Friday, July 31, 2020, Afternoon — Committee A
It's important, first of all, to have an accurate timeline here. When we came into government in July of 2017, we realized there was a lot of work and focus needed on the coast forest sector. And that's when…. Shortly after that, we announced in the fall, the coast forest sector revitalization initiative. So that was very extensive with industry, labour, First Nations and communities. We ended up finalizing and announcing that revitalization plan publicly in January of 2019. So it's coming up to a two-year anniversary, but more like about a year and a half. What's happened since January 2019 is we had a drastic downturn in the market that resulted in curtailments and dire impacts on the coast. And then once that seemed to be running its course and there was a bit of a turnaround on the horizon, it was followed by the strike on the coast in July of 2019. That came to conclusion, a stable conclusion, in February of this year. All that to say that the measures that were initially ruled out for coast forest sector revitalization were rolled out in stages, and one of them was around our fibre recovery zones which were implemented April 1, 2019. That was one of the first initiatives. That was a zone where fibre that was economically viable to deliver to mills if it was left behind in the forest, there was more of a cost penalty to do that. So that was to encourage more fibre to come out of the forests. We worked with industry to try to refine the fibre recovery zones. They were slow in providing us their economic data around areas to refine the fibre recovery zones, but we worked with them on that and as a result, we streamlined the fibre recovery zones, moving the boundaries and decreasing the areas by 21 percent once we got the data that we needed — the economic data. We're still awaiting more data to help refine those zones, but the 21 percent decrease was put in place December 23 of last year. So we've already covered a little bit in the previous questions, about the economic fee in lieu and how we implemented that with B.C. Timber Sales July 1, 2019. And once again, that coincided with the labour disputes and Mosaic deciding not to curtail all their activities until the recent start-up. All that to say is that the data set to determine if those measures are fulfilling the intended consequences is not robust yet, and we're still in the mode of collecting information off that. As I said, the fibre recovery zones have been refined, and we're able to collect data off that. Again, the fibre wasn't moving a lot because mills were closed and pulp mills were closed during the strike and the economic downturn. We're keeping a close eye. We will have some benchmarks. The five main goals remain of the coast forest sector revitalization: rebuilding solid wood in secondary industries to ensure more of our logs are processed domestically; improving harvest performance to make sure more fibre is available to mills, including the pulp and paper sector; maintaining a credible auction system by taking steps to ensure bids on timber sales are independently made; fostering stronger business-to-business relationships between B.C. Timber Sales, major licensees and First Nations — that work is well underway; and restoring public confidence through amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act and auditing the private managed forest land regime. We've touched on the latter already in estimates debate. B.C. Timber Sales, major licensees and First Nations — that work is well under way; and restoring public confidence through amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act; and auditing the private managed forest land regime. We've touched on the latter already in estimates debate.
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