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Gord Johns

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
NDP

Courtenay—Alberni
British Columbia
Voting Attendance: 66%
Expenses Last Quarter: $148,159.67

Government Page

Apr/8/24 7:37:37 p.m.
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Madam Chair, 42 years at the negotiating table is a long time. If I were the government, I would not be patting myself on the back or blaming another political party. Certainly, we know the Conservatives' approach did not work. Like I said earlier, it is taxing the axe, because their motto was tax from both sides of the border, which they agreed to. It was a billion-dollar hit to the B.C. lumber industry and producers in British Columbia, and half a billion of that went to lobbyists. That is what Stephen Harper negotiated. The Liberals dragged this out. There has not been a full-court press on the issue. Clearly they have not negotiated well, and we need a different approach. We need to keep as much of our fibre as we can in Canada. We need to supply our mills. We need to end raw log exports. We need to add value to our fibre. We need to retool our mills. We need to invest heavily into ensuring that we keep up with the international market and are supplying the needs of countries that do not have access to fibre, as well as with emerging markets, where there is huge opportunity. There is mass timber, which we talked about. We have seen some great models in British Columbia of small players that cannot access fibre. This is ridiculous. The federal government allows international trade and export of our fibre, and our local mills cannot get access. This is just absolutely bonkers. I cannot think of any country in the first world that is managing its forest sector like this. It is unbelievable. The opportunity is here. It is right now. I hope next week, in the budget, that the federal government is going to take a different approach and is going to look at mass timber, value-added product, retooling and putting more money on the table. Catalyst mill in my riding received the most federal money ever in the history of the riding to retool the mill so we can make food-grade paper and replace plastic paper. When one goes to Costco and gets a hot dog, the packaging is from my riding. Eight times the value per tonne is what we are getting now because of that retooling. Let us do more of that.

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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24

Mr. Gord Johns

Apr/8/24 7:34:58 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I know the Bloc worked with the NDP when it came to the bill that was brought forward by my good friend and colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay, who lives in Penticton, on mass timber used by the federal government, in order to do exactly that. However, the federal government has not done it. When it comes even to things that pass in the House, it is moving so slowly on getting direction from the House. Despite the fact that there is a housing crisis and that it is buying materials to build buildings, the government is ignoring the House. We passed legislation directing the federal government on what it has to do. On the retooling of our mills and making sure we add value to every single board foot that goes through, I think of San Group, which is using small logs and processing them. It is not using big logs, but is processing small logs and creating more value. We need to create more value. We need to make sure we purchase and support wood and timber through federal procurement, and we need to stop raw log exports, especially at a time like this, when we are seeing the impacts of climate and we know we are going to have fibre supply issues down the road. We need to do this immediately. It is critical to job security, to our communities and to the longevity of our forest sector. It is actually smart. I cannot think of another first world country, if we want to call it that, or a developed nation, that is mismanaging its forest like this. It is absolutely unbelievable that we are shipping raw logs when our mills are starved for fibre. It absolutely does not make sense.

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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24

Mr. Gord Johns

Apr/8/24 7:32:42 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I know the member has raised many times in the House her concerns around raw log export. Especially when we look at the Alberni Valley, where I live, she knows full well there are still boats being loaded to the hilt with raw logs right now, when our local mills cannot even get access to supply. It is absolutely ridiculous. As I said, Mosaic came forward with a request for relief, basically to bypass putting its timber up for bid to local mills. It would have put them completely out of business. It was actually our party and I that went to the wall to get the federal government to back down. That is not good enough. We actually need a restructuring and a new model of how we do B.C. timber sales and how the raw log export board works. We need to make sure that on fibre that is put up for bid we do everything we can to ensure that the fibre goes to our local mills. That is certainly not a priority right now for the federal government. If the timber companies go after the wood, they get blocked by the big players, and they get penalized. That is exactly what happens. They get hammered. We are seeing businesses sidelined and put out of business. Right now the big conglomerates can block and knock them right out. That is not working for small producers and small mills. It needs to be completely revisited. I am glad my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands asked her excellent question. The Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development needs to show leadership on this. It has been going on for decades and has not been resolved.

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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24

Mr. Gord Johns

Apr/8/24 7:30:16 p.m.
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Madam Chair, that is a great question. I hope this debate leads to all of us working collectively. I appreciate the demeanour and tone my colleague brings. This is something that has come up. Mosaic, which owns private lands on Vancouver Island, actually asked the Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development for relief during COVID, for 18 months to three years, whereby it could bypass B.C. timber sales, basically the raw log export board federally. If it had been granted that permission, it would have creamed everything. San Group and mills would have been closed. We would have lost hundreds of workers, and they would have never come back. We fought tooth and nail, and we got the minister to back down on that request. Thank God, because the price of timber went through the roof. It would have demolished that area. We have an opportunity right now to change the structure of how logs are sold internationally. We should not have raw log export. At a time like this when we have issues when it comes to fibre, we should be focused on all of that fibre being manufactured here in our country. We also need provinces to demand changes in how the federal government works on international trade. They need to work together on this issue. The model is not working. It is not working for the environment. It is not working for workers. It is certainly not working for the future of British Columbians and Canada.

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Member of Parliament

Gord Johns