The National Forestry Conference 1965

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Technical Note (National Research Council of Canada. Division of Building Research), 1966-03-01

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The National Forestry Conference 1965

Legget, R. F.

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DIVISION OF BUILDING RESEARCH GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

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THE NATIONAL FORESTRY CONFERENCE 1965

At the request of the President, I attended the National Forestry Conference at the Seigniory Club, Montebello, Quebec, from 21 to 24

February. The Conference was called by the Honorable Maurice Sauve and appeared to have been his idea. The Minister was present at every Plenary Session and, although he made at least one trip to Ottawa during the meeting, he was very much in evidence as the host. The entire pro-ceedings were conducted in English, despite the many. contributions from Quebec. Only for a few courteous sentences just before closing the

meeting did the Minister himself use his own first language.

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL OF CANADA

Generally well organised, the Conference was really too big to be fully effective. There were about 170 in attendance together with a fairly large secretarial staff. This strained the facilities of the Seigniory Club to the limit, but they managed well. Although all the Plenary Sessions were well attended, all the Working Parties that I attended, or saw in action, were attended by no more than forty (at the most) - usually by about twenty.

Clearly, therefore, many delegates attended the Plenary Sessions only -in this way miss-ing the best and most productive part of the proceed-ings.

The Conference was clearly a good idea. The last such national meeting had been convened by Sir Wilfrid Laurier and so must have been in the first decade of the century: The meeting brought together represen-tatives of every province, of every wood industry as sociation, of major industries, and of research and development organisations throughout

Canada.

SUBJECT

PREPARED BY

- - -

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-It had been agreed that the meeting would be held "in camera", without any representatives of the Press present. This must have' been annoying to the Press, who must have known about it, but the decision was reconfirmed at the closing session. The B. C. delegation, in particular, made no bones about their rooted obj ection to anything being published without their first seeing it. Some background papers may be published, but only after consultation with the respective authors.

THREE QUESTIONS

The Conference considered three :genera1 questions: (a) What is the present demand for Canada's forest resources?

What will it be in 1975? In 2000?

(b) _{What is the present state of Canada ' s forest resources? and} (c) What must be done to ensure that these resources meet the 1975

and 2000 demands effectively?

Background papers had been prepared on all these questions. If these had been distributed in ample time before the meeting, they would have been effective. As it was, many of those attending saw them for the first time when we were each handed, on reg*stering, ｡｡ｬ｣ｾＮ［Ｃｧ･ｾ｢ｩｮ､･ｲ con-taining almost all the papers. Some are valuable. One, in particular, by Dr. D. A. Wilson, is so good a review that I obtained an extra copy to include with my own conference notes. In the result, the papers were not effectively discussed, nor used properly by some of the chairmen.

After a Plenary Session, addressed by the selected Chairman for that question, the working groups (three or four for each question) went off on their own for private discussions. At the conclusion, the Chairman of each working party had to prepare a report, with his rapporteur; this was typed and reproduced so that copies were ready at the following session. This secretarial work was well done. Copies of all the final reports

accompany my own written conference notes. THE LONG-TERM VIEW

Two outstanding statements were made by Mr. R. M. Fowler, President of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, who served as Chairman for the first question. Together with his fellow chairman, he spoke again at the last Plenary session. His were the only really "long-term" views expressed. Clearly, he was being clptious, but I sensed that he has the picture of the population explosion that is going to take place by the year 2000 which we have in DBR/NRC. He suggested that all the esti-mates of demand were too cautious. He said that in his view, even allowing

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-for all the possible substitute materials that may be developed, Canada is going to be hard put to meet the demand for its wood products by the end of the century. This is my view also.

My greatest disappointment was to hear not one single speaker advance the view that Canada is one of the most favoured nations of the world, in relation to her forests above all natural resources, so that by the year 2000 the world will be looking to Canada for forest products, and assistance with local forestry problems, rather than that Canadian lumber men will have to go round hunting for markets. I might have said something like this at the closing session, if only to support Mr. Fowler's lonely voice, but the session was unfortunately· disrupted by the most foolish and misplaced talk I have ever heard at such a meeting, from a Professor Jones of

Macdonald College, McGill. He disregarded the instructions of the Chair-man and even the stamping of the audience who thus indicated their disgust at his performance, as he persisted in reading a long inappropriate speech. He made it unwise for anyone else to speak.

A GENERAL CONCLUSION

The conclus ion of the meeting, even based on the rather limited estimates prepared, was well expressed by Deputy Minister McKinnon of British Columbia who said that it is going to take the produce of every piece of land in Canada suitable for ｦｯｲ･ｳｴｲｹｾｾ put under good management for truly perpetual yield cropping, to meet the estimated demand for out forest products. By the year 2000, the demand for the use of forest lands for recreational purposes will also have increased to a degree hard to realise. It is clear that there is already a real need for planning the use of our forest resources.

This was brought out at each of my working parties when it was shown, in different ways, that by a very slight change in stumpage dues, the use of forests for growing pulp wood can be made more economi-cal than for frowing trees for making sawn lumber. Some provinces, in attracting "big industry", have been throttling the sawn-lumber industry. Quite the most important recommendation from the Conference was, therefore, that the Economic Council of Canada should be asked to carry out a general, over-all, long-term study of the most economic use of Canada's forest lands, having regard to pulp wood, sawn lumber, and other multiple use of the land. This suggestion came from two working parties, independently. I trust that it is carried out, difficult though the task will be. It seemed to be an admirable example of exactly the sort of job the Economic Council was set up to do.

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-SOME GENERAL COMMENTS

Other general impressions may be itemised:

(1) The leadership of Quebec in forestry matters was very evident, even though the speakers from Quebec were modest and retiring in the extreme; they have got their forests on a perpetual yield basis; (2) Losses due to fire and other causes seem to be under good control

in Ontario and Quebec, fire losses being held at a level of about 0.1% of total forested area per year, although at considerable expense. The situation is not so good in other parts of Canada.

(3) There is an awakening as to the importance of forestry in the pralrle provinces, the forest resources of which are greater than I had

imagined. The review of this matter in the report from the second working party was an admirable statement (by Deputy Minister W. R. Parks of Saskatchewan).

(4) Although British Columbia so dominates the field of sawn lumber, it

became clear that B. C. has still a long way to go before she has her forests on a true perpetual yield basis. A rather tortuous statement about this was made at the closing session by Mr. Hoffmeister

(President of the Council of Forest Industries of B. C. ) which I look forward to reading one day.

(5) There were many appeals to "Ottawa" for "more money", and in particular for more assistance in building forestry roads, access being one of the keys to future forest developmetltt::and protection. It was observed by several speakers that "Ottawa" gets more than she gives in taxing the forest industries. I imagine that this can be argued, but it showed that federal-provincial co-operation can be anticipated,in this field, even though forests are so clearly under legal provincial jurisdiction, if money is to be shared!

(6) Some fears were expressed by the inroads of ARDA, also a part of the program of the Department of Forestry. I sensed that speakers were being discreet in view of the presence of Mr. Sauve, but clearly there is widespread concern about this new activity. I could appreciate this in view of the relative youth and inexperience of some of those in positions of administrative authority for it.

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-(7) ARDA is already giving research grants (or contracts ?) apparently to Schools of Geography. There was commendation for the survey of land-use that ARDA is making, but I could not imagine why it has required a new organisation to conduct such a survey. Where does the Department of Agriculture fit into this picture? The concern about any extension of this activity was expressed by references to the "BLUP Syndrome" - BLUP standing for "Bachelor of Land Use Planning"! I could hardly believe that any Canadian University gives any such degree, but I may be wrong.

(8) I hadrnot realised before how critical is the situation of hardwood supply, especially for the furniture industry. American furniture manufacturers are now coming up to Canada and paying fantastic

prices for standing hardwood trees, even though the Canadian industry can use all it can get. Most hardwood is now grown on private woodlots and this makes control difficult, added to which is the fact that it takes 70 to 80 years to grow a decent hardwood species to the size necessary for cutting. Although minor, in one way, this is clearly a critical problem to which there is no easy, or quick, solution.

RESEARCH

Research was frequentl'y mentioned, but almost always in a very general way as a "good thing", like motherhood. One recommendation was for the establishment of a "fully equipped fire research laboratory". This was to be changed to "forest fire research laboratory" after I had

spoken with the chairman who made this report. Any such development, will, I hope, be carried on in close association with our own fire research work.

I found myself frustrated at the frequent references to the research assistance to industry now available through the Department of Industry, with never a reference to the pioneer efforts of NRC in this direction. It seemed best to say nothing in comment, but very clearly the Department of Industry is "cashing in" on the early work of the Council.

The research inactivity of provincial governments was

cOmmented upon rather strongly, but I imagine that the various provincial research organisations will gradually change this situation; they were all represented at the meeting. Appeals for money to support University forestry research were made strongly; we may hear repercussions from this.

The only opportunity for possible NRC work that was mentioned was. when the possibility of new ways of cutting wood 'was discussed. Lasers

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-were mentioned in a very general way, and although this may be a "Cloud 13" reference, it did seem to me that possibly there might be here the germof an idea. If sawing could be superseded by some more efficient way of cutting wood, a major advance could be made.

Interesting questions were asked, in complimentary comments on federal research work on wood products (and building research), about the transmission of the results of research to the industry. One speaker said that he knows of a research organisation in Sweden that spends 75 per sent of its budget on the transmission of results to industry. I made a quick calculation for DBR/NRC and found that we probably spend about 40 per cent of our budget on what can be classed as "transmission" if we include all work on the National Building Code.

BUILDING RESEARCH

In view of all the difficulties we have had with the B. C. lumber industry in trying to get us to include their "Economy Grade" lumber in our Residential Standards, I would have given a great deal to have had a tape recording of Mr. Hoffmeister's early statement to the effect that "we have got to get used to thinking of lumber as an engineered material, ,of high grade, and not think of the lumber market as a dumping ground for poor stuff. .• " or words to that effect. But I heard the statement; it will be useful in future discussions.

A unanimous recommendation from one of the working groups I attended was that the industry should work toward coast-to-coast uniformity of lumber grades. Five years ago, this would have been the equivalent of treason. I was only sorry that Dr. J. H. Jenkins was not present to hear this development of all his efforts in the grade-marking field. This was real progress.

Correspondingly, there was no ar gument, but just complete agreement, about the necessity for shipping wood in metric units when necessary, and eventually using the metric system in Canada! Not a word was said in protest. I found later that metre-long pulp wood is now being shipped from the Manicouagan to France and that B. C. regularly exports in metric dimensions.

SOME DETAILS

Finally, some miscellaneous detailed comments may add some personal interest to this necessarily general report:

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-(a) The total budget of the B. C. Department of Forestry, this year, after an appreciable increase, is equal only to the increase, this year, in the provincial budget for the Department of Education! (b) This, and similar shatteringly parsimonious figures, were

con-trasted with the fact that wood products represent 25 per cent of Canada's total exports.

(c) I was surprised to find that poplar is the second largest wood-cut in Canada; concern was expressed at future poplar supplies in view of the large poplar plywood industry that has been built up. (d) I was literally amazed to see how few of the men present took any

notes of the proceedings at all. They may, of course, have had such good memories that they went right back to their rooms and wrote up their notes from memory but I doubt that this would have been true in all cases. If I thought that staff members of DBR/NRC went to meetings and followed the same practice of no-note-taking, I would be justly alarmed.

(e) As always, the informal personal discussions were a vital part of the proceedings. I find that I had useful talks with almost 40 of those present, friends new and old.

CONCLUSION

Although at first I begrudged the full three days that the meeting took, the start being very slow, these notes will show that I gained something from the proceedings. Since I was able to contribute in a small way, attendance was worthwhile.

In one session, a speaker asked about liaison between federal research bodies. At the urging of friends in FPL, I replied on our joint behalf (as

the Department of Forestry men were not supposed to speak) and explained how really excellent our liaison is, between ourselves and between ourselves and Universities, provincial bodies, and even internationally. Naturally I said also that it was not for me to speak about the quality of our research, my concern being to remove any possible misunderstanding about liaison. When this state ment about liaison was not adequately reflected in the report to the Plenary Session, I repeated it in an abbreviated form. The Deputy Minister of Forestry went out of his way to thank me for what I had said, and spoke appreciatively about our continuing cooperation.