year. Pay me next year because I have already maxed my earnings this year and just don't cut me a cheque until after January and I will claim it next year.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Seniors sometimes it might be 90 per cent or 100 per cent?
MR. GRANT: Sure.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Because of the fact that you lose all your supplement.
MR. GRANT: And that's wrong, isn't it? They should be able to receive some reward for hanging onto that and paying taxes on it over the years.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. DeWolfe, you had a question
MR. JAMES DEWOLFE: No. I think not. I think it was answered already.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there questions from the members? Mr. MacDonell.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: You mentioned about the seasonal nature of the work, were you referring surely to silviculture work because I was thinking of using a power saw. Well, we worked even when the road was closed. So I was a little confused and it was just silviculture you were talking about?
MR. GRANT: No, I am talking about harvesting as well with the power saws. In the summertime, in the heat of the summer we have to get up at 4:30 a.m. to beat the heat and if it is hot, you can only work until about 10:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. So you're only putting in six hour or seven hour days. So you are diminished in what you can do. If it is real hot, they may even keep you out of the woods. In the wintertime you can go in there, and I have done it with a shovel, if the snow is only up to your knees, it is okay, but if it gets over your knees, you're going to wear yourself out just getting to the tree you want to cut. Then you've got to move this snow all around. So it is seasonal, even harvesting, and the processors, let's face it, they don't stop for the snow, the rain or the sun and they're safer. We need them. They're economical and they're competitive worldwide. So if we want to be competitive worldwide, we need to go to the processor as well.
We figure that if we bought a processor in our company, $350,000, brand new, with some tax credit for purchasing new, the $28,000 we pay in workers' compensation and the saving, a good chunk of that added to the process, as the process is going to be more productive and produces more wood at the roadside, the incentive is not to go with people but to go with machinery and the technology.
It's a shame, but these people, what are we going to do with them? You watch your welfare rolls climb. I'm telling you, if you don't give them any option, then that is their only option. They have got to feed their families.
MR. DEWOLFE: Mr. Chairman, some of us have to move on to the Workers' Compensation Select Committee. Thank you very much for your presentation. Sorry to run off.
MR. GRANT: Thank you for the opportunity.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have any further questions?
MR. PARKER: Well, if no one else has. I don't want to monopolize the time but I could ask a couple of things, I suppose.
The stewardship agreements that are with the large, private companies, they are not perfect but maybe they are better than nothing. Are they going to work or are they just going to continue to supply fibre to the mills? You know, I'm looking at all the other aspects of a good forest, like hardwood development and so on.
MR. GRANT: I've heard that argument and I really have to say that there are really only two kinds of silviculture treatment; one is reforestation where you plant a species; and the other is density control, where you control the density, whether it is promoting natural receding or just what's there on the ground.
Now, if they are doing PCT and planting - pre-commercial thinning and planting - in their PCT, there is no reason why they cannot come back. This is only a juvenile stand. These are only 6 feet to 20 feet high. They are going to grow another 15 years or 20 years, there is no reason why we can't come back in 15 years or 20 years to those stands and do a merchantable thinning, if you know what I am saying. It doesn't necessarily have to be all for the pulp mill. If they can thin it and leave fibre for the log industry . . .
MR. PARKER: But is it favouring, primarily, softwood species and getting rid of the hardwood which are the most valuable species we have?
MR. GRANT: It does. But you have to remember, Stora are not spraying anymore. They used to do the hardwood, take out the hardwood, selective herbicide on plantations. They don't do it anymore. They are allowing the hardwood - if it succeeds - to come through, so we are allowing it to go back to more of a diverse species mix in those forests where they have plantations. That is probably a positive thing.
MR. PARKER: Okay. The other question is in relation to the cost. I don't know if it is shared, one-third, one-third, one-third, government, private landowner and the industry, the company. But is it really, I wonder? Who is really . . .
MR. GRANT: It is more like a one-third, two-third industry and a dollar here and there, they same it comes from the landowner. But let's face it, the landowner pays for it all.
MR. PARKER: Well, that's what I'm wondering. Does the landowner . . .
MR. GRANT: The landowner pays for it all because he should be getting higher stumpage and he doesn't even see this $1.00 or $3.00 or $4.00. The only one that sees it is the contractor. He sees in his slips that there are more dollars paid but less dollars net to him.
It will have this item that says, this is the landowner's contribution, if you know what I'm saying.
MR. PARKER: But is the mill paying $1.00 or $2.00 less per cord to make up for their share of it so the landowner really is not getting - so in the end, the landowner is paying it, isn't he?
MR. GRANT: The landowner is paying it, yes.
MR. PARKER: Not the industry, not the mill?
MR. GRANT: Well, the industry is cutting into his profits so he is paying for it too. If he can get it cheaper without putting money into silviculture, it's money in his pocket.
MR. PARKER: But in reality, he is probably paying a couple of dollars less per cord to the woodlot owner in order to make up for this . . .
MR. GRANT: Well, if you want to compare it to New Brunswick or Quebec, it is $20 or $30 more a cord they are getting up there for the same fibre.
MR. PARKER: Okay, thanks.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. [John] MacDonell.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Yes, you're talking about it being a global market and I have always thought that if we were to go to a situation where we had no clear-cuts, basically, as a harvesting method, that if we put more men on the ground - like, more men with saws - that the advantage due to the harvester for getting wood roadside cheaper would be made up by the increased value. Probably, we would have to cut back on the amount of wood that we cut so the value of the wood should go up.
This notion - you mentioned about it being a global thing and I am just wondering, when you talk about Russia, would that absorb that; in other words, would it be insignificant? Would the value of wood really not change here and, therefore, having more men on the ground creating employment, compensating that with increased value of wood at roadside wouldn't work?
MR. GRANT: We can increase the value with density control and merchantable thinnings of forests with machines. You don't need, necessarily, power saws although, in sensitive areas they should be done with power saws. Controlling the density, thinning it and not clear-cutting is possible with the machines.
The value of the wood that you leave behind, it is of no value if you export it as a raw material or if you chip it and sell it to the pulp mill. It is only of value if you take it and make siding out of it or flooring, you know what I am saying? We have to create those opportunities to make more with the wood fibre we have. We could put to work the people that are displaced by the processors and the silviculture workers that are losing it too.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: The modern mills, I see men being put out of work. I mean, if they are going to be competitive - I think of a mill in my area that got money from the government, upgraded their mill and put men out of work. I thought, it seems like a stupid thing to do. Maybe in this competitive world that's what you do but I'm not sure if I see the advantage. Like, value-added, really, should be the way to go but in this situation, you know.
MR. GRANT: Well, in Switzerland, they are not allowed to move any fibre out of the country in raw form. Any wood that leaves that country has to be manufactured into something. What would that do for this province?
MR. ARCHIBALD: You mentioned a while ago the Russian woods. Now, 10 years ago the Russian forests replaced Nova Scotia shipments to Europe. They said they had found a nematode in Nova Scotia wood. Well, where do they think the nematode came from? The Russian forest replaced our lumber years ago, going to Europe. Have we found any new markets for our lumber?
MR. GRANT: That is something you would have to address to the Maritime Lumber Bureau.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Your organization, do you have a preference whether it is pulp or logs, or are you simply interested in maintaining a better forest?
MR. GRANT: We are interested in employment and a better forest. Now, a log is worth more than pulp, and that is why I say the markets are going to drive our treatment. If we apply treatments to the forest to create a log, then it is of more value than a stick of pulp.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Now, private landowners who are practicing silviculture with reduced government payments, would you say the government is maintaining their own forest lands as well or better than the individual landowners?
MR. GRANT: Well, I remember when they had the coalition reports that went around the province. All those hearings were behind closed doors and some of the people in there were representing an association but they were not allowed to bring back what was being discussed. The coalition report did go public with Voluntary Planning.
There are a lot of problems in the woods that are not being addressed and industry isn't going to say, this is the way it will be without having somebody question whether it should be that way at all.There are all kinds of problems with the landowner, with industry and what is being sold. I lost the trend of your question.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Well, in western Nova Scotia I heard a complaint not long ago that the Province of Nova Scotia is not spending 10 cents in the woods and they are just allowing their forests to deteriorate or they will sell them off for clear-cut. The people that should be advising the government how to maintain better woods to look after the next 50 years, 60 years, nothing is happening from the Department of Natural Resources foresters. They are underfunded and understaffed. I am just asking whether you agree? You don't have to answer me if you don't want to.
MR. GRANT: I don't know. I know that B.A. Fraser and Barrett Lumber wanted to get a Crown land lease so that they could be assured of a fibre supply to their mills and they haven't been successful because it was already allocated to multinational companies.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Deveau had a question for us.
MR. JOHN DEVEAU: Where I am from, sir, is Yarmouth. The calls that I am getting into my office are questions pertaining to the spruce bark beetle which I was quite surprised because tussock moth seem to be in the forefront when it comes to forestry. Can you explain to me or educate me, how does one, in forestry, address the spruce bark beetle? Do they go in and just clear-cut? How does one address that concern or that issue?
MR. GRANT: The bark beetle will not devastate a tree in one year in the way a Tussock moth will, you know, not at the beginning. It will be there for a few years.
If you have a forest in decline, it is only going to become less valuable. If you are a landowner and own that resource, and are counting on it to put your kids through university, you want to see it taken before it becomes worthless. So, yes, you would cut it out and you would start all over again.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: You probably know this name. I can't think of the last name, although the first name is Merv, a guy in B.C. Whether he is still alive or not, I don't know.
MR. GRANT: Wilkinson.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I know that his story is back in the 1930's. He bought a piece of woodland timber and he went to his banker and asked him for advice. The banker said, cut it all, put the money in the bank and just let it accumulate interest for you. But he didn't really like that idea so he tried to decide how much this woodlot would grow on five
year increments. Every five years he went in and he cut what he thought it grew. Now, if he is alive still, he is 90-ish and I heard that he would make one more cut. He figured that when he bought this woodlot, he had one million board feet. If he makes one more cut he will cut one million board feet and he still has the woodlot. Now, to me, that is the way we should be trying to use our forests.
Now, he also has the added advantage that since his woodlot now is of such a quality that he does a lot of special orders, certain size logs, et cetera, and has been able to get a premium price for the quality of his logs on that lot. Is that too large a vision to try to hope for in the forests of Nova Scotia?
MR. GRANT: No, not at all. They can show you films of aircraft flying over Algonquin Park and you wouldn't know there was any forestry going on in the park. It's because they have done a wonderful job of developing that park in areas for select cutting purposes.
They didn't want to take the canopy out. The first pass through, they took out all the dead, dying, diseased, decayed trees. They lost money. They didn't get enough money from the wood they took off it to pay for the treatment so government had to support that.
The second time through it, they were able to almost break even, not quite. At the second pass, they are now leaving trees of different age, see. The third pass through, they are taking fewer trees per acre but the trees they are taking are of higher value and it doesn't stop because it is now in a cycle where it can consistently provide high quality value fibre.
It costs money to get it there. This is the kind of stuff we should see along coastal communities, anywhere we want to attract tourism.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Clifford, have you got a question?
HON. CLIFFORD HUSKILSON: I noticed that there seems to be a lot of clear-cutting going on now. I'm from Shelburne County. The larger companies moved in and they are doing a lot of clear-cutting. Are we going to see a lot more of this in the future or is this just a trend that they are going through at this point in time?
MR. GRANT: It just may be that you haven't seen where they were two or three years ago. I think that in this province there is more fibre than there is demand. Otherwise, we wouldn't be seeing low-grade fibre being wasted.
I was told there is probably enough wood in this province for another pulp mill. Several years ago, I was told that. I don't think you will see any more clear-cuts. I will question whether you will see any bigger clear-cuts. We know in the Wildlife Guidelines, they tell you 50 hectares or 120 acres is allowable in one cut.
In silviculture, we look at a stand for where the waterways are, where the swamps are, where the stand changes from one species to another, where the age class changes from one age to another, and we define this as the stand, as the single species of all mature age and on the periphery of that it changes. This is what should be taken in a harvest.
Unfortunately, if I go to you to buy your woodlot, I will tell you, I am only going to take this stand. This is the only thing that should be taken. Your neighbour up the road comes to you and says, well, you've got x number of acres, I will give you so much more than they will. You take the money, you put it in your pocket, he comes in and he goes from line to corner to corner, regardless of what is in there that shouldn't have been taken. He's going to recover the money he paid you and you are going to take that money all the way to the bank. Should this be allowed?
It is a different attitude between silviculture and the harvester. I think we have to make the harvesters accountable for the way they harvest in terms of, what will follow the harvest? Can we make more off that property if you didn't take as much or if you stayed further away from that block or that other stand of species?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Isn't the amount of harvest dependent on how financially independent you are? As an example used by John about an individual who never harvested more than what grew on that property and basically kept it at the same level all the time and now he has a high grade.
If you have financial resources to sit down and look at something logically, you will do it. For a lot of people, they may not have that financial independence. I was speaking about seniors before and not harvesting land because they don't want to prejudice their supplement. So they are making an illogical decision based on their income. Or you get other people saying, I need the money now, I don't need it in 30 years; in 30 years I will not benefit from it. They may look at it illogically.
I think the problem is, people are not looking at this for the maximum yield for their property. They are looking at it as of today, whether they need the money, whether they can afford to get by without it or whether they have their children's best long-term interests at heart. Maybe they are not looking at it logically. Maybe they are just looking at it today.
MR. GRANT: One of the key components of the future in forestry with the landowner is going to be awareness and education, the value of the silviculture treatment. We have instructed and gotten support from DNR to promote a computer model that will show the value as it increases with the treatment and without the treatment. So, we can take a landowner, sit down with him and say, here is what you should do and here is what it is going to return for you if you do it, and here is what it is going to be worth if you don't.
That awareness of the increasing value from the treatment investment will make landowners come to us and say, yes, we want to see you do that silviculture because we know that it is only increasing what I get or what my kids will get.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Does that happen? I have been in government now for - never mind, I won't tell you how long I have been in government.
HON. FRANCENE COSMAN: Six months, this time.
MR. CHAIRMAN: This time, that's right. But I look back in 1984 when I was first elected and silviculture was coming on stream. A lot of people were still hesitant at that time to sign for it unless it was fully funded and everything else. People didn't understand the long-term benefits. Look at myself, 14 years later, and I am sitting here today, listening to you try to explain to people that it is beneficial and it is of their interest. Has the education process, in a sense, failed?
MR. GRANT: The problem is, every marketing board in New Brunswick has two people assign from DNR to do this education trip. They are finding that when they call a community meeting at the library or the community hall, it's the same people who come out who really don't need to know. It is the new landowner or the landowner who has just been approached that, hey, are you aware of, and then it begins. Most of the education comes from contact with the contractor. The contractor explains why it is in his interest to do this or to do that and explains it all to him. That is really where most of your education comes from.
I don't think it has failed. I think just the whole process of woodlot management planning, where we were defining the stands, providing maps, putting in fire ponds and so on. All of that stuff was an education and people have a greater respect and understanding of what really is on their woodlot than they ever did.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I have a question, just one comment and I will go to Charlie right after.
In my area, it appears a lot of people that approach people to cut on their land, that they are not silviculturists, they are harvesters. They are looking to make money at it and they are looking at Mr. Smith's property. He's got some land and they are going there and cutting the logs. They are looking - can I make money on this? Sometimes they are part-time fishermen, they are doing some lumbering in the off-time and they are trying to make a few extra dollars.
They are not looking at it as you are because you are looking at it, what is the best possible yield you can get from their property? They are looking at it as a business proposition. Can I go there and cut those logs, convince Mr. Smith that he should let me do
it? I will pay him so much money and I will make myself $2,000 or $3,000 over whatever period of time.
There seems to be competing interests here, one of which is that it is the reasoned position that you are putting forward here today versus another individual who is a strict individual but he is also a business person trying to see if he can make a dollar at it. Isn't that really what is going on?
MR. GRANT: That's right. The silviculture contractors who are surviving are doing so by harvesting. They are trying to get that cash flow in the business to get through the year. There is no money anymore for silviculture this year. There isn't enough money to put into it to start with. So they are going to harvesting. They are finding that they are coming up against the harvester versus the silviculture contractor and that is why I say, he's putting wood roadside cheaper. I have to offer as much stumpage as he is. If I have got hand-cut wood, I can't compete.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Charlie had a question.
MR. PARKER: Okay. Ron, a few minutes ago you mentioned that there might have been room for another pulp mill, or you said that there is more fibre in the province than there is demand. I guess, on the other hand, we have all heard the stories of people saying that our forests are going the way of the codfish and five years from now there are going to be mills closing, there is not enough wood to go around. Which is correct? I'm hearing both.
MR. GRANT: You have got to remember, most of our forest is dead, dying, diseased and decayed. Much of it is second grade, low grade or firewood. It is not worth a lot, really. They opened that plant up in Sheet Harbour to take firewood and in no time they can swamp those boats and ship it out of here. That is really not worth much more than firewood. It is $48 a cord, roadside, and it is hardly worth cutting but you are going to get it when you do your harvest for pulp or log. It is going to come to you anyway so you have got to find a market for it.
We can increase our employment potential if we can find a plant that will take care of that. If it was wallboard or if it was I-beam - you know, they have, now, compact, compressed I-beam from sawdust and so on - if we looked at things like that we would be able to create employment with that low grade material.
It is a good thing that Stora went with this calender paper because it is going to make them competitive but down the road, if they hadn't, then they might have had to shut down because there is all kinds of craft pulp around.
MR. PARKER: Five or 10 years from now, do you feel there is enough fibre to keep all our mills going . . .
MR. GRANT: Well, it is too early to say, really. We have to get the data back from the registry to understand for sure. My problem is, are they taking trees before their time while they are allowing some forest to die off and fall down without being managed? Are we wasting wood on the one hand and wasting it on the other?
MR. CHAIRMAN: What's the answer, yes?
MR. GRANT: Yes.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I have a couple of questions, if I can ask them. You mentioned about allowing the forest to become what it once was.
MR. GRANT: Yes.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I guess my curiosity is, what was it or is that possible? I would see that even without Europeans here and we allowed it to go to its natural devices, that the forests would change. There would be a different species in this same spot because the previous species would die out or whatever. In some cases some would be there 200, 300, 400 years and in other cases they would be there lesser periods of time.
You mentioned grey birch which doesn't live very long anyway, you know, or fir. I wonder, in trying to establish this forest, if you ask anybody what is in the forest, as far as - and I'm trying to think about encompassing habitat along with this forest management plan - wildlife, well, they would say, well, there are deer, rabbits and partridges and a few predators and that would be about it, but they would never acknowledge that there is a Parula warbler up in the canopy. I am kind of curious as to whether or not it is possible to maintain that canopy habitat because most people, if it is higher than that off the ground, they don't know it exists. Do you think that it is possible to maintain a forest that gets to climax stage, basically, and maintain that for some period?
MR. GRANT: They did a study in Germany on a monoculture forest, counting the bird species that came through and fed in that forest over a year. There were only seven different species of birds. But 100 miles down the road, another 100 acre block of natural forest with mixed species, uneven age, as you would say, the climax forest, there were 28 different species of birds habitating that.
Everywhere that we go, man's intervention into nature causes upsets. We may spray for the tussock moth and take out a little beetle that is food for the warbler. Who knows? We do our best and we have to have some control over it, but I don't know if we can really control it. I think the answer is to have that climax forest, where you are very gently taking a select tree here and there. Your monoculture is not the answer.
We should be promoting. Here is something the silviculture can do, and this is why it is a little upsetting for us. You can harvest by promoting seed from that stand that has been there for thousands and thousands of years. You can promote that seed to hit the forest floor and to grow up from its own stock. We should be doing it and we should be doing it everywhere we harvest, but you need an understanding of civics to do that.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Another problem I see with trying to maintain this forest or this idea that somebody has a woodlot, it was given to them by their father, and given to him by his father. I guess one other thing I had been wanting to say, Mr. Grant, is you are allowed to sit down.
MR. GRANT: I don't want to.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I thought, on several occasions, that I would like to buy a woodlot, and when I looked at even paying stumpage values for it, if you were going to buy 100 acres, and there are so many other factors that would be involved, but if we were to say $40,000, let's say, depending on what's on it, well, in order to make the payment on that, et cetera, you pretty well have to cut, at least for me, a certain portion of that. Then I can see the difficulty, if anybody had that money, why they may decide, well, that is probably not a good investment considering my lifetime.
I can see all kinds of disadvantages in trying to maintain forests as an investment. It is okay if it is handed down to you, that is one thing, and then there may be a greater incentive to cut it, because I got it for nothing, sell it. There certainly is that family heritage legacy type of thing. I see so many factors . . .
MR. GRANT: But that is an investment, they have studies to show that land increases in value between 12 and 13 per cent, forest land, just from the growth that is there. If you have your money in a savings account at the bank, you are not going to get that. If you invested in Bill Gates, maybe you would get more. But they don't make any more land. It is a secure feeling for a lot of people to know that they can pass this on to their children, and they have a place to go. For a lot of people, it is the aesthetics.
There is a difference between forestry and forest. Forestry is just the industries' exploitation, employment and so on. Forest is integrated resource. Looking at the wildlife, looking at the hikers, looking at the cross-country skiers, all the recreational resource users. If we enhance it for them, it has a value, the aesthetics to the tourism.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I agree with your point, I think my fear is that it may not be enough. To ensure that we have a forest that meets all those needs that the public seems to want and industry seems to want and private woodlot owners and families seem to want, and it seems that it may be difficult on the basis of the long term of what you would get out of your money. I am not sure if that is enough; that is a hard sell.
MR. GRANT: I don't know if you are aware of it, but Richmond County has a forestry development council, and they are purchasing wood and putting it into a block, and they are trying to create the green forest. They can get certification for the woodlands that they own so that it can generate revenue to the municipality. What a wise thing to do.
[2:30 p.m.]
Does this government recognize that and provide incentives for them to do it? Maybe you should match some of their dollars. Maybe you should give them a block of Crown land. If they are going to do it in a sensitive way, they are looking to employ people in their own community. It is rural community development at its best, really. It is an investment today that is going to see rewards tomorrow.
MR. HUSKILSON: What recommendations would you make to this committee, the key recommendations that we can look at to maintain a substantial forest for the Province of Nova Scotia? What key ones would you like to deliver to us?
MR. GRANT: I think the MLAs in this province, there was never a better time for positive things to happen with the three Parties so close, I think you should pass this legislation. I think you should enhance it. I think you should make it better. You should see where you can make it better. But you also need to recognize that you need rural development. Rural development is struggling. Let's look at Coastal Communities, look at the policy that they want so that they control their own resources and create employment to sustain the people and keep them at home in rural communities. Look at that. Help that.
Look at job creation for silviculture in human resource development. You have all kinds of money in other areas, it doesn't have to be from forestry, but you can put people to work at training. Give them silviculture tools and put them to work in rural communities to do this work. Why not?
You have to work with the woodlot owner to enhance his potential for reinvesting in his own resource. That is important. That is critical to our future. The landowner has to kick in and he has to be given a slap on the back and told, that is right, good for you. You are going to get it back someday and we are helping you to put it there today.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to ask a question. You mentioned protected places, and you mentioned the fact that certain ones have made provisions whereby there is harvesting on-site. I have always had a problem with the concept of protected places, because it always begged the question, if it is too protected, many of the trees, whatever forest is on those properties, will be wasted. I think no matter what happens, there should be some harvesting, but it should be done in a very controlled way, and I think that is the balance. It is very touchy. I think a lot of people want these to be clearly protected places that there is no harvesting done.
MR. GRANT: There should be places like that. Point Pleasant Park, case in point. They cleaned out all the underbrush and they made it look very pristine, like you would want your backyard. But when they did that, they lost all the newts and the frogs and the amphibious creatures that used to crawl under these logs and live in there. The decay matter in the forest is life for lichens and spores, and there is all kinds of life that goes on in a forest in the natural low grow state. It is not a bad thing to leave some of that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can you do that perpetually?
MR. GRANT: Pardon?
MR. CHAIRMAN: Eventually, lots of times, even at Kejimkujik, it makes you wonder, it is an old stand and it is getting older and it is getting older.
MR. GRANT: That is right, they have trees there over 300 years old.
MR. CHAIRMAN: But it begs the question, after a while, will it regenerate itself if you don't allow any harvesting on those sites?
MR. GRANT: Yes. It always will. The basics of silviculture is, you let sunlight mix with the seed on the forest floor for the seed to take root and grow. You simply have to know how much to open it up to start the seed. The seed is already there, and the stand is there. Nature would knock this tree down, letting sunlight down at that floor, and the neighbouring seed would start a new one.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So the protected places, how many spots?
MR. GRANT: There are 31.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there a considerable amount of forest on those 31 spots? Are we talking quite a bit?
MR. GRANT: I don't think so. Most of them are barrens, that sort of thing. They are protected for species of plant or wildlife that is indigenous to that area, natural for that. (Interruptions) Yes, Tobeatic, and those areas should be protected. We don't want to have to search our memory to find out what they were like.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You mentioned workers' compensation, what was it, $11?
MR. GRANT: Yes.
MR. CHAIRMAN: You are paying 11 per cent?
MR. GRANT: On $100 wages. That's a lot of money.
MR. CHAIRMAN: So plus, right now, you were mentioning the fact that the training, the safety aspect of it is considerable. So as they're making you invest in the safety aspect of it, are they giving you any breaks on . . .
MR. GRANT: Well, a cost of 3 per cent on top of the thousands we give to workers' compensation. Whatever our payment to workers' compensation is, they tack 3 per cent of that and it goes to the Forestry Safety Society.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Because 11 per cent is based on history. It is based on the performance of this industry and that is why, I understand why it is hard.
MR. GRANT: But they lump us in with the harvesters. This year we were told that you have to have a hard hat if you're planting trees. Now, can you imagine, a hat weighs 10 pounds maybe, I don't know, five pounds, but over like this, all day long and bending over. You're probably going to have neck pain. So then we asked them for a ruling on it. They said, well, only if you're within two tree lengths of a standing forest do you have to wear it. So are you supposed to carry it with you all the time in the woods? It gets to be a little ridiculous but they have the law on their side and if they come in and you're not doing what they want, they can fine you and charge you and even put you out of the woods.
MR. CHAIRMAN: No more questions? I have never seen us be so speechless. I would like to thank you very much for coming. We appreciated the presentation. I think that for some of us we have more experience in this field than others and I think you could just tell from the questions that were asked that some people have some practical experience. So from there I would like to thank you very much for your time. It was an excellent presentation and if you have any other submissions that you would like to make, or anything that changes, especially you're talking about the legislation, some of the members have asked some questions in regard to what would happen if we meet sustainable yields of harvest, and anything like that, if you would like to address any remarks along those lines to the committee, we would be more than welcome to receive them and we will distribute them to the members.
MR. GRANT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that somehow I have enlivened or enhanced the debate that should be going on. If we get forestry on the agenda with the upcoming Legislature, the amendment, perhaps you can talk about some of these issues and perhaps we can get recognition for silviculture as an investment in people and places and in our ecology.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to make one final comment. You made mention there was a multiplier factor in regard of what silviculture returns. Do you have anything that substantiates that?
MR. GRANT: That's what I was telling you. There is a model out that shows and the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources Extension Department have been asked to work on it. Now, actually it was developed in Ottawa with a consultant but the parameters for growth yields per year on species and so on, the formulas that they worked out, the consultant wants to hold them as patent to them. They want to have property rights to that information and yet the government funded this work and they feel that it should be public knowledge. So we have begun to develop it for ourselves and the 600 per cent or 700 per cent is not concrete. It is spoken to me. So I can't tell you that that's true or not. I have to see the model working before I can confirm it.
MR. CHAIRMAN: On a closing note, perhaps when you do work on your model, it comes along a little further, if you could be so kind as to forward it to the committee, I think a lot of us would like to know that because, you know, whether it comes in budget debates or so forth, it would be appreciated.
MR. GRANT: Thank you very much.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, if we could look at the work of the committee, we have a few of our members that are sitting on other committees which makes it kind of difficult and I appreciate that. As it stands now we have no witnesses scheduled to be coming in. We do have the House sitting on October 15th. Next week our caucus has asked not to have any meetings because of the fact that we're having some caucuses on that day and we have asked to book them off but I am at the disposal of the committee.
We had put a proposal, a motion on the floor last week. You weren't here, Francene, about the fact that we had the Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia which had made a presentation and we had suggested that perhaps as a committee we could do more work in this field and perhaps come up with some suggestions that we feel would be beneficial to kick start, especially that sector of the economy. We felt from the presentation - I am just trying to enlighten some of the members that weren't there. I guess the gist of it was they were making the comment that we have about a $20 million industry here in Nova Scotia versus a $150 million industry in New Brunswick. There were still a lot of problems being experienced. I am basically relaying what was presented by the witnesses. Mr. Archibald, I believe, made the motion that we consider trying to make this a focus of our committee whereby we could make some recommendations. Here is Mr. Archibald himself. I asked the different caucuses to take it to their caucuses and to come up with maybe some consensus as to whether or not they felt that this was the approach that we would like to take under the Resources Committee or whether we want to continue by having different witnesses all the time.
Maybe I could open up the floor. There are only, I think, three of our committee members who are here today, who were present at that meeting, that perhaps we could have some discussions on that. Would any of the members like to make any comments on it?
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Yes. If I understand you correctly, the point is whether we would like to change our format so that we discuss a focus of the aquaculture industry together as a legislative committee, yes. I certainly like that idea. I think that's . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think if I could just clarify. I think Mr. Archibald's comments were that we would maybe set aside two or three meetings and maybe visit sites, call on different witnesses, maybe even recall the witnesses that were here before, that was the Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia (Interruptions) and we'll call Paul Early, that's another question, I will get off the topic but whereby we could come up as a committee and basically put some recommendations to government.
Now, I have an interest in this because, of course, I am from an area where aquaculture is starting to grow. We're having some growing pains and I would be more than prepared but I am at the discretion of the committee and as such - Michel, do you have any comments from your caucus.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: I don't think we have any problems at all. In fact, we have actually done up a list of who we would be interested in hearing from on the issue, which we can certainly make available to you, Mr. Chairman.
Needless to say, the House opening is approaching. I know one of the suggestions that had been made was maybe use the Red Room to have some formal hearings there where we would ask the presenters to come before us and make their presentations and maybe set aside a couple of days. Even your suggestion of visiting a site, depending on schedules and availability of the members of the committee, I certainly have no problems with that. I guess now it is just a question of timing and how much time do we have left and picking some times where the members can actually attend.
MRS. COSMAN: I think the timing issue is getting quite problematic.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I tend to agree, Francene, that the problem that comes in now is that for most of us, like talking about hearings, Mr. Samson had mentioned, I think that would be problematic, just the fact of the House sitting, and also having hearings at the same time. I think the issue is great. I am not really sure whether we just have the time to do it and do it justice. It is an important issue and at the same time maybe we could do it, without even using the Red Room, we could continue with the committee. They may be calling the witnesses here. I am not really sure.
MR. ARCHIBALD: It will be very difficult to hold a committee meeting when the House is in session because this fall we'll be doing legislation. The Red Room will be full of the Law Amendments Committee quite often because I don't think we're doing anything but legislation this fall.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Does the committee perhaps want to put this on the side burner and maybe subsequent to the House sitting try to come up with a schedule that would be agreeable to the different caucuses? So maybe if we can put that to the side for now and maybe make a commitment that once the House sits that we adjust our schedule whereby we can hopefully come up with a package that will be agreeable to all three caucuses, that we could get some in-depth information and make some good recommendations. Is that agreeable?
SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.
MR. CHAIRMAN: As for the next witness for the committee, next week is booked. The following week is just before the House opens. I am looking for some suggestions for our next witness but I would probably like to maybe do it subsequent to the week that the House opens, maybe on a Tuesday morning. Is that agreeable to the members who are here?
MR. ARCHIBALD: That's the day after Thanksgiving and many of us will be so full of turkey we won't be able to get here on time.
MRS. COSMAN: I agree with George and that's a rare . . .
MR. CHAIRMAN: No, you are wrong, George. October 15th is a Thursday. Thanksgiving is before that.
MR. ARCHIBALD: That is right. It is on Monday.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Monday of the same week. I am saying the following week, the week subsequent to the House opening, on October 20th. We have a variety of witnesses that we put forward. We had some that we are in agreement, if the committee agrees, I can look for some consensus of the witnesses that we have there, and see if we can schedule a committee meeting for October 20th. Is that agreeable?
Okay. Agreed.
The meeting is adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 2:50 p.m.]
